Monday, 10 April 2023

A - Z Challenge 2023 - H is for Holidays

#AtoZChallenge 2023
Please check out the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge
#AtoZChallenge
a-to-zchallenge.com

This year I'm writing about things connected with Being a Grandparent.  For an introduction to my grandchildren check out my theme reveal here.

Holidays

Over the years we’ve had many happy holidays with our own children and now we’re enjoying holidays with the grandchildren.

There have been various times when we’ve all gone away together and we’re still speaking to one another lol.

We had a weekend away in 2018 to celebrate our eldest son’s 30th birthday.  At that time only Nathan was with us, although there were 2 bumps as well.



By Christmas 2018 the first 3 grandchildren were all with us when we rented a house in Kent to celebrate Christmas.  It was a challenge with 3 very young children and an unfamiliar kitchen but again we survived.



In June 2019 we celebrated my 60th birthday with a weekend in Norfolk again renting a house big enough for all of us that was on the coast so we got to go to the beach.  We even got to take responsibility for Rory on the last night as his parent had to get back to London for work commitments.  He actually slept quite well making life easier for us but he woke VERY early the next morning.  I do not do early mornings lol.

Chilling in the garden

Trying to get just a little bit more sleep!

Yummy afternoon tea the Mummies organised

Where we stayed

Of course we’ve also had our annual extended family holidays to look forward to in Kent each year, interrupted of course by the pandemic.  There we have the obligatory “staircase” photo taken.  Again there is the challenge of getting the children to sleep, especially as we’re all sharing rooms and the adults make a lot of noise in the evenings!  But it is lovely spending these extended periods of time with them all.

August 2019 (Pre pandemic)


August 2022 (Post pandemic)

Perhaps the most challenging of holidays with a grandchild though was our first one – if someone had told me I’d be travelling all the way to Australia with an 8 month old Nathan I’d have laughed in their face.  But that’s what we did.   My daughter and her wife wanted to make the trip and invited us to join them and, I think to everyone’s surprise, I said yes!

It was a fantastic holiday but we did do a lot of travelling.  One thing I’d do differently if I could turn back the clock would be to not underestimate the distances between places in Australia.  They are huge and of course travelling with a young baby means frequent stops.  And endless playing of songs on your phone to try and get them to sleep or at least stop crying!  We covered a lot of miles.  Definitely a holiday to remember though.

(I wrote several blog posts about the Australia trip starting here.)

Our next trip will not be so luxurious.  We’re all going to a holiday camp and staying in caravans at the beginning of June.  I’m sure the Grandkids will have a great time being together, taking part in the activities and spending time on the beach.  We’ll probably need another holiday when we get back!

2 comments:

  1. Wow that family has grown! Love the stair pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your family is beautiful, Wendy!! All those kiddos are so great and your caravan vacation in June will be so much fun! I look forward to photos, for sure!!

    ReplyDelete

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