Thank You Cards

After the fun of yesterday, it's time to begin writing the thank you cards...

Merry Christmas 2011!

Happy Christmas, everyone!

Winter Walk

A week before Christmas and it's time for our annual walk, whether we want to or not. It was a beautiful but freezing day which resulted in only one of us falling on the ice once. I don't want to give away who it was but it wasn't Mummy or Daddy.

We had a nice walk to and around a local pond managing to collect a couple of local geocaches that had eluded us until now too! There was plenty ice to keep us amused; even the old folks seemed to enjoy breaking ice, although they did get a bit fed up with me when I wouldn't leave one large puddle and come home for some hot chocolate!

Daddy took a few pictures while we were out. He's got a fancy gadget on his phone for taking photos that look almost as old as Mummy and he uses this as a way to cover up his lack of talent and then displays the photos to anyone passing. And anyone reading this blog post...

Moves Like Jagger

It was Astro Gymnastics' 15th anniversary this weekend and all the members were involved in displays. We had an open day for folk to just drop in and we did a few displays. Dad filmed mine (from the side) on his phone for you all to see. Enjoy! I did.

Engine Engine Number 9

When we were at the Glasgow Science Centre on my birthday, we spent some time building a model of a steam powered wheelchair from Wallace & Gromit. A little ironically it was battery powered but that wasn't important. The lady explained to us how to build it and we talked about the drive and the impact of putting different pieces on that resulted in the wheel not running centrally (a funny lumpy ride was the result!).

Anyway, a nice surprise was that we got to take the model home to finish off. Finishing it off required the cardboard wheelchair shape to be correctly folded and added. Today, Daddy and I did this. And it was no surprise why they didn't want us doing it there! It was difficult and fiddly work. However it did come together in the end and we were both extremely pleased with the quality!

Here it is ferrying some Lego minifigures across the floor:

Fireworks!

This year, for the first time, Dad bought sparklers for me for fireworks night! As usual, we headed to the fireworks display at the local cricket club and they put on a fabulous display as usual. They make a tremendous effort and charge nothing to come along and see. While waiting for the display to start I was able to enjoy my own sparklers and even share them with one of my friends!

Hallowe'en 2011!

This year for Hallowe'en we were at home and after Dad and I made our own lanterns, I got to go out guising with my friends Ellis and Niamh.

I had planned to dress up as a skeleton! I already had suitable pyjamas and Mum managed to find a balaclava, excellent gloves and welly boots to complete the costume. Then Auntie Carol added the final touches with some face-paint. I looked great!

Guising was great fun. I performed a poem at every house we went to and everyone was very happy to see us. I scored loads of sweets and chocolate! It'll keep me going for ages. Can't wait until next Hallowe'en!

I Love the Holidays

Mummy and I have had a great day today. After we dropped Daddy off at work, we went off to Linlithgow for my swimming lesson. I've been every day this week, and I've been learning loads. At the start of the week I told Mummy that backstroke was my least favourite stroke, but now I really like it, and I'm really good at it! Take a look at this:

After swimming we stopped in at Dobbies for a drink and a cake. Yum. To be honest though, I think I ate a bit much (and I know Mummy did!), so we are not going to do that again tomorrow!

We then went home and I played with my Power Miners Lego for ages while Mummy did Mummy stuff around the house. I can't tell you what any of that was, because I can't say I see any difference! After lunch we cycled to the dentist - passed with a clean bill of health (and teeth), and then took the long route home (on purpose!). Then I watched Harry Potter 2 for a bit before we went off to gymnastics - Mummy was just driving, not taking part! As usual I had lots of fun - we're practising for our competition in September at the moment, and my teacher Allen told Mummy and Daddy the other day that he is having to do more advanced stuff with me because I am doing so well. Hooray for me!

And now I am home, playing with more Lego and wondering when Mummy is finally going to be finished making dinner!

Gingerbread Men and Houses!

While we were geocaching on holiday we picked up a trackable. For all of you muggles out there, a trackable is something that you collect from a cache and move to another cache. Each one has a unique number and you log it and look it up to see it's story or goal.  This one was a gingerbread man and its goal was to move around caches and for people who collect it to make gingerbread men and put the pictures on its log. So when Dad went back to work, Mummy and me made gingerbread men! It was fun making them but even more fun eating them - they were delicious!

Last Day of Holiday

Last day today but we did a lot.

We popped over to Lossiemouth to see the beach there. Got another geocache (another earth cache - Dad's favourite kind!) but the weather was a bit dull so we decided to head back to the lovely Findhorn. On the way we parked up at Lossiemouth runway to watch the planes. None took off or landed so we left.

