Valentine's Day

I used to hate Valentine's Day, not having had a serious partner for a very long time. Now that I am happily married to my man of 6 years Valentine's Day is finally really lovely. He woke me up with chocs, card and heart shaped confetti. I gave him one of my handmade cards and a photo frame to put the recent professional photo of the two of us in. Then he made me brunch and is taking me out to dinner tonight. I am so very lucky to have such a wonderful caring and loving husband.

Sev is going to have his hair cut today. This is big news. Ever since he was a baby he had always had a number 2 hair cut (very short crew cut). Then when he was about 14years old he started growing it long. It is now down to his shoulders. It looks great when straightend but he rarely does this as he needs his sister to do it for him. So it usually is curly and sticks out a bit. I have grown to love his long hair and think it really suits him. However he is thinking of joining the Navy and seems quite serious about this great opportunity. He has an interview with the Navy next weekend and wants to present a good image so is going to have his hair cut to improve upon that image. Can't decide if I am happy about the prospect of his hair cut or not!!

It's snowing again

It snowed again last night. We had just been swimming when we came outside to go home at about 8.30pm and saw all the lovely white snow falling and settling on the ground. We got home and took the dogs out over the green and had a snowball fight. The dogs loved running around in the snow. I took some photos. This photo above is taken from the dining room window looking out into the back garden. I love it, it looks so magical!

This is Andy and me snuggling up together in the snow

Millie looks lost here!
Here is Barney keeping warm in his old man's jacket to keep him dry. Bless him at 14years of age he still loves to play in the snow with us all.
Millie looking sweet, chasing the snowballs that we were all throwing around.





Here are the kids, Sev and Alice enoying the short lived snow. The snow was almost all gone by the nex day.

professional photos

Alice and Millie - Dec 08

Andy and me and the two dogs

Andy and me

We had a couple of great offers at two separate photo studios to have a sitting for free and cheap photos, one in my home town and one in London so we took up the offer and here are the results.

We have one of Millie and Alice as a thank you to Alice for puppy sitting such a lot and being very helpful. The one of me and Andy was taken at the London studio. We were never very happy with our wedding photos so we had always promised ourselves that we would get a good photo of just the two of us at some point - and this is the end product.

I've been playing around on photoshop -

Great weekend

Have had a great weekend although it didn't start off too well. Andy's fish pie made us all very ill so all four of us had the day off work/college/school on the Friday and lazed around in bed making frequent dashes to the bathroom! Started to feel better by Saturday although not 100%.

On Saturday we went to look at a local University for Alice to study nursing in two years time when she has finished her A levels. Here is a link to explain what a children's nurse does in her role. http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/details/Default.aspx?Id=128 She was relieved that she only has to get two Cs in her A levels and one does not have to be a science. Thank goodness. We all really liked the new campus and she had mixed feelings to hear that she would spend 50% of her time on the wards in a placement. Quite nerve wracking but exciting at the same time! Also good news was that the finance side of things sounded much better than I expected so hopefully she wont come out of it with a huge student loan like poor Sarah is going to.

In the afternoon we went to my father in law's for his birthday dinner which was lovely to have all the family around at once. I was invited to be godmother to the latest neice which was really lovely. I have 11 nieces and nephews but most haven't been christened or baptised, so this is the first time I have been asked to be a godmother - so I was very honoured and pleased to be asked. It wont be until May but I will defintely add a photo of the day! Unfortunately the only time I have ever seen my goddaughter to be she is always crying. Doesn't bode well for the christening! :)

Today Andy and I had a lovely walk around the woods with Millie for an hour. It was nice and sunny and even a little warm when in the sunlight. Millie got lovely and muddy and said hello to lots of new doggy friends as well as human ones too. She is much better at saying hello to new dogs, especially those of her own size. Larger ones she is still a bit wary of, but that is no bad thing. She came across another 5 month old pup, a labrador and had a little play with him for a bit.

Andy and I then went to B & Q to look at kitchens. We chose this Shaker Oak Style and discussed cookers and different drawer types [I know! we know how to live exciting lives don't we!! :) ]

After a trip to Tescos (wooppee!!) we got home and had a bite to eat and collapsed on the sofa for an hour or two.

Back at work for three days, one day study then a week off. YIPPEE. I get to paint the dining room whilst I am off.

