Southend Luminocity Walk

As half term and a week off of work comes to an end we are still trying to make the most of the remaining family time. Last night after dinner we took a drive up to Southend seafront for a walk down the high street to take in the Luminocity lights which we missed out on last year. I think yesterday was the last day and the High Street was absolutely mobbed, traffic and parking was ok, but pedestrian wise it was rammed.

We took a walk from the Pier to the train station and managed to get a few piccies of Holly with some of the light installations, none of the boys as they are still camera/blog shy!! After our walk the kiddies claimed to be starving and so we treated them to some chips, ice-cream and donuts before heading home. All in all a pleasant evening and nice to get all 5 of us out of the house for a bit.

The bikes generated the electricity for this attraction, unfortunately the queue was too long for me to jump on there and power the whole of Essex for a few mins!!!

Me and H at the Star light on the pier.

The smoking star light.

The new Big Wheel in Adventure Island looks cool and absolutely dwarfs the old one.

The disco globe and some classic old school tunes.

This was a circular mirror / LED type of installation which you could go inside.

Holly and T in the LED light arches.

Honest 5 of us went, the other 2 were hiding from the camera.

Queue to walk through the arches was massive one end, but if you walked to the other end you could go straight through!!! Lightning Lane, hahaha.

Holly with some inflatable light up tree type thingies!

The disco light canopy was pretty impressive with basey tunes playing that you could feel through your chest.

Game of Throwing

To give me a break from painting the gym/garage and to give the kids something to do in the half term, I treated them to the Game of Throwing axe throwing experience in Chelmsford today. Holly was too young to participate so Tina took her over to Jump Street for some trampolining whilst me and the boys had a go at the axe throwing.

It was the first time any of us had tried axe throwing and I have to say it was really fun. The hour sessions whizzed by so quickly and I think we managed to get about 5 or 6 games in. I won the most, Joshua managed to win one game and Brandon cheated somewhat on the penultimate game to claim a draw with Joshua in a game where they fixed it for me to lose!!

So it was nice to show the boys that there is still life in the old dog yet and I can still whip their butt at certain activities. Even more impressive is that we found a physical / sporty type of activity which Brandon is no good at. He really was struggling and certainly not having as much fun as me and Josh. Because of his slight build he had to rely on the two handed overhead technique as opposed to the single arm used by me and Josh. Even with the double hand technique Brandon would often find his first axe of each round would not stick in the wood.

First time trying the Game of Throwing axe throwing in Chelmsford.

The old dog showing the young Jedi's how it is done and whipping their butts.

Josh did good and really pushed me in a few rounds. His size meant he could easily single arm throw.

Brandon was not enjoying it so much and because he was struggling he actually told the staff he was bored (sore loser!).

Brandon using the double arm overhead technqiue.

But still had to pick more axes off of the floor than pull them out of the wood.

Joshua was doing really well and his a good few 6's over the session.

But there was only one champ today.

Game 1 and you can see how Brandon was struggling. Don't ask why he called himself "dumbass" given his is the smartest out of all 3 of us!

Game 3 and Joshua pushed me hard in a very close game, pipping me by 2 points.

But then I really found my stride and got a monster score of 42.

A lot of cheating in the penultimate game, but Brandon claimed a draw/win.

Half Term Karting

Yesterday I took the kids to Basildon TeamSport indoor karting whilst Tina was having a sleep at home (having worked nights). The boys both had 2x 15 min races with a pretty full track of 15-16 other drivers.

Brandon absolutely killed it and won both sessions with the quickest time. In fact at the end of his second session he was sitting at the top of the quickest lap time all day!. I guess sitting there playing driving games on the PS5 is finally paying off. 

Joshua also did very well and was a lot closer to Brandon than he usually is. He came 3rd overall and was only 1 sec a lap slower than Brandon which when you consider the power to weight ratio is pretty impressive.

Holly couldn't join in this session as it was the adult faster karts, but we have now been told she can do the family karting sessions as long as I go on with her. This is going to hurt if all 4 of us go - why is karting so bloody expensive?????

Holly didn't race yesterday but helped me signal the positions to the boys as they drive past us.

Brandon absolutely killed both races in 1st place. A very respectable 3rd for Joshua.

At the point we left the center Brandon had the fastest time of the day out of all the adults.

