Summer Holidays Week #1

I can't believe that the first week of the summer holidays is already over! We have had a busy week, but it's all been good fun! :) Lots of days have been spent out of the house without a camera - luckily I have a few iPhone photos - via Instagram - to share!

Monday:

On Monday, Izzy and I went to the beach...

We had lunch at my Mum's beach hut (egg mayo salad pot) but on the way back I had to stop at a new shop I'd spotted on the way down to the beach...our town now has a frozen yoghurt bar!!!

I had Berry Alert - fro yo with strawberries, blueberries & strawberry sauce...

Delicious! :) I think my fruity one worked really well with the frozen yoghurt. Izzy had a chocolatey one - with maltesers, crumbled flake, marshmallows and chocolate sauce, but I thought it tasted a bit strange in contrast to the tangy yoghurt. She still liked it though! :)

Tuesday:

Most of Tuesday was shown in my What I Ate Wednesday post. I didn't actually do that much that day - it was mainly a housework/gardening day for Liam and I...

but Izzy had a great day - going to the play park and lunch with my Mum, and then going birthday outfit shopping with my little sister - she was out the house 11am-5pm!! My sister texted me various photos of Izzy trying on outfits, but this was the one they decided on in the end!

Wednesday:

On Wednesday, we'd planned to have a relaxing day with not too many plans. But at 9am I got a text from my friend, and by 9.30am we were on our way out of the house! My friend and I took the kids on the bus to a local garden place with play areas. The children had great fun...

Thursday:

We waited until Liam finished work on Thursday, before heading down town for frozen yoghurt. I had the same berry option I'd had on Monday...

but supplemented it with Lizi's chocolate granola and honey rice puffins!

The others had the chocolatey version, of course!

We then headed to the local park which has recently had a big re-vamp. This was our first visit since the new stuff had been put in (although Izzy had been twice on Tuesday, with my Mum and with my little sister). There is now a zip-wire...

Some kind of spinny thing...

And a rock-climbing wall...

Very cool! :)

Friday:

Most of Friday day-time was spent decorating butterfly birthday cakes, but in the evening Liam and I got to go on a rare night out! We first headed to a vegetarian/vegan food van to get my dinner...

where I bought a pitta filled with lots of different salad, falafel, tahini and houmous...

before heading to the pub to meet my sister and her boyfriend for the evening. My Dad was there at the start as well, before going back to ours to take over from my Grandma on the babysitting front, and bought us all our first round of drinks as well as hog roast for everyone else - thanks Dad!

Despite appearances, my drink is actually a Pimms and Lemonade, and Liam's in the background is a pear cider! We spent the evening with my sister and her boyfriend listening to live music and chatting to each other and the various people that popped by - busy busy! It was a really good night :)

On the way home, Liam and I couldn't resist the pancake van! Liam had a pancake with Nutella and marshmallows...

and I chose one with banana, sliced almonds and brandy toffee sauce...

Clearly it was delicious - a great end to the evening!!

Saturday:

I have already blogged about - it mainly consisted of Izzy's 5th birthday party!

Sunday:

Today we have had lots of visitors to see the birthday girl!!

We started with a fun breakfast though - Izzy requested a smoothie, but in reality her favourite part is the toppings, so I set them out in little bowls for her to put on herself. Lizi's chocolate granola, fresh cherries and desiccated coconut...

With Cocoa-Raspberry "Pudding" Smoothies as our base, Izzy started topping...

She was loving the coconut - "just one more handful"...

but did eventually move on to the other toppings - at the end she said her smoothie was better than mine as hers was more "snowy"!!

Luckily, unlike the second breakfast in this post, this breakfast got the thumbs up...

and Toby wanted to get in on the smoothie action too (I did offer him some of mine, but seemingly that wasn't good enough!!)

Haha, funny photo!! She did actually happily give him a few mouthfuls, but he can be a bit pushy (!!)

After breakfast, the visitors began - this morning my sister and her boyfriend came round, as well as my Grandma. This afternoon, my Grandma & Grandpa popped in. They all wanted to see Izzy and give her pressies! They also came for cake too - this morning we had the whole 2nd cake untouched, but luckily it has gradually been eaten...

More has been eaten since this photo - we now just have the body and the left-hand side left for tomorrow. Phew! Maybe we wont be stuck eating cake all week!!

Right, that is me done for the night! I've also spent hours writing a very photo-heavy post that I will publish tomorrow morning for Izzy's birthday - it's been fun looking back at all her baby photos!!

What has been the best thing you've done this week? I've had so much fun, I don't think I can even pick just one day! The beach on Monday and the night out on Friday were probably the most relaxing times, and of course the arrival of fro-yo to our town is always a good thing!

Also, in case you missed my request at the end of yesterday's post - any offers of guest posts would be appreciated - please email me at porridgeandparsnips@live.co.uk Thanks! :)