Aaron's Blog

Archive for the ‘Year 2 to 3’ Category

A couple of weekends before Christmas, Kelly and I booked up a surprise weekend for the boys at Butlins for their Winter/Christmas spectacular. We managed to get a really good deal for the 3 nights so we couldn’t turn it down really! We didn’t say anything to the boys until just before we left on the Friday, so when we told them, they were ecstatic! Ben was jumping around and hugging us and Aaron was following suit, probably because he was too young to understand fully what was happening! 😉

So we got up there on the Friday late afternoon and went to our apartment (no free upgrade this time!) and unloaded our gear. Kelly had made pasties for us so we had those quickly for tea before going over to the Skyline to view the evening shows. We saw a show called ‘Winter Wonderland’ which was basically a Christmas musical, which was great. The boys loved it, as well as the lightsaber toys we got them as all the other kids had something similar from the shop! We then went in the arcade and saw a couple of other shows in the main pavilion. The boys had a great first evening and didn’t go to bed until quite late!

On the Saturday, we got up a decent time and went swimming. We had a good hour or so in there and the boys enjoyed going around the ‘river’ section where the current pulls you along. Was freezing when we got out though!! We then nipped home for showers and then went to the pub for lunch. It was very good this time and pretty quick, which was a relief as the pub was pants when we last visited Butlins in July. We then spent the afternoon in and out of shows (inc Superslam Wrestling where Ben and I got some autographs and Ben hi-fived a wrestler!), and also stopped in the arcade occasionally. All the shows we saw were great and good fun to watch. The highlight of the day was the ‘Skyline Snowstorm’ which started off with a few songs from the Skyline Gang, and then a countdown until the snow commenced.  It wasn’t actual snow mind, but small bits of silver glittering paper fired into the air via some very strong fan units. The effect was great though and was just like a snowstorm. The boys loved it and were ages playing with the glittering paper by picking handfuls up and throwing over myself and Kelly. Very good fun! We then had to go off to see Father Christmas at 18:45 as this was the timeslot we had been given. We first had to walk through the pouring rain to the front of the building and to the entrance of the winter wonderland, and then through a very well done walk that included Christmas ornaments and settings, until we got to an Elf who let us in to the queue to see Father Christmas.  There was a bit of a wait which included meeting the Gingerbread Man (and a photo) and counting how many present images were hidden around the area.  When the boys met Father Christmas, he was asking them questions and Ben was answering nicely and then they posed for photographs by myself and a redcoat guy, and then they each got a box of chocolates. We then made our way out through the rest of the Wonderland and back outside. It was very good and very well put together!  The evening actually got even better when, later on, I won a large Minion soft toy on my first go on the grabber machine in the arcade! I was so excited I was shaking as I hadn’t won anything on those machines all year! 😉 Ben then went and claimed it though! Cheek!

On the Sunday, we went to Bob The Builders Yard where we spent hours last time as the boys went around all of the children’s rides. For some reason this time, Aaron didn’t like half the rides which was a shame! He started crying on several of them so we had to have them stopped to take him off! We saw several more shows during the day, with the best one being the Pantomime ‘Beauty and the Beast’ which a lot of the entertainers from the other shows acted in (inc Skyline Gang members). The Pantomime was great and very funny! Aaron slept nearly all the way through it, but we enjoyed it very much even though we weren’t in the most ideal of places! We also went to a craft workshop afterwards where the boys made a cracker each. Ben got in a mood in this as he didn’t want Kelly to help! So she had to ask for a new one to start again and then let Ben do it all on his own! Tut! Aaron also had to dash to the toilet there as well which was typical, but luckily there was a little toilet in the craft area! We saw other shows, including the Snowstorm again, which were all very enjoyable and had some more time in the arcade and Ben went in the soft play area next to the arcade. We won several little toys on the 2p machines (we were addicted!) and had great fun, although by this point, we were quite tired and couldn’t quite believe it was Sunday evening already! The boys also got a large Christmas balloon each during the afternoon – Father Christmas for Ben and a Snowman for Aaron.

