Happy Easter Week

We are in the home stretch for the Easter Holiday. Michael is still having loads of fun on his vacation. I am happy he has had this time to relax and get to know his new neighborhood and family. He has really been looking forward to the Mad Hatters Tea Party at the Venture Playground. He was very disappointed to find that "it had nothing to do with tea, and only making a hat, and he didn't even win a prize.", still, once he got over the disappointment I think he was happy for the experience and the group was even photographed for the newspaper, which we are now looking out for. I unfortunately was feeling quite ill, so Neil braved this event on his own. As always, he can be relied on for a photographic memoir.

We are excited to announce that Michael has learned to swim in the DEEP end of the pool! What a great leap of confidence! He has also begun to learn the crawl, and he is doing a fantastic job increasing his distance. We are very proud of Michael's swimming progess.

As an official boardgame geek, I have to say that this past week has been a real treat on the game front. Sure, it started out with a most deadly game of Monopoly. Rod clearly would have slaughtered us, but thankfully, it was time to make dinner and we had to pack it in. What was really fun about this game, was that it was on a South African board and we used Lego Batman figures as our pawns.

While we were on the subject of boardgames, I, ever opportunistically, introduced Ticket to Ride to Rod. The three of us played on Saturday evening, and then Michael joined us AND WON!!! on Sunday. We were all very impressed with his playstyle. He was very focused and would often reject our suggestions and plugg along with his own agenda. He won by no small margin. (the picture is not of our game. It was pulled from Boardgamegeek to illustrate the board)

The guys went on a marathon Lego build. Using all of the Lego that Mike has aquired since developing his Lego Batman passion, they diligently built vehicle after vehicle, until an amazing display of Lego genius was amassed. Michael sure is a lucky kid! (though I think that Neil and Rod liked making them as much as Michael did.)

Easter morning! Michael found a bag of goodies from the Easter bunny at the foot of his bed. After coming in to tell us about his find, he ran downstairs to show Uncle Rod the goodies. We hunted chocolate bunnies and eggs and then did the usual picture posing. The coolest thing was that we left a carrot out for the Easter bunny and when Mike was looking for his candy he found it partially gnawed!

Easter breakfast meant pancakes. Neil took on the cooking and made them from scratch, see for yourself what a great job he did with the pancakes!

We had loads of stuff to put on the pancakes. This is one of Rod's.

After Pancakes we decided to do a quick game of Heroscape. It was quickest for me, as I died almost immediately. Mike was out second, and the brothers began an epic battle ending with the death of Neil's skeleton dragon to Rod's green dragon.

It wasn't the most pleasant weather, but we decided to get out for a while and go for a walk. We drove to town center, according to the website, the Boots was open...(it wasn't). Then we went to the park and played for a few minutes.

We had the BEST banana bread and custard over the weekend too. I had never had custard like this before, and it was the perfect combination.

On Monday we went to the Market that is open on bank holiday Mondays in Worthing. We got 8 sirloin steaks, and walked around for a while, then we drove into Hove and walked around for a while more, stopping for a playground break. We went to the BEST fish and chips shop, and then Rod went back home and we drove back to Crawley, ending the very pleasent easter weekend.

On Tuesday Michael had his 10am swimming lesson before we drove down to Hove for our dental appointments. Michael did very well and he must wiggle his front teeth every night to try to get them to come out as soon as possible. Ianne also had some suggestions about his feet and eczema, so we are trying a new diet and soaps and creams for Mike. After only one day of the Aqueous cream there is already a significant improvement of his skin.

I am still working on the second sleeve of my sweater after having been slowed down quite a bit by a persisitant knotting problem (which I have thankfully resolved), and we have some cucumbers sprouting up to join the other members of our small but growing vegetable family.

Today I am ending with a glorious discovery I made yesterday after we went to the dentists. We had a late lunch at McDonalds. As we were walking up to the door I smelled a trace of something that I had not smelled since my late teens. It smelled like apple pie. FRIED apple pie. This is amazing because the Fried apple pie was replaced by the baked apple pie in 1992 in the United States. I had TRIED to like the baked apple pie, but it just never could replace the sinfully disgusting Fried pie. Well, sure enough, they had them...and I ATE one! First fried apple pie in 17 years! I didn't think I would ever have a chance to taste one again. I was in a very happy place :)