Fortieth Wedding Anniversay

Back in February we celebrated our fortieth wedding anniversary. On the actual date we were in Devon for our grandson, Gilby's birthday party. After the fab space party we all went out for an anniversary supper. 

It's not easy to get all our family together, our eldest daughter and family are missionaries in South Africa so they weren't able to join us and the rest of the family weren't able to get together until March when our son organised a great meal out in London at Roka, an amazing Michelin star contemporary Japanese restaurant. 

We met up at the London Museum where the grandchildren enjoyed some time before going on the the Barbican area and then moving on to Canary Wharf where the restaurant is.

The meal was amazing, we all enjoyed the food including the children who all love sushi. The atmosphere and service all added to the great time had by all. 

Grandpa and Ptimrose were trying to avoid the cracks in the pavement 

Eugene enjoyed some special time with Auntie Amy and the children always love being with their uncles 

As well as it being hard to get everyone together it's also hard to get everyone to look normal, I did say 'nice faces please' but clearly some one didn't hear me

They gave us a lovely big table right near the 'all you can eat' buffet 😊

Update

I've just noticed it's been over two weeks since I last posted. As I said last time we have a new grandson, sweet little Eugene. Here he is below, he's doing really well, feeding and putting on weight. He will need a couple more ops but thankfully they live near some of the best hospitals in the world. They are getting great support and all doing really well.

The bluebells near us have been amazing this year, infant all the blooms that are out at the moment are fabulous. 

The week before last, I had a call from my daughter in Devon, her and the children were all unwell so I jumped on the train and went down to stay for a few days to help out. The beautiful view is from their sitting room window and looks across Dartmoor. Thankfully they all recovered and Gilby managed to set up a little library game :)

Friday was my birthday, I had a great day. We walked the dog and had coffee out in the morning. Then got the train into London, met up with our eldest son for lunch and a walk around Islington, I came across two great shops, Ray Stitch and Loop London, for sewing and knitting. We then went to visit Eugene and his mummy and daddy, it was also our daughter in laws birthday so we shared gifts and cake :) and had lots of cuddles with Eugen before we travelled to Leicester Square to see the Carole King Musical which was probably the best show we have seen. I've been catching up with all your lovely blogs and will try to keep mine a little more up to date! 

birthdays

This week saw two family birthdays, sadly we weren't able to travel to Devon to help celebrate so made do with these lovely photos of our grandsons 4th birthday. They celebrated with a camping party in their garden together with family and friends. Our daughter had her 36th birthday the following day.

Gilby Skipp just a few days old he was 11lbs when he was born hence those chubby cheeks

                              

My daughter makes amazing part food, Gilby had asked for a cake with a tent on it :)

This is their tent, Gilby attends a music group and the man who runs it also does parties for children so he was invited over to Gilbys party to sing camping songs with the children

                 

Gilby and his friend enjoying their sausages and beans which had been cooked on the camp fire

Thankfully the weather was perfect after a few days of wind and rain

                  

Archery practice 

                   

Everyone went home with a 'Camp Gilby' tee shirt 

Twins Dresses

When the twins were younger my daughter bought a little dress from a charity shop which had a two layered skirt. They loved this dress and wore it until they could no longer squeeze into it. So my daughter asked if I could make them bigger dresses in the same style. 

I had found this pattern some time back in a charity shop and had used part of it to make their princess dresses for Christmas. I knew the pattern was a little too big for them and as I said in my last post,  I often find it hard to make them clothes being so far away and not being able to try them for size as I go along. The beauty of making two identical items is that second time round You can learn from the mistakes of the first!

So I used this pattern and added extra layers of skirts as requested. The girls are very precise about what colours and style fabrics they would like, Primrose wanted narrow pink stripes going vertically down the dress, Maggie wanted wider pink stripes going horizontal across the dress! 

I decided that horizontal stripes just wouldn't look right and so made them both vertical. 

I completed them and mailed them down to Devon, apparently the girls love them...phew :) I think they probably could do with some darts being put in them and so maybe on my next trip down to see them I could add these to make them fit better around the top. 

                              

                                      

                                       

Home again

We returned from our two week break in Cyprus early Saturday morning. We had a great time, the weather was good, the house which we were loaned by friends was wonderful and the loan of their car also, gave us the opportunity to explore the island a little each day.

Below are some sea photos and I will post some other photos over the next few days.

Tomorrow our daughter will arrive from South Africa to renew her visa, we will pick her up from the airport and drive her to Devon so spend a few days with our other daughter and her family.

 Hubby and I will travel on down to Cornwall to celebrate our 38th !!!! Wedding anniversary on Friday. 

It's been lovely catching up with all your wonderful blog posts since I got back :)

                  Mm 

                          

                           

choosing a tree

I have just taken these photos from my daughters instagram page. They went to cut down their Christmas tree at the weekend, they always seem to have great time running around the trees and then choosing which tree they want...maybe one year we will be able to go with them. 

                                   

                                   

                

little bags

Our eldest daughter arrives from South Africa, on Wednesday we go to Devon and will be joined by the rest of our kids for my Mothers funeral on Friday. Primrose, Maggie and Gilby will be joining us after the church service, it will be a long day as the committal will be in Cornwall later in the day. I thought I would make the children a little draw stringed bag each and fill them with toys that I have collected, some new but mostly from the Oxfam shop (those have had a good clean in the dishwasher)

I am hoping these little treats will keep them occupied throughout the day :)

Devon

Just posting a few happy snaps from my trip to Devon this week.

The sun didn't shine much until the last day but it didn't rain too much either so we managed to get out and about.....

 a trip to Shaldon Village

 fun on the beach and then we spotted a little passenger ferry and jumped on for a trip across the water to Teignmouth 

 a fair bit of scooting was done out on the deck

 a lovely play on the beach before bed time

 then lots of sunshine on my last day

bank holiday monday

You know when I haven't had time to 'make' because I just post photo's of the grandchildren. These were taken by my daughter over the weekend. They visit all these beautiful places by just walking from their house. 

Today we will be enjoying bank holiday Monday with a cream tea in the garden shared with friends from church :)