On the way we passed Duffus Castle so we swung in. What an amazing find! This was one very cool ruin. The sun was back out and the guys had just finished cutting the grass all around it. It still has its original wet ditch - just like the moat on Dad's sandcastles! This was now an excellent pond and we saw Damsel Flys and hundreds of baby frogs - Mummy kept giving me a row thinking I would be standing on them. But in all honesty, if I stand on one it'll probably be fine, if she stands on one, well...

One of the coolest things there (so say Mummy and Dad anyway) was the original road over the wet ditch bridge and up to the castle. They said they could imagine ox and cart trundling up it and it reminded them of the roads in Pompei.

We tried to do the jump photo in front of the castle. Had loads of goes at it with Dad having to run back to the camera to set the timer after every shot. We finally gave up with no success and then Dad discovered he didn't have a fast enough shutter speed so we're all blurred anyway!

If you click this photo you'll see all the bad attempts at this!

So it was time to have a swordfight with Dad - cause we were at a castle! And while we were fighting, a Tornado flew over and landed at Lossiemouth runway. Typical. Dad could just about see it in a gap between the trees from where he was at the top of the castle mound.

But the day didn't stop there. There was still time to head to Findhorn beach and make the best of the tide before it swallowed up all the sand. Great times!

Bored

We went to the Findhorn Foundation today. It's pretty cool - lots of eco homes and friendly folks doing nice things. We specifically went so that Mummy could spend a lot of money on take a look at the pottery. I had a good look too but then everyone got a bit worried that I was going to break something - I don't know why they were thinking that. Anyway, Dad and I went outside to wait on Mummy to spend a lot of money. She took a while to spend a lot of money and I got a bit stir-crazy so thought it'd be nice to entertain Dad...

Just call me Zac

Holidays are great. Because it's a long drive, Dad puts the iPod in the car. He thinks he'll get to listen to his own cool old music but I just make him play High School Musical songs all the time. And then sing along to them!

Checkmate!

Bit of chess with Dad today. He almost didn't win...

Don't Get Blown Away!

The weather wasn't quite so good today but that didn't keep us off the beach all day! We headed out to throw the kite up! I had to give Mummy a hand to keep her from blowing away!

And then we went to Portknockie. Daddy wanted to take a picture of Bow Fiddle Rock and it was also our 100th geocache! Got a few others while we there too, yee-ha! It really is an amazing bit of coast (did I say that in another post already?!).

Moray Coast

Today, it was back to the beach for some more playing in the surf and building sandcastles.

At one point, Mummy had disappeared to the top of the beach, after a wee while, Daddy suggested we go see what she was up to. We ran up to see her and she'd dug this massive hole. When I asked what it was for, Daddy grabbed me and held me down in it while they buried me! Wasn't very good though, I got out without any problems... And ate their brains (a light meal)!

Later, we went out to collect a few geocaches further along the coast. It's a pretty amazing bit of coast and we had to haul Daddy away with his fancy camera - he'd have stayed for ages! We got a bunch of caches though and now we've almost got 100!

Findhorn Beach

We spent this morning on Findhorn beach. It was another beautiful day so it was shorts, t-shirts and sun cream! The waves here were excellent and I spent ages running about in the surf and occasionally trying to get Mummy and Daddy wet (they didn't bring swimming costumes)!

Daddy built his customary sandcastle with a little help from Mummy.

And then I customarily knocked it down!

Eventually the tide begun to consume all the available sand so we had a wander along the coast a bit. There's a massive rock dune all the way along. It's so big it's covered several steps on all the access stairs and I wanted to see if I could dig one out. Mummy stopped me after a wee while - she just doesn't have the staying power any more...

Holiday Garden

We're on holiday near Findhorn. The cottage we're staying in has a fantastic big garden and the weather is amazing. I've been playing in the garden with Daddy, throwing the rocket and ball back and forward. If this weather holds we're going to have a great time!

School Bear

Klaus the bear came home from school to stay with me today. He's here visiting from Germany and a different person takes him home every day. We show him what we do and write in his journal. He was lucky to come to me on a Thursday as there's *loads* I do every Thursday (lucky for him but not for me as it took forever to write it all in his journal!).

First we did my homework.

Then we built my new Lego.

Then we practiced gymnastics before I had to go to my class.

Then we went to gymnastics class (I made sure he had his seatbelt on).

And then it was home for dinner before bed.

In the morning, we had breakfast and I filled in his journal. It was a lot of fun having him stay but I won't miss having to fill out that journal - this blog is hard enough to keep up-to-date!