I've been told off by my Mum for not doing any updates for ages, and since it's Ben's birthday next week and I'll need to put pictures of that on, I thought I'd better get cracking!
First up - here are a few photos from when we went up to Edinburgh to visit Mum & Dad at the August Bank Holiday (although it wasn't a Bank Holiday in Scotland)
We had a walk round to the park near Mum & Dad's house to blow some of the cobwebs away from five hours in the car the day before. Zoe loves swings and slides.
Zoe with Grandad and the horses. In the afternoon, whilst Zoe was having her nap, my Mum and I took Ben off to see 'Room on the Broom' at the Edinburgh Festival, which he thoroughly enjoyed, but no cameras were allowed!
The next day we went to Dalkeith Country Park. I had heard it had a good adventure playground, and we weren't disappointed. I have never seen a slide as long as this one. Ben must have gone down it at least five times.
These blasted photos do not want to move tonight - will come back to this later before I throw the laptop out of the back door! ;-)
There were butterflies everywhere. I really liked these flowers, and Ben liked stroking the middles - he said because they looked really spiky, but they weren't. Even though it is a garden, aimed at people who are serious about their plants, there was also lots for children to do. There was an adventure playground, which they both really enjoyed.
There was also a 'log maze' which Ben enjoyed running round. Here's Ben and Ian standing in the tower that was in the middle of the maze, so you could watch everyone else getting lost!
Zoe has spent the weekend perfecting her walking. Here she is running away from me, again.
Ben, looking at the water insects in the river. Only a few months ago, he would have probably driven me and Ian nuts doing nothing but dragging a stick round all day, but he seems to have grown out of that stage, thank goodness!
Part of the garden had living willow statues. This one is a pirate ship.
They added a little area with some different sized ride-on tractors since we were last there. Needless to say, this was a big hit with both of them.
Ben, taking it very seriously, loading up his scoop with straw and dumping it somewhere else.
Big tractor, little tractor.
And of course, because I was taking Zoe's photo, I had to take Ben's too.
Playing together in the sandpit one afternoon after we got home from Liz's. I think with them being together all the time at Liz's because it's the school holidays, they really are enjoying playing together. Ben was late home one day recently, because he'd gone off to a theme park for the day, and Zoe was wandering round the garden and the house shouting 'Be' (what she says for Ben)
Here we have Zoe, all packed up and ready to go somewhere!
Zoe in her pop up tent and play tunnel. She really loves playing hide and seek and generally chasing round.
Giddy kippers :-D
Ben helping Zoe walk round the kitchen. I really do worry about what they're going to get up to together once Zoe's a bit older!
One giant sunflower, this time with an obliging bee for scale.
This last photo was taken ten days after the first one, and you can see that the biggest sunflower has grown about another foot in that space of time. I think it has stopped now, but I did worry for a bit how on earth I was going to support it!