Easter Holidays Week 1.

I promised an update on the kids in the week but being that sort of spontaneous family, we went away for the week instead! Ha.

The Easter break has started off with highs and lows.

The Low

The CAR!

Let's start at the beginning. Last Saturday we thought it would be a nice idea to start the holidays by booking a 4 night break in Devon. That's a nice little 4.5 hour drive away with lovely coastlines and normally warmer weather. So we booked it. 3 hours later we went out in the car and were greeted with a rather worrying sound. Hubby first thought it was the cam belt but upon getting advice from a garage it was actually a resistor thing with a loose screw. We managed to get the car home and hubby arranged to borrow a friends car for our journey whilst his friend with mechanics experience was going to take a look at the car and fix what he could whilst we were away. Upon returning home we also get the news that the alternator belt was damaged and we now need a new power steering pump. Garage cost £550 for the lot. However, like I said, hubbys friend is a mechanic and we've found a good website selling spare parts. The parts we need come to the grand total of £110. That's a fair old drop on the original quote (Our car is probably only worth £1200 anyway) but we will pay him for his time and labour costs but we know he won't charge as much as the garage. One garage even told us it was something else on top of the original problems we knew of. Hubby was already dubious of them as they tried to sell him extras when we had work done there before. Luckily hubby is rather car savvy (unlike me) and turned round and said he knew it didn't need that extra work so we take their advice as wrong and assume them to be rip off merchants.

The High

Devon

On Monday we travelled from Suffolk on the far right (we're just above the ^ where it joins Essex) and drove to the South West county of Devon (just below the "N") for a break at a big holiday camp. It took us about 6 hours to get there n total. We needed 2 toilet stops with the kids and we stopped for lunch about halfway there. The traffic wasn't too bad for a bank holiday and though most of it was motorway it was a nice journey.

We stayed in a caravan. It was FREEZING. Day time temps were getting up to 8oC and 9oC but night time temps were down to -1oC. After a cold first night with the living room heater on full blast we rushed out to buy a storage heater for the other end of the caravan.

The kids were happy enough though as they love caravan holidays. We were situated near all the entertainment complex and enjoyed all the facilities from family shows, swimming, indoor play area, outdoor park, outdoor pirate themed park and the beach.

The beach was beautiful. Typical West Country is a clay cliff area and a very vivid browny orange in colour.

That little boy in the blue checked jacket running down to the beach with his bucket and spade is my James whilst Matthew waits slightly to the left. :)

The view from the caravan park itself was stunning. This was taken from the balcony of the entertainment area and bar:

Yes, that is a golf course on our holiday resort with the beautiful blueness of the West Country coast in the background. Over to the East coast where we are situated is a more grey sea.

The weather itself was lovely, just cold.

The kids loved swimming and we visited the town of Exmouth a few miles up the road and the nearby city of Exeter. It was a lovely break and we all enjoyed it.

The kids all had school reports in the last weeks of school. All three boys are doing fabulously. They are getting on very well and improving a great deal.

Liams speech is still a concern. He will speak when he is ready. He is still using very short sentences but he is getting there slowly. James always spoke very quietly and not very clear. Liam is loud enough, clear enough, he just chooses not to talk much.

Yesterday we took our chances and had our first barbecue of the year. It went very well. We invited our friends over and we all had a good afternoon/evening of food, drink and good company. The sun came out, the day even warmed up enough not to wear coats outside.

This morning I was nicely woken up by James singing Gangnam Style from his bed. :) When you have small kids, even the most annoying songs become sweet in a way. "Hey, Sexy Lady" from a 4 year old is rather amusing.