Summer Holidays Weeks #3 and #4

Last week I forgot to post a re-cap of Summer Holidays Week #3! The weeks are going by so fast! :( I will try to cover both weeks in this post...apologies in advance if it gets super long!

I've already written about Week One here. And the last post was Week Two. Now onto Week Three...

My Week Two post ended on Thursday 4th August. On Friday 5th August we went away for a long weekend to Woolacombe. I wrote about the first part of the holiday here, and the second part in this post.

Our first proper day at home was Tuesday 9th August - a fun day at the beach that I covered in my What I Ate Wednesday post.

On the Wednesday, Liam was lovely - bringing me flowers and making me a smoothie. I was so surprised by Liam's kindness that I didn't post about the rest of the day. It was pretty standard, but some yummy food was involved. A cereal bowl with lots of blueberries and nectarines for breakfast...

and a delicious spinach, mozzarella and pesto quesadilla for lunch...

Izzy and I also snacked on some frozen grapes, sitting outside in the sunshine whilst Toby napped.

I love frozen grapes for a summer snack, so refreshing!

Thursday started with Izzy and I making a repeat of the smoothie Liam had made for me the night before. Lunch was a poached egg and jam sandwich...

The jam is a good substitute for ketchup, but egg sandwiches are always better with fried eggs. Liam prefers poached though, so sometimes I have to compromise!

For dinner we had egg fried rice with peas, soya beans and grated courgette...

Simple, but really tasty. The courgette released a lot of liquid whilst cooking, so this took a lot longer to cook than usual, but it was still really good!

Friday 12th August was Liam's brother's 21st birthday. We all went out for a meal at a Mexican restaurant, which was delicious. I love Mexican food, but had never been to this restaurant before - definitely one to visit again.

On Saturday I went to my friend's hen do, and on Sunday I had a few messy kitchen results, but some yummy food too!

It seems I've written more posts than I realised this fortnight! I don't want this post to be all about links back to old posts. The rest of this week is less covered though as my laptop broke on Monday night. So annoying, but luckily I was able to get it fixed over the phone, phew!

I did cover Monday in my What I Ate Wednesday post - I had a hospital appointment, so Liam and I had lunch out at a vegetarian restaurant first, delicious!

On Tuesday, we went to Costa for a treat. It's still a novelty as our town has only had one for a few weeks! I had an iced peach tea...

Nice, but not as nice as the raspberry version. And a mini pecan and banana bread...

I actually ended up having two of these as Izzy's bottle of Innocent smoothie filled her up so much she couldn't eat her banana bread. And, like my Mother before me (no offence Mum!), I am the human dustbin - eating any of my family's leftovers!

We did have a nice walk home to burn off a few of the calories though...

On Wednesday, I gave chia seeds another try. I prepared a half portion of Laura's Vanilla Chia Seed Pudding the night before, and in the morning topped it with peanut flour sauce and fresh plums...

I tried to like it, but I just can't. It's the texture that I dislike, so I guess there's not really any way to disguise that! I ate the plums and a bit of the top layer of the pudding (ie the peanut flour!) but there was no way I could finish it.

Luckily I had lunch plans on Wednesday so I knew plenty of food would be eaten before long! I went for lunch with my Dad, as well as the children of course. I chose a vegetable curry which came with rice and a poppadom...

and I also ordered a side of sweet potato fries! I  know they don't really go with the curry, but I was so excited to see them on the menu - a new addition since I was last in that pub. Everyone shared them anyway so I only got to eat about half of them though - next time I go there I think I'm just going to make up a meal out of different sides, yum!

Despite the rather large lunch-time meal, when my Dad said he was going to order pudding I couldn't resist. I chose a slice of banoffee pie...

Not the best banoffee pie I've ever had, but I still loved it. Izzy was too full for dessert, but just like her Mother, didn't want to miss out. So she ordered sticky fudge ice cream. I don't think she was expecting it to be quite this big!!

Luckily, as you can see in the background, Toby was more than willing to help out!!

By the time we walked home from lunch, it was raining hard. Toby doesn't really understand the concept of his pushchair's rain cover...

Haha, makes me laugh every time! Normally he sticks his head properly out, and then complains when he gets wet!!

Dinner on Wednesday was everyone for themself. I can't remember what anyone else ate, but I had some dips Mum had given me with various things to dip in them...

