The Buckingham Blog

We're Baaaaaack! 

We arrived home on Tuesday night all exhausted from 2 weeks in Cyprus staying with James' parents Coral and Chad.  We've all had a great time.  I expected to "do a blog" last night about it, but there are so many photos that I spent the evening sorting those out (some of which are unfortunately corrupt) and naming them all.  Today has been a nightmare trying to put them into a slideshow, I have literally spent HOURS doing them & my laptop has been playing up.  So a few photos and slideshow of them all below.  

 

The flight out was great, the kids were really well behaved.  The day after we arrived we went to a place called Governers Beach.  Kory and Krystal loved maing sandcastles and Kory eventually got the courage to play in the sea, but was scared of the seaweed! 

 

 

We ate out about half of the nights that we were there, a chinese, an italian, James and I got a "get out of jail free" card one evening and went to an indian, we took the kids to McDonalds one night and the rest of the time it was good old Cypriot food - that is half a cow to meat eaters, and a plate of halloumi and salad to the non meat eaters!! 

 

 

 

Krystal's 7th tooth decided that on holiday would be a good time to come through, so she was a bit of a pain food wise.  Normally she eats like a piglet, but she wasn't having any of it there.  I suppose it was the heat too, poor thing.   Kory was mostly well behaved as usual though!! 

 

In the second week we went back to Governors Beach, this time deciding to take a picnic - instead of waiting ages for lunch which didn't go down well with the kids - this was an instant hit with Krystal.

 

 

We went up the Troodos Mountain for another picnic on Saturday where there was a nice wee park for the kids to play in. 

 

 

 

Other than that, we hung about the house just chilling out a lot, went to the shops, ate nice food in the house and went to Coral and Chad's friends' house for a meal.  I'm the only one who actually looks like I've been anywhere near the sun, though Krystal has got a mini tan on her arms!!

 

 

 

The flight home wasn't as fun as the one going...Krystal was a total pain in the bum.  A combination of the tooth, tiredness and boredom.  She didn't want anything - food, drin, dummy, drawing, teddy etc.  She wanted to walk up, but couldn't!!  Thankfully there was another child making a lot of noise across the ailse so anyone who didn't like it wasn't in view for us to see eye rolling!! 

 

 

Thanks again to Coral and Chad for putting us up (or is that putting up with us??!!) and all the other stuff.

Now I'm off to deal with my holiday blues again and put some insect stuff on the 15 bites I have on my feet and ankles that are driving me bonkers!

Julie.xx

We're baaaack!!

Well actually we've been back since Saturday night, but I'm just getting round to sorting the photos out to put them on here.  We have had a really busy time over the past week, which would take waaaay too long to tell every detail, so I'll try to keep it short.

• Saturday 19th - left house at 9:30am and headed to Dizzy Rascal's for Daniel's birthday party en route.  Had lunch there then left about 12pm.  We stopped off at my Aunt Doreen's house to visit on the way.  We arrived at my Mum & Tom's house about 5pm

• Sunday 20th - Had a lazing about morning.  I had a fancy bubble bath and Kory decided to strip off and come in too!  Later we visited Tom's mum and dad round the corner.  After dinner Mum & I went to Laura's work for me to see round!  Then to Asda for some food shopping for the holiday.

• Monday 21st - Got on the road just after 10am to head south.  James and I ended up going the wrong way, but the kids slept so that was fine.  Arrived at Haggerston in the afternoon and checked in at 4pm.  Headed to our caravan, set up beds then went to the on site restaurant for dinner and into the cabaret for the evening.  It was a male singer who was really good.  Probably see him on X-Factor next season! That night was SO cold, we had Krystal in our bed and Kory under 2 quilts!!

• Tuesday 22nd - Got up and sorted for the day and then went for a swim on the park with the kids.  Late afternoon was nap time for James and them, so they were all happy for the evening!!  We went to a chinese for dinner which was yummy.  That evening Kory got his first taste of slot machines and racing car games courtesy of Daddy!  There was a band on that night and they had to stop as the fire alarm went off and we all had to get out.

