summer has started at last

... and once we had our first days off from work and holiday club we headed into London for the day. Katy has a long list of activities she would like to try this summer, and Borough Market and the Tate gallery were our first stops. We bought lots of yummy stuff in the market and had a picnic on the grass beside Southwark cathedral. We finished as the rain started so we wandered along the riverbank by the Thames to the Tate.

Katy did a couple of the free kids activities in the gallery - there is so much good free stuff in London for kids - and got to create and try a range of art techniques. She loves art and food, so a gallery and a farmers market was a perfect day out for her!

day 6 photos

We went to Epcot today and had booked a lunch with the princesses in the Norway section. Katy really enjoyed this, especially meeting Mary Poppins.

It was wet this day so I didn't get many photos outdoors, but managed to get a couple of the Epcot 'golfball', or Spaceship Earth to use its proper name.

crafty stuff

I have quite a lot of photos to share this weekend, so I'll start with the crafty stuff. I had a lovely Sunday cropping a couple of weekends ago and got a heap of pages done. I've been enjoying starting on the holiday photos.

day 4 and 5 photos

On day 4 we were in theory having a rest day. I'm not sure if a full on water park can be considered a rest but it was certainly fun. We went to Typhoon Lagoon, one of the Disney water parks and we all loved it here.

Katy in the lazy river, our favourite part of the park.

We had fun shopping that night at the Premium Outlets, good bargains were to be had.

The next day we went to Hollywood Studios. It was hot!! This photo was taken just as we were leaving, minutes before an enormous storm. As always, Katy was keen to meet characters.

We also watched the HSM show, which she was pulled up to join in with.

More characters.

This was a fun park, we had hoped to return as we only saw about half of it, but the weather got the better of us - gives us more of an excuse to go back!

Day 3 photos

In lieu of anything more interesting to report, here are day 3 photos. It's starting to feel like a long time ago already. This day was the Magic Kingdom.

Our main aim today was for Katy to meet Tinkerbell and the fairies, so while George and she did some rides, I got in line to ensure we were there early. Apparently the queues to see the fairies hit somewhere near 2 hours later in the day, way way beyond our queueing threshold. We waited 20 minutes which was much more like it.

As this day was mainly about rides and shows I don't have many pictures. Katy enjoyed playing in the fountains in fantasyland. It was really hot so it was nice for her to be able to cool off, and for us to sit down for a while.

Here, Katy is standing on Main Street as we were heading out of the park. We had loads of photos taken of the three of us by the park photographers, but they have yet to arrive so will form another post in a few weeks time :)

Day 2 photos

We started today at 4.30am! Darned body clocks. We went to Chef Mickeys at the Contemporary Hotel for breakfast and had a great time meeting all the characters.

After breakfast we went to the Aniimal Kingdom, which was lovely. Disney really are good at theming all ther parks so well. The photo below is from the Asia section.

And this is Devine, the stilt artist who walks between Africa and Asia.

This is the Tree of Life, it sits in the centre of the park and has I think over a hundered animals carved into its trunk. There is a close up at the top of this post.

We also rode the Kilimajaro Safari, the pictures below are from this ride. You sit in safari jeeps and drive through a safari range, learning about poaching and the difficulties that rangers have in keeping the animals safe.

We met the guy above and a few of his friends in Africa also.

It was a really beautiful park, with lots of atmosphere, a lot of education and some fun rides. And a few charcters too, to keep Katy happy.

We were hot and sticky so enjoyed the pool that evening before dinner.