As the weather turns to Autumn, let me share with you our activities last winter!

We had lots of fun at the illuminations that were put in at Old Warden. When the garden was first designed, it and candle lit lanterns lighting it up. Now they have reincarnated that with fairy lights and it was really really enchanting.

Kezia had a brilliant trip to a local falconry centre with her Rainbow troop and got to hold a bird of prey. It's certainly started an interest in our flying friends.

We went on a brilliant group trip with local home educated children to the MK snow zone for a sledging session. Chance practically elbowed all adults out of the way to get his way onto the slopes! He and Kez had a lovely time together, although it was chaos at times!

We had a nice trip out bowing for my birthday and other than that spent a lot of time pottering about the local area and playing with the ponies!

Winter 2015 from Emma Hooper on Vimeo.

We're all going on a summer holiday

Howdy folks,

To celebrate this spell of warm weather I thought I'd update you all on what Kezia was up to this time last year.

We kicked off our summer with our Girls Only trip to Cromer. It had been two years since we last went but, you may be surprised to hear, nothing had changed! We had a lovely week with mamma. Playing in the sand, losing ourselves in the RNLI museum and eating lots of delicious pub food!

 No sooner had we returned from our hols and it was time for Mr Maurice's Dance show. Kezia had three appearances ... One for tap, one for ballet and one for modern. She danced her little socks off for all three days of performances and did us proud. I can't get the footage of the actually show up on here but here is a little snippet of an early rehearsal.

Kez and I had a lovely trip into London together on the train to Kidzania. Kidzania is a wonderful thing to be found on the top floor of the Shepdherds Bush shopping centre. It's like a tiny little city where you take on real jobs and carry out jobs to earn money which can then be spent on other items within Kidzania. Essentially it's like a mini work experience for kids. Kezia joined the Walls factory and made some real mini milks, she trained as a flight attendant with British Airways and also was trained in basic first aid in her nurse training. She chose to spend her earning on a karaoke session and drum lesson! It was great fun.
In the afternoon we toddled across town to The Natural History Museum to look at Dippy before he leaves and to immerse ourselves in our favourite topic - Dinosaurs! Kezia lapped it all up and even had her face painted to commemorate the occasion. She also bought a stuffed Pteradactyl ... Called Terry Daktul. I kid you not. That child is a comedy genius.

This brings us to July 2015 and dear Pops turned 66 ... To celebrate we pootled into Lincolnshire and went to visit Woolsthorpe Manor, the birthplace of Sir Isaac Newton. It was a lovely little place to visit with lots of interesting hands on learning do about prisms and light and some fantastic demonstrations. And cake. There's always cake.

Beginning of August saw our new pet arrive into the house ... Mystery. She a darling little puss tat who loves cuddles and can often be found curled up next to Kezia watching the iPad with her!

We also had a wonderful day at the National Archives to celebrate Agincourt. There were some rather lovely chaps dressed in appropriate attire (would they be as handsome outside of period dress? The jury remains out ...) and they gave excellent talks and demonstrations on most aspects of being a soldier in the English army at that time. We got to make our own armour out of cardboard and then the kids all went outside to re enact the battle. Kezia also got to try on some proper chain mail to help her appreciate just how heavy it would have been to move and fight.

 A big moment arrived for us during this summer and Kezia had her first ever proper riding lesson. She was steering and trotting off lead rein by the end of it and has been having little goes on Bryn in between her lessons. I think it's fair to say we have another pony mad girl in this house, poor Chance!

Kezia also joined the Rainbows
 

To be honest, the list of stuff we have got up to is never ending ... So I shall pause for breath here and leave you with the videos!

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Aeroplanes and Lego and Faeries, oh my!

Well, hello folks! This is probably a great surprise to you all given the lengthy radio silence of late. I wasn't overly sure whether to continue doing the blog, but as quite a few far flung friends and family have asked when the next post will be, I thought I'd reinstate it.

So, we last left you in the Spring of last year. I've been very busy with photos at my end of the world and can now reveal recent adventures!

To kick off the summer last year we went to Duxford for a home ed trip. Kez did a wonderful workshop about remembrance and then we were given free rein around fbe museum, hangers and runway. Because it's still a working airfield you get to watch all sorts of interesting aeroplanes coming in and going out.

Now this takes us to KezIa's 6th birthday and last year she decided that she rather fancied a trip to Legoland ... So never one to let an opportunity pass we went on a home education day and did a lovely geography workshop in the morning with Lego. We had a truly superb day and Kezia practically emptied the gift shop on the way out!

Birthday Legoland 2015 from Emma Hooper on Vimeo.

In anticipation of tomorrow's blog about our summer adventures last year, here is a little taster ...

Unschooling Kezia from Emma Hooper on Vimeo.