I didn't end up liking the dips (the sweet potato one and the guacamole were too spicy, and the cannelini bean one had an odd texture) and Izzy ate most of my pepper, so this ended up being a very light meal. So it was no surprise, as shown in the post about my new hair cut, that I ended up eating half a tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream that evening!

Thursday was also covered in the above post, so I'll move quickly on to Friday, which is actually my today. Liam and I are away for the weekend at a friend's wedding, so I am writing this post on Friday, but will publish it on Sunday.

Friday started with some wonderful pumpkin pancakes. I didn't really have lunch - instead snacking on various little things, like these peanut crackers that I picked up at the oriental grocery store on Monday...

These are so addictive - the peanut butter filling is really creamy and sweet. My kind of snack! I also had a couple of unpictured iced lattes.

Once Liam finished work, we all headed outside to make the most of the sunshine. We went down to the seafront where the others bought ice cream. I resisted as it was only an hour or so before dinner, very proud of myself!! Although of course this is how I should behave most of the time!! Despite being sunny, it was so windy on the seafront...the sea still looked great though.

We then went to the park on the way home. Liam loves the park as much as Izzy does!

For dinner I made a recipe from the Vegetarian Living magazine I read on the train on Saturday. Spicy (or not so spicy in our case) cashew and mushroom rice, with a blob of sour cream dip on top...

Despite the less than attractive photo above, I thought this was really tasty. As did Izzy - she ate all of her portion plus Toby's leftovers. Liam, however, has decided that he no longer likes cooked mushrooms, so spent the meal picking through the dish looking glum. I know he is still a much more willing/adventurous eater than a lot of people, but I really really hope this isn't the start of a slippery slope into fussy eating!!

Do you live with anyone who doesn't eat the same way as you do? Any tips with how to deal with it? Do you cook separate things for them or persuade them to try "your" food? I'm really reluctant to start cooking separate meals as that is what my Mum did when I was growing up - she ended up cooking 3 or 4 variations each mealtime, and both my sisters and my Dad are still quite "fussy" to this day (although one of my sister's is getting better due to her boyfriend cooking lots of vegetables for her!!) Plus I'm lazy, and cooking separately seems like more work. Liam does sometimes cook for himself though - when I go to exercise classes in the evening he'll use meat that's been in the freezer since January (!) to cook for him and the children, it's just not very often as I don't exercise very often these days! I think I'll go back to cooking vegetarian meals I know he likes - nachos, Mama Pea's sloppy josephines, Mama Pea's quinoa pizza casserole etc for a while to ease him back into my cooking!!

Wedding Photos - The Details

We got our wedding photos back last week! There are loads of them, so I have decided to split them up into sections to share onto the blog so it doesn't get too overwhelming! It does mean you'll have to wait until the next post to see any people - for the first part I'll be focusing on the details...

There are so many little touches that go on behind the scenes in wedding planning to make the day special. And indeed, many more details that we could have done. We kept it fairly simple, but I loved how it turned out!


Liam, obviously with his graphic design training, did the stationary. The invites were the first thing he did, but for the wedding day itself there were the Order of Services...

It took so long to choose the songs for the ceremony. In the end we decided on quite classic songs to walk in and out to - Pachelbel's Canon in D for my Dad and I to walk down the aisle to, and Andrea Bocelli's Con Te Partiro for Liam and I to walk out to. We then had more modern music as background for when the guests were arriving, and when we were signing the register. Because our wedding wasn't in a church, we had to get all the songs approved in advance to make sure there were no religious references in them...although we did get about twice the amount of songs approved than we actually needed so we could still make last minute decisions!

 My sister, Sarah, and Liam's Mum, Karen, did the readings, which both went really well. Karen read an extract from Captain Corelli's Mandolin, and Sarah read a reading that she'd found called 'Weddings'. This was particularly appropriate as it was explaining what a wedding was to a child, so good for Izzy, but everyone enjoyed it and the registrar said he'd never heard it before...nice to be a bit different!

Liam also made a table plan which we placed outside the room for the meal/evening reception...

It was my Mum/my family's idea to have the tables named after cakes as I am known amongst my family for making the cakes for most special occasions/random munching! The top table was, of course, 'Wedding Cake'...