I have been making some ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) for swapping on ATCs for all - http://www.atcsforall.com/ for a Turquoise Monochrome swap of 6 cards. It has certainly been a challenge to make cards with just one colour - but i have managed it. Today when we were in B & Q I picked up some sample paint pots and colour cards to used on the ATCs - quite ingenious I thought!! hee hee.

As usual the weekend ended with my weekly chat to the DSP (Digital Scrapbooking Place)http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/showgallery.php?limit=last1&cat= gang. There were 18 of us at one time making conversations hard to follow - it is quite fun when that happens, albeit a bit confusing. There are people from all over the world. It never ceases to amaze me that I can chat to friends from so far away every week. I haven't been doing a great deal of digital scrapbooking because of making the ATCs in my spare time. There are a couple of great challenges that I want to do though, so I really must make the time to have a digital crafting session. It was great to chat with everyone - we usually discuss random topics about our lives and how things are going with our digital scrapbook layouts and competitions.

Praia da luz

WOOHOO we have booked our summer holiday. This will be our first holiday abroad as a family ever. We are SOOOO looking forward to it. Andy's uncle is involved in a company that lets out apartments on the beach at Praia da Luz in Portugal. It is going to be HOT HOT HOT and we get to laze around sunbathing. I cant wait. Have just been looking at the websites to see what the area is like. Having a family member who lives out there will certainly be useful for all the best restaurants and where to shop. Luckily we got a great deal on the flights or would not have been able to afford this holiday at all.

It looks scrumptious. Temperature is expected to be between 25 and 40 - so a nice tan will be had. Andy will have lost even more weight so wont be so uncomfortable as he has been in past years. Hopefully Sev will be able to join us and not in the Navy by then! Not sure what we are going to do with the dogs yet! Will sort that out nearethe time, Millie I am sure will be ok in kennels, but I dont really want Barney in kennels.

I took Barney to the vets tonight as he is holding his head lopsidedly and keeps losing his balance. I told the doctor that he is aging and told him about his lack of winter coat, losing weight and absentmindedness and how weak his legs seem to be. He has given me antibiotics for an inner ear infection and a non steroidal anti-inflammatory called Ramidyl. I looked this up on the web site as I always do with animal medication (why doesn't animal medication come with an information sheet like human medication?) There were some worrying stories about 15-20% of dogs ending up with liver failure due to this drug. I have found out the warning signs to look out for - vomiting, not eating and sleepiness. So at least I know what to look out for. If he has any of these symptoms I will be straight back to the vets for a check up. I am uncomfortable giving him this medicine but it has helped thousands of other dogs. So let's just hope he is one of the lucky ones!

swap a blog

On swap bot the latest swap includes swaping our blogs. It is great to check out new layouts and interests. Here are two of the five that have been sent to me.

http://www.puddlebugskidstuff.com/blog

http://www.pbdiva.wordpress.com

Chinese New Year

Andy and I had a great day today in London for the Chinese New Year celebrations. There was plenty going on with music on two stages. Loads and loads of people. Paper lanterns, fire crackers and paper dragons and loads of red envelopes with money in for good luck. We had a wander around Trafalgar Square and then went to Leicester Square. There were some Dragon dancers and we saw one up very close. We had a cold chinese lunch (it should have been hot) but the temperature was zero degrees. On the drive home it snowed.

Find Your Chinese Sign
Note: If you were born in January or February before the start of that year's Chinese New Year, your animal is the previous year's.
Ox: 1901, 1913, 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009

Tiger: 1902, 1914, 1926, 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010

Rabbit:1903, 1915, 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011

Dragon:1904, 1916, 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012

Snake: 1905, 1917, 1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013

Horse: 1906, 1918, 1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014

Sheep:1907, 1919, 1931, 1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015

Monkey: 1908, 1920, 1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004, 2016

Rooster: 1909, 1921, 1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017

Dog:1910, 1922, 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018

Boar: 1911, 1923, 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019

Rat:1900, 1912, 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008

Sev has been getting himself fit ready for joining the Navy. Andy, Sev and Alice and I all played badminton on Friday night. It was fun. I was a bit stiff to start with, but soon got warmed up and really got into the game.

Barbara and Trevor came round after Andy met them in a shop to buy Trevor a cardigan for his birthday. They stopped for a lovely leg of lamb roast followed by a fantastic home made trifle. Unfortunately I managed to break four bowls from our new dinner set which was really gutting as it was only the second time of using it! Oh well. We will just have to try and buy another set.

This weekend we have picked up three photographs from studios where we recently had our photos taken. Once I have them scanned and loaded I will put them up on this blog.