Avoiding Halloween

Yes..... I know I am so behind with my blogging - and it's not ideal, and I am sad that I have missed blogging about a lot of the day-to-day things that have been happening here - but it can't be helped I guess - we can only do what we can do! Anyway.... I was trying to avoid Halloween this year. It's not that I don't like it, but I feel it's 'just another thing to spend money on.'

There were so many halloween things out in the shops here - a lot of people seem to celebrate it here and it seems to be getting bigger each year.

So anyway - I was going to ignore halloween, but we had some friends invite us over for a small party and to help hand out the treats to the 'trick or treaters,' so we ended up celebrating halloween after all, and it was really fun. The girls had a really really fun night and were just so excited to go to their 'first halloween party'!!!!!

I whipped up another last minute costume (this time on the day though and not the day before) for the girls - this time Minnie Mouse costumes - a Red Minnie and a Pink Minnie!

The girls couldn't wait to get into their costumes and head out to the halloween party. They were a little sad that Daddy had to work and couldn't come but were very excited to tell him all about it the next day!

So we took our Mars Bar Slice (mmmm.... so good... and a great way to end our 30 days of no chocolate!!) and off we went!

Showing us their tails!

{Emily with Adelphi. She was very excited to find that Mickey Mouse was at the party too! Lucky Em took her Minnie to play with Baby Hannah's Mickey!}

{My good friend Janet and her daughter Hannah with her Mickey Mouse!}

{Leilani wrapping Adelphi up as a mummy!}

{Emily wrapping Sophia up as a mummy!}

It was a really fun night and great to experience a 'real halloween.' We had quite a few 'trick or treaters' come to the door and we also got to see lots of fireworks. It was bonfire night here a few days after halloween, so crackers and fireworks were being sold in all the shops - which meant throughout October and November we saw and heard quite a few. (Just the general public letting them off in their backyards!) It was the next door neighbours we saw from Janets!

On the way home though, there was a huge display going off at a local club, so the girls and I pulled over and watched them. Leilani and Emily thought they were just fantastic and talked about the fireworks for a couple of weeks. 'I have never seen fireworks like that before' Emily said. 'That was the best night ever' I think Lani said!!

Here are a couple of shots I got of the fireworks....

I have lots of memories of 'bonfire night/cracker night as a kid. We had so much fun together. And I'm sure everyone has a story of when some one nearly lost an ear or an arm. It was sad when they stopped selling fireworks to the general public, and bonfire night no longer happened each year, but I do think fireworks are pretty dangerous things and I'm kinda glad people can't just go around letting them off whenever and wherever they want (without a permit) because it can get a little crazy!

Ever Heard of the Eden Project?

Before returning home on Monday after our fun long-weekend in Cornwall we stopped in at the Eden Project. This place is totally amazing! The Eden Project is an educational charity trust. They use exhibits, events, workshops and educational programs to remind people what nature gives to us and to help people to learn to look after it in return. Because it was school holidays it was really busy and took us about 30 minutes just to get in! They get over 1 million visitors a year and work with schools, colleges and universities.

It was a really foggy day - and it was also raining on and off which I think was another reason it was so busy - because as you can see in this picture - a lot of it is under cover!

Inside these massive bio-domes was like an outside, undercover rainforest museum. We only went in one - there were two, a Rainforest one and a Mediterranean one. We went in the Rainforest one, and it was really quite hot in there. I actually felt a lot like I did when we were in The Louvre in Paris - there was so much to see, people were everywhere and we didn't know which way to go first! Everything was displayed so well though and there were so many different plants - all with labels telling you what it was, where it grows and what it's used for, along with SO many others things to see and learn about. You could spend days in there... and you quickly forget that you are actually in Southern England in the middle of Autumn pretty quickly - it's unreal!

Because we went just a few days before Halloween, they were having a bit of a Halloween festival on in one of the huge tents - with pumpkin carving and story telling, face painting and magic potions to mix up, there were even holes to stick your hand in and feel yucky gooey mysterious objects! Of course our girls just watched all the goings on and didn't really participate - they like to do that!

