Easter Trail at Hyde Hall

Yesterday me and Holly headed over to Hyde Hall in the afternoon to meet up with some of the family and to complete the Easter Egg trail. The trail entailed using clues to search out 10 giant decorated Easter Eggs and in return Holly earned a chocolate cookie dough bunny sweet. We only spent about2 hours over there and kind of raced around the hunt finishing at the play area where Holly spent most of her time with Rory. Still it was nice to get outside and see signs of spring at last. Holly also bought 3 new plants for in her bedroom (to out door her brothers plastic plants) and we also bought some new herb plants for the garden.

The final Easter Egg on the trail which was located conveniently at the play area.

Holly's New 24" Wheel Bike

Over the last year it had become clear that Holly was rapidly outgrowing her old bike which was given to her by Leyla. So I have been on the search for a replacement and earlier this week one of the women from Crossit Rayleigh was setting off travelling Asia and wanted a quick sale on her hardly used bike. So we managed to get an absolute bargain and picked up a bigger bike with 24" wheels in a nice purple/silver colour for just £20 and it even has 15 gears and front suspension (bargain). Even better we managed to sell her old bike for £20 so the new one was effectively free!

Holly's first ride on her new 24" wheel bike.

Off she sets, no problems with the bigger, heaver bike.

We need to buy her a new bell and bike stand for it, but otherwise the bike is as new.

Ninja Warrior UK with Holly

At the start of the week I took off a few extra days to spend some time with the kiddies over Easter (even though Brandon has been off in Valencia all week on a school trip). Anyway for months I have been promising to take Holly to Ninja Warrior UK in Chelmsford and finally got around to booking it on Tuesday.

The venue is pretty impressive and has two full size Ninja Warrior courses, one which is full on adult mode and then one which seems to be suited to people around Holly's age/size up to younger teenagers. Then there is a really impressive inflatable area which is about 4 times the size of the Ninja Warrior courses.

Holly was only booked for an hour but ended up spending about an hour and 20 mins in there. When her time was up she was completely exhausted, sweaty and very red faced. There is a small Ninja wall at the end of one of the courses and then a full size one on the adult course. Holly managed the smaller one several times but failed dismally on the full size adult one. However she thoroughly enjoyed the experience and will definitely be going again only next time hopefully with some of her friends to keep her company.

Finally I got Holly booked in to Ninja Warrior UK.

The hop steps where just a little too far apart for her to make all 4.

Shuffling along the beam.

Ready to jump off of the second beam.

Traversing the cargo net.

Then on to the swinging discs.

I think this is cheating as you are supposed to walk across these.

Hanging on to the swinging punch bags.

And up the junior Ninja wall.

It is still pretty high for Holly and she had to give it some welly to get up these.

Climbing the mountain in the center of the venue to come down the drop slide.

At the top and ready to slide down.

You can't really get many good picture in the inflatable area without physically going in there.

Holly must have done the Ninja wall about 10 times.

Down the slide.

This was probably the only obstacle on the adult course that Holly could do. Most of them she couldn't even reach.

With skill and patience she made it all the way across.

Climbing the mountain again.

At the entrance to the inflatable area.

Someone is about to do the splits!!!

One last run around before her time was up.

After Ninja Warrior I took Holly in to Chelmsford Town for some lunch where we found Bumble Bee and Optimus Prime on display.

Crunching End to the 2023/24 Rugby Season

So Joshua's 2024 rugby season has come to an end and this year they finished around 4th or 5th in the league (which is respectable). The last game of the season was an absolute banger. We thought Billericay had it in the bag with a 28-5 lead at half time. Then the second half they scored nothing and allowed their opponents to get right back in to the game at 28-29. It literally came down to the last penalty kick of the game and Billericay got the 3 points and the win 28-32. Amazing that they literally didn't score a thing in the second half until the final kick, and that was the kick that won the game!!!

Joshua suffered yet another injury in the first half as he got his hand stamped on quite badly. So he came off about half way through but then did manage to get back on the pitch in the second half. At the end of the game the team all got together for loads of really great team photo's to seal another season off. Bring on 2024/25.

Last game of the season and Josh gets his hand trampled on.

But at least he got to play a bit in the first and second half.

Team photo's at the end of the 2023 season.

Billericay Bee's Under 16 2023-24.

Team pic in the goal posts.

And with the coaches in the picture.

Exceptional Attitude Award for Brandon and NO Prom for Josh!

Brandon has been absolutely outstanding at school this term and even though it is a year+ until his GSCE's he is already putting in the extra work. I know my English isn't the best, but Brandon has been doing loads of extra work at home and when he asks me to proof read it for him it kind of blows my mind. The level of vocabulary he is using is really advanced and according to his parents evening he will definitely be pushing the higher end of the GSCE grades (unlike his older brother). 

Talk about two completely different kids. So Brandon brings home a certificate from the head of English for exceptional attitude to learning and Joshua just keeps bring home the detentions and is still on report. Josh just doesn't get it and is scraping by with the absolute minimum he can get by with and it worries me that he might lose out on his college place if he doesn't get his grades. 

