Round Up

The last couple of weeks have been a blur of going out every day for some reason or other. I'm not sure if I could recall it all and publish it here on my blog.

Easter was interesting, we spent almost every day that week out soaking up the sun. We spent a day in Kearney Village flying the kids kites and had a very tasty picnic. Two days on the beach and several other days just out and about, we hit the town of Portrush too. The children all have a little colour in their cheeks now and me a healthy glow.

Other things were GCSE exam papers, three of them to be exact and now a stack of revision work for the eldest child's next three papers. Once the 27th May is here that will be the last exam for a few months. I am wondering what subjects he will sit next - its a real toss up between doing three more GCSEs or a couple of AS/A levels. Mag also got the results of the six GCSE papers he did back in March, 3 of them he got 100% on, one was 98% and the other two were in the high 80s. Not bad for a 14 year old kid who doesn't go to school.

We have been busy planning out foreign trips, we have two weeks travel coming up and another couple of weeks in the pipeline including a possible trip to the USA on the cards.

Sol has had problems with her feet, well she always did. As a baby Sol had what was called Positional Talipes, in other words her feet were real bendy and curved inwards. This was caused because of her laying breech in my belly for the whole time she was in there, once she was born she has a real tendency to lay with her feet tucked under her. She had a little bit of physio and wore boots to try keep her ankles straight. The last few months I started to notice her feet turning in again. I called the hospital clinic where she was registered before and they wouldn't see her, they said it was acceptable that her feet turned in again despite her history. They suggested that Ryan Giggs the footballer has feet that turn in and because he does its okay for Sol to have that too. What the F***, Ryan Giggs has millions of pounds and a full medical team at his beck and call, and further research shows that he actually gets treated for his foot problem.
I wasn't going to accept this, after all we neither have a million pounds nor the skills of a footballer. We ended up going private and she has been diagnosed with pronation, in most cases pronation turns the feet outwards but in her case they went inward. This un-natural curve in her feet had her hips misaligned so she had to have them manipulated and is now having to do special excercises. A long time ago talipes was treated with ugly boots and frames - Sol is very lucky now to be able to have orthotics made to wear inside her shoes. They are sort of like insoles but actually have a heal and are moulded in a certain way so her feet are shaped properly. She has had them for a few days now and I can already see how straight her ankles are compared to before. 

Tropical Beaches

The weather here last week was glorious! We spent a few days on the beach just soaking up the sunshine. Who would know we would have a paradise beach here just a couple minutes from my house. Love it!

Babies are here!

The kits are here! they were born on May 14th much to the delight of the children. The children understand that all these rabbits are going to a new home in a few weeks but I am sure there will still be a few tears. There were eight babies in total, our very own octuplets! Sadly one kit died, we think the mum accidentally squashed him.

This one is called Lucky as he almost died twice. He fell out the nest and had got so cold we actually thought he was gone, just by chance we saw a little twitch as we were disposing of his body. I brought him in and warmed him on a hot water bottle, he survived! This happened again, same thing he was cold and appeared dead and once again we revived him.

Groomsport by Night

Simply backing up what I said in the blog post beneath this one.... these photos wont wont any prizes in photography terms but they let you see what I saw whilst out walking a couple nights ago.

Walk from Groomsport to Orlock

I love where I live. Its not until you are forced to make decisions which are life changing that you really appreciate what you have. My husband has been offered a job in England and it is, in theory, a step up for him. Originally we were to be off by the 1st of march but that didn't transpire. At the end of this month there will will be a further job offer, a different package and hopefully a better one at that. Then we have to go through the whole agonising decision making process again. It really is a toss up between the 'lifestyle' we have versus some extra money and the lifestyle that we don't know about yet. So the jury is still out, we are still living in limbo but it is no longer a closely guarded secret. Its days like this, meaning the other day when I took these photos, that you really realise what you have on your own doorstep.

~~ The children call this the giant chess piece, and it does look like a rook.

None of these are ours, our boat is teeny in comparison.

This one was after we had trekked along many little sandy coves - 'enough is enough mom'.

Shells - my five year old is fascinated by them. I guess last year she didn't really appreciate them the same as she does now.

We found this old boat on the sand at Orlock, the children had a lot of fun playing in it.

I love this shot these two are just like man and wife.

Sad News

R.I.P. DILLAN

Well, I hate to report this sad news but the children have been so upset I felt I have to share. Our neighbours two dogs broke into one of our rabbit hutches and killed one of our pet rabbits. Now you have to understand that these are no ordinary rabbits, they are real pets. The rabbits come in the house and are just spoiled rotten. Since this happened the children have been very tearful, its traumatic for them to have their pet destroyed like this.

I was surprised at the depth of the children's feelings as we have experience natural causes deaths before and the children had always been accepting. I am only glad I was home and caught the dogs when I did. the dogs were starting on another hutch, it doesn't bear thinking about what would have happened if I was away from the house. The second hutch had our pregnant lion head bunny in, a Dutch rabbit and two young girls, the devastation would have been awful.

On a lighter note the lion head bunny is due her litter on the 14th April so we are looking forward to that. We have decided, (if its okay with the person who is taking the babies) we are going to keep one of the new rabbits if there is a male.

Did I tell you?

One of my rabbits are pregnant again. This time it wasn't accidental, we bred her deliberately. The rabbit is a lion head and I had a special request for some lion head baby bunnies.