Lowther Castle and Gardens May 2013

Celebration

When we came to Florida 8 years ago without children we went to the town of Celebration, it's such a strange place we had to take the children to see it. Celebration was built in the early 90's by Disney to reflect what it sees as a perfect community and old style values.

The town centres around Market Street and the Lake, which has seats and benches to enjoy the view of the local wildlife. We saw lots of squirrels, birds, turtles and even a couple of Gators. 

The town it amazingly clean, and spooky in it's perfectness. The trees have speakers next to them to pump out soft jazz music as you walk through streets based around 1950s design. I must say I could easily get sucked into living in this beautiful place and can image working on the crochet sat in one of these rockers. If I win the lottery I think this may become my retirement village.

The best thing Celebration has is it's wide open spaces, and this fountain that the kids were desperate to run through. Around the lake is a lovely pathway with signs showing what wildlife you can spot

Lucas especially loved it here as he had more freedom and didn't have to hand hold the whole way round, he is a cheeky boy.

Half way round the lake we came upon a bike hire place which looked great , we passed loads of people riding around on bikes shouting goo Morning as they went(yep that type of place). Now the thought of organised 10 of us onto bikes  filled me with dread, I'm quite scared of hire bikes since a different holiday biking accident years ago but they had the answer it that called an Oxford bike.This was a 2 or 4 seater bike  with a seat at the front for kids, it cost $50 dollars for the hire of both for an hour, we were given a mapped out route taking you on a basic route around the town taking in the different house styles and play parks.
We had fun spotting all the Easter decorations on the houses, one had giant eggs in it's hedge.
I would really recommend doing this, it was so much fun and really relaxed. Well as long as your not trying to take the racing line round corners or let 4 year old navigate. We headed of for dinner in an all American style dinner in town and then hit a water park for the afternoon. This was probably the best Easter Sunday I've ever had and not even a chocolate egg in sight.

Before I go i'd like to show you these pictures my lovely husband took(above and below), he took his fancy pants camera to Florida, which to be honest I was sometimes cross with it, he had a rucksack with lens to carry round.and I had everything else to lug round. I felt like a packhorse by the end of the day, tired and in charge of everything for the kids I could have thrown the camera in the lake sometimes. I'm really glad I didn't, his pictures are wonderful, he has a great eye for detail and is amazing at capturing the natural smiles and fun of children as well as their off guard spirit. I hope someday he'll sell his work so others can enjoy it too.
Long may he continue as I see a wonderful future of beautiful images filling our walls and albums, our children will have some beautiful times to look back on.

Make sure to add Celebration to your Orlando holiday, it would be the perfect place to relax away from the parks for a morning, and remember that sometime children need to run wild.

First days of A New Year

Happy New Year to all.

 I know lots of people usually spend today nursing a hangover or reflecting on their resolutions for the year ahead, I just needed some family time. 

As my main job is in retail, Christmas is a fast paced money focused experience, brought to a head with my daughter asking me if I worked so much because I didn't love them anymore(quietly weeps into my Baileys)

So today, the first day of a new year, it was lovely to do this...

and walk here...

and be here and now.

This was Lucas' first outing on his big boy bike and he was brilliant,
Maisie choose to find the deepest mud puddles to go through.
I love them so much I could burst.

The day was wet and overcast(picture taken at 12.30pm) up my heart was lifted. I spent the rest of the afternoon dozing on the sofa watching films with Lucas(nursing a bad head from having an eye ulcer-ouch), while Maisie made a Gingerbread House with Daddy(yes we're that behind)

I hope your start to the New Year was good.

Best wishes for future days to come.

Amanda.x.

Watchtree- Summer

Watchtree is our local nature reserve this I've previously spoke about here, so I'll not go into how amazing the place is again but just show you some lovely photographs from out latest walk here from a week ago.

I love foxgloves, the hues of colour always in-trance me, more sun when a rare blast of sunlight shines through them.

They were shooting up everywhere in the woodland area, a shot of colour amongst so much green. Although the Summer has been a let down for us it looks like the trees and shrubbery(love that word).
It was sad to see walking round at the nest notes (little messages left by staff about nearby nests) that a lot were washed out by the rains. 

For a frugal day out with family this is amazing, it costs nothing to go in the reserve but donations are welcome and well deserved. You an take a picnic but there is a cafe onsite at various time. They do various talks, special walks and nature investigation sessions, check out their website for further details.

Even though this Summer day was overcast and we had 2 very noisy smalls with us I managed to spot a Hare, Dragonfly, various lovely birds and a group of dear running off into the woods.
I love the meadow setting left free to go wild under the whoosh,whoosh of the wind turbines; showing that even if people don't want to live near them nature isn't so fussy.

You'd not know it was Summer around here but we're not letting that stop us, Lucas loves this place as we can run round like a mad thing, although that doesn't help when looking for wildlife. 

When out on day trips lately we seem to pack for every weather prospect, I think our car boot contains coats, wellies, hats, macs, shorts,t-shirts and suncream.

It's always best to be prepared.

I hope you're finding lots of lovely activities to do during the holidays. Feel free to link your posts about them in the comments section below.

Love Amanda.x.