Sunday night was a bit of a nightmare as Ben woke up crying lots and wouldn’t go to sleep as he said he had earache and his cough started up badly again. Kelly ended up having to sit up with him for half the night, which was not good seeing as we had to pack our things and drive home on Monday. I was a little worried about the lack of sleep and having to drive for a couple of hours, but we managed it OK. We quickly went back to Bob The Builders Yard during the morning and had a last wonder around again (and packed the car in the rain!), before leaving Butlins and parking in the car park at the sea front (across the road) to have a bite to eat before setting off home.

We had had another great time at Butlins and enjoyed every minute of it (apart from losing Aaron for 5 minutes on the Sunday night!) and would love to go back again sometime soon.

Here are some photographs of the holiday. 😉

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The Saturday before Halloween, we all went to the local Halloween Party at the Woolwell Centre for the second year running. It was good fun again and the boys (and Mummy) both dressed up although Aaron did his best not to dress up! We met a couple of Kelly’s friends up there who have children that the boys know so they all played together in the room with the bouncy castle and colouring books, etc. They had a great time and Ben, like last year, was sweating buckets each time he came back to the table for a drink! Here are some pictures of the party.

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The following Thursday (on Halloween), we held a little tea party for Ben’s friend (and family) from when he was at pre-school (and who just live down the road), so they came over and had a play and some party food. Kelly had made some Halloween buns as well which were great, and we put a few decorations up for the occasion. We then all went out trick or treating and the boys dressed up in their costumes and got loads and loads of sweets! I can’t tell you how many sweets they had, but their buckets were brimming over with them! The boys had great fun and had to dive into their sweets as soon as we got home! Lucky the weather was dry this year for when we were out and about.

During the Summer, and especially during my two weeks off, we went and visited several places in the local area. These included train trips to Teignmouth, Paignton (where a seagull attacked Ben for his sandwich!) and Dawlish, visits to Lappa Valley Railway and Pennywell Farm, as well as our first proper family holiday away together at Butlins (which you can read about here).  So here are a few pictures that were taken during the holidays. 😉

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Kelly and I had a scare a couple of weeks ago as Aaron had to go to hospital as he was struggling to breathe! What started off with us thinking that he had caught a bad cough from Ben turned into a hellish day for all of us!

It started off in the morning when he got up and sounded a bit wheezy but then he started being sick and was very worked up to the point where he was struggling to catch his breathe. So Kelly rang the doctors and managed to get him in for 9:50 and I went off to work as normal expecting it to be a bad cough or chest infection, but when I got out of a meeting at work, I saw a text from Kelly to say ‘at hospital’ so that was a shock! As there was hardly any signal at the hospital it took ages to find out what had happened and what was going on, but eventually I found out that Aaron was struggling to breathe in the waiting area at the doctors so a nurse rushed him in and said to Kelly ‘ I don’t want to alarm you, but I am going to call an ambulance to take you both to hospital’ so that obviously shocked Kelly. So they went off in an ambulance, buggy and all, and they put an oxygen mask on Aaron. At this point Aaron was extremely worked up and wouldn’t have any medicine, so at the hospital they had to pin him down in the waiting area in front of other patients (!) and the nurse had to force a syringe in his mouth with steroids in to open up his air ways.  This obviously had them both in tears but thankfully, it did the trick pretty soon after, as he started to settle down and eventually had a drink of squash that they provided.

By this time it was gone midday and the nurse asked them both to stay on as long as they wanted to, but just after 1:15pm Kelly decided to go home so I went and picked them up and worked from home in the afternoon. A couple of paediatric nurses visited about 20 minutes after we arrived home to do a check up on Aaron, but by this time he was getting much better thank goodness and was actually finally eating something when they arrived. They called again later in the day and a couple of times the next day before eventually releasing him from their care. It was that bad that they had assigned nurses to come and visit and check up on him!

