Summer Fun 2

Here's the second part of our summer holiday adventures, starting with continuing our visit to Leyland. Zachary had a fantastic time at the Monkey Magic soft play area, particularly playing with balls from the ball pool, walking along the netting and climbing up to the top with Auntie Marilla.

A great view from the top

Another baby with a big head

How big are you?

Zachary loves animals, so he very much enjoyed a visit to the Bowland Wild Boar Park and liked watching a family of meerkats eating their lunch.

Baby boars up close

Compare the meerkats

We had a lovely time visiting Zachary's Great-Grandad who sadly passed away a few weeks later and will be greatly missed.

Cuddles with Great-Granded

Here we are at Whalley Abbey spending the day with Helen, a family friend from Whalley.

Wandering the ruins

Here we are at Cliffe Castle in Keighley.  We (and Zachary) particularly liked the room of shiny precious stones with UV lights.

Zachary usually isn't a fan of playgrounds but he loved going around in Mummy's arms on this old roundabout (unfortunately they don't make them like this any more).

Whizzing around

On the way back to Cardiff, we stopped off to visit our friend Ashok and his family in Birmingham:

Cuddles with Cecilia

Goodbyes in Cardiff

Zachary paid a last visit to Ivy and Delaram to say goodbye and we were amazed at how active they've become.

Climbing on anything and everything

Packing commenced and it was fantastic to have a lot of help from Auntie Phobe.

Our goodbye party was a success; Zachary spent the evening entertaining and scrounging food.

He took a particular liking to Uncle Steve

Something to remind us of Cardiff

Auntie Vickrum's birthday was in August and we celebrated with some pitch 'n' putt at Heath Park.

Looking after the spare balls

Holding the flagpole for Uncle Dan

Uncle Gibbs takes his eye off the ball for a few minutes

It was an extremely close match but Daddy came out on top - well done Daddy!

One last play with Auntie Vickrum before heading home.

Moving!

Apologies for the 2 week break in posting - we have been moving to Exeter, so have had a lot to sort out. Additionally, we've just had our offer accepted on a house in Exeter so there is a lot of work to do to organise everything to ensure it goes smoothly. 

We had a lot of (much needed!) help on moving day from Sarah, Dan, Vickrum, Gibbs, Steve Williams and the Lewarnes which meant we were able to meet our deadline of 4pm to hand in the keys. 

Zachary seemed to very much enjoy the day - he had Auntie Vickrum looking after him and taking him out for a walk (and fun at the park) and later Uncle Dan played games with him in an empty room.

Zachary assists Daddy with dismantling the bed

Fun in a box with Auntie Vickrum

We had a huge amount of stuff to move and managed to fill a Luton van (plus two car loads!). Here is the mound of boxes which filled our spare room before moving:

Stacked to the ceiling - you can just make out the window behind

We waved goodbye to our wonderful Cardiff friends and headed for Exeter to move in with Bumble and Grandad Rob (as Exeter is my home town). They kindly vacated their bedroom (as it is the largest) and we moved as much furniture and boxes into it as we could. We also filled the loft and other random areas in the house with boxes (hopefully, it'll only be for 6 weeks!).

Zachary and Daddy like their new bedroom

Zachary looks a lot smaller next to all those boxes

Zachary's Automatic Lock-In!

We decided to go out in the car last week, so we put Zachary in the car while we packed it and Swith gave him the car keys to play with. We both popped into the house to get items to bring and returned to the car to discover that Zachary had locked himself in the car! After calling to him to press the 'open' button on the car keys, he promptly dropped them! We spent the next 20 minutes attempting to pick the lock of the car with a paper clip, with no success, so we phoned the fire brigade.

Poor Zachary, locked inside

Trying to keep him happy with his toys

The firemen arrived within a few minutes and used a coat hanger to reach inside the car, pick up the keys and press the button. In a matter of minutes, Zachary was out, enjoying lots of cuddles and waving goodbye to the fire engine.

Fireman Sam to the rescue!

Guest Blog: The Perks of Being a Babysitter

Last Saturday morning me (Phoebe) and Vicky had the joy of looking after Zachary, so we took him to one of our favourite places- IKEA. Why take a baby there? Vicky needed a photoframe and we knew the store would provide enough entertainment for an eleven month old (and judging by his smiling face in the photos, he really was entertained). 

Zachary’s reaction when he found out he was going to IKEA!

 One particular highlight- for us adults anyway- was parking in the buggy friendly parking space - what a novelty! Zachary wasn’t fussed as we drove around and around until we found one of the spaces we were entitled to. 

 

What did Zachary get up to? He loved eating lunch in the big cafeteria and, for once, most of his food didn’t end up on the floor. 

“Next time I’ll nab one of those yummy looking meatballs”

Zachary tried out lots of the toys in the kids’ department. He wasn’t so sure about the reindeer rocker but loved the orange chair – perfect for ‘peek-a-boo’ games.

 

 

Zachary enjoys having a taster of a child’s bed

By far, Zachary’s favourite toy was the mirror with foam doors - his ‘lift-the-flap’ books had come alive! Zachary played ‘peek-a-boo’ with himself for ages and seemed upset when we moved on - could this be a possible birthday present?!

Auntie Vickrum helps Zachary play ‘peek-a-boo’

Tired from all the fun in the kids’ department, Zachary fell asleep in his pushchair as we walked around the ground floor. We didn’t mind though as it gave us a chance to have an energy boosting coffee!

Once Zachary stirred we headed home and were back in time for Mummy and Daddy to hear all about Zachary’s exciting adventure. What a lovely trip!