Trying out Geocaching

Last weekend my friend Nikki posted on Facebook what a great time she spent with her family geocaching. It's like a treasure hunt where you use your phone as a gps and find a certain point, often interesting or beautiful. When you find it you sign the log book and put in a little something that you brought with you, swapping it for something you take out of the box.
I'd seen it as an activity option at Center Parcs when we were there at the beginning of January but we weren't sure if our boys are too young to manage the maps and gps.
Today we tried it. We downloaded the free app and had a look- there are LOADS! More than 2 million, in 185 different counties. And they are everywhere! We picked one to find a 10 minute drive from our house, and we passed a few other areas on our way.
We found a castle we had never seen and had a great time, despite a grumpy baby (probably his second time ever being grumpy in his whole life so I couldn't really complain) and freezing rain. When the gps said we were pretty close we had to have a real search to find the cache but we found it! Really quite exciting, and I bet it could become quite addictive. We did another one on our way home!
So we have found a new favourite :) Outdoorsy, educational, fun and FREE to do with family. You can't beat that!!

TRY IT WHERE YOU ARE!

My family come to visit!

It has been fun but a bit chaotic around here lately!! With the Olympics on my family weren't keen on their usual magnificent and very long camping trip and wanted to stay close to a TV! (Very understandable, since even I was absolutely hooked) Then they decided to come and stay with us in Aberdeen since it is a great base to see amazing things in Scotland and to stock up on some family time since, being 10 hours away, we don't get to do it that often. They stayed for 12 days!! :) It was a bit of a squash and a squeeze fitting the four of us, my Mum, Dad and three brothers in our two bedroomed house but we had a great time!!! Here are a few pictures:

Zach is such a happy baby. Here he is with Uncle Billy

Uncle Billy with Oliver- a bit too foggy for a nice view!

Uncles Harry, Bill and Isaac with Oliver

At Castle Fraser

Love this!

We found one of Aberdeen's Olympic gold postboxes!!!!

BBQ on Balmedie Beach. Brilliant!

The boys in action on the beach

Isaac- action shot!

Me and Mum on the melted bench!

Next adventure... moving house tomorrow!!!!!! :)

Summer Holiday

What a whirlwind couple of weeks we have had!! Ben booked just over two weeks off work so we packed up the car, squeezed the boys in the back and off we went.

THE LAKE DISTRICT

We spent the first week in the north-west of the Lake District, on top of the Solway coast. The house was a converted barn and was SO pretty inside with lots of pine, skylights and a huge window - I took notes for the future! Like the rest of the country the weather was pretty pants all apart from the last day, when we got burnt!

Because of space we chose not to bring the buggy and brought a sling for me to carry Zach and a baby backpack for Ben to carry Oliver- the scales tell me that I've lost weight and I believe it- it was hard work!! We did three lake walks and one day we climbed a peak constantly for close to two hours. Ben can tell you that I wasn't the best company... but at the top we got breathtaking views of two lakes, Keswick, peaks galore and even along to the coast and across to Scotland. The pictures just don't do it justice.

Ben was excited to hear there were lots of Roman forts in the area so on other days we got a tour around a current archaeological dig, searched for forts, altars and other tidbits that he fancied. Oliver was a bit keen to follow in Daddy's footsteps at the dig and kept trying to jump into the muddy holes they had already excavated. He kept us on our toes and I missed most of the tour (although I wasn't too bothered...!)

On a rainier day we went to a farm park called 'The Gincase'. It was BRILLIANT- lots of animals and food to feed them straight out of your hand, loads of indoor and outdoor play areas (loads of ride-on cars, so totally up Oliver's street, lots of baby animals, a crafty shop for me and Ben and Oliver got to bottle feed a baby goat! Ben and I were a bit nervous to see how Oliver found the animals, but he totally surprised us and was utterly fearless and goats, sheep, horses, pigs...all out out of his hand. He was smitten, it was magical to watch.

When we booked the house in the Lake District, somehow we had forgotten that we live in Scotland - the land of lakes (lochs!) and have the most beautiful scenery around us already, but I think sometimes you need to physically go away somewhere to make the most of it, so it was definitely worth the trip.

Oliver keeps us safe with the GPS around Ennerdale

One dribbly baby on the beach

My Nanna and Granddad who live in Cornwall!!

Zachy Baby and Daddy are reunited after two weeks apart

My Zachy Baby

VISITING FAMILY

... is fun but it can be exhausting!! (See below)

We had a great time with Ben's family for a few days (trips swimming, to Wicksteed Park- a family park and small theme park- a family BBQ and a walk or two around Thrapston- lovely) The boys enjoyed bonding and so did we. Somehow I never end up with many photos of time spent with Ben's family. Ben's Mum is quite the photographer though so I can nab some from her afterwards!