• Wednesday 23rd - We headed into Berwick for a look round the shops and had lunch in a lovely wee shop.  After they all napped we had dinner in the caravan then made it to the kids show for the first time.  Kory sat in awe but didn't want to join in.  The cabaret in the other room that night was some rubbish singing lady who couldn't hold a note!!

• Thursday 24th - We had a lazy morning then took the kids swimming again.  It was the best chance to clean them as there was no bath in the caravan!!  We went to the pub for dinner that night and saw the end of the kids show.  Through in the cabaret was the best show they had done all week.  The onsite entertainers did a top 20 disco songs, all singing and dancing for hours.  Krystal crashed out on my knee watching it and Kory was playing arcade machines!

• Friday 25th - We slept in and had to be out the caravan about 10am, oops.  We drove back up to Mum's house, had lunch then went to visit my friend Nicola who had a baby 3 weeks ago.  Thankfully I wasn't at all broody!  At night I went to Asda with mum while James chilled in front of the 50inch TV on the reclining sofas!

 

• Saturday 26th - We got up and left about 9:30am for Glasgow, we met my Dad at the home my Grandpa is in.  We visited him for about 30 mins then went to my Gran's house for about the same time.  We then went over to Dad's house for lunch and back on the road about 3pm and headed for home.  We got chinese for dinner as we had no food in.

• Sunday 27th - This was a chilling out and sorting day, we did some shopping, lots of washing, James & Kory cut the grass and I cleaned the windows!

So that's our week and a bit, and yes, that was the short version!!

Julie.xx

Sorry for not getting this on sooner. What with me trying to sort out pictures and a spell of illness over the past couple of days I'm just not as efficient as everyone else at getting these entries on the blog.

Anyway, excuses aside, better tell you all about my (our) birthday weekend to Aviemore last week. Like Julie said my birthday surprise from her and my parents was a relaxing weekend in the Hilton hotel. We headed off on Saturday morning, the car packed like we were going for a fortnight rather than one night,  around 10.

The drive wasn't bad actually and the kids behaved the whole way. We got there about 12:30 but as check-in wasn't till 15:00 we decided to do a bit of a driving around first to see what had changed in the 15+ yrs since I was last there (not a lot!) and try and get our bearings.
 

We found this nice little Italian just down the road from the hotel. Stupidly, and I have no idea what we were thinking, we decided to have the "all you can eat" buffet they had on. It was really nice actually, all the food was homemade and was being replaced with new stuff every few minutes - Yes Krystal does eat that much!! :-)

After rolling out all full-up we headed to the hotel. It's really grown since I last saw it and the place is now full of things for the kids to do. Kory had a field day the moment we got out the car.

 

 

After checking in we headed up to the room. The hotel had laid out a nice little surprise for me as well in the form of chocolates, shortbread, sparkling wine and balloons. Woo hoo!!!

 

 

 

The kids loved the surprise as well :-) 

 

 

 

 

 

We never really got time to have a drink as we headed straight down to the swimming pool to let the kids have a splash around. Krystal has never been to a pool so this was her first time and, being so long, Kory was a wee bit rusty as well. Both were in tears pretty much the moment we got in but it didn't take them that long to get used to it. A few milestones for Kory as well - he managed to doggy paddle for the first time with his arm bands and a float and got to try his first jacuzzi.

Time went past really quickly and by 18:00 we were in for dinner. Still bloated from the Italian the 3 course meal was nice but oh it was too much!!! I was still feeling the affects at 08:00 the next morning :-(.

We called it a night after that as Krystal was getting grumpy!!

 

 

 

 

Kory on the other hand saw this as an opportunity to party and was still going strong at 22:00. Well I say strong, this was him at 22:00 but his head hit the pillow like a lead balloon 10 minutes later :-)

 

 
Generally it was a good night sleep as well which was an another nice surprise.

