End of Easter Tryp

End of Easter 2009

Easter Birthday

Aiden's birthday was cool - he was up at the absolute crack of dawn - before even, as one is when it's your birthday - and zoomed into our room. Between then and this photo, he'd woken Ev, convinced him of the value of a quick cheerful get-up (this being a good thing - Ev can be seriously grumpy for the first hour or two of a day), got something to eat, and arranged the prezzies he spotted next to the bed in a circle on the carpet, and plonked himself in the middle of them, smiling excessively. Then with he help of Ev he tore into them, and by 8am had got himself into one of his quiet acquisition blues moods - these afflict Aiden twice a year - birthdays and Christmas - where he gets himself so worked up for weeks before that arriving at the event can only be an anti-climax - funny, complicated child. We had a party for him later that day, with a gang of his friends. Ange made him a really cool easter egg cake, and by the time the head hit the pillow 15 hours later our little friend had had a wail of a time, completely, as had his little boet. Ange and I had a really nice time too, the parents of his mates who came to pick up their kids were really cool - one of them brought me a carrot cake, because this is my thing - superkind, and tasty. Yesterday we went to the beach and later, for a walk in the forest, which was cool - Ev's old enough to make his way up - needs his hand held on the way down still - lack of common sense and abundance of bravery dictates. I took these really nice photos of the boys. They were already quite grainy from highish ISO settings, so I added some in photoshop to even it out, and I think they look pretty cool. I really like the one of Ev, he's such a beautiful little kid in every sense.

Short weeks starting

A pretty standard weekend has just passed, but what a treat. I'm finding that I really need these, and am starting to think that I've gone too long without a holiday. I hope your term has passed meaningfully, and that you have plentry in your easter hols to look forward to. Despite a grey day we went to the beach yesterday, not a huge success, but we needed to go to a particular place, miles away, so that we could get Aiden a boogy board for his birthday on Thursday. The place that sold the boogy boards also rents out surfboards, so we hired one, principally as a distraction from the boogyboard transaction. I waded out with Aiden and made him lie down on it, waited for a broken wave (in the shallows) and gave him a push into it - off he went, boogy-board style. Then at some point he decided he should stand up - so he did - and cruised along. I was pretty amazed, and he was very chuffed. What's the big challenge, like? However, he then spent the rest of our time in the water trying to do it again - but alas - never quite regained his initial glory run. He did however do a spectacular face plant, somehow managed to get face first into the sand with his mouth open - took a bite out of the beach so to speak. Not to be recommended. Ev had a short go on the surfboard, lying down, with Aiden in front of him, but they wiped out pretty early on, and of course Ev fell in, but couldn't stand up because Aiden's leg was on his head. When I pulled him up he was already pretty cross about it all, and went to sit on the beach between Ange's legs looking out like some angry little animal. There's a dodgy typhoon battered little restaurant on the beach that makes pizza and chips, in both instances well, so some blue lipped troops had a quick chowdown and that lifted the moods. Looking forward to next weekend - four days - oh yes, having a party for Aiden on Thursday, and then not sure what next. Keen to get my boat licence sorted out, because I saw our mate Kevin this morning and they're off to Dai Long Wan to go camping, which is absolutely the thing to be doing. So that's something that needs to be sorted now that my SFC banking thing is behind me. The one below is from the set before - just a reminder to keep on the level there mate, the big A is watching.