Aaron's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘swimming’

The weekend before last, we went camping at Whitehill Country Park which is just outside of Paignton, with Alex, Josh, Caleb and Sophia. The place was great and the weather was awesome!

I had the day off work so Kelly and I arrived for 12pm (when we could setup on the pitch) and got the tent up nice and early before I left Kelly to finish off setting up and travelled back to pick up the boys from School and Bumblebees.  The sun was out and there were hardly any clouds in the sky, so it was really hot. When I got back with the boys we went for a swim in the onsite outdoor pool before we went back to the tent and had a BBQ for tea. The boys were loving it there and were playing all the time with Caleb. 

On the Saturday, we went swimming in the morning again, which was great, though cooler as we were earlier in the day.  Ben was fine in the pool on his own and Aaron was OK as well, though he seems to forget that he can swim now! Coby was doing very well as well, as he was in the big pool with just armbands on, and he was kicking around trying to swim and was doing a very good job of it. We then went back to camp and had some dinner before we went for a walk around the site. We went to a playground and along a woodland walk, and then had a look at the onsite shop, arcade and bar/cafe area, before getting a milkshake or ice cream.  We then went back to camp and relaxed for a bit before going back to the bar and ordering some food for tea. The food was great. It was very well priced and there was plenty of it! Everyone enjoyed their food. We then went to watch the evening entertainment in another area of the complex, which was in an old barn. The barn was boiling hot though and we were sweating buckets! The entertainers put on a show for the evening that comprised of children’s games and disco for the first hour, then Bingo (which we didn’t win) and then a Disney show where they sang several Disney songs.  Coby was up dancing and taking part in the children’s disco and games and loved it! It was great watching him dance and play. We didn’t leave there until nearly 10pm when the boys were starting to get really tired, so we then walked back to camp, after a 5 minute play in the park, and got the boys to sleep. We stayed up well into the night with Alex and Josh and we saw some shooting stars, which was great. The weather was still really warm even at 11:30pm!

Sunday was our final day so we started off packing some of our bits up. We didn’t have a set time to leave as we had booked for 3 nights so we didn’t take the tent down and do the majority of the packing until later on in the afternoon. We had a cooked breakfast and then got ready to go down for our last swim. The water seemed colder again though! The boys were again jumping in and having fun in the splash pad (that was working this time) and in the toddler pool. We then went back to camp and got washed and changed before heading back to the bar to get some food for dinner. We were going to have sandwiches but decided on getting some proper food as we wouldn’t be home until late in the end. So we had some nice food again and a big milkshake and a last play in the park before heading back to camp to pack up. We left at about 5ish in the end and drove home hot and tired out from a great weekend. The weather was amazing all weekend, which stopped us from sleeping though as the tent was boiling from about 6am, and the facilities on the site were excellent and we would definitely consider going there again.

Aaron is now doing swimming on a Saturday morning at 9am, after Ben finishes his lesson. He (and we) aren’t really keen on his current instructor so we decided to change his lesson and managed to get him in after Ben, with Jess, who is also Ben’s instructor and used to teach Aaron in a lower stage. Aaron likes her anyway, which should help him. Monday afternoons after school were getting awkward as Aaron is always so tired after school that he doesn’t put the full amount of effort in, so hopefully he will be much better on a Saturday morning! 😉

This year was Aaron’s last KS1 Sports Day, which is only for an afternoon but he takes part in all of the activities. There were 6 events as usual and Aaron tried his hardest in all of them, but his house (Lyhner) ended up last in the final results, which was possibly the first time since Ben and Aaron had started at the school.  This year he only had to do each event once as they had enough people in their team, whereas last year he had to do everything twice due to his team having only 3 people. He was pleased with that as it meant less effort! He did very well in the football dribbling, egg and spoon race and the relay in particular, in what was a lovely but very hot afternoon! Bumblebees also brought the children, inc Coby, over onto the field to watch a couple of events, so Coby was able to see Aaron and us, before they took them back due to the searing heat. He gave us all a hug and was very pleased to see us! 😉 As Aaron’s Sports Day was on a Monday, he had to go to swimming afterwards as well, which wasn’t great as he was too tired out from all the running he had done in the afternoon. Roll on KS2 Sports Day next year!

