Brighton Pride and dinner with the cousins

Rob took the boys to goalie practice first thing and whilst he was there got some bad news about a friend so although he had planned to join us for the day he stayed home and we got out of the way so he could call round and let his friends know what had happened.

The Pride parade and festival was fun, very colourful and lots of happy vibes going on. We walked down to watch some of the parade, Ebi-kun hasn't seen a non Japanese festival/parade before so he was a bit bewildered but it was a good way to open up the conversation if he had questions about it all.

It was great to see people of all shapes, sizes and colours letting go and enjoying themselves

And of course it was very colourful, loud and fun. Lots of dancing, cheering and high fives

And of course, plenty of fabulous outfits, I could certainly get into the outfit making side of things.

I can't believe the footwear that some of them were walking in and had managed to walk 3 miles in, I would have given up after the first 10 yards!

It looks quite sunny here but as the end of the parade went past the heavens opened and we all got soaked - 4 of us trying to shelter under one brolly!

Di had won tickets to the festival site and the kids got in free. To be honest they hadn't got the organization down at all. The staff were all telling us different things. We ended up in the main arena which wasn't too bad in the middle of the day but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be suitable for kids later in the day!

Eventually we managed to find the kids area which was great. They had a load of free entertainment on which included face-painting. Ebi-kun decided he wanted his doing and of course because he had his done Ry wanted his doing too. The woman doing the painting did a great job, Ebi-kun loved it! The heavens opened again so we were a bit late in leaving to get to my uncle Si's house. 

The boys looking adorable - don't let them know that I said that!

My uncle is just 4 years older than me so his kids are my cousins, which is a bit weird, having cousins 40 years younger than you! It all gets very confusing with the who cousin situation because my other cousins have got kids that are more Ebi-kuns age, so we have given up trying to decide what kind of cousin they are and they all get the blanket "cousin" title!

Even though the kids only get to see each other once a year, they just got on with it and went to play straight away, so us adults could get down to some serious wine drinking and catch up!

Si had given the kids shots of smoothies, I don't think F was impressed hahaha.

And we have a 12 year old in the house...

And the birthday celebrations continue!

It was a quiet morning and he asked to open his presents before the family arrived, he got some great goodies, his favourite football player...

And now he has BUSINESS CARDS for Ebi-kun eats, and a biz card holder to keep them in!

And of course the annual T-shirt, this year's theme is for Ebi-Kun eats... Taste Bud Explorer...

And the year on the back. I can see I am going to have to make these until the end of my days :)

After present opening, we had to pop down to the shops to get party food, standard 70's birthday party fayre - party rings, ice-gems, sausage rolls, cheese and pineapple, hot dogs on sticks. Sadly mom didn't have the space to be able to do jelly and ice-cream!

Early afternoon the extended family descended upon us, I can't believe how much they have all grown, 2 of the kids are now taller than me and I know that's not difficult, I'm not very tall but they are still KIDS!

Of course, D had to get out Fluffy The Snake, my mom is snake sitting whilst my brother is away, so this was some party entertainment,,,

Chrissie was ever so brave until Fluffy started moving...

I didn't have time to make a cake and I don't think mom has pans and the such like anymore so Ebi-kun picked what he wanted in the supermarket. He doesn't like the pre-made novelty cakes, too sweet! He chose a lemon tart and a tiramisu, strange combo but there we are. 

I didn't get photos of them doing pass-the-parcel but the did decorate their own gingerbread men. This was a kit from Tesco, 5 men in the box. I grabbed an extra box of sprinkles because it didn't look like much in the pack. All the kids got into it. It is hard to believe that there are just 4 months between A (in pink) and Ebi-kun! 

Even teenage boys will decorate gingerbread men!

M spent ages on her masterpiece, getting just the right colour flowers in just the right place! Hers was apparently a flower fairy-gingerbread man!

That left the kids all hopped up on sugar! Wouldn't be a kids party if they weren't hahaha - I have no guilt about this, we don't really "do" kids birthday parties in Japan so it was a cultural experience!

Everyone had fun, no tears! And Ebi-kun loved hanging out with his cousins, hopefully, we will catch up with some of them again before we leave.

What I haven't mentioned is the Ebi-kun eats video we recorded, we will get them up soon as possible because it's a birthday special and maybe the best one yet...

Playdate with MY cousins

10th August]

Monday morning the boys were dead to the world, Di and I packed up the rest of the tent and yet they slept on. Finally we had to tip them out of their sleeping bags (sweet revenge) so we could actually pack up the tent!

After getting back, unpacking, all taking a bath and getting sorted my uncle (who is just 4 years older than me) and his kids (my cousins) came round for a playdate. Obviously my uncle thinks he is 6 years old and is rocking a jesus look with the beard and the sandals!

