Well, that’s it. The long summer holiday I’d been so apprehensive about is over, and the geekdaughter is back at school. We had never really known how we were going to cope with no school for 6 weeks – we are lucky in a way that the geekdaddy works from home and can have some flexibility in his schedule, but I’m always very careful to not take advantage of that. In then end we worked out a schedule where he gave up a day a week, and I took a day a week off work and we coped. I didn’t do much blogging over the holidays, partly because we were busy, and partly because we had a few issues to overcome (things are getting better in that regard, but not back to normal yet). Over the last couple of days I’ve been sorting through the hundreds of photos I’ve taken, working out which ones I want to share, and I’ve come to the conclusion I have too many to put in a single post. So this is the first of a series of seven posts I will be publishing over the next week (or so) where I will share some of the highlights of our holiday, grouped together in vague themes…
My first theme is “firsts”. It really was a summer of firsts, with both kids doing some exciting things for the very first time. Some were first experiences, some were first learnings or developments. It’s lovely looking back over this collection of photos and thinking about all the new things we managed to fit into the six-week period.
The geekson experienced his first aeroplane flight when we travelled to the South of France for a week. Despite all the other fun things we did that week, any time I ask him what the best part of the holiday was he says “going on a plane”!
First flight
Whilst we were in France he had another first as well – his first trip to the seaside. I’m not much of a beach person myself (much to my Mum’s disappointment), but we couldn’t visit the South of France and not make the most of the wonderful beaches. Both kids had a whale of a time paddling, swimming and building sandcastles, with the added bonus that the weather was so hot we couldn’t stay too long!
First experience of the sea
Another first in France was the geekdaughter’s first taste of Sushi. She was really excited about trying it, as she knows it is one of her father’s favourite foods, but the reality was less enjoyable than she expected, and she declared that she didn’t like the seaweed wrapping. At least she tried it though 🙂
First sushi
After we got home the firsts continued. The geekdaughter had her first go at soldering, thanks to the Manchester Mini Maker Fair:
First soldering
The kids had their hair cut, and the geekson had his first experience of the clippers:
First experience with the hair clippers
Despite having owned the app for a couple of years, it was only this summer that we had our first go at geocaching. We went for a walk with the family of one of the geekdaughter’s schoolfriends, who knew what they were doing, and tried to find a series of 5 caches. We found 4 out of 5, and we’re hooked!
First geocache find
And last, but by no means least, the geekson finally mastered pedaling his tricycle. And very pleased with himself he was too!
Learned to pedal
Come back tomorrow for the next selection of my holiday photos.
Gosh what a lot of firsts .. Looks like you had a super time
It was slightly marred by the bedtime problems, but on the whole we managed to have a lot of fun 🙂
I am loving that geek daughter tried sushi
She loves prawns and smoked salmon, and was quite disappointed when she didn’t like the sushi
Looks like a lovely summer. I remember the first time we flew to France, when the plane landed Flea yelled at the stewardess, “You said we were going to France, but this is just an AIRPORT!”
I don’t think the flight was a highlight for any of us…
On the whole it was a great summer, looks like yours was good too 🙂
I think the geekson would have been happy to spend the whole week in the airport – we did so many fun things in France and whenever I asked him what his favourite was, his response was “going on the plane”!
Great photos, isn’t geocaching addictive?! Missed post about sleep problems; hope they’re settling now she’s back to school xx
Well, *touch wood* the evenings seem to be getting better, but now she’s objecting to going to school and today refused to go to her swimming lesson. What on earth will she be like as a teenager!?
And yes, I can see the geocaching will get addictive. I’m trying to get into the habit of checking for nearby caches whenever I’m out and about, but haven’t found any more yet!