Lani considered putting her hand in a couple of times, but just couldn't do it! (It was fun watching the guy on the other side (through a secret window) teasing everyone as they put their hands in!

There was also a Winter Wonderland event happening. This big ice skating rink is set up for the winter season (well October - February) and it looked awesome - just like a real Winter Wonderland - I couldn't resist having a skate!

I talked Lani into coming out with me - she was quite excited about it! We had to wait about 20 minutes for our session to start - which ended up being longer than we were out there!!!!

I didn't actually realise how hard it was to ice skate with a little kid! We did well on our first round - but just trying to keep Lani standing up straight was a challenge - and quite tiring! We hadn't been out there long when we both slipped over. Lani was a bit upset about it and wanted to get off straight away - I tried to get her to have another try, because I didn't want her to leave never wanting to try again. But she didn't want to and I don't blame her, cause it hurt and was a bit of a shock at first. I don't think I have ever fallen over ice-skating before! I wouldn't exactly call myself good at it, but I do know how to skate and felt quite confident that we would be okay together - needless to say, it was a lot harder with Lani than I thought! I didn't feel the pain at first cause I was just worried about Leilani, but over the next couple of days I had big bruises and was quite sore! I don't think we will forget our first ice skating experience together anyway!

I doubt we even saw half of what they had here at the Eden Project, there was just so much to see and do it was all a little overwhelming. The place is just unreal though, and it's such a clever and interesting way to teach and inspire us all to be more green!

The fog lifted a little while we were there, this view - even if you saw nothing else was worth the trip here! So different to anything else - probably in the world!

You can never exit one of these big tourist attractions without going through a 'gift shop!' I enjoyed having a quick look at all the interesting environmentally friendly things they had here on display... it was good to see Australia and its main feature - Ayers Rock!!

This Christmas tree was very interesting - and gave off a lovely smell... how clever!

We had a great day at the Eden Project but I think we were all glad to be on the road and heading for home... once again!!!!

Truro Cathedral

Truro is one of the bigger town/cities in Cornwall so we drove through for a quick look. We didn't get out cause it was raining but took a couple of pictures of Truro's cathedral - it was hard to get a good picture from the road but here is one...

Even after seeing so many I am still amazed at how big these cathedrals are. They are just huge and stand out so well in the towns and cities - they are often the first thing you see driving into a town and a lot of times there are more then one. You can't really tell from the photo because we drove up on a hill to look at it - but this one was really tall. Hard to believe they could build such huge things all those years ago. It still impresses me. I know we have churches and cathedrals in Australia but they don't seem to dominate the town as much as they do here. Here it always feels like the town was built around the church/cathedral. I really like the spires on Truro's Cathedral.

Caravan Fun

Our Caravan was very squishy but was very relaxing. We wanted to try and see lots of things in Cornwall but we were also feeling a bit lazy and just wanted to relax and take it easy for a few days. So we tried to get in early most days (late afternoon) so that we had time to lay around and do nothing. I read. Mick read & watched telly and the girls did all sorts of things! It was GREAT! I nearly read a whole book - another one by Erica James. I love the way she writes and the way she makes you feel like you know each of the characters personally and have known them for years. Every time I finish one of Erica's books I usually end up feeling a bit sad the next day because I feel like I have lost some friends!! (Do you ever feel like that when you finish a book?) Anyway, it's such a great feeling laying around reading, knowing that you don't have washing or ironing or dishes that need doing. You have so much more time when you don't have to cook dinner - tinned soup doesn't require any preparation and hardly any clean up! So we spent lots of time laying around in front of the little fire reading books and drinking hot chocolate... what a great life!

{The girls eating breakfast one morning... with red cheeks from sitting by the fire!}

{Ready for bed.... this room was so tiny... the girls thought it was great! Although Emily did fall out of bed one night!}

{Some jumping!}

{Outside our van! Leilani was hoping it was going to have wheels on it - when we told her we were going to stay in a caravan she started telling us how we will be able to get whatever we want while we are driving! I think she watched a show once about caravans... we had to explain that it wouldn't be one that we can drive!}