Mickey Mouse March

Olivia's band had a concert tonight - postponed Christmas concert from before Christmas - we got snowed out before. Luckily, they dropped the Christmas music. I promise the flutes are actually playing here, and you could hear them in person, though the clip seems to be all brass...

Zip Wire

Tried to post this with the still photos, but for whatever reason, that failed. Anyway, here's Sarah going down one of the zip wires - not even the longest one...

Jack Petchey Awards

Sarah and I attended the Jack Petchey Achievement Awards Ceremony (for Guides) tonight - she received the award for her dedication to Guiding - I think because she nearly always attends, including extra-curricular things, is enthusiastic, responsible, sensible (I know what you are thinking!) and happy to take on responsibility. Here she is receiving her award - it's a medallion, plus she gets £200 to spend on her unit (they bought some new tents - badly needed).

Waveboard

This is Olivia's new gadget - it's a kind of skateboard called a Ripstick, Waveboard or Street Surfer - the thing is, it only has two wheels, which makes balancing on it a bit challenging. The neat thing is, you don't push off the ground to make it move, like a traditional skateboard - it's all in the hip movement, which is a kind of twisty movement, like the dance. She's getting very good at it, as demonstrated by her ability to turn a circle!

Mang, Katong and the Crocodile King

Olivia's class performed today at the Kingston Primary Performing Arts Festival, and took first in their category - well done, them. I have some still photos, too, but they all have red-eye, so until I sort that, I won't post them. [This is only part of the poem; I didn't video the entire thing as it's fairly long.]

Crane in action

This play crane actually moves back and forth and raises and lowers. Sarah and Olivia had almost as much fun with this as Alex did, I think...

Ozzie eats popcorn

More gerbil videos (but that's all for a while!)

The gerbils have landed...

Alex and the Waves

Here's Alex frolicking (sort of) on the beach yesterday.

I have some more videos of various things holiday related, over on you tube - including kite flying at the beach, the kids on the trampoline and other exciting things. Check it out here.

Dolphin videos

Well, we seem to have solved the video problem - twice over! We made YouTube work by temporarily turning off Cathi's firewall AND we tried out the draft video upload feature on blogger - and so, I think we have dolphin videos - hurrah!

Small holiday to Grandma's

So... we are now back from our visit to Grandma Lucy's house - lots of fun was had, and a variety of photos taken. On the way up, we stopped at Beckonscot Model Village, as we had tickets from the school fair (we've been before, but the kids still enjoy it - it's pretty impressive as model villages go - lots of very creative small scale scenes) and Ryton Organic Gardens - at left is the kids in front of the largest flower pot in the world (apparently), though it doesn't have any flowers in it.

More photos in the flickr album... and a few videos over on YouTube.

Adventuresome day

Well, the weather has finally started behaving like it might be summer, so we took our trip to Chessington World of Adventures today. Great day, no rain, very few arguments from the kids and almost no queues, despite the good weather. And of course, we bumped into Lorayne & kids from across the road (not a total surprise, as she and I had both discussed going this week beforehand; still, it's funny to see someone you know in a big place like that). Some videos from the rides below, and more photos in my flickr album. Tomorrow, we will stay more or less at home and rest, I think!


Dodgems


Swings


Carousel


Water Ride

Tinkle, tinkle, little sar

Strawberry sorbet song

Alex rides his bike

He's been pretty good at doing the pedals for a while now, but it's only recently that he's mastered steering, which is good for my back...

More snow midweek

The kids were dressed, finished with breakfast, had teeth brushed and out playing before 8am - that's what snow does, I guess. If we had it all the time, it probably wouldn't be all that thrilling.

Make a wish and blow out the candles...

Who needs huskie dogs when you have little kids?

This is Alex pulling all the bags in the sled on the way to school on our recent snowy day... He's so cute.

Some christmas karaoke cheer...

Olivia got a special karaoke microphone thingy for Christmas, so we had lots of singing...