June Round-up

Summer’s update

I was so ready for June. If you read our May round-up then you will know that it wasn’t an easy month for me and I was quite happy when it ended. The reason I am enjoying these monthly blog posts so much is because at first, I didn’t think June had been a great month either, but scrolling back through my photos and videos I was reminded of lots of wonderful moments that happened during this 30 day period.

A weekend to remember

We had a really enjoyable weekend with Will’s girls; visiting the beach and playing in the park before heading home to make cupcakes and clean the car – which ended in a massive water fight and me looking like a drowned rat! The Sunday included a charity colour and foam run and afternoon tea, complete with china cups and saucers.

Discovering Singleton lake

Will introduced me to Singleton lake, a beautiful spot just a short drive from us. It’s a short walk around the lake and parking is free, making this a lovely after-work walk in the sunshine.

A trip to the Animal Retreat

Will and I spent a lovely Friday afternoon at the Retreat Animal Rescue. They recently rescued piglets and we enjoyed watching them, and all the older pigs, who were mostly chilling out in the shade. They have a new pantry which is a real treasure, stocking lots of vegan goodies that can be hard to find in supermarkets.

A birthday weekend

As you may have seen from Monday’s post, Will’s youngest turned 6 at the end of June and we threw her a DIY Rapunzel Party to celebrate. You can find out more about that here.

The entire weekend was amazing, filled with laughter and family. We went to the park, spent 2 hours at Flip Out, ate lots of pizza and cake and had the most delicious fry-up on Sunday morning (thank you again William, it really was epic!) before dropping the girls to her Frozen party in the afternoon.

Sunday evening brought a feeling of contentedness that I haven’t had in a long time and it was wonderful to experience.

Livvy’s Update

Celebrating Midsummer

We always like to celebrate midsummer in a similar way; with good food and a big firepit and marshmallows. This year was no different and we were blessed with a beautiful warm evening so we sat outside for a while enjoying each others company and talking about cherry season! 

First ice cream and chip tea on the beach

Now the little ones are a bit older we like to try and do this every now and again as a fun family treat and bonding session. On the first warm evening in June we hit the beach in Herne Bay and got delicious ice creams and sorbets from scoops and a big bag of chips to enjoy together.

Wild swimming 

In the middle of June we went to visit my Mama in the West Country and we went wild swimming at the Farleigh Hungerford Swimming Club. It was the children’s first-time wild swimming and they loved it so much. We also got to see Professor Alice Roberts who Paul and I have loved and watched since we first got together 14 years ago! Such a fun day. 

Bird window feeder

I have been wanting to get one of these for a while and last month we finally did it. We put it on the back door and it took a few weeks for the birds to accept it but now we have lots of beautiful birds to watch in the morning while we have breakfast. 

Silicone Calipo ice lolly molds

We got our Little Bears some Calipo ice lollies on one of our adventures and they loved them so much they wanted them every day. However we don’t want to be spending that many pennies a month on ice pops so I managed to find these colourful silicone molds (unfortunately on Amazon, but sometimes you have to work with a budget) and they are going down very well. I just fill them up with Ribena, freeze and they enjoy. 

Homemade binoculars for ladybird spotting

At the beginning of the month the children wanted to go ladybird spotting so we decided to make ourselves some binoculars to take on our adventure. These are super simple to make and really added to the fun of the day. I asked them if they wanted to decorate them but they chose to leave them plain for camafloush (camouflage!). It’s such a simple, cheap, fun activity to do with little ones.

We hope you have had a wonderful June too, please do let us know what you got up to in the comments.

Livvy and Summer