Weekend with Auntie Julie

Auntie Julie came from London on Thursday night.  We'd spent Thursday at Lindy's, having lunch and dinner ~ and we left with 2 extra passangers, Sammy and Elvis, David and Catrina's guinea pigs.  Granny is not a fan of guinea pigs so it's a testament to how much she likes Lindy that she managed to drive the whole way home from Holywood with 2 rodents in the back of the car. 

On Friday, we went to Castlewellan forest park. 

Quick shot of the castle, in case you haven't been to Castlewellan with us before ;)

The girls found a huge mushroom and Cole thought it would be really funny to be in the background of the photo.

There was a lot of tree climbing.

Here's Cole going to "rescue" Carys.  She was shouting "he'll push me in!".   I tended to agree with her that given the chance ....

On Saturday  morning, the girls went horseriding.  Chloe wanted to stay at the stables all day, so we left her to her own devices and went to get Granny G to bring her up for lunch.  We took her down home and then ran over to Delamont with the 2 littles ones and Alex, Carys's friend. When we got there, there was a reptile exhibition on.  Carys was thrilled!

They had good fun playing in the playground and Chloe managed to stay long enough at the stables that she actually was happy when she left. That? is saying something. 

Delamont

We took a quick trip to Granny G's house to leave off some groceries and see her this morning before we headed off to Delamont.  Cole wanted to go to the Bloody Bridge, but we decided we didn't have enough time and that will have to wait for another day. 

We had a picnic for lunch and then the kids ran off to the playground.  After a while they headed off to the outdoor gym stuff.  (as a disclaimer, Cole dressed himself this morning). 

After our workout, we headed off for a walk.  I know lots of these photos are repeats, but look at all the shades of green.

See the Mournes in the background? Lovely.

Strangford Lough.

There's supposed to be an island for every day of the year in Strangford Lough. 

In 1995, there was a project to raise a megalith in Co. Down.  The granite came from a quarry in the Mournes. 

The stone is 1000 cm above ground. 

There are more details on the whole project if you click here.

After we walked for a while, we headed down to practise skimming stones. 

Carys caught on camera giving Cole a good shove.

My little daredevil.

Chloe didn't want to be outdone.

We raced home this afternoon and then headed down to the Tates' for dinner.  We were well fed (as usual!) and the kids had so much fun playing with their (second? third?) cousins.  Barbara looked at Carys's head and changed the dressing ~ I think a little stitch would have gone a long way, but it's too late now.  It looks like it's healing, just slowly slowly.  It was pretty easy to get Cole and Carys into bed tonight, they were wiped out.  Chloe, of course, was still up and "not tired" at 10pm.