Serious game of footie going on in the garden there....

It was lovely to see them if only briefly, once they said their good-byes it was time to welcome Rob back home, who had been in China for a week and to get our backs backed, ready for the next adventure...Paris!

Family Summer Festival

A couple of days in and the jet lag is just about clearing up! We had a not so fun start to the day, my step-dad has had a couple of strokes and has had to move into a home, he has only just moved in and my mom got a call in the morning to say he had had a fall and bumped his head so they had called an ambulance.

It meant a trip to the hospital and a barrage of tests but he was given the all clear and was back at the home by lunchtime. In the afternoon we all went down and met with Ebi-kuns cousins because they had a family day fund raiser going on. First up was Punch and Judy, A-chan grew up in Greece and only moved back to the UK a year ago so neither her or Ebi-kun had any idea what Punch and Judy was about.

I was quite surprised that it was the original storyline, domestic violence issues obviously hasn't caught up here yet! There was a disclaimer at the end telling the kids not to copy what they had seen!

There was also face painting, bouncy castle, cakes to be bought a raffle - I won a 20 quid gift voucher and a tombola where I won nowt! Andy was the first dad to get his facepainted, comical because he is a big chap and about 6'5" tall!

M-chan is such a little dot and was a leopard...

A-chan got hers done later. There is only 4 months between A-chan and Ebi-kun but she is a good head taller, it's hard to believe they are so close in age!

Ebi-kun was a lion...

Papie made it outside for a while, it was good to see him out in the sun. It's great that the home has these days, it was a lovely community spirit and I'm sure the residents love having the family and kids around.

When we were done there we all headed back home for dinner, the kids get on really well although we did have a mad half hour doing 'yoga'. Fun day and turned out to be a late night but at least I slept through until 5.30am!

Chaos with the cousins

Sunday my brother, his fiancee and his 3 kids came over to my moms and chaos reined for the day! Unfortunately the weather was against us and so the kids were stuck in almost all of the day. Needless to say they were bouncing off the walls and driving us all nuts!

Activities included cousin torture ...getting your hair done!

Silly darts, not sure what the rules were for this but there was a lot of silly giggling going on! Plus numerous rolling around, tackling and play fights! The quote of the day had to be from Ebi-kun who shouted to me... "Mommy, M has knocked my tooth out" In her defence the tooth was really loose anyway.

J is a darling, quiet as a mouse and was quite happy posting scrabble pieces and straws into a box or sorting things into piles,  I love it when they are at this stage!

 

We had a lovely Sunday dinner and mom requested a photo with all the kids before they left, impossible to get all of them looking the right way at the same time and there is always one pulling a silly face!

It's a shame the weather was so crap, it would have been fun if we could have taken them all down to the park or to the monkey park which was our initial plan.

A trip to The National Adventure Farm

The other day we met up with my cousin and her two kiddies at the National Adventure Farm and what a great day out we had! The weather was lovely and the kids got straight down to business of playing hard!

It's a big place and you can easily stay all day and not get bored, my cousin lives just down the road and has a season pass, so they know all the good bits to do! We went last time we were in the UK and Ebi-kun couldn't wait to go on the vertical drop slide again.

First up was a ride on the barrels being pulled by a tractor...

Then we decided to go and do the 10 acre maize maze, which meant walking past the scarecrows, they are attempting a world record and had 1500 on display the day we went, you can take your own to put on display or build one there but we ran out of time....

 My mom very sensible decided to wait for us whilst we did the maize, the kids took it in turn to decide which way to go, which as you can imagine, got us lost in a matter of minutes. You do get provided with a flag incase you need help. At one point M decided he'd had enough and just wanted us to wave the flag but we stuck at it and managed to find out way out, we were in there for an hour.

It's the first time I have been in one of this mazes too and it's quite disorientating once you are in there. Luckily there are some look out posts on the way, you can also buy a sealed map, if you don't open it then you get your money back, we told the kids that if we didn't open it we would be able to buy ice-cream, so they were all for doing it the hard way.

After the maze we had some lunch and a play on the big slides inside then the boys decided they wanted to play in the splash area, of course I hadn't taken a change a clothes for Ebi-kun so he borrowed a pair of joggies from M then had to go commando for the rest of the day! This was great, a pile of hose pipes and some barriers to hide behind, the kids were having a whale of a time!

Then it was time for some more bouncing and the assault course, we also did the go-carts and saw the animals somewhere along the line! I was shattered just watching them.

We had arrived just after 10am and left at 5pm, so we got our moneys worth out of it all. The kids can't wait to get together again, hopefully after our trip to Brighton we can have another playdate.