The weather wasn't great the next morning but with an 11 o'clock checkout the time soon flew by. We went down for an early breakfast which basically had everything under the sun going ( and me still stuffed from the ngiht before - bulk!!). The kids stuffed themselves silly and Julie stuffed her face like she wasn't going to be eating breakfast for another week. It was yum though :-)

The hotel gave us one more present which was a complimentary pass for the kids to go into their fun house. So after we were all checked out we headed there. They both had a great time, unlike the ones in Aberdeen though, the adults aren't allow on with them (boo!!) so we had to sit and watch them from afar.

"The party man" Kory didn't last as long as he usually does and was knackered after about an hour. So cue our time to get in the car and head home.

Both of them slept pretty much the whole way so I think we can safely say that a good time was had by all.

And so ends my 30th birthday celebration. Well almost, my 33-inch Transformer just turned up today  - woo hoo!!! My parents birthday present to me. I'll get some photos of that on soon :-).

Finally, thanks everyone for all your presents and the effort you all made for my birthday. It's really appreciated! If you heard the problems they all had organising all this lot they'll be glad to see the back of this milestone.

 Anyway here's some more photos from the weekend. Talk soon.

 James

 

Look at this. It's me doing a blog on our daily going-ons for a change .

I've been on holiday this week so I don't have an excuse not to do it this time. Not that I try to avoid it but the rest of the family tell these things better than me anyway.

Right, enough waffle....

A busy little week so far. Yesterday started with Julie going to the doctor's to get Krystal checked over again. Her rash on her face still hasn't gone yet and apparently it should have by now. We've now got cream for it which seems to be doing the job so far.

Rather than waiting for them Kory and I went down the supermarket to buy some yummy ingredients for dinner. It's only the second time we've cooked it but we decided to make Mango & Chicken yummy!!

After lunch and the kids had their sleep we headed off down the beach. We thought we'd try and avoid the need to park in the city centre and then have to walk down the beach for this year's fireworks display. Instead we took Kory down to Rambos for an hour to let him have a play and build up an appetite for dinner. 

When his belly did start to rumble we headed off to Jimmy Chung which is a local chinese "All you can eat" buffet. It's the first time we've been to the one down the beach and it was actually quite nice and the range of food was HUGE! We had loads and Kory, although saying he was full-up, managed to polish off 3 tubs of jelly. "1 Red, 1 Green and 1 Orange" as he kept reminding us all night!

Once we were all stuffed we headed back to the car to get all wrapped up for the fireworks display. 

In case you don't know everyone in Aberdeen goes to a large field just at the side of the Amusements.

 

 
We didn't tell Kory but we had a surprise for him...Glow Sticks. Here's a wee picture of Julie and him with them. He was chuffed to bits!

 

 

 

The fireworks were slightly late in starting but once they did start they were actually quite good for Aberdeen. Usually they're rubbish! The rain stayed away long enough as well which was good.

 

 

Kory was a bit scaried of the noise but even with his head buried in my shoulder he still couldn't help but watch them. Krystal slept through the whole thing until the very end. Typically when we had to head home  .

The kids were completely knackered by the time we did get back though and Kory actually did seem to enjoy himself. He's still going on about it today and pretending to be a firework hehe.

Anyway it's getting late and I've gone on long enough.

James

Oops, I didn't realise I hadn't updated this for a week. With James being off last week we were pretty busy. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were just normal days, as Kory had school and then the car was in the garage (AGAIN!) to get the brakes fixed. They had better be done this time, as that's over £700 now.

Kory fell off his Winnie the Pooh car on Thursday mornign and crashed into a wall and got a big bruise on his face!





On Friday, James took Kory and Krystal to Rambo's in the morning and I did some housework - it was actually quite nice in a strange way to be by myself regardless of what I was doing! In the evening Coral and Chad (James' parents) arrived from London for the weekend. Both kids were in bed, so I got to open all the pressies for them (thanks C & C!)

