Sunday 22 December 2013

Dancing Queen!

 Cassandra has been attending Expressions at Tiffiny's Dance School for the past year or so and this weekend was "watch week", where all us parents got to go in and see what they do in a lesson
of Tap and Modern...


  



So there was Lee and I and the boys too, clapping away for her :)
Cassandra also has two other friends that are in her year at school that attend the same class namely Evelyn and Emily x

Such cuties!

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Official mug shots...

The kids school photos finally came through...
 Alexander x
 Nicholas x
 Cassandra x
And a very rare picture of all three of them :)

LOVE my kids xx

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Tuesday 10 December 2013

Gabriel's Big Day

So very very proud of our little lady in today's school Christmas production...



A truly BEAUTIFUL angel if ever I saw one!

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Monday 2 December 2013

Jingle bells, jingle bells....

I love taking the kids to see Father Christma and try to do something different each year too - this year we all went off to Marsh Farm to take part in their special Christmas day.

Lee and Nicholas had a football match that much to my frustration didn't kick off until 12.30pm so Mum and I took Alexander and Cassandra over early and Lee followed after the match.  I do like elves... Boris was his name!
Part of the package was to "build a bear" Cassandra chose a dog and Alex a proper bear and they were lovely.
A visit to the Elf factory saw the two of them painting Christmas decorations..
Jimbo, the guy that owns Partyman World of Play, has recently bought Marsh Farm and his pouring money in and upgrading the site, the new go-karts went down very well!
 We were at the farm, so had to feed the animals!
 A trip to Mother Christmas' kitchen was also on the agenda to decorate some gingerbread men..

 When Nicholas and Lee arrived, we had to go round again!

Nicholas was actually the only one who ate his little man!
 It was a tad cold (to say the least) and Lee had forgotten his hat - so "tried" to nick Mum's scarf!!
 Waiting with the conductor for the Santa Express..
 Such lovely elves...
 Meeting the big man himself - Cassandra would like a pink shiny car please..
 Nicholas would like a large Minion please...
Alexander would like some lego and a digital watch please.

A WONDERFUL day :)

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So So proud of the boys..

Sunday week ago saw all the family over at Barleylands in Billericay for a very important Awards ceremony for Scouts.

  All in uniform!!
Nicholas achieved his Chief Scout BRONZE award!!
Alexander achieved his SILVER Chief Scout Award!!
 Awarded to them by the County Commissioner..
And of course, they got chosen to be "quoted" for the local press!!
So so proud of my boys xx

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Friday 29 November 2013

Never forget

As I've got older, I've developed more of an interest in history although I've always had a facination with WW2 and have always wanted to go to Poland and visit Auschwitz.  The opportunity presented itself to do just this, this year and that's exactly what Mum and I did.

I don't want to upset anyone with the following pictures, but I'm a strong believer that EVERYONE should go and see what happened in our history to ensure that as a world, we NEVER let this happen again...

Whilst visiting the camp didn't affect me in the way that I thought it would (I genuinely believed that I would be balling the whole way round and I wasn't) I found myself getting angry that something as horrific as what happened could have happened in the first place and the length of time it took for anyone to do anything against Hitler..
 Mum and I at the entrance gates of Auschwitz..
 One of the barracks

Although very imposing, it was smaller than I thought the camp would be, and it had proper brick buildings and pavements..
At least 20 people slept in each "bed" area

 The firing wall..
 One of the guard look outs
 Roll call tower - at roll call, the prisoners could be standing out for up to 12 hours at a time..


Double barbed wire fencing

Some of the gas canisters found that the Nazi's used to gas to death millions of people..
 Incinerators used to burn the bodies of the dead

The Nazi's used to strip the prisoner and keep all their belongs - this are just some of the children's shoes that were found when the camp was liberated in 1945 by the Russian Red Army.

After visiting the horrors of Auschwitz, we carried on to Birkenau which was the second camp built only a few km away..
This is the picture that most people remember when they see a war film, the train tracks leading to the entrance to Birkenau where once all the Jewish people and all the other nationalities arrived, they were made to stand in line and selection would take place - those that were deemed fit and strong enough to work - lived, the rest were sent down the lines to the gas chambers..
 

The view of what's left of some of the barracks..
When the Nazi's heard about the impending arrival of the Allies they began destroying all evidence of their crimes.  Papers, records, buildings were all destroyed. However, the remains of the 3 gas chambers they built to execute millions still exist....

We also visited Oskar Schindler's Factory - he was the man that saved over 1,200 Jews from death by employing them in his enamel factory..
This dome lists the name of every single person he saved.

Some of the pots, pans, plates that the factory produced during the war.
On the way back to the Jewish Quarter which is where we were staying in Krakow, we went via the Ghetto wall that still stands as a reminder of what happened in Poland...


We also visited the Salt Mines and after walking down 268 steps (Mum took the lift)! my legs were like jelly!
 Was worth it though, you could lick the walls!!

Mum and I spent 5 days in Poland, well, 3 really after flights there and back and it was an amazing experience.
 They even have Avon!!!!!

I can wholeheartedly recommend the trip to everyone.

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