Sunny weather, 5am wake-up calls, stupid beds, lack of internet, dolphins and escalators....

So last Sunday the family and I packed up and headed off for a short vacation to the caravan site. As we just arrived back today, and I missed blogging soooo much (:P) I thought I might share a short post about out trip :) 

Anyways, we usually spend at least a week during the summer at the caravan site, but this time it was slightly different. I suppose for one thing, our kids are getting older, and now we find ourselves trying to do a lot more things to keep them occupied, also this time my wife had to bring some of her degree work with her in order to complete an assignment in time, but what really was different this time was the nice weather. Ok, let me explain...

Anyone who knows me will have already heard me say this, anytime....I mean ANYTIME we go to the caravan site, it rains. Even if it is like 30-40 degrees the very day before, it will surely rain for our vacation, without fail. We can never enjoy the local beach (and let me tell you, Benone is probably the nicest beach in this country) or spend much time outside at all and usually end up spending a lot of time indoors for a couple of days and then heading home early :P But not this time...it was actually nice for a change. I got to spend time outside with my girls (K&J) playing croquet (if you could call it playing croquet :P), golf, cricket and generally running around. I also got the chance to take K to the playground on lots of occasions while J was enjoying herself at a kids bible week event in the evenings that she wanted to go to. So for once, I have to admit, I could not complain about the weather, I guess we finally got a break :D

Of course, it would not be a family vacation without it's problems the first of which came on the first night when we found that K did not want to go to sleep. After 4 hours of trying this and that she finally fell asleep in her mums bed. Great, we thought at least she might have a lie-in next morning, but nooooooo, I think it was 5am when she got up and decided it was time to watch TV and terrorise her sister!!! But that was ok, cause I was practically awake anyway having not slept on the most un-comfortable bed ever created!!! This thing was impossible to sleep on, a memory foam mattress I believe, but waaaaay to soft. I constantly felt as though I was about to roll out of the bed :P Oh, and yeah, this went on for 3 nights and mornings...the couch was calling me....

I decided to take the girls out for the day (to give my wife some space to work on her assignment) where we visited the Mussenden Temple. Built in 1785 the temple forms part of the estate of Frederick Augustus Hervey, Bishop of Derry and Earl of Bristol (or the Earl Bishop). It was built as a summer library and its architecture was inspired by the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli, near Rome. It is dedicated to the memory of Hervey's cousin Frideswide Mussenden. We had a lovely picnic there and I decided as a treat, I would take them to an indoor play cafe to burn some energy :P Well, I don't know if you have ever been to these places, but let me tell you, the smell, man'o'man the smell, and not just from the kids, but the parents as well....I guess it was a hot day, and with running around after their kids it only stands to reason that you might pong a little, but at least the staff could spray something to lighten the burden on our noses, c'mon :)))

One of the other draw backs about the caravan is the severe lack of internet. I had to laugh, anytime we travelled to a place where 3G was available, or even a free wifi connection, we just had to log into facebook or other social media platforms to feel "alive" again :P though my wife was worse. Saying that, it was vital that we found somewhere for this as she had to email her assignment during our stay. So finding and trialing different places was surely a must :P

One of the highlights of the week was during a trip to Portrush. One of our essential stops here is to the Aquarium place at the other end of the town. The girls just love seeing the fish and if we don;t take them there, then there could be trouble :P Anyway, after this I took the girls to look at rock pools for crabs and shells and while we did this, a man told my wife that a school of dolphins were spotted visiting the bay just up ahead. So we went on ahead and sure enough, there they were, bobbing up and down in and out of the water, about 30-40 of them. It was amazing to see them swimming to close to the shore, and of course we left our camera behind!! We tried to get some pictures using our mobile phones, but at best the images look like the famous Loch Ness Monster image, a small black blur in the middle of the water :P but it didn't matter, we saw them with our own eyes, truly magical moment :)

So, that was our week. My wife got her assignment completed on time, we finally got around to getting K to bed at a decent hour and sleeping until around 7am. We ate lots of food, wish I could say it was all healthy, but for anyone interested, they can check that out on my next post in the Diet Diary. We watched the Olympics on TV, played games indoors and outside, went shopping, went to the beach and built sand castles all in all a busy week, which means I could do with another vacation to recover from this one :P