Brandon's New Girlfriend

So Brandon has a new girlfriend called Tegan who he has now been seeing for about 3 weeks. She is a lovely little girl and we got to meet her for the first time yesterday when she came over to see him for Valentines Day and also stayed for dinner. 

She bought Brandon a really nice his and hers necklace which is quite cute. Brandon on the other hand was a nightmare and we pretty much had to force him to go around the shop to get her a card and some chocolates. Then he gave her a little bracelet which he picked up from Florida for a previous girlfriend that he split up with!!!

Whilst both Brandon and Josh have both had girlfriends in the past, this is the first one that either of them have brought home to meet us. So something new to experience as a parent. Although Tegan goes to Brandon's school, she lives over in Basildon so we have also entered a new era of parenting where we not only are a taxi to 3 kids of our own, but also have to drop off and pick up girlfriend now!!!!

Holly's Memory Magic

Despite me taking the week off work for half term, we have had a pretty uneventful week so far with mostly decorating, the odd cycle ride and then some swimming. Hopefully towards the back end of this week we will do some more exciting stuff with the kiddies.

One of the things I did with Holly earlier this week was to dig out some old magic sets of the boys which they have hardly used. There was one particular memory reading trick which Holly is amazing at. Basically there are 4 circular cards each with 6 random pictures on. Some of the pictures repeat on other cards, some don't. The idea is that you ask someone to think of any of the items on the cars, then turn over only the cars that have that picture on it. 

To then pretend to read the person's memory you look at the back of the cards and there is a character holding up 1, 2, 3 or 4 cards and you add the number of cards together, check this on a cheat sheet list and it will tell you what picture it correlates too. Well after me doing this about 3 times to Holly to had memorised every combination of pictures and cards and can do the trick without even knowing about the card counting or the cheat sheet. You can literally test her with any picture and she will 100% get it right!!!! Not bad for someone with learning difficulties.

Holly was so proud of herself that she even took the card trick in to school to show her friends nd teachers.

Holly the psychic memory reader.

For circular cards with various random pictures, Holly has memorised the lot!!

She didn't even realise it was a trick and that you count the number of cards held up and look on a cheat sheet.

"Player of the Match" for Holly & Zombie Brandon

As if winning "Star of the Week" wasn't enough last week. Holly only went and won "Player of the Match" in her football match today. She played in goal for the whole game and managed to keep a clean sheet in a very tight 0-0 draw - so a perfect game for a keeper. All the other parents commented on how good she is in goal and I think they would prefer her to be the teams goal keeper rather than just the reserve when the other girl isn't there. Holly certainly gave the coaches something to think about with her performance today.

Player of the match for keeping a clean sheet in todays match.

Mean while Brandon was doing his best Zombie impression in his Cup Game today which he won 4-3 on penalties.

"Star of the Week" for Holly

Amazing work by Holly last week improving in her reading, sharing ideas in class and working hard on her mathematics which continues to get stronger everyday. As a result of all of her hard work she was awarded "Star of the Week" last week. Well done champ.

Star of the Week and starting 2023 off with a bang.

What can you say, improving her reading, contributing ideas and working hard at her Maths. Perfect.

Brandon's 14th Birthday

So today was Brandon's 14th Birthday and  think he has had a pretty good day. The day started with the usual present opening before dashing off to a friendly game of football against Runwell which he won 3-1. For presents this year I think Brandon was more boring that at Xmas. He literally just wanted clothes, trainers, aftershave and a bag.

As with his mas presents he is becoming very brand conscious and wanted a Mercier tracksuit, a PSG fleece, Nike trainers, Nike bag and Jean Paul Gaultier aftershave. We added one extra item which wasn't on his list and that was a North Face tracksuit which he really liked. Instead of a party we finally bought Brandon his Brands Hatch driving experience which we promised him 2 years ago before lockdown put that on hold!!! So watch out for a blog update soon once we get that booked up.

In the afternoon lots of the family came over to visit Brandon and drop off cards and money. Thank you for everyone who saw him on his special day and for all the cards and money. As usually in the evening we always give the kids a choice of where they want to eat for their Birthday and Brandon wanted a 5 Guys. So we headed over to Bas Vegas for a nice burger and then he followed that up with a chocolate crepe in Sprinkles. Now it is home and he is chilling with a cider and watching Loki (where has my little boy gone!).

