Weekend in North Devon

Hello! How are you all? I seem to have gone AWOL over the last week, whoops. The summer holidays got a bit on top of me - we have been busy doing lots of things, meeting up with friends etc...without a camera in sight!
I did take lots of photos last weekend though, albeit on my iphone rather than with my camera, so I thought I would share those with you to "get me back into" blogging. I went up to North Devon for my friend's birthday weekend. I got a train up early Saturday morning and came back Sunday lunchtime...while Liam stayed at home with the children, bliss!

As I said, the train was - by my standards - early on the Saturday morning, so all I had time for before leaving home was a coffee. I had a Luna bar on the train to keep me going...

I wish I'd eaten more though as we didn't end up eating lunch til gone 2pm!! When I arrived in Barnstaple I went to my friend's house to catch up with everyone. There were 9 of us in total (including my friend and her husband) for the weekend. Once we were all organised, we headed to Tesco to buy lunch and then drove to a beach called Braunton. We parked our cars there before embarking on a walk to Croyde beach, which took us about 1.5 hours. Lots of pretty views, and Go Ahead bars provided by our host to keep us all going...

When we made it to Croyde beach, we spread out our towels and sat down to eat lunch. I was so hungry by this point!! Falafel wrap (this wasn't like normal falafel wraps - it contained sweet potato falafel and mango chutney...really good), fruit and water...

plus a pack of veg crisps...love these!

Once we'd all finished eating we walked down to the sea for a paddle...

Sadly we only had about half an hour by the sea as we figured with 6 girls wanting showers we better make sure we were back at the house with plenty of time to get ready for our evening out!

We still had to walk back to the cars...

With more great views - at this point I was wishing I had brought my camera with me!

Once we got back to Sarah's house, we all took it in turns to shower and get ready. I had a berry cider whilst at the house...

I normally stick to spirits if I'm drinking, and whilst this was quite nice I think it contributed to my stomach ache/bloatedness later in the evening...too many bubbles!!

For dinner, Sarah had reserved us a table at The Bank in Barnstaple. We were seated in a room at the back, with balloons all over the table, so whilst there were a few other diners also in the room, it felt like our own private party!! Unfortunately my phone didn't deal too well with the low lighting, but these are the photos I took. Strawberry daquiri...I ended up having 2 of these...amazing!!

And for dinner, pancakes filled with a creamy mushroom and green bean mix...

This was really tasty, full of different types of mushrooms. It was also really filling - I surprised myself by turning down dessert, despite things like banoffee pie on the menu!!

We went on to a couple of bars after dinner, including a cocktail bar where I decided I was ready for "dessert" of a creamy chocolate mint cocktail...

So good, but it definitely finished me off for the night! I was in a lot of pain with a really bad tummy ache by this point so I stuck to water after this. I still did lots of dancing to "retro 80s music" (Mama Mia, Grease, Macarena, Build Me Up Buttercup etc...it was like being back at uni when that type of music used to play all the time!) when we went on to the nightclub though - at first I had to kind of force myself for my friend's sake, as I was in so much pain, but by the end I was having fun again!

We didn't go home until about 2.30am so I was hoping for a nice lie-in without children. Unfortunately my body clock had other ideas and woke me up at 7.30am. Boo. I read in bed for a few hours before heading downstairs to have breakfast. Cocoa rocks, orange juice and several mugs of tea...

We spent the rest of the morning relaxing at Sarah's house, watching DVDs and waking up properly. I got a train home just after lunch (after teaching Sarah to make omelettes, which we filled with cheese, mushrooms, peppers and onion. Photo didn't come out though) and came home to flowers...

and Liam having finally got round to putting up my graduation photo and his guitar (still need to buy a frame for his grad photo, and he has another guitar that he wants to hang on the wall too), haha, apparently he missed me!! ;-)

Such a nice weekend away - just what I needed to recharge my batteries - but it was nice to be home too. Izzy and Toby had so many things to tell me about what they'd been up to with Liam all weekend, so it sounds like a nice time was had by all! :)

Have you been away anywhere nice recently? Any summer holidays to far off places?? We aren't going abroad this year so have just done little trips. Butlins, the zoo, my weekend away etc. There's plenty to do around where we live - and with the children so young it is probably easiest to stay close by anyway - but it was lovely to sit on a sandy beach in the sunshine for half an hour...if only the weather was more consistently summery here!!

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! :)