A few weeks ago, Aaron got his 25m swimming certificate. Well done, Aaron!

Over the final Bank Holiday weekend in May, we stayed at a Lodge just outside of Tiverton. It was basically Kelly’s birthday present. The lodge was on a farm and was part of 3 other buildings that were rented out but we were on the end next to a large field with sheep and a pond. The farm also had a proper tennis court and a games room, so it was very nice really. The only problem that we had was that our Lodge didn’t look to have been cleaned down on the outside as it was covered in massive spiders webs and there were quite a few cobwebs in the corners of the rooms inside. Oh and the sheep woke us up at 4am each morning by ‘baa..ing’ extremely loudly! 😉 There was free wi-fi though, even though it was quite sketchy and kept cutting in and out.  We had a good weekend there though and visited several places. 

On the Saturday, we went into Tiverton and had dinner at a Wetherspoons before having a walk alongside the neighbouring river before heading to Wimbleball Lake, which was on Exmoor. The weather wasn’t great unfortunately but was dry enough for us to have an ice cream and go for a walk along the lakeside path. Ben managed to get stung along the way though so wasn’t very happy and Coby was moaning as he didn’t want to walk. So the usual then really! On the way back to the car, we had a look at the campsite and the boys had a play in the outdoor wooden play area for a little while, before we headed home. It had come out really hot in the evening, especially as we were trying to play Tennis, and then we started to hear the rumbling of thunder in the distance (which had been forecast). Typically, the thunder and lightning started as the boys went to bed, although Ben, who was in his own room, came out to watch it with me as he was a little worried being on his own. Aaron and Coby managed to sleep through most of it though. It didn’t last too long and Ben went back to bed, although it did come back a bit again in the night.

On the Sunday, we didn’t really know what to do as the weather was quite iffy and rained each morning, but we eventually decided to go swimming in Tiverton. It was a nice pool and the boys all enjoyed it there. We then ended up at Bickleigh Mill, just outside of Tiverton and had a look in there and had an ice cream. The weather was quite hot and sunny by now, which was typical! At the same place was the Devon Railway Centre, which is where we had hoped to go before we woke up to rain that day. The boys really wanted to go in but it was way too late for that so we decided that we would go there on the Monday instead, even though we had planned to go home in the morning. After leaving here, we stopped off at the Great Western Canal (as it was on the way back to the lodge) and had a very short walk along the canal and the boys played in a brand new play area there, before driving home for tea again. We did some packing in the evening and we all went to play Tennis again and the boys in the games room before heading to bed. Luckily, there was no thunder or lightning that night!

On the Monday, we had to be out by 10am but for some annoying reason, the owner came over to us at about 930am and asked if the cleaner could go in and strip the bed as ‘they wanted to get them washed and dried in the nice weather’. We weren’t very impressed by that but couldn’t really say no. So we eventually left at 10am, after making sure we had picked everything up, and drove to the Devon Railway Centre and spent the majority of the day there. It was boiling hot with not a cloud in the sky, so the weather was too perfect really! The place was really nice and we had lots of rides on the steam and electric trains and the boys had a good play in the soft play area. They also had a model village and a nice picnic area where we had our sandwiches for dinner. They had lots of little model railways in an old train carriage, which was great, but so hot in there due to the weather! We had to make sure we put plenty of sun tan lotion on all day! Whilst we were having our picnic, Ben got bitten by a horse fly, so he was in tears again. Luckily, Kelly has some cream on her to put on it. On our way out, we stopped in the shop and the boys bought something each with their money. It took ages for Aaron to decide, but he eventually settled on something! We then got back in the car and drove home.

We all had had a nice weekend and enjoyed the quietness of the lodge (apart from the sheep and thunder) and went to some nice places. The lodge was OK, although it had lots of cobwebs outdoors and a few indoors, and the farm was nice with the tennis court and games rooms. It was a shame that the owners were a bit strange though!