Mini-Christmas

We spent the end of May Bank Holiday celebrating birthdays - mine and my Mums, and Kalebs. With the amount of people around the house (and the amount of food and presents going around) it was like a mini-Christmas. 

Kaleb

It's amazing to think that it's been one year since Kaleb was born already. We had a little family BBQ to celebrate.

Liz's family arrived early and we had a little bout of opening presents, as to not overwhelm Kaleb at once. My dad and brother arrived with the BBQ to set to while I was pushing Kaleb around in the trike we got him.

Around lunchtime once everyone had arrived I started making a mango curry, mainly for Kaleb as he couldn't really have much of the BBQ food, plus I had some too as I don't make it very often. I did make sure I had some of the BBQ ribs when they were done however, before my cousin ate them all ;-)

Into the afternoon, my brother spent some time trying to inflate the bouncy castle my dad got for Kaleb. As he can't even stand yet, let alone bounce, Kaleb crawled around on it a bit while some of us bounced the ground near him.

Liz had made a lovely cake for Kaleb, a nice bear shaped one, so we sung happy birthday to him with it. The candle was relit so everyone could then sing to me, and relit again for my mum.

It was a very pleasant day, the weather was nice - it was a great way to celebrate a year of being with Kaleb.

A very fun year, I have to say. It's great having little Kaleb around, watching him grow and develop and become not-so-little. He had such a zest for life and is seemingly always happy, which I think is a great mindset, and hope he continues as he is.

Birthday

It was my birthday the weekend before last. I've gotten somewhat less interested in it in recent years, however as Kaleb's birthday is two days after, I have been rather distracted with that and it sort of crept up on me.

We had a little bit of a sleep in, by our current standards with Kaleb around anyway (some nights he'll sleep in quite late, others he'll be up early). We then sorted out getting ready to go out and eventually was on the train to st Albans.

We wandered around some shops and visited Liz's workmates before getting ready to get a lift from my mum to Watford. I got a milkshake for Liz and myself while we were waiting as it was a lovely, sunny day.

In Watford, we visited my grandparents as my cousin was also visiting and she was on business for Kaleb's birthday so we met up in advance instead. Kaleb had fun crawling around the living room before we went out to eat with my mum (it being her birthday too).

While waiting for our order, we caught up a little on the salad bar as it was a slightly later than usual lunch. We ordered various ice creams for dessert that were a little bigger than anticipated, but nice nonetheless.

One of the benefits of going out to lunch with my mum on my birthday is that, as it is her birthday too, we both avoid telling the waiter as neither of us want the candles and singing.

Of all the exciting things to do on a birthday, we ended going to Costco instead, which we mainly used to get ready for Kaleb's birthday BBQ, and the fair Liz was preparing for the following weekend.

On the way back we grabbed something to eat quickly from a nearly empty Tesco, ready to sort the house out the next day for Kaleb's birthday...

Twice my life

Not done a blog in a little while, have meant to, but not gotten around to it. Busy I guess. Have a few things to talk about (mainly a couple of updates on Magic decks), and hopefully will find the time to do it soon. 


In the mean time, a fairly big event recently was my Dad's birthday party last weekend. He turned 50, which meant that, with me turning 25, I am now roughly half his age (or his age when I was born). Something to think about as I will become a Dad around my 25th birthday. 

Southend

Nearly 6 years ago, for my 18th birthday, my Mum hired a coach and a large group of family and friends went down to Southend for the day to celebrate.

Last weekend, it was my brothers turn for his 21st.

Birthday

Had my birthday a few days ago (25th May), found out it was the same date as various other things. I turned 23, although I've not paid too much attention to birthdays for a year or so. Spent most of the day relaxing (finished coursework the other week and had no exams, so waiting to start my Masters thesis), although as I'd been doing that for a few days, I'm claiming the last week or so as an extended birthday relaxation fortnight. After the last summer, its nice to have an extended break (last summer I finished exams, started work the week after, finished work and started back at Uni after a weekend, so not too much time off). With good intentions I wrote down a short list of things I could try and get done, but so far have done about a fifth of them. 


Anyway, the main reason of this post is look at all the various other things that also happened on my birthday.