On Saturday morning Kory was delighted to find his Nana and Grandad in the spare room, and even moreso when they produced several new books for him! The whole weekend we've heard "Nana do it" and "Grandad do it" The weather was lovely, so we decided to go to Storybook Glen for the day.




It's a childrens place set in lovely gardens, with lots of (very bad) models of characters around the place. The don't look much like what they are meant to be, but the kids don't seem to care. I think I've been spoilt having been to Disney twice too!

We spent a couple of hours wondering around then headed for some lunch. Once we were done, we decided to head to Stonehaven as there was a European market on. It was smaller than we thought, but we did get some yummy pancakes before we came home again.

After both kids were in bed, James and I went to the pub for a couple of drinks. Neither Kory or Krystal made a squeak the whole time we were out, yet tonight Krystal just won't stay asleep.

Today the weather was rubbish all day. Everyone went to B&Q this morning and then James made a roast for lunch. After lunch Coral and Chad had to head off to the airport, so we headed into town for a while.

Enjoy the rest of the photos and I'll pop the videos on this post another day as I am off to bed now as I've had 3 rough nights and feel awful!

Julie.xx

Weeee!!









Choo Choo!









Kory loves diggers so this was great!


















We hunted everywhere for this one, he was so keen to meet Humpty Dumpty!






Sitting inside the 3rd Piggy's House!











At Old McDonalds Farm








Thomas!








Driving Noddy's Car








This Seesaw was brilliant!








Fireman Sam (I think!)








And a sleep after a hard day out!

Firstly, apologies for the lack of posts. I have several reasons (laziness etc) but mainly it's because BT are being their usual rubbish and have not yet connected our broadband, so we are using a neighbours one and the connection is rubbish! I've not been able to get the photos online till now! The holiday seems so long ago now, even my tan has faded! We had a nice time and it was mega hot. Kory was good mostly but has been a nightmare since we got home, he has molars coming through and our normally angelic, sleeping, eating boy has turned into a devil child who screams constantly. I've had a cold this week so timing has NOT been good!

Anyway, I'm not going to waffle on, but just comment on the photos (sorry there's loads, but know family want to see the good ones and couldn't choose between them!) and I promise blogs will resume normal service soon and I'll let you all know what we've been up to.

Eating on the balcony



Kory and Chad read a book



"It's SO funny Daddy"



Mr Cool!



Like 2 peas from the same pod?



Kory in his UV suit for swimming



The Little Dude Rules



Swimming Boy



Kory being cheeky as usual



When we went to the old part of Limassol



Me and my boy



Kory & James



At the donkey sanctuary, Kory preferred the doggy!



Kory with Coral



This was a cat Kory befriended at the house



Us all at the wine festival on our last night



Me and James before our night out alone!



'Do you think I suit them?'



James' arty farty picture of a dragonfly



At a BBQ, Kory provided the cabaret with his dancing



At Curium chilling with a cold drink



Hmmm, wine...



Chad, Ian, Jan & Coral



Chad & Kory (again!)

That's all for now
Julie.xx

Yeah yeah, so no blogs in ages from me! I'm busy don't you know?! I'll just rewind briefly back to the Saturday we went ot Jenni's, it was a long drive down, we only stopped once in Stirling for lunch and then went on. On the Saturday evening Jenni and Dave had a friend over and we had a BBQ. He brought his dog with him which Kory was delighted with.



On the Sunday we visited the farm, which I see Kory has filled you in on already! In the evening we went out for a meal to Brewsters. Considering how good the ones in Aberdeen are, this one was appalling, food, service, everything. Not to mention how hot it was that day and there was no air conditioning on, the food took forever and Kory was starving and when it finally arrived it was not what it said on the menu and totally overcooked. Swift complaints were put on the website and today I actually got a letter saying it was being investigated!

