Class of 2012

Joshua's new class mates.

Joshua's First Day at School

Today was a very special day for a couple of reasons. Firstly Tina started her new job which means Brandon starts at Seymour House nursery 5 days a week. Secondly. today I was celebrating having worked for Ford/Visteon for a whopping 24 years. But thirdly, and most importantly, today was Joshua's first day at school in his foundation year.

Joshua was very excited and enthusiastic about starting school. Monday we had the home visit from his teacher (Mrs Goldsmith) and the teaching assistant. Then yesterday he had a small 1 hour introduction to his new class to get his bearings, find his coat beg and tray etc. Last night he asked his Mum to lay out all of his school clothes the night before so that he could dress himself as soon as he woke up. His packed lunch was all made if in his new Phineaus and Ferb bag and he had his new Abacus school bag ready to go.

It seems only yesterday I was feeding him bottles and winding him, now look at my big boy all dressed up and looking smart for his first day at school.

The boys chose their scooters as transportation for their first day with their bags hanging over the handlebars.

And here is Joshua, all smiles standing outside the Abacus School sign.

Anxiously waiting outside his blue room for his teacher, Mrs Goldsmith, to unlock the doors.

 

I was not too worried about Joshua settling into his new school as he has lots of friends there and was really looking forward to it.I wasn't worried about Tina settling in to her new job. My only concern was little Brandon has he was probably going to have the biggest change of all. Not only is his nursery changing from 2 days a week to 5 days, but he will also no longer have his sidekick brother to hang around with at nursery.

 

My fears proved true as Brandon clung to me like a pig on the proverbial when we dropped him off at nursery. It makes you feel such a bad parent leaving him there when he is crying out for you. Apparently he was not himself for the first couple of hours but eventually settled down. He was also looking around for Joshua quite a bit. Poor lad.

 

Joshua thoroughly enjoyed his first day although it is quite hard to get any specific details out of him regarding what he actually did. He is completely shattered after his first day at school and subsequently went to sleep very easy tonight. Once again his uniform is all folded and ready at the end of his bed for day 2 at school.

New Forest Day 4 - Longdown Farm

Day 4 and it was off to Longdown Farm for some animal encounters. As a family farm Longdown is far more rustic and a proper working farm when compared to our local Marsh farm or Old Mcdonalds farm. The beauty of this is that you get to be more involved in farm life and have a much more hands on experience. The first port of call was to bottle feed a load of calves.

 

OK, so they are big calves but they still all needed their bottle feeds.

Brandon didn't want to feed the calves. Joshua tried briefly, but they were pretty strong and pulling the bottles away and therefore I took over.

One hungry calf finishes his bottle.

 After feeding the calves we went into the main entrance of the farm where the boys found some full size table tennis tables and some pedal tractors.

Two against one as the boys take me on at table tennis.

Joshua loves his little tractor at home (despite being too big for it). So he loved playing farmer with these larger pedal tractors.

Brandon could reach the pedals fine and get about. Anyone for tractor bangers!

Next on the agenda for the day was to bottle feed some goats. Joshua absolutely loved doing this and went back a couple of times to feed several of the little goats, Brandon was not overly interested in this. 

Joshua bottle feeding goat 1.

Then back for seconds as he bottle feeds goat 2.

His face may not show it, but he was actually really enjoying feeding the goats.

Brandon came into his own when we got to the chicken coop. He was really smitten by the little chicks. 

Brandon making conversation with some new born chicks.

Check out this little cutie.Brandon was dead keen to get his hands on one of these.

How adorable is this, Little B sitting there having a cuddle with a baby chick. We had to prise the chick away from him as it got quite attached and fell asleep on his lap!

Everyone knows Brandon loves guinea pigs. He was equally as enthusiastic with some rabbits.

And then to finish off his animal encounters he got to brush the coat of this little goat.

In the chicken coop they have holes allowing you to put your arms in to retrieve some of the fresh eggs and then take them to the shop in reward for a sticker. Joshua was amazed with the concept of an egg coming from a chickens bum and waited for ages until he finally got his hands on one. 

Joshua with his war, fresh egg which he retrieved from the chicken coop.

It became a bit of a competition to then find as many eggs as possible. Both boys found a few. Meanwhile Tina was nicking a few for breakfast the next day.

To finish our day at the farm we had a ride on a full size tractor and then the boys found some more go karts and some ride on electric cars. 

Joshua having a go on the pedal go karts.

How cool is this? Brandon was too small to ride on his own but they had 2 seater go karts so that Joshua could take him for a ride.

It was too much for me to resist having a go myself. So Joshua went solo and Brandon rode shotgun with me. I let Brandon steer and I did the pedal power. Yes we had lots of crashes.

Brandon on the yellow electric tractor.

Joshua on the green one,

A spot of tractor racing.

At the end of day 4 me and the boys headed deep into the New Forest for a spot of den building. The pictures do not do our den justice as it was quite a size. All 3 of us easily fitted inside. As in Bewilderwood earlier in the year, den building was accompanied by Joshua's very repetitive song of "lift, hold, lift and hold, lift, lift, lift, lift, lift!".

 

The boys in our finished den.

Can anyone see my boys?

Ill huff and Ill puff and Ill blow your house in.

Brandon is getting quite handy with a digital camera these days.

After den building we settled in for our final nights sleep in the tent ready to get all packed up first thing in the morning. But the excitement was far from over as we planned to stop off in Lego Land on our way home.

New Forest Day 3 - Beaulieu Motor Museum

Day 3 started off a little better than Day 2 as our tent stayed up all night without anymore pole breaks. Once the usual routine of wash, dressed and breakfast was done we headed off to Beaulieu Motor Museum for a bit of a petrol head day. I have to say that Beaulieu was probably my best day of the holiday and the selection of photos shown here is just a snip it. I could have taken thousands of pictures of all the cars.

