Aaron's Blog

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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Here is a photo of Aaron that I took a week or so ago during the night when he was fast asleep.  As you can see he was ‘star fished’ out on his bed as it was about 28 degrees in the bedroom, and the photo was taken using my phone when it was pitch black so I was quite impressed how well it came out! 😉

Aaron Sleeping

Aaron’s 2nd birthday didn’t quite go to plan unfortunately! Ben managed to get Chicken Pox at the time so our plan of going to Pennywell Farm on the day before his actual party was cancelled as we couldn’t take Ben anywhere. At this point, Aaron didn’t have Chicken Pox either so it was a bit of a shame really.

On his actual birthday, which was a Saturday, we had planned to have family over and to do a BBQ. But due to Ben being ill, not everyone came in fear of catching it as well or passing it on to those who had never had it, although some people did still come and we still did a BBQ.

We were up a good time that day and went down to the front room which was all decked out in birthday banners, birthday balloons and presents for Aaron. He was very excited to say the least, and Ben was also very excited! We gave him a new garage set, a pack of cars, clothes, a wooden jigsaw and a couple of other things. He is obsessed with cars so he loved those, and I had to put the 3 level garage together straight away! He also opened the cards that had arrived for him but he was more interested in the toys!! 😉

Just after 12pm, family members started to arrive and give the little man their presents for him. He had lots of other things such as a couple of electronic Dinosaurs that talk to each other, books and games, remote controlled car, clothes, a car track mat for their bedroom and some money. At this point he didn’t know what to play with first and didn’t really eat anything much all day apart from biscuits as he was too busy playing!

All in all it was a good day, but it was a shame not everyone could come due to Ben being ill.  The BBQ was good as well, as the boys always enjoy a BBQ, and Gramps got sunburnt even though he was wearing a jumper! Aaron had lots of nice presents and cards so thank you to everyone that gave him something! 😉

Here are some photographs from his birthday.  We still can’t believe he is 2 already!!

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