Back to school

It's been a very busy summer.

Camping has again been the theme of the summer. We camped with friends at Clarach Bay for a week, we camped at Longleat for four days, and in Essex for four days for Jack's cousin Thomas's birthday.

a crab we caught at Clarach Bay, poor thing had no pincers.

Clarach Bay was good. It's a sea side campsite down in Wales where there's beaches and rock pools and little amusements for kids. Aberystwyth is just a few minutes drive where we went for a wander. We also stopped by a little town called Borth where their annual carnival was on. The weather was unpredictable, but generally good and there were three other families with us. All in all it's one of the best camping trips we've been on.

wild seals at Cardigan Bay

A week or so later we headed down to Longleat for a four day stay. Longleat Safari and Adventure park was great. We got a two day pass and we still didn't manage to do everything on offer.

We went to a gymnastics birthday party in Essex. Now and strange a theme for a birthday party as it may sound it was actually a lot of fun. Basically they took all the kids into a fully equipped gym and let them loose. They had trampolines and balance beams and rings and poles and everything. But with all that around the best part of it turned out to be the chips. Big yellow foam block in a pit designed to catch those who fall off the rings an such. Most of the fun of the party was jumping in an out of them, and throwing others in.

DON'T FALL IN THE CHIPS!

Now summer is over and Jack and I are both headed back to school. Jack is moving into year 1 and I'm moving on to the top-up BSc award.
Jack was apprehensive about going back to school. He didn't think that there was going to be any fun in his new class. He's met his teacher and seen the classroom and despite that, and our constant reassurance, Jack is convinced that his days of having fun at school are over. There's no Mobilo, his favourite building set,  in Year 1, there's no Star of the Day, there's no fun to be had anywhere. On a much more unconscious level Jack is also concerned about the change in routine. He keeps a little itinerary in his head and anything that disrupts it is feared and avoided at all costs. The lack of information about the new classes minute by minute activities really stresses him out.
Often just broaching the subject would be enough to being tears to Jack's eyes and tension to his body. After all moving to year 1 means that he's growing up. Growing up means change, and Jack doesn't like change.

I'm less apprehensive. Through the use of my internet researching school and knowledge of the inner workings of the university's online reporting tool I've managed to have a look at some of my upcoming modules and it looks bleak. Each module is harder than the last, and my optional modules are worse. I'm sure it's not going to be as bad as it looks and I'm looking forward to it.

Here's a bunch of photos.

Jack got to hold a snake.

His new teddy bat

this bird was moving full at speed and straight at me.

Jack and I got to hold and emperor scorpion

Alton Towers' gardens. Jack wanted me to take a picture.

I'd never seen an ant eater before.

This lemur walked right up to us.

very noisy sea lions.

Ready for school

Off we go.

The day has finally arrived. This afternoon we're packing up and heading to Manchester for the night in preparation for our Saturday morning flight to the U.S. 13 hours confined to a seat on an airplane with Jack. How hard can it possibly be? We're taking movies, games, books, and everything else we could think of to keep him occupied, lets just hope it's enough.

This trip has been on the cards for 6 months. Jack has been getting gradually more excited, I think he's still pretty convinced that America is on another planet. He's looking forward to meeting Grandma and Grandpa and with any luck he'll meet his sister as well. I'm looking forward to him seeing his grandparents again and meeting all of his cousins, many of whom are of similar age. I'm looking forward to showing him all the things that I knew when I was growing up, like toosie-pops.

Jack is taking Dylan with him. We figured with the eminent jet-lag anything that would help Jack get to sleep should come with us. We've even gone to the trouble to get a teddy bear passport for him... Oh the things parents do.

So armed with his favorite teddy, a brand new Ben10 holiday bag that he's packed himself Jack is taking to the skies. America here we come. You would do well to stock up on lollipops.

I threw a little video together this morning as well.