Jubilee

This year the whole of Burton Lazars turned out to celebrate Mike's birthday - even the Queen turned up!  Elaine made the most patriotic cake in the world, which Katie helped decorate.  We had a street party with around 360 of our neighbours, followed by a fete in the grounds of the Grange - when the Sun finally decided to make an appearance.  Elaine and I ran the children's races - organised chaos, but lots of fun and loads of rosettes dished out.

All in all, a great fun very long weekend.

Joe's 14th Birthday

Joe had sleepover number two yesterday with two more school friends (he had the first sleepover with another gang two weeks ago).  We all went to Pizza Express in the evening - Joe and pals had their own table well away from Mum and Dad, and Luke.  Very nice too.

After a very late night, Joe was up quite early this morning and keen to open his presents.  His new guitar is definitely a big hit, along with all the various accessories he received.  He has already picked up quite a few new riffs and licks!

Joe loved his guinea pig (from Grannykim and Grandad) but Ellie was very confused!

Good Friday

This morning Melton Market Place was turned into Golgotha for the second Good Friday street Passion Play. It was very good - particularly bloody! - but a shame it was so chilly. We really felt for Jesus!

This is us watching the earlier part just before Jesus was very realistically flogged!

Skiing in Morzine

We drove down to Morzine in the French Alps last week, stopping on the way with Cath and family just outside Geneva (and only managed to take one fuzzy picture of them!) Cath and Chris have a lovely place and treated us to our first raclette, which was so much fun we made it again later in the week.

We had fabulous skiing in Morzine - it was really cold and the snow was fresh and deep, and we had a massive fall of new snow mid week. The boys and I tried to outdo each other with the jumps and we had plenty of off-piste and powder practice.

On the way back home we did the trip all in one go, which was pretty tiring but it was good to get back to our own comfy beds.

Here are the photos and a few videos to supplement the ones on Facebook.

Gold Chief Scout

We attended the official presentation of Joe's Gold Chief Scout Award the other week. Here he is being presented with his certificate by the Commissioner.

Scout of the Year!

Joe had a nice surprise at the last Scout's session of the year (which was a bit of a Christmas party), as he was awarded Scout of the Year. We're very proud of him; he really deserves the award because he has put so much effort into his scouting over the last few years. It was nice to see that it was obviously such a popular decision with his fellow scouts.

Donna Nook

For the benefit of non Facebook users - here are my photos from the weekend. Took a car-full of scouts to the Lincolnshire coast to see loads of grey seals - mums, dads and babies. Fantastic! Stopped off at the Newark Air Museum on the way back. Great day.