Oh yeah, escalators....lol....yeah, almost forgot....that was a funny one...ok, here's the thing, you know how they always put the labels on escalators that tell you you shouldn't take buggies onto them? Well I never pay any attention to them, I always take a buggy onto them, in fact K loves it when I do....on this occasion though, I am tempted to agree with them...perhaps if they updated it slightly to say that you should never take a buggy onto an escalator while texting on your mobile :P So as we descended on the escalator, I sat down on the nearest step holding on to the buggy with one hand and texting with the other....J was in front of us. As we got near the bottom, I completely forgot were I was as I was so engrossed in my text, and so I found myself inches from getting sucked under the escalator :D J was safely off at the bottom, in fact I even managed to push the buggy off with the one hand that held it, but sadly no matter how many times I tried to get up, the movement of the stairs and lack of height made me look like a fish out of water boucing up and down as I tried to avoid imminent doom. Eventually, I butt-shuffled enough to get me over the line of safety, still in one piece. I stood up, moved away to let the young couple that were on the escalator behind me get far enough out of earshot so that they could laugh at me, I finished my text and then looked at J and had a right old giggle myself. Boy, I wish I could see the CCTV footage of that day, it would be hilarious!!! Anyway, will that stop me from bringing the buggy onto the escalator?? nope, I just won't text at the same time :P

A little vacation time

I just thought I would put a little post here to say that as from tomorrow, I will be away on a little vacation with my family to the campsite to stay for about a week. The length of our stay will completely depend on the weather, as it always, but ALWAYS, rains when we go there, and in the end, we would much rather be at home watching the rain, than trying to amuse 2 bored kids in a caravan. Anyways, during this time, it is very unlikely that I will be able to blog as there is no net connection, but rest assured I will be back and given the weather outlook for the week, that could be sooner than you think :P

Have a nice week my friends

Movie: Monsters Inc

Released in 2001, Monsters Inc was Disney Pixar's fourth feature film, following on from the highly acclaimed Toy Story 1&2 movies and A Bugs Life. It was an instant success, grossing over $500m worldwide!!

The movie is set in the fictional world of Monstropolis, where a variety of monsters work together to gather screams from human children as it is used to power the city. Scream processing factories use closet doors (used as portals) into the human world where they enter the bedrooms of children at night in order to make them scream. The screams are then collected and stored for future use. This is considered to be a dangerous task, as it is widely believed that human children are toxic to the monsters, so contact is not allowed. Monsters, Inc is the largest such processing factory in Monstropolis, and this is where we find our heroes, Mike and Sulley.

James P Sullivan (Sulley) is voiced by John Goodman and is a giant among the other monsters with blue fur, horns and purple spots. He is a kind natured monster, relaxed with an outgoing personality. However, he excels at scaring children and it the company's current top scarer aiming to beat the all-time scare record before his fiercest rival Randal does. He always does what he believes is best for the company.

Michael Wazowski (Mike) is voiced by Billy Crystal and is Sulley's best friend and work colleague at the factory. He is small, round, green and has a single big eye. He also has an outgoing personality, and a rather large ego. He continually pushes Sulley to work harder in order to beat the record.


As the movie plays out, we learn that things are not all rosy in the scaring business, as the children are becoming harder to scare with more and more "portals" being destroyed every week. Power levels are running low, and something has to be done. Mike and Sulley uncover a secret plot to literally suck the screams out from the children and so embark on a roller coaster ride of mishaps, mayhem and adventure, trying to put an end to the plot, while trying to ensure that the city does not lose it's power. And if that was not bad enough...there have been sightings of a human child running around Monstropolis!!!

I'm not sure why this film appeals to me so much, but I have to admit it is one of my favourite all time movies, and certainly in my top 3 favourite Pixar movies. Everything about it makes me happy, from the opening jazzy music, to the colours, to the amazingly funny and talented Billy Crystal with his perfectly timed one liners, e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g about it makes it a fantastic film for all ages. Perhaps what makes it such a success is the fact that Disney Pixar have created a movie that makes us connect to it. Sure it's computer animated movie set in a parallel universe where monster's live, but it is so well constructed, so well interpreted, you could almost believe it was real, and in the end, you find yourself double checking that your bedroom closet is indeed....empty!!

Be sure to watch this movie at some point in your life...I am giving it a very well deserved 9/10, the only reason I am not giving it a 10....is because it ended :D Though I am very happy to hear that they will release a prequel movie called Monsters University in 2013, same characters, same voices. Nice one Pixar :)