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...

Go Ape!

Sarah chose to go to Go Ape with a friend as a birthday treat (in lieu of a party, etc). Go Ape is a high ropes course with a variety of obstacles or challenges, most of which are quite high up in the trees. It's all very safe and professional, so any grandmas reading this don't need to worry. Under 18s have to be accompanied by an adult, and 15s & under can only have 2 kids to one adult, so Sarah and her friend Jess went; I went with them. I have to say, it was great fun, especially the Tarzan swings and the zipwires. I could have easily done just those sections several more times...








I love the way the course is laid out in the treetops, so that you really feel you are part of the forest while doing it. At Alice Holt, the forest that our local(ish) course is in, there are walking and cycling paths which run beneath the course in places, so you often get folks watching as you navigate a particular challenge or wait on a platform for your turn to go.











It really was a lovely choice of things to do - we all had a great time.

Weekend of cooking...

Made these this afternoon - miniature pumpkin pies (and some jam tarts). School is having an international day tomorrow, complete with food tasting and I said I'd bring a pumpkin pie - then I got to thinking that actually it would be quite hard to cut into small pieces for sharing, so I decided to use the Pampered Chef miniature tart thingy and go for individual pumpkin pies, which actually, worked very well. I did use some of the second piece of pastry (I just used bought on this occasion) for some jam tarts - raspberry, plum (from jam made by a friend from her own plum trees) and lemon curd on the end. Mmm.




This morning, pancakes were the order of the day, as I had two extra girls in the house from Sarah's Birthday Sleepover, Part I (Part 2 next weekend - two different groups of friends, so she wanted two sleepovers - ok with me as I'd rather have two lots of two extra 12 & 13-yr-olds than one lot of 4 extra. Not to mention, easier to find space to sleep).




Last night it was homemade pizza for the girls. And the rest of us, too. Next weekend, pizza is on the menu as well, but as we are out all afternoon, Domino's is going to be cooking it!

Spotted outside a charity shop

...so we did...



...apple crumble with walnuts. Mmm.

Cousins...

Our nephew David is visiting with us again between stops on his whirlwind world tour - the kids have a blast because he's essentially just a big kid...





Olivia took this one...

Hever Castle

Hever Castle in Kent is the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, and a fine example of Tudor architecture. It also has a hedge maze, a wooden maze, a water maze, an adventure playground, and one weekend in early September, a small but really lovely quilt show. We try to make an annual event of it. Especially because the weather in early September is almost always sunny and lovely. We missed the show last year, but this year, we managed to make it.



We had a picnic lunch on a bench by the lake, looking across to the edge of the Italian Gardens. Some ducks came to join us...






...and later a swan.



There was a lovely border of every kind of dahlia under the sun - this is only a small selection.



We found our way through the hedge maze to the middle...





...admired the topiary...



...swung on some swings, ate ice cream,



and finally, made our way through the water maze - we even remembered to take swimsuits and a towel this year (it is, I can vouch, entirely possible to make it through the maze staying completely dry, but if you are a 7 year old boy or a 10 year old girl (Sarah not being with us on this occasion), that's not really the point...).



And here's Olivia at the top of the tower in the middle of the maze.

Patuxent Wildlife Reserve

Took an hour or two this afternoon to go over to the Patuxent Wildlife Reserve and walk some of the trails - we were going to go into the Visitor Centre as well, but it shut at 4.30, which was the time we finished our walk. Never mind. There were lots of water lilies in the lake.



And absolutely tonnes of fungus in the woods, including this specimen, which was so large it needed Alex in there for scale. Biggest mushroom I've ever seen!





A few interesting trees - this one was curved - and a very helpful sign...



Remarkably enough, we managed to find the trail.

Birdhouses

My mother collects wooden birdhouses (you can see some of them on the railing of the deck - she has a lot more than that!), some of which she buys plain and paints herself. Today, we all had a birdhouse painting morning...



I chose one which was like a beach hut:



Mom painted a lighthouse:



Alex did this rocket ship with only a tiny bit of help:



Olivia painted two - a small windmill (about 6 inches tall)



and a larger airplane:



And Sarah chose this castle tower:



Some of the birdhouses may be coming home with us, some will be staying with Grandma...

Enchanted Forest

Once upon a time, there was a small amusement park in Ellicott City, MD, called the Enchanted Forest, which featured a number of large sculptures of various sorts related to fairy tales, etc. It closed in the early 1990's and the land was sold for development; a local farm called Clark's Elioak Farm acquired the sculptures and went about restoring them. That's where we went today. To be honest, my kids are slightly too old for it, but we needed a destination and had a couple of free tickets, and there is also a petting zoo, where my kids can always spend ages, plus it's only about 15 minutes away - seemed like a good bet for an afternoon out. Despite the age issue, they did really enjoy it - perhaps it's not fair to say they are too old to enjoy it, it's more that it won't hold their attention for long - though the Enchanted Maze, which is new since we went on our last US visit - did keep them (and me) occupied for quite a while.

Obviously, there was The Old Woman Who Lives in a Shoe, which is a slide (most you can't go in, but just admire).




Here's the crooked man, in his crooked house (and some crooked kids?),



a random whale (actually, you can't see it, but Jonah or someone is fishing inside the whale),



Alex petting a goat,



more goat petting,



Cinderella's coach,



a rainbow slide,



trying on the glass slipper,



three kids on a swan,



and Hansel and Gretel's Gingerbread House. It was a nice afternoon out.