August

The kids with Travis on the route to Stickle Ghyll

Noah & Josh (best friends & cousins)

Amy, Kate & Travis in the storm shelter

Lauryn & Katherine doing the laundry at Dunham Massey

Lauryn & I in the courtyard at Dunham Massey

Summer Holidays!!!!! We had to split this month up since the first half we still had Travis around, and so got lots of days out packed in. We used our National Trust membership to visit Dunham Massey near Manchester, which turned out to be really cool day. The kids loved seeing the deer up close, squirrels, rabbits etc, and the girls got to dress up and try out doing the laundry the victorian way! They loved it. We had a picnic in the grounds and took some family pictures. In the gardens they went on an adventure trail. We drove up to the Lakes and had a day hiking from Wrynose Pass, up to the summit of Crinkle Crags, which Travis and I have been wanting to climb for some time. It was tough on the kids, as the weather was not so good, but we got to use our new storm shelter (courtesy of Trail) and that was awesome. So lovely and warm inside. Jacob was so good considering how cold he got, and we got to really get the benefit of our new baby carrier for Jacob, which this new model has raincover (and wind protection!) we could not have made it that far without it. We are really proud of the kids who made it up all 859m. The beginning of the month we had my brother Pete, his wife Davina and their 2 kids Noah & Maya living with us, in their interim to moving to Austria. We loved having them stay with us, and we were all so sad to see them leave. :(

Travis started working at United Utilities as a Student Engineer, for the rest of the summer until University starts back up in October. He is really enjoying his work and learning so much. He wishes he could just skip the last 2 years of school and just keep on working. He car pools with 3 others from Ainsdale and so that saves on the Gas! The children are so impressed that he gets free hot chocolate and fruit - which we find so funny :) Hopefully all going well they will have him back again.

We had a overnight stay in Langdale at the Bank Holiday weekend, the campsite was a mudbath (from previous rain) and so we got very muddy, especially Josh who was like a magnet to the mud. No matter how hard he tried he always ended up on the ground somehow. However he did not like the shower (clothes and all) he had to have at the end of the day to scrub it all off!! We hiked up Stickle Ghyll part way, which we have done twice before, but the waterfalls were in full force (due to the rain) so it was so beautiful this time around. We had a fun time.

We had alot of fun on Jacob's birthday, he is such a cute baby! We especially love his "funny face"!

School starts back up in a couple days, Lauryn in Year 4, Katherine Year 2, and Josh in his final year of preschool.