ABBA Voyage for Tina's Birthday

As usual Tina had no ideas for her birthday presents this year but she did keep dropping hints that she wanted to go and see the ABB Voyage show (note the wording "show" and not "concert"). As much as Tina would have liked to have gone with me, ABBA really isn't my cup of tea and the ticket prices were so expensive that I suggested Holly would enjoy the show much more. So last Sunday for Tina's 51st (yes 51st!!!!) birthday treat the two girls had a day out in London to go and watch ABBA Voyage leaving me on my own most of the day for Fathers Day.

They both came back full of it and seemed to really enjoy the show. As for me - looks like I dodged a bullet and had a peaceful Fathers Day. Roll on November when me and Brandon are going to see The Script in concert (note the wording "concert" and not "show"!).

Dropping the girls off at Wickford train station all dressed up in their ABBA outfits.

A quick coffee and crisp break ahead of the show starting.

A lovely Mummy / Daughter day out celebrating Tina's birthday.

Holly had an absolute blast and knows most of the lyrics to ABBA songs. Where did I go wrong????

Looks like a pretty good view from their seats. Good choice not to put them down on the dance floor as Holly wouldn't have seen a thing!.

Holly's Viking Day at School

This week Holly had a Viking Day at school and all the kids were encouraged to dress up. Good old Amazon to the rescue with a Viking Lady costume which arrived 1 day in advance!!! Seems lots of parents did the same thing as there was some 10+ girls all wearing the same Viking outfit as Holly!!! 

Viking Day Holly.

Joshua's Provisional Driving Licence!

Joshua has now finished all of his GCSE's and has officially done and dusted with secondary school. Now it is a case of sit back and wait until results day and keep our fingers crossed he gets his grades for college. Instead of just sitting at home wasting the days away I have given him a few tasks to complete this week, such as setting up a LinkedIn account, starting to create a school leavers CV and applying for his provisional licence ready for October this year.

The provisional licence came through really quickly and has brought home the realisation that it is only a few months before we are sorting out car insurance and taking Joshua out in the Fiesta to start getting some driving experience!!! As usual no smiles from Joshua in the picture for his licence!!!

Academy Soccer Presentation Day 2024

Saturday was the Academy Soccer annual presentation day held at the Warren and with both Holly and Brandon now at Academy it became an all day event for us with Holly there for 9:30am and then Brandon 2pm! It was really good to see that Holly's team have been recruiting and now they might even have enough players for moving up to 9-a-side nest season.

As usual the club had a BBQ, bar and loads of bouncy castles etc for the kids to mess around on. For Brandon's team it was a bit of a final farewell to one of the coaches, Tony, who is leaving as his two boys, Jack and Harrison, are planning to go to EJA next season. Then another team mate called Stan is leaving the team to play with his friends on another team and he fittingly got the Managers Player of the Year. After the presentation Tony took all the lads in to the bar and bought them all a beer which was a really nice gesture (not to mention the biggest smile of the day from Brandon when he heard beer!).

Holly receiving her 2023/24 trophy from coach Matt.

Holly's team are slowing growing, there was two missing today so it looks like they might have 10-11 players now.

Holly's team with her coaches. Paul on the left is moving on next season so someone new will be joining Matt to coach.

Holly signing on for next season with coach Matt.

It looks like next season she could be playing more of the Nr.9 role on her team.

Brandon's team all looking casual and listening intently as coach Chris gave each of them a short review of how they have performed over the year before getting down to the business of trophies.

Brandon receiving his 2023/24 trophy from coach Tony who is now leaving the team.

A farewell shake hand from Brandon.

After the presentation Brandon's team were trying to play football table tennis.

Much harder than it looks.

Good to see them all joining in and having fun.

Perhaps chugging the beer before playing didn't help though!

Instead of throwing the rings on the inflatable cacti, Brandon was throwing them at his team mates!

Boys being boys!

Meanwhile Holly enjoyed some inflatable basket ball.

Not sure she was supposed to stand inside the inflatable to take her shots!

Then amongst other bouncy castles she also enjoyed the bungee run.

With a bit of cheating using her hands she got to the end of the run, but then got pinged backwards!

Legoland 2024

Whilst me and Brandon were in Belgium a week or so ago, Holly and Tina had a Mummy/daughter day out at Legoland. It seems this is becoming an annual event as it is almost a year to the date since they last went. As it was only Holly (no Josh or Brandon) Tina decided to buy a fast pass tickets again which was stupidly expensive, but it did mean minimal queuing for Holly and she got to go on everything she wanted too, and multiple times if she wanted. I don't think we could have afforded it for the whole family, but for just Holly it is almost palatable. Anyway as I wasn't there personally I can't talk much about the day or the pictures, all I really know is it seemed to rain on and off all day. So for this blog just a load of pictures which Tina sent me from their day out.

Joshua Foundation Year to Year 11