One of my Mum's friends spent ages making name cards for everyone, using flowers from her garden. These turned out really well, and went so nicely with the other flowers and the colour theme.

As you can see in the above photos, I made up some purple boxes to keep the children occupied. Inside them, depending on age, were disposable cameras, a colouring book, crayons, a juice carton and stickers. Izzy got a special colouring book as she was the special flower girl/bridesmaid (I don't think my 15 year-old sister bridesmaid would have appreciated one of those books though!!).

Mine and Liam's sisters made a photo board to embarrass us put in the reception room. The one and only time you will see a naked photo of me on this blog!!

This made us laugh, lots of old photos with some funny captions to go with them!

I loved the look of the reception venue. I'd helped a bit on the Friday to set up the tables, put table cloths on, and arrange who was sitting where. But on the Saturday morning lots of my Mum's friends as well as my family went in to work their magic! One of my Mum's former colleagues (who also works at a florists) did the flowers, another of my Mum's friends (who is a close family friend) provided all the chair covers, bows etc as her wedding present to of us, lots of other friends helped and finally, 4 of my Mum's friends were also our 'waiters/waitresses' for the day and made up all the canapes as well. We were so lucky to receive so much generous help! One of the waiters took photos of the room before the day started. I loved looking at these as I didn't ever get to see the room looking like this - the only time I saw it in all it's glory, it was full of people! The room...

Part of the top table...

and some of the venue flowers...

Other details also included the bag I used (which was also my 'something borrowed', thanks Clare!)...

and the ring cushion that Toby was supposed to carry down the aisle (in the end my sister - the bridesmaid - ended up having to carry Toby and the ring cushion down as he got stage fright!!)...

There will be better photos of my bouquet when I post photos of actual people, but for the final 'detail' photo - this is a shot the photographer took of my flowers. For our flowers, we had someone who works in a florists that specialises in local, seasonal flowers. She literally turned up outside our house on the Thursday evening, 2 days before the wedding, with her car boot full of different flowers! So then I chose (well, she suggested) the flowers for our bouquets, and she used the rest to decorate the venue. A really great experience, fun!

I've loved writing this post - it's been so much fun looking back at all the photos and remembering things. As stressful as the planning sometimes was, we had such a lovely day that I (sometimes!) wish we could do it all again!!

Questions: If you are married, what was your favourite part of the wedding day? And if you're not married, do you have plans/images in your head for your 'ideal' wedding? I never really planned my wedding as a child, which I think helped me to go with the flow (a bit!) when it came to planning my actual wedding. I can't actually decide what my favourite part of the day was - I loved all of it! Maybe as I write the rest of these wedding posts my thoughts will become clearer.

I will probably do one wedding post each week as I don't want the blog to become too wedding filled. Plus it's nice to spread them out to make them last longer - I love looking back at all the photos :) Today's post is particularly appropriate as we are actually at a friend's wedding this afternoon/evening. I will no doubt discuss how it all went in the next couple of days but I'm sure it will be a fantastic day! Hope you're all having a great weekend :)

Woolacombe Days Three + Four and a Quinoa Lentil Bake Recipe

You can see the re-cap of the first two days of our holiday here, so now I will talk about the second half of our time away - Sunday 7th and Monday 8th August 2011. I wasn't planning to publish both recaps on consecutive days, but I have so much going on at the moment that I don't seem to have many free days for "regular" food posts (although I will do one tomorrow, promise!) plus I wanted to publish these re-caps this week, so that next week I can start writing posts to share our wedding photos! :-D This post does have a recipe included in it as well though, so it is slightly more food-orientated! Here we go...

On Sunday, we were woken up bright and early again. Well maybe not so bright, it was absolutely pouring with rain all through Saturday night, and Sunday morning. Breakfast was similar to Saturday - Oats & More cereal, chopped nectarine, milk, and the addition of coconut butter. Yum yum.

And when baby had his (early) morning nap, we all ate cake...

I ate so much food whilst we away - being stuck inside a cold mobile home whilst rain poured down onto the roof definitely required comfort food!!

By the time Toby woke up from his nap, the rain had eased up a bit, so we tentatively stepped outside. Izzy got to use her new umbrella...

