At Dean and Jen's

We spent Saturday night at Dean and Jenny's house. Here are some photos of our time with them...

Violet loved her first time in the jumperoo. I guess we should get down the exersaucer from the garage! I may not be ready for it, but Violet is.

Dean and Jen's garden is gorgeous. They have a new wooden deck and flower beds, and the vegetables in their greenhouse are enviable. The tomatoes are soft-skinned, super sweet and there are so many!

And, their blueberries are bigger and sweeter than ours, too. I think Cora needs to let ours at home ripen longer before she picks them.

Our two loves...

Fun outside Nan and Pop's house

Here are some photos from the last week in Martock.

First, a set of pics from a walk we took around the village and out behind the field behind Nan and Pop's back fence.

A Public Footpath runs through the field with the cows, and we're using the stile gate to access the path. Yes, I made it through with Violet strapped to my chest.

Cora fell at one point, and hurt her hand on a stinging nettle. She later found a stick and beat up a set of nettles. Take that!

Then, we have Pop and Cora checking out the fish, and Nan and Cora doing some planting.

Finally, some pictures from our blackberry-picking adventure.

OK, it wasn't much of an adventure. We just noticed that the bushes in Nan and Pop's neighborhood were ripe for the picking. Nan and Stace made a yummy blackberry crumble tonight, which we enjoyed with custard.

What else have we been up to?

Well, a couple of trips to the seaside - more on that later.

Stace, Cora, Violet and I spent Saturday night at Dean and Jen's house, and on Sunday we - the whole family, including Stacey's Nan - went to get some professional photos taken.

The end result was good, and we'll all appreciate these photos when we get them.

But the process! One strong-willed three-year-old and two little babies (plus seven adults) makes for a long two hours. And, to Euan's credit, he was very, very well-behaved.

Violet needed feeding, and so was fussy for a lot of it, and Cora... We can just say that Cora was being Cora. She insisted on having her fingers in her mouth. (Sigh.)
Thankfully, we did get enough for us to get the shots we wanted.

Cora's mood improved later, and on the drive back to Martock, she was making up songs and asking me to sing along, as she created them. It was pretty fun. One line she taught me - it must have been the chorus because she kept repeating it - went "Let me to the offeray, let me to the offeray."

Ham Hill

We took a walk up Ham Hill this week to tire out Cora and catch the sunset.

We had to explain to Cora that Ham Hill is a country park, like Placerita Canyon is a park, and it doesn't have swings and slides.

But when she figured out that she could run around with Benjamin Bear and play hide and seek with Daddy, she decided Ham Hill was a great place to be.

From the war memorial, you can see all around, and it was beautiful. We are at pictured together at the base of the memorial.

Around Nan and Pop's house

The neighborhood hoodlums

(Yes, this is the view from Nan and Pop's back yard/garden.)

Violet smiles for Pop as she gets ready to practice her rolling.

Here's where we found her when we put her on a mat for some naked bum time.

And here's how we found her in the moses basket we're borrowing from Dean and Jenny. A little disconcerting, but I have read that once they can roll over, you don't have to worry so much about the SIDS risk when they sleep on their tummies. She is sleeping well here, by the way. On Wednesday night, she slept from when we all went to bed, until 7 Thursday morning, and then back to sleep after feeding until 9.
This one also slept well Wednesday night, until 9 Thursday morning. Must have been that hard physical labor she put in when washing Pop's scooter.
It was a big relief for us all when Cora slept so well. The previous nights, she woke up in the early morning because it gets light so much earlier, and put up a fight about going back to sleep until a more reasonable hour. Wednesday morning's fight wasn't pretty. But, hopefully, we're on track now.

Cutie Cousins

Here are some photos of the cousins, on the occasion of their second in-person meeting.

Euan is 7 1/2 months and Violet is 3 months...




And Cora is 3 1/2.

Precious moments

Three great-grands for a great Nan...

On Monday Sue took Cora down to visit Nan in the morning, since Cora was up so early and Stace and I appreciated the chance to get a bit more sleep.

We later joined them, where we soaked up some lovely weather in Nan's back yard/garden. Cora was very entertaining, picking flowers, singing and dancing.

Nan loved up on Violet upon their first meeting.

The weather was beautiful Monday, sunny and warm, but not hot. The kind of weather you want to lounge in, and have to be careful to avoid sunburns!

After Sue took Cora home for lunch and a nap, Stace and I left a sleeping Violet with Mary and walked down to the bakery to get some pasties, meat pies and cider for lunch. Then we had a nice al fresco meal.

Good times.

Arrival

A special treat at the airport was getting to see Euan!

Dean and Jenny's little cutie is 7 1/2 months old, and this was my first chance to meet him.

He's adorable, and very smiley and animated.

He likes to dance and already shows a lot of personality.

We all think he and Violet look alike, perhaps even more alike than Cora and Violet. Could just be the blue eyes and blondeish hair though?

After we left the airport, we stopped for lunch and baby-feeding, while Cora slept very soundly.

Back in Martock, we went to bed around 10 or 11, and the girls did pretty well for their first night. Violet woke up a couple of times, but went back to sleep right after feeding.

Cora slept well until about 4:30, when she woke up with a scream from a bad dream about a snake. She didn't really sleep much after that, but that's not too bad for a jet-lagged little girl.

Today, Monday, she had a good nap and went to sleep around 10:30 at night. Hopefully she'll sleep through!

The Flight

What a great trip we had getting to England, and a great first couple of days!

Who'd have thought that traveling with two little ones would be easier than traveling with one?

Well, at least easier than traveling with one at a certain age...

Cora was very excited about our trip, and she spent much of the prior week packing and repacking her bags. On the day of our trip, she asked to help drive the car to the airport.

As you can see, she also helped pull along our suitcases.

Violet was her normal easy-going self on the flight. She didn't settle into sleep until the last three hours, but hardly fussed while she was awake. (Cora also was easy to travel with at three months - see more here.)

Cora was happy to watch her little television for nearly all the flight, which only lasted nine hours. We had a strong tailwind really pushing us along, as the flight normally takes 10-11 hours.

Even though we landed at 2 a.m. California time, Cora only slept the last hour or so of the trip, and she didn't get a nap during the day, either. She was just too excited!

And considering that, she was extremely well-behaved. Stace and I were proud of both our girls.

On our first trip with Air New Zealand, we were very impressed, and we'll definitely consider them in the future.

You can see the little bassinet that folded down for Violet, and you can also see that she liked it! It just barely gave her enough room to turn over, her favorite hobby at the moment.

The last photo was taken as we were getting our things together to disembark the plane. Thankfully we had Cora's umbrella stroller, as she was in no shape to be walking at that point.