Kory had fun playing with the inflatable (England) ball and goalpost outside, only he didn't get he was meant to put the ball in the net and kept picking it up and running off with it. This is yet another 3-6 month item of clothing, his shirt! He wore it in Cyprus last year!!





On the Monday, Jenni and Dave were working so we went a drive to a little place called Richmond. We had found out that Mackenzie Thorpe has a gallery there and as I like his work, we went for a look. Well we only had to buy something too didn't we? So thanks to my gran and grandpa, I am now the proud owner of a proper bit of art!

Here it is!

On the Tuesday we went to the Metro Centre in Newcastle, then drove home. Again it was a long drive, but Kory was a star! The rest of the week when James was off we didn't do an awful lot exciting, James finished the garden off by painting the fences, we went food shopping, I went to the gym and swimming. That kind of thing!

Things got more exciting at the weekend when we saw a house we wanted. It's been on the market for a while at "offers over" but on Friday it flicked to "fixed price" so we viewed it on Sunday morning and fell in love with it. So since then, I've been back and forth with mortgage advisors (yes plural, we have 2) and they are to-ing and fro-ing with banks etc on our behalf.


The stumbling block is the fact that James has started his new job, just literally yesterday. So far so good, but I'm sure he'll post soon about it. That's it for now, I'm so stressed out with this house thing, I just want to know one way or another if we can have it! So watch this space! This pic is Kory ripping apart one of Jenni's flowers!

Julie.xx

Look at my Mummy and Daddy, don't they look nice? This is the first photo I've seen of them in ages and ages. It was taken at a party that we went to in London at the weekend. To get there we had to go on a big adventure which started on Saturday morning. Instead of me waking Mummy and Daddy up, they woke me up, how rude!

Instead of having my breakfast and having a wee sleep, they put clothes on me, and bundled me into the car!! It was even still dark outside. We drove to a place called the airport and had to wait ages to get on a plane. Mummy says I've been on one before, but I don't remember!! I had great fun sitting in my own seat because the plane wasn't busy.

When we got off the plane, my Nana and Grandad were waiting for us. We went on a train to get to their house, which went under the ground and was all dark. I preferred when I could look out the windows, but I wasn't scared at all. After I had some lunch, we went to visit my Great Nana Buckingham (Daddy calls her Nanny Bigfoot, but I'm not sure if I'm meant to)

The photo above is me with her and this photo is of me and Daddy and his Daddy and his Mummy...confused? I was, but they said it was 4 generations of Buckinghams, isn't that very cool? I had my dinner at her house, but it was yucky, Mummy tried to give me some food from a jar and I didn't like it. Even the pudding was yucky and I love puddings!

After my dinner, we all got changed into some posh clothes to go to a party. I was so excited that I couldn't sleep in the car. I never get to go out at night times, I'm normally in my bed. Here is a nice photo of me with Mummy and Daddy at the party. The music was awfully loud and I was a bit scared at first. But there were loads of people to give me cuddles.

Like my Auntie Kelly, here I am with her. Uncle Pete is the one looking at us, and the lady is someone I didn't know, but she sat at our table all night and didn't smile once, how rude. When you are as cute as I am, everyone smiles at you!! Jasmine was at the party too, but was running around mad and we didn't manage to take her photo!!

The music started to get to me after a while, so Daddy took me out to the car for a break. I thought I looked pretty cool driving the Merc, what do you think? Maybe I'll ask Santa for one for Christmas...then there would be LOADS of wrapping paper to play with!! The car had lots of cool gadgets that grandad couldn't work out...once I can talk, I'll show him how!!

I managed not to go to sleep until 10 o'clock and all the dancing and music got too much for me, so I cuddled up with Mummy and fell asleep!! I had to have my dummy too, because the music kept distracting me. Aren't I cute sleeping?

