Sunday, 19 October 2008

Out and About

Today we took our Host Student to a local wood, with a visitor's centre and a long woodland walk. Drama Teen again chose to stay at home, although she did have a couple of friends round to visit and wanted to spend time with them.

Little Prince rushed through the visitors centre barely stopping to look at any of the exhibits, I did manage to get him interested in a couple, but that was as much as his attention span could stand. We then wandered round the wood, with Little Prince taking the lead and guarding us all with his wooden sword. Mr Messy managed to get him to pose for quite a few photos, looking fierce and peeping from behind trees, it is quite an achievement to get Little Prince to agree to have his photograph taken, and then an even bigger one to get him to stand still enough to get a good shot!! Little Prince used his sword to defend us from vicious trees and branches, and being Autumn managed to knock quite a few leaves off the trees, which of course made him the winner! About three quarters of the way round the tracks Little Prince's sword broke, while attacking a particularly mean and nasty fence!! Little Prince was upset, but didn't whinge and carry on like I'd expected him to! We explained that we would buy a new one at the visitor centre shop and he was quite happy with that, and even happier when he found a stick to wave around menancingly instead!!

Back at the visitors centre we even managed to persuade Little Prince to let us visit the onsite cafe before going to the shop to chose another sword. I thought it was a bit strange that there were two or three employees stopping going to one part of the cafe, when I noticed a customer lying on the floor. It turns out that someone had fainted or something and was unable to be moved until he either recovered or help arrived. Mr Messy and Host Student had a cream tea (cup of tea and scone with jam and cream), Little Prince had a kids sandwich snack box, and I had a donut and diet coke. After a lovely warm sit down and relax, and after I'd cleaned up Little Prince from his donut (he wants whatever I have, unless its vegetables lol) we went back outside. Mr Messy had thought he'd seen a playground, but after some aimless wandering round he had to admit it must have been a figment of his imagination lol. Little Prince was mollified by us finally going to buy him a new sword, although buying it just before walking through the car park probably wasn't out best parenting decision!! Remarkably we managed to reach our car without incident! We decided to visit a nearby village and look round, the car park was next to the village Church so we explored there. Little Prince was much more interested in the huge pile of leaves in the car park and spent ages jumping, throwing and messing about in the leaves :-) While Mr Messy and Host Student wandered round the churchyard and took photographs. There were many very old gravestones in the churchyard, but they were so weathered that hardly any of the names could be read, which is quite sad really. Hundreds of years ago these were beloved people, who's families wanted them to be remembered in perpetuity and now they are forgotten and what was supposed to be their permanent memorial has worn away. I suppose it just symbolises how transient our lives really are in the grand scheme of things.

On the way home both Little Prince and Host Student fell asleep, so it was a very quiet peaceful journey lol. Host Student is now completing some of her homework, Drama Teen and her friend are watching a movie in her room and Little Prince is playing on the new Star Wars Wii game. Luckily it must be the actual Wii console that stores the scores and stuff, as all the previous data for the games is still available. Which is lucky as Little Prince's game was over half way completed. Host Student has now completed her homework and Little Prince has now comandeered her into playing Star Wars with him. The only problem is that Host Student has never played on games consoles before in her life!! I don't think this is going to go well!!!

2 comments:

Rosie said...

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!! I received the parcel this morning and LOVE all the clothes,book and gorgeous teddies.Starbuck teddy is so cute!
Its so wonderful ,thoughtful and kind of you Janet.It cheered me up no end as I especially love the outfits (as you know).I will take a photo of Marissa in them in the future and send it to you.If I see anything for your Mei Mei that has an African theme,I'll keep it for you.
Thank you so much dear friend,hugs.

Janet said...

Hi Rosie,
I'm so glad you liked your pressie :-) And glad that one day a little girl from China will cuddle the teddies and wear the clothes, even if it isn't our little girl lol. And yes you owe me a picture of Marissa wearing the clothes one day :-)
Love
Janet
xxx


OUR ETHIOPIAN ADOPTION TIMELINE


25th May 2009 - See New Child again & Court Date

23rd May 2009 - Fly back to Ethiopia

26th March 2009 - Fly to Ethiopia :-)

3rd March 2009 - Dossier Arrived at Orphanage

26th February 2009 - Dossier sent to Ethiopia

22nd December 2008 - Dossier back at DCSF

28th November 2008 - Certificate of Eligibility ISSUED

6th October 2008 - PASSED Approval Panel

7th July 2008 - Homestudy Update Started

28th Feb 2008 - Told LA we wished to change country

OUR CHINA ADOPTION TIMELINE

Formally withdrew from the China Adoption Programme 17th July 2008

LID (Logged in Date) with CCAA 16th August 2007

Documents to China 10th August 2007

Passed Approval Panel 5th March 2007

Homestudy started 6th June 2006

First Contact with our LA 1st Jan 2006