What a hellish day it turned out to be. We were a bit nervous overnight but he was fine and slept pretty well, so the steroids worked like magic for him and he gradually got back to normal over the next few days.

During the Summer holidays this year, we went on our first proper family holiday (i.e. went somewhere that didn’t mean staying at a family members’ house!). We ended up going to Butlins in Minehead and we all loved it and didn’t want to leave. Kelly managed to get a discount on the price for a 3 night stay from a Friday to a Monday only about three weeks before, so we were all excited about going!

I was able to leave work at 3pm on the Friday, so I drove home and we loaded up and left. It took roughly two hours to get there and when we got the key card for our apartment, we found out that we had been upgraded to the next level of apartment for free, so that was a good start. It took us a while to find a parking space and our apartment, and then to unload the car, but we were very surprised at how nice our apartment was. It was spotless and the furniture looked brand new and of very good quality.

So once we had unpacked, we headed out to try and find something to eat. We ended up at one of the pubs on site and sat outside and ordered our food.  Unfortunately, we then had a nightmare as we had to move inside due to Seagulls attacking people with food and then it took over 1 hour and a half for our food to arrive. It was shocking to be honest. Needless to say, we were all starving, especially Ben and Aaron. Eventually we got our food and it wasn’t very nice at all, which was a real shame and a bit of a nightmare start to the holiday.  Once we had finished that up, we went for a walk around the place and ended up at the amusements where we spent a long time. It was getting very late by this time and we were all tired out, so we headed back to our apartment and tried to get some sleep. This was a nightmare also, as there were hundreds of Seagulls around and they were jumping on the roof of our apartment (we were on the top floor) all night, and squawking all the time. The boys slept OK, but Kelly and myself only got a few hours sleep!

The next morning we decided to go swimming in Waterworld and this was great.  They had waves and a river type section with a current to pull you along. The boys enjoyed it although Ben, as usual, didn’t go in very much as he doesn’t like water at all.  Aaron seemed to love it. We then spent the rest of the day at various shows and a lot of the time at Bob The Builders Yard which was an undercover area with several rides for children. Ben and Aaron absolutely loved it in there and we must have spent hours in there over the 3 days! Foodwise on the Saturday, we bought some pasties and rolls etc (which was a lot cheaper!).

On Sunday, we went swimming again first thing and then did the shows, amusements and, of course, Bob The Builders Yard. We had also booked in to the Circus for 7pm that day, and it was a great show, even though Aaron got a little bored and noisy half way through it! We had fish and chips for lunch, which was the best meal we had during our stay (even though it was a little pricey as usual). We then had baguettes for tea as we needed something quick and easy before the Circus show. Once again in the evening, we found ourselves in and around the amusements (mainly the 2p machines!) before trying to catch a show and going to bed quite late again.

On Monday, there were no shows on due to it being the changeover day but we had seen loads over the previous days including Wrestling (my favourite!), Bob The Builder, The Skyline Gang, Ultimate Steps, part of the Stephen Mulhern Show (which was ridiculously busy so we had no seat and had to lean against some railings until we couldn’t lean anymore!), Crazy Dunkers (twice – excellent!) and Mike The Knight. We spent the first part of the morning packing, as we had to be out of our apartment by 10am, and then loaded the car up and handed in our key card. We then had a few hours until we had to leave the premises so we went and had an Ice Cream Sundae from the Italian Ice Cream place, which was lovely, and then back to Bob The Builders Yard and then to the fairground. We also had one last walk around and a quick go in the amusements before heading back to the car and parking up by the seaside at Minehead which was just opposite the resort. We spent the rest of the day on the beach and walking through Minehead before having chips for tea and then driving home along the North Coast. We didn’t get home until very late so we were tired out, but we all had a wonderful time and would definitely go again!  We would recommend Minehead Butlins to anyway, it was brill! 😉

Here are some (of the many) photos from the holiday.

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