Rugger!!

Try time!

Today (and I hope I do post this today as I have old posts waiting to be written let alone posted)  Albug took part in his first rugby tournament.

Albs started at the local rugby club in September, with Mr B quickly getting pulled into being a coach there too, so our Sundays are now spent with the two of them running around in the mud.
 
As I suspect you can guess, getting 6 year olds to grasp the basic rules is a somewhat challenging, utterly chaotic experience. To them the posts marking the pitch are nothing but a trip hazard to be dodged as they run over them, passing the ball at all is an action they'd all like to avoid, with passing backwards only achieved by them turning completely around and then lobbing it away as hard as they could.  Not so much passing backwards as passing forward but facing the wrong way.  Class.

Mr B was a referee at the festival and I am truly amazed by the patience he showed and the attention, direction and support he gave the children even after two hours of rugby ridiculousness. And it was hot!  True to form so far this autumn, having headed out this morning all layered up in the freezing cold, within a few hours were all baking alive, peeling off layers as quickly as possible. 

Medal pride!

Despite the heat, everyone had a wonderful day.  Even Percy enjoyed being admired/mocked by the crowd.  Smalley did great - he spent three hours on the sideline without a toy and didn't complain once about being bored but had fun watching and chasing the bigger boys around between games (which last a whopping 10 minutes each).

Obviously I'm completely biased but Albs was brilliant, scoring a good number of tries, making lots of tags and even tackling down one child (followed quickly by a blow on the whistle by dad who highlighted this was a non contact game.  Albs quickly defended himself "I was just trying to get his tag."  Poor chap, it's not his fault getting the tag meant getting low and blocking with force!)  The apple doesn't fall far from the team it seems.

Back home for Despicable Me 3, lego all round the house and food followed by food followed by food.  Rugby all morning makes for bottomless stomachs. 

Two boys, two days and a whole lot of smiles

To mark my last non-work Thursday (30 August) with my littlest man, Smalley and I headed off for a day of fun at Paulton's Park, a theme park not too far from here
Having absolutely freaked Georgie out taking him on a "Thomas train ride" a year age (it was ridiculously fast and led to Smalley clinging hold of me, with his head pressed into my side whilst shouting "Slow down Thomas! Not so fast!  Slow down Thomas!") he refused all the rides that went over 10mph but for the slow and steady ones he was the happiest of boys.  Actually, he was the happiest when running around the water park in his pants.  Considering that it wasn't the warmest of days and grown ups weren't really allowed in I thought he'd go in and be back out in five seconds.  As it is, he zoomed around with such manic energy and random direction I was constantly losing sight of him.  The five seconds I'd predicted turned to half and hour; only then did he come out admitting that he was "freezing cold" and in need of a huggle.
The whole day was full of huggles in fact.  Huggles, no rushing and no distractions. It was perfect.

Five days later I was back at another theme park, this time with my biggest lad in honour of the time he put in all summer reading, writing and working out sums even when he really didn't want to.
On the way to the theme park the motorway signs hung the message "Legoland full" over the way to prepare us for the madness that would await at the park.  Having queued to get into the park, queued for parking and queued (a little) to get through the gate we decided to upgrade our ticket for the extortionately expensive queue jump ticket.  Two days previously I'd laughed at the idea of anyone spending that much, as it is it's the best money I've spent in ages.
With every ride boasting at least a 45 minute queue, our ticket cut our queue to ten minutes in some cases, seconds in others.  A week on and the feel good factor of not having to spend a day entertaining a 6 year old in line has yet to wear off.
I'd anticipated that we'd manage about 6 rides, as it is we got through 12.5 (the .5 because the Ninjago ride broke down whilst we were on our third go - probably for the best, the 4D action packed experience had my arms aching all over).  We also managed to get down to the lagoon for the pirate show which once again lived up to expectations.
Two years ago Albs went to Legoland with my parents, brother and nephews.  On that trip he went down the log flume, an experience which has been immortalised in an incredible photo depicting the humour of the adults and the horror of the children.  Learning from his last experience, the first time he went down he ducked down so low it looked like I was the only person in the flume.  Shamed for his cowardice we went again - this time he took the full on splash!
Truth be told I shouldn't call him a coward.  His second ride of the day was on the pirate ship where he went to the very end, row 9, for the full swing experience.  Cue lots of laughing until the heighest swings were he went quiet until I reassured him we were slowing down and going lower.  Once reassured the crazy laughter started again.
It was a day just the two of us.  A day where we made up for all the hugs he doesn't get when Smalley is around, hanging off me, climbing over me and generally being a large pre-schooler presence.  We talked, we held hands, we ran together, we hugged, we spent the short queues with him up in my arms we conquered!  It was awesome / epic (whatever the cool kids are saying these days.)

That's enough from me.  I'll let the rest of the photos fill in the blanks....

Digger ride

Woodland walk

On the Paulton's train

Ready for Splash Mountain 

Alby learnt after his last trip and completely hid when coming down the slide! 

Why are pirates cool?  Because they....arrrrrrrrrr!

Viking boats!