Not much in the way of presents as Brandon wanted all expensive branded items.

It didn't take long for Brandon to smash in to his presents before dashing off to football.

His designer Mercier tracksuit.

Somehow he had forgotten what he put on his own list and was surprised with some of the presents.

His Jean Paul Gaultier aftershave - what do you think he is smiling at?

His teenage perverted mind was chuckling at the crotch bulge in the bottle!!!!!

His PSG fleece, yes black again!

When did my two boys get so big. Absolutely towering over Auntie Nicky like a pair of bodyguards.

Birthday meal out at 5 Guys followed by a Spinkles.

Then as if we hand't eaten enough we came home for birthday cake.

Triple chocolate for Brandon's 14th birthday cake.

Holly's Sleeping Troubles

I am not sure if it is because Tina is working nights or what, but Holly has been a little bit of a cow to say the least with her bed time recently. It could be that she knows the boys stay up later and is feeling left out, but she constantly keeps getting up with all the excuses under the sun or even calling down with her Alexa. Often she even claims to have had nightmares despite not even having gone to sleep yet.

She also keeps saying she doesn't feel safe in the house and worries about fires and burglars etc. I try to assure her she is safe and that we have alarms, locks, two front doors, cameras etc but she still keeps getting up. Fingers crossed just a phase she is going through and will soon grow out of it. You'd think with all her clubs that she attends, she would have no trouble going to sleep. Currently she does gymnastics (x2), running (x1), football (x3-4), swimming (x1).

Is that sly smile faking sleep here with the book in hand or is she finally asleep!

Joshua Experiments with Vapes!!!!

As always, I try and be impartial and write about the good and the bad on the blog. Part of the intention of this is to hope that the bad things can be turned in to positives by learning from what went wrong and hopefully not making the same mistakes again. That is certainly the case here where I found a stash of vapes in Joshua's bedroom whilst having a little tidy out earlier this week.

To say I was extremely disappointed was an understatement. He is older enough to have seen first hand what smoking done to his nan and granddad, and I had really hope all the kids had learnt their lesson from that. Smoking and vaping is absolutely unacceptable in my opinion and I will not allow this whilst the kids are dependent on me.

Initially Josh tried to lie his way out of it by saying they were his mates and he was just looking after them (must think I was born yesterday). After about 20 mins I soon got him to come clean and own up. Apparently he has been "experimenting" for about two months and I am kind of disappointed with myself that it took this long to find out. God only knows where he has got the money from and who has been buying them for him. We estimate there is some £50 to £100 quids worth here and I assume as he is a big lad for his age, he has not been questioned when purchasing.

Anyway we have had a long discussion about this and I made him go and google all the health implications of vaping so to be sure he understands what he is doing. I made it clear I am unhappy as he is using my money to buy something I completely disagree with and potentially shortening his life in the process! He assures us it is just a fad he was trying, perhaps peer pressure and that he is now over it. Let's hope so.......

Anyway as punishment we have decided he is going to lose 2 months pocket money which we think is about the value of the vapes that he had stashed, and then donate this to St Lukes Hospice or Cancer Research.

Joshua's disappointing stash of vapes found in his bedroom. I hope to never find this again!

First Rugby Match Injury for Josh

With running Holly and Brandon around to football matched every Sunday it is very, very rare that I get to see Joshua play rugby. However today Brandon's match was called off due to a water logged pitch and Holly had an early kick-off.  That meant that after Holly's game had finished, I had enough time to dash over to Harlow for 12:30 to catch the start of Billericay Bee's against Harlow.

The Bee's played really well winning 31-29. The score makes it seem like a tight game but the Bee's threw a big lead away in the second half as they were some 10-15 points up at half time. Joshua player well and had a good few tackles and a few runs with the ball. His size means he is used in all the line-outs and scrums so he has a fairly active game.

In the first half today he suffered his first match injury when he got a stud to the nose whilst on the ground which left him with a bloody nose. As a result of this he ended up sitting out the rest of the first half and then coming back on in the second half.

Joshua is buried somewhere in that scrum.

And again, if you look close you can spot the ginger hair!

Ice pack on the nose after getting studded and having a bloody nose.

Joshua on the run.

Bad timing with my picture as Joshua just moves in for a tackle.

Team de-briefing at the end of a tough game against a team who spanked the Bee's last season. Good win.