2 weeks of half-term joy!

As usual, it was pretty impossible to work this half-term. With our kids’ school recently becoming an academy, we had the unexpected….bonus (?) of a 17 day long half term. Here’s what we got up to…

I confess, it really didn’t start well! The smallest got chicken pox a few days before the start of half-term, so it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to get on with any Oojamabobs related things except orders!

Thankfully, due to vaccination, the chicken pox passed very swiftly with little discomfort and we had a wonderful first half-term weekend, celebrating a nearly 20 year tradition started in my uni days, with good friends, my best dog pal and my family.

We had a surprise for the kids for after October Christmas, so I set up a little letter-finding treasure hunt/puzzle for the kids to discover their surprise treat day, they were very very happy and excited!

And so after our weekend away with friends, we headed to the fabulous Legoland! My eldest has been asking to go on repeat for the last year and we all enjoy it, so with the long half-term it seemed like a good idea.
It was not half-term for most of the country, so we hoped for a quiet day, but alas, it WAS half-term for the jewish school community and our wish for short queues was not quite realised!
Still, we had an awesome time and FINALLY got to go on Flight of the Sky Lions, which was absolutely mind-blowing, by far the best ride there.

Our smallest is a pretty fearful of most rides, which made balancing our various desires pretty tricky! But we traded off a fair bit and time was spent in duplo land as well as on The Dragon and some other faster ones. We really enjoyed the enchanted forest and using my phone to ‘see’ the magical creatures moving around.
This was our third trip to legoland as a family (around my 30th personally though!), we did manage to go last half-term too, I feel like we’re starting to outgrow it a bit and I’m looking forward to introducing my eldest to some more exciting rides at Thorpe Park or similar one day soon.

Next on the agenda was a big day of SEND run by NSPCWT (North Somerset Parent Carers Working Together) in Weston. My smallest was super keen to help me prepare and worked hard in my office bagging MagnaBobs. and helping me pack all my Oojamabobs for the big day.
I worked non-stop this day, making lanyards, restocking boxes to take with me and making sure everything was in order!

On the actual day, I managed to take only photos of the food provided and nothing else…. It wasn’t a super busy day unfortunately, we were tucked away in a far room at the end of a corridor and I think families just didn’t know we were there. But I met lots of lovely people and had a really nice day overall.

We had a few quiet days at home mostly, with one notable trip to introduce my kids to their first ever pizza hut buffet and ice cream factory. Safe to say they were SOLD on this and had the best time eating an excessive amount of pizza and then creating ice cream sundaes. To top it off, we were there right to the end of the buffet and were invited to take as much of the leftover pizza home as we wanted….we may have cleared the buffet….

Next we had a lovely few days away at a holiday chalet in cornwall. We walked on the beach, chilled playing board games at the chalet and spent a LOT of time in the swimming pool, my eldest in particular really loved it and his swimming improved massively.

Next it was time for halloween! My eldest is definitely neurodiverse but as yet undiagnosed. He was invited to a small halloween party with 3 other ND kids the same age and we all went out trick or treating together. It was utterly perfect, fun, wonderful chaos with parents who all just get it. The kids all had a wonderful time, new friends were made and I felt so supported and happy.

My youngest is also ND and struggles a lot with social situations. She got to go to her own halloween party and trick or treating with other friends her age. She came home SO happy and said it was the best halloween ever! I’m so grateful for the wonderful people in our lives, we are really very lucky.

We were invited to a laser light show on the Saturday night at our local haven, the kids had a lot of questions including:

Are they really real lasers?
But if we touched it, would it kill us?
What are lasers made from?

There was a great deal of concern as to their safety, thankfully they were reassured despite my lack of greater knowledge about lasers!

Despite best attempts to pace and rest, I crashed hard on the Sunday and spent the day in bed/on the sofa, too tired to move. Chronic illness doesn’t like to take time off :/

The kids also went to a big local fireworks display Sunday night with our good family friends, we love our little town and the wonderful events we get to attend!

Then, the biggie: Carnival! Monday night was Carnival in Burnham-on-Sea, a huge affair where roads are closed, families line the streets and we watch the most amazing carnival floats come past for many hours. We hung out with our best buddies, we ate, drank, danced, laughed and the kids stayed up WAY too late!

We had a ‘tricky’ few days this week with two very overtired and grumpy children after our whirlwind of a half term, but I think we’re all happy to be back in our routine again.
We’ve had a really wonderful time together this half-term, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having the kids home and we’ve had so much fun together, but I’m also very happy to have time to spend on Oojamabobs again!