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