Josh was advised at the start of this year that if his attitude to learning and discipline results did not improve then he would not get an invite to the end of year prom. Well earlier this week I got the notification from the school that he hasn't made significant improvement and now won't be invited to the prom. Joshua wasn't interested in going anyway, but I have told him that's not the point as he didn't have the choice to go. I actually feel upset for him and very disappointed as I think this is something he will regret later in life. It is a great way to finish off your schooling, celebrate the end of the exams and arguably the last time you will see a lot of your school mates!

Super proud of Brandon getting recognition by head of English for exceptional attitude to learning.

Holly's Easter DT Art Project

Holly spent nearly the whole week in the lead up to Easter just doing Math's and DT at school which are probably her two favourite subjects. Her DT project she was particularly proud of and couldn't wait to bring it home to show me. The school actually wanted to put it on display but that would have meant she couldn't bring it home to show me, so she told them no. Anyway she made this lovely Easter rabbit scene in a box which has a wooden cam system inside, so as you rotate the handle the cam bounces the rabbit up and down and side to side. Genius - another engineer in the family.

Holly's Easter rabbit DT project which she made at school.

Inside the box is the wooden cam system to move the Easter bunny.

Mother's Day 2024

Mother’s Day 2024 and after a miserable wet morning standing watching Brandon play football in Canvey Island, we abandoned Tina for most of the day as me and the boys went to West Ham to watch them play Burnley. After the first half I was regretting this decision as WHU were playing dreadful and went 2-0 down. Fortunately the second half was much better and we ended up coming back with a 2-2 draw (should have easily been a win had WHU of bothered turning up in the first half!).

 

Anyway to earn some brownie points back Joshua had booked an evening meal for the 5 of us at Spoons in Basildon to celebrate Mother’s Day. We haven’t been to Spoons in absolutely ages but had a nice evening with loads of good food and all at a very good price. I even managed to convince the kids to have a picture taken with their Mum (even if Brandon is hiding away in the background!).

Rare picture of the kids with Tina and almost all smiling on Mother's Day.

Holly and Tina enjoying a Mother's Day meal at Spoon's in Basildon.

Holly Passes Her Stage 7 Swimming

Well done to Holly who last week passed her Stage 7 Swimming and has now progressed to a silver hat surpassing where her two brothers got to. She only has one more progression to black hat Stage 8 and she would have completed all levels (so that will be 3 kids that are all better swimmers than me!).

Super proud of Holly being awarded her silver hat in swimming.

Another Great Week of Football for Holly

Holly has had an outstanding week of football this week. Despite the weather being wet, windy and cold she was selected for the school football team and played other Wickford School Teams over the Grange on Thursday evening in the girls 1st football festival. Bless her she was so cold and wet when the tournament was over and couldn't wait to get home and get a nice warm bath.

Then today she went training with her Academy Sunday League team and has been awarded the player of the week again. As if that wasn't enough she was also Star of the Day at school yesterday for her outstanding math's work. So a good week all round for Holly.

Holly in the school news letter again for being in the school football team. Holly is in the yellow top as she was goal keeper.

And then she gets player of the week from her Academy team as well.

Academy Soccer Half Term Go Karting

During half term some of Brandon's Academy Soccer Team decided to go go-karting as their match was called off due to rain. Brandon obviously wanted to go as he loves karting and we would usually take the two boys sometime during half term anyway.

The football team are so competitive with each other and a few of them have done a lot of karting in the past, so I was actually really looking forward to just going along and watching. I secretly hoped Brandon would do well and he was certainly wanted to be in the top one or two but played it very cool.

When we arrived there I asked Brandon if he would wear one of the silly helmet covers so that I could easily tell where he was on the track. He initially declined but then I asked the rest of the team f they would wear them and they were well up for it. So due to peer pressure Brandon had to give in and have a silly helmet cover as well.

The group they were in had a full track of some 16+ karts and Brandon was absolutely outstanding. He won both sessions beating one of his team mates, Jack who was very good and had to settle for second both times (he wasn't a happy chap as he expected to win!). Brandon even went on to set himself a new PB around this track in the second race.

Academy Soccer half term karting with silly helmet covers.

Brandon had to reluctantly give in to peer pressure otherwise he would have been the odd one out.

The boys getting ready to go out on track.

Brandon in action.

First race and Brandon tops the table beating his team mate Jck.

Second race and Brandon again tops the table with a new PB of 39.854 sec. I think he was the only one to go under 40 seconds out of his group.

Half Term Romford Dog Racing

Once again I have fallen way behind on the blog updates. Anyway during half term we decided to have a family evening out at Romford Dogs having not been for many years. It was a struggle to get Joshua out of the house, but he actually really enjoyed the evening.

The place has changed a lot since we last went and the seating area which was closest to the car park has now been demolished and replaced by a car park. Then there is a whole new stadium area built on the opposite side of the track. 

We started the evening off with some drinks and a little bit of food before diving in to the 12 race card. Obviously the kids are too young to place bets so as usual they were picking out their respective dogs and I would put the bets on for them. From a better perspective we didn't do too badly, I think I ended the night about £13 down on what I had taken out with me for betting. However by the time I had paid for entry, food, 2 rounds of drinks - it was definitely not a cheap evening.

Good fun though and a nice way t spend an evening with the family whilst Tina had some time off of work.

Not many pictures from Romford Dogs - but here is a sneaky one I took of the other 4 watching a race.

And they are off. We always watch the races outside the stadium as the atmosphere is much better (you just have to put up with the smell of smoking!).