We first headed to the soft play, but it was absolutely heaving so we didn't stay long. Luckily, by the time we came outside, the sun had come out! We quickly went back to the mobile home to grab our swim stuff, so that Izzy and I could try out the outside water park! Liam took Toby for a walk instead - neither of them are a fan of cold water - but actually the pool was heated, it was just the surrounding air that was cold!!

We also went down a couple of slides which Liam didn't photograph. Izzy had such a great time, lots of swimming underwater, lots of splashing, and lots of laughing!

After swimming, we went back to the mobile home to dry off and eat lunch. The weather was so weird on Sunday - it literally poured all morning, then 2 hours of lovely sunshine at lunchtime, and then poured all afternoon. Luckily we managed to fit in lunch outside before the rain started! Fried egg sandwiches with cheese and jam (we had no ketchup so I took inspiration from Julie @ Peanut Butter Fingers!)...

This was delicious. I adore fried egg sandwiches with cheese anyway (thicker slices of cheese than normal as we had no cheese slice in the mobile home so I had to do my best with a sharp knife!) and the sweet jam went really well. I'm craving this now as I write even though I've only just eaten!!

After lunch, we enjoyed the last of the lemon cake and coffee outside...

After this the rain started again, so we took that as a sign it was afternoon nap time!

We went swimming (inside) again late afternoon...the building the swimming pool was in is huge!

I wanted to make sure we had time to cook dinner between swimming and the disco, so I prepared most of the meal before we went swimming.

Quinoa Lentil Bake
(serves 3-4)

• 175g quinoa
• 1 tin (400g?) chopped tomatoes
• water
• 1 tin green lentils, drained and rinsed
• chilli powder, to taste
• approx 70g cheddar, grated

1. Put the quinoa, chopped tomatoes and a tin's worth of water into a pan. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 15 minutes.
2. Once the quinoa has absorbed all the water, put into a baking dish and mix in the lentils and chilli powder.
3. Top with grated cheese.
4. (Leave whilst go swimming) Bake in the oven at 180C for 15 minutes.

I served ours with tinned sweetcorn for a quick, but tasty meal...

Liam and I both went back for seconds!

After Toby had checked that the disco was actually on (!!)...

we went up to the main building for some dancing!

As it was our last night, we had some popcorn as a treat! We ended up getting through two of these big boxes!!

We also bought Izzy a spinny light thing...

We hadn't been planning to stay at the disco that late on the Sunday night, as instead of a clown there was a talent contest which we didn't think she'd find so interesting. But actually, she loved watching all the contestants so we ended up staying til 8.30pm again, especially as a visit from Betty Beachball had been promised! She told a story of what she'd been doing that day - this was surfing by the looks of it!

*******

Monday was our last day in Woolacombe. I had a mix of the two cereals I'd brought with me for breakfast (we'd run out of fresh fruit)...

and then it was time to pack up. We had to check out by 10am, but we decided to stay on campsite until after lunch (this worked well for us as it meant that Toby had his afternoon nap for pretty much all of the drive home). After we'd checked out, we first went to the under 5s club - it was advertised as a mini disco, but was more like aerobics for the under 5s! Lots of running around, hopping, musical statues etc...great for tiring Izzy out while we drank coffee!! At the end of the session, there was the chance for all the children to meet Billy Beachball...

Most children hugged him, but Izzy just sat there looking a bit nervous!!

We then went swimming for the 5th time in 4 days...

and then it was time for lunch. We went to the same pub we went to on the first day, but this time I made a point of ordering something that wasn't baked - my thinking being I'd get more of it. I was right - this was huge! Penne pasta with mushrooms in a creamy garlic sauce, with more lovely garlic bread on the side...

plus a side of onion rings that we all shared...

This lunch was delicious. I was completely full afterwards, too full for dessert which was a bit of a shame as I'd been eyeing up some kind of apple and raspberry tart with meringue pieces and crumbled brandy snaps on top! Luckily the others were all full, so none of us had dessert. Otherwise I'd have probably ordered dessert despite being full, and felt even more uncomfortable on the drive home than I already did with my pasta baby!!

We left the campsite straight after lunch and made it home quickly. A great holiday, despite the weather. We may not have made it to the beach, but we can do that at home when the weather is better. The important thing is we got to spend lots of quality time together as a family. There was no phone or internet signal there either which meant Liam and I had to *gasp* talk to each other in the evenings! It was kinda nice to have a couple of days away from the laptops and iPhones!!