When I woke up, I went for a cuddle with my other Great Nana. This one is my Daddy's Mummy's Mummy!! Here is a photo of us all, again 4 generations all together. I don't really understand who all the other people at the party were, all people related to me in some way, but it was too complicated to take in.

Some of them were even talking funny, which Mummy told me was because of the juice they had. I didn't see anything strange, some of them even had bigger versions of my bottle for their juice!! Here is my Great Auntie Janet with her bottle. Maybe she was just very thirsty??

I'm not normally a very cuddly boy, but I was a bit scared of the music, very tired and just liked snuggling into my Daddy. He was dancing with me which was fun too. I got a bit grumpy, so we decided to leave and start on a big drive home. I fell asleep in the car and so did Mummy holding my hand, but she wouldn't let me put that photo on here!!

While I was sleeping, Daddy was taking photos of all the sights of London on the way, which took 2 hours!! Here is a nice one of some of the Christmas lights along the side of the big river. London had lots of nice lights that I could look at in my buggy!!

The next day when we got up, we went for a walk in a big park, called Hyde Park. There was loads of squirrels, here is Mummy talking to one! We went to a wee cafe and had some lunch, Grandad even gave me some of his muffin, yummy! After that, Mummy and Nana went to a big shop called Harrods, but us boys don't like shopping, so we went home. Yippee, no shopping!!

Mummy bought some cool Christmas decorations for our tree (if she ever decides to put it up!!) and then came home and made my dinner. I got something called gammon, and it was very salty, I had to drink loads of water!! After dinner I went for a bath. My Nana has the most ducks in the world. One of them squirts water out it's beak which was soooo funny! She kept doing it on my face and making me giggle!!

On Monday, I gave in and said I would go to that Harrods place with Mummy and Daddy. It was amazing! Then we started a big adventure to get back to the airport and back to Aberdeen. I got to stay up late before I went to bed too because I had a late nap. I must remember that's how to stay up late!!

Today I spent lots of time with my Daddy, and he did the funniest thing...he pumped up my pram tyres, isn't that hilarious?? Well I thought so, I giggled and giggled, Daddy got it on the camera, but I don't know how to put films on here, so Daddy says he'll do it tomorrow for me.

I have a few things to tell you all too before I go, I am now such a big boy now, I have got a tooth (which hurts loads), I can wave bye bye, I can clap my hands, but only do this sometimes, I can do the actions for "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and I walk with help. I can't wait till I can let go!!

Kory
xx

We're back home now after our week in the sun which was great. We were there staying with Coral and Chad(James' parents), Laura (my sister) and Jasmine (our niece - James' sisters daughter, not Laura's!)

We had a bit of a quiet week actually, as we'd been so many times before we didn't do the "tourist" things and spent most days by the pool in the garden and then eating loads at night and swimming in the pool again!

I love this photo of the wee guy in his sunhat. This was taken on Thursday I think when we went into Limassol to look around the shops. It was really hot so we stopped for a drink, which turned into lunch!






Here's Kory & I having a dip in the pool on our first day, it was so warm, Kory loved it.






This is a pic of Laura one night at the house.







Jasmine by the Swimming Pool.








Kory on his tummy not crying for a change. He's usually screaming when he's left on his front!!






Chad giving Kory some water when out for lunch.







Coral playing "Row Row Row the Boat" with Kory!!










This is one of the cute pictures of Kory with cousin Jasmine.







Kory looked so sweet in his linen pinstripe trousers and wee tiny shirt!










This is us all out for a meal on the last night.








Here's the view from the house as the sun is going down.







We're sure Kory has a split personality - look! These photos were taken only seconds apart.









Laura found a new best friend in Jasmine, they played in the pool for hours, with throwing each other in and Jasmine climbing on Laura's shoulders and jumping in and doing handstands together!



Here's me and James in a photo together which is unusual!







This is me with Laura - yes we're sisters, but twins??!!

Well that's Kory all packed for his holiday...

...literally!!! :D

James