 

Problems with the tent are resolved (less the awning now).

One of the best decisions I made this holiday was to take the boys bikes. They absolutely loved riding around the camp site morning and night. They were given that bit more freedom as I previously mentioned and more often than not Joshua would just say to us that he would meet us over at reception and head off on his bike.

 



Joshua out and about on his bike.

In the morning we were greeted with some wild cows just taking a morning stroll through the camp site.

Little B on his bike showing us the donkeys.

A heard of cows decided to take a break and chillax right near out tent.

This cow had a beautiful light brown and white coat.

Anyway enough of cows. Today was all about cars and Baeulieu boasts the largest collection of Bond vehicles in the world plus a lot of the Top Gear creations from various episodes over the years.



Me and the boys on top of this superbly restored old bus which gives you a tour from the entrance of Beaulieu all the way to the Palace at the back.

In the movie tent I had great pleasure in showing the boys the Back To The Future Delorean. Roll on the day when I can sit down with them and enjoy the BTTF films.

Of course I had to take a picture of the flux capacitor - after all its what makes time travel possible!

The Top Gear area is huge and has many many of their weird and wacky creations. We even got to see the statue of the stig, the lap board and the all important car "reasonably priced car" used for the lap times.

Joshua and Brandon exploring the Top Gear army jeep / camper van.

Brandon posing with the Top Gear shuttle car launcher.

And then Joshua ready for blast off.

Cheeky Brandon sitting on the mono rail which takes you through the actual museum and around the Beaulieu site. The boys insisted we stayed on this and went around twice.

The STIG!

Joshua showing is the Top Gear super stretched limo.

Brandon in awe of the length of the limo. What was even better was the limo they made which had the bowling alley in the back.

Recently I managed to get a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang book to read the boys at night time. We haven't had the book that long but have read it numerous times and the boys love it. So you can imagine their surprise when I told them they would be able to see the real Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car at Beaulieu. I even started to teach them the song from the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang film which they have both been singing all week. I guess I will have to download it for on their Innotab.

Joshua looking all cool in front of the real Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Me and my boys with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Both boys love F1 and can recognise most of the cars on the grid. Obviously their favourites are the Redbull and Ferrari. Brandon's souvenir from Beaulieu was a toy Redbull racing car from the 2011 season.

Brandon with the 2012 Mclaren racing car driven be Jenson and Lewis.

A stunning collection of old race cars. My favourite of all time has to be the black and gold JPS.

Within Beaulieu there is a really cool play area for the children and as you would expect it is automotive based. How the boys would love to have a play car like this in the back garden.

Joshua filling his car with diesel.

Also within the play area were some little electric cars for the boys to race around. Joshua was fine on this and was racking up the laps. Brandon unfortunately did not have enough power in his legs to press the gas pedal and the poor worker ended up pushing him around the track for his laps.

On your marks, get set, go.............race on!

 

As much as I loved seeing all the cars at Beaulieu there is also some absolutely stunning scenery to take in with the remains of the Abbey and the Palace on the site. Both are open to the public so we had a good walk around in the beautiful sunshine to explore the grounds.

Some of the Abbey remains looking back at the chapel.

A stunning picture of the palace which over looks a lake.

And another picture of the palace.

Me, Joshua and Brandon at the old Abbey entrance.

The lake which the palace overlooks. It was lovely to get down hear and dip your feet in the cool water.

Looking back at the Palace from the lake.

Brandon getting his feet wet in the lake.

Joshua running around and exploring the grounds of the palace.

Forget the broken tent, the boys found a little mini caravan the perfect size for them. It even had a teddy bear inside.

Joshua on a ride through the history of the automobile. Getting tired after a long day and thumb in mouth. This needs to stop before he starts big boys school this week.

Brandon rode with me.

We had to take a picture of the Mini Outspan as it was built the same year as me (so 40 years old). The boys even bought me a post card souvenir of this car.

And as if a car shaped like an orange is not weird enough, how about this beer bottle shaped car.

One of Brandon's favourite cars was this old land speed record car. He liked it primarily because it was almost a yellow colour. I preferred the Thrust and Bluebird land speed cars on display.

Finally into the Bond display.

On the week when Brandon learnt to swim unaided, how apt was it for him to get his picture taken with probably the most famous Bond car of all - the amphibious Lotus.

Me and Joshua doing our best Bond pose in front of the classic Aston Martin.

The boys both recognised this car from the World Is Not Enough as I have this in my collection of 1/18th scale cars.

Kind of weird to explain to the boys what the Bond alligator is doing in a motor museum.

What a car. The famous black and gold of the good old John Player Special F1 car.

In the outdoor arena they had a larger go-kart track set-up for adults to drive. However the cars were adapted with twin seats so that children could ride shotgun. These were a little expensive at £6 for 3 mins and of course once I took Joshua on then I couldn't really say no to Brandon. So £12 gone and I had the burden of having two goes on the go karts - such a shame.

Me and Joshua blasting around the track.

Brandon all strapped in his 4 point harness and ready to race. He can just about see through the steering wheel.

A rare family picture of us all in an toy car in the kids playground. Worth the photo just to see Tina try and climb in and out!

The wild donkeys struck again on the way home as they were blocking our road and had no intentions of moving.

And as if that wasn't bad enough we got back to our tent and found the cows had really settled in close to our pitch.

The mother and baby were very content sitting next to our tent watching us have dinner.

So that is a small snapshot of a phenomenal day out in Buaulieu Motor Museum. Day 4 sees us venture to Longdown farm and then the all important den building in the New Forest.