Next up we spent a few days with my family:

In Southwold, a wonderful seaside town

Mum and I chatted as the boys cricketed on the green

The pictures below show a fun but slightly dangerous rope swing on Nacton shores. Dad, Ben and the boys invented a game involved pushing someone on the swing and then sprinting underneath them very close to the cliff... Boys... They thought I was woosy (sp?!) but I did go on in the end!

ZACH'S BLESSING

To top it all off and as a perfect culmination of all things holiday, Zach was blessed at our church in front of the congregation, and we had food afterwards.The blessing was beautiful and lots of family and some friends came to support us and Zach, plus it was at our old chapel in Cambridge (a nice half-way point for our families) so that was lovely bonus to see our friends there. AND we managed to get through lunch before the torrential rain. Phew!

Plus yummy Costco cake and the world's biggest watermelon

What a couple of weeks. Ben thinks we'll need another couple of recover from that 'holiday' :) Now back to normality! I love being away, but normal life is lovely too. I'll report on our Olympic adventure another day. I think I have overloaded everyone already today!

Birthday trip to Inverness!

Now I am the ripe old age of 23!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We had a lovely family time of it:

On Friday morning Ben and Oliver got up and made me scrambled eggs in bed- my favourite! Scrummy mango-y juice too, yum! Then I opened my cards and presents in bed (a Pentreath family tradition I definitely wanted to keep!!): a really interesting looking parenting book and a baking book from Ben's family, the autobiography of the CEO of Tesco (for anyone who doesn't know, I LOVE Tesco...!) and £30 to spend at a fabric shop (wowwww!!!!!!) from my family and a set of steamer saucepans and a gorgeous owl doorstop from Ben... (I LOVE owls at the moment and it matches our other owl things... and I need to steam things!) and an IOU because one of the presents was late being delivered!!! It should be here tomorrow... exciting! So that was my exciting haul- I must be becoming an adult! :S But my real present was... a trip to Inverness!! We planned it a bit last minute but as Friday was a flex friday (basically, Ben has it off), in the morning we took off up north. Inverness is about a 2-2.5 hour drive and it was lovely, even though it was a bit drizzly. We stopped enroute at a National trust site: Brodie Castle. As is customary nowadays we spent most of the time at the playarea and it was a particularly good one with zip lines and everything! But our boys were a little more cautious.

Then went on to a ruined castle (Urqhuart) right on the edge of Loch Ness. It was GORGEOUS and the sun even came out!! Very, very lovely. We spent a long time at the Loch and the castle and there were lots of interesting films and exhibitions about the castle under siege etc... but Nessie was nowhere to be seen :( 

Then we headed into the centre for a birthday tea at my favourite restaurant- Pizza Express, yum! We all had pizza- Ben ALWAYS has a pizza with an egg in the middle of it and olives, and I had a pancetta, sundried tomato yummy thing and we gave lots to Oliver (and Zachy was on the milky!) Yum. Then we headed off to the lovely little B and B we'd booked up... and everyone slept okay!!! I was quite dreading Oliver partying all night long as soon as he saw we were sleeping the same room/Zach woke him up when we wanted some milk. But it was all wonderful! What a blessing. Our bed was so snuggly and soft too. Ahhh. A wonderfully large and delicious full cooked breakfast followed on Saturday morning, after which we went off to a place called Chanonry Point because we'd heard that you can often spot dolphins from there. Again we were blessed because there were at least FIVE dolphins swimming very close to shore!!!! Probably closer than about ten metres! They were bobbing up and down, and doing synchronised swimming (genuinely!) and a couple of somersaults, it was incredible!! They were really showing off. We got a few pictures of tails and fins coming out of the water, which was the best I could manage- they were so fast! Fab... 

I'll return one day with a flashy camera and snap some somersaults! 

We ended our amazing Inverness experience with a trip to Culloden Battlefield... another National Trust site with a whopping great visitors centre and lots of hands-on info about a battle with the Scots and the British (Jacobites and Bonny Price Charlie?) Very interesting, although Ben was quite engrossed and I had to run around with the boys quite a bit to keep them both happy. Lots of bobbing and nappy changing ensued! :) Then we headed home. 

What a brilliant, brilliant time! Ooh, and on the way we drove past the Inverness Caledonian Thistle Football Stadium. Hooray!!! I waved and phoned my Dad since we love it for its name :)

So this week it is back to normal and Ben has a full five day week... real life! :) Which I rather love. One more week of loveliness until Ben leaves us for nearly two weeks next Sunday evening :( He is going on a fieldtrip for work to Buxton and Scarborough. Savouring every moment while we are all together.