All the stars had aligned for this weekend and Lyns had managed to get the full weekend off, what a rare treat. I had taken it upon myself to arrange a few surprises, not letting Lyns and James know until the last minute.

It start on Friday as Lyns rang me whilst I was driving home and said they were at Monks Cross. As I was just about to drive past myself, having left work at four, there was only one thing to do, impromptu dinner at Frankie’s and Benny’s. Do not mind if I do.

Saturday morning saw me up before the rest of the family and out with my camera. For a while, I have been hankering to try my hand at macro photography and with good weather I thought it might be worth going out to see what I could get. I am definitely not a macro photographer but was lots of fun seeing what I got.

I got back home in time for James to get up. We had a fun few hours while mummy had a little bit of a lie in. As we were having a relaxing day and the weather was looking good, we headed to Strensall Common to take Jess for a walk. When we arrived, there was a sheep that had managed to get its horns tangled in the fence. Lyns proudly announced that she was going to free it. She walked within ten meters of it then came back saying she could not do it. Up stepped super daddy and over I went to free it. A couple of minutes later the sheep was free and we were off on our walk. That was my good deed of the day.

All in all, we did not walk too far as little legs managed to fall over and scrape his knee within five mins of leaving the car. To be fair to him there was a fair amount of blood but it was not too deep and after a little carry he was back exploring again.

We got back home and cleaned James’ knee up. He was very brave and let me give it a good wipe. In the evening we were off to see some friends of ours. James was really excited as they have a trampoline in their garden. More excitingly from my point of view was that Mike was cooking pizzas on the BBQ. They tasted amazing, with a hint of smoke to them. After this, the kids played all evening. James was still bouncing on the trampoline at 9:45pm! We thought he would pass out in the car but he managed to keep chatting almost all the way home. What a little trooper.

Sarah and Mike’s daughter borrowed my camera and had a go. Here are a couple of the pics she took. I did a little editing and set the camera up for her, but other than that she had a good eye!

Sunday morning saw me up early again and this time out to Strensall Common to try my hand. Again, not spectacular but it was nice to be up and about as the sun was rising as it looked like it was going to be a lovely day again. Really need to get better at finding insects.

Once I got home, I got the rest of the family fired up. You would have thought that after his late night, James would sleep in, and he did, a whole forty five minutes! Lyns had graciously allowed me to plan the weekend so I had arranged a few surprises. We got the bus into town at 10ish to get to the first event of the day.

The first event of the day was an insect fun day being held in the Museum Gardens. It cost £1 each to get in and what good value it was. There was face painting, mummy set an example for James, who then decided he did not want to do it, insect displays and lots of things to make. For what it cost, you could have spent all day there and James had so much fun making ladybirds and dragonflies. He absolutely loved it and it was educational to boot. We all learnt loads. Who would have thought learning could be so much fun. A lot of that though came from the enthusiasm of the people running the stalls.

After the insects, it was time for a spot of lunch. We headed to Ask where I announced the second part of our day. We were off to see The Tiger Who Came to Tea at the Opera House. James was so excited.

The performance was good, although, for Lyns and I anyway, not as good as Zog which we had seen in Manchester a few weeks ago. James enjoyed it though and he was singing and clapping along throughout the performance.

After that, we had one very tired, but very happy, little boy. We got on the bus and headed home. All of us were exhausted but we had certainly made the most of our family weekend!