Funny who you see in the giraffe house

Oh, I forgot to say that while I was having a sit-down at the zoo, watching the giraffes in their shed, Olga - who had taken Lara outside to see the next enclosure - called me but I missed her call. As I was checking my phone, a family walked past me into the giraffe house, but I took no notice of them. It turns out it was Rob Brydon! Olga thought it was him, and called me to tell me to have a look, but of course I missed the call. Anyway, we saw him later, going into the bat house, and yep, it was indeed the Welsh comic. He's shorter than he looks on TV...

A few days out

We had a clear weekend 2 weeks ago and so took the opportunity to load up the car and head up to see Grandma. It was only a flying visit, but it was lovely to see her and Lara was very excited. We didn't tell her in advance that we were going, and waited until we picked her up from nursery on the Friday teatime. Mishka was in his usual co-pilot seat, up front with me, and Jackson was on the floor in the back, with towels and sick bags at the ready. The poor fella isn't getting any better at travelling in the car, and is sick every time. Interesting that Mishka has never suffered from this problem. Lucky us!

To give Olga some relaxation time, Lara and I took Grandma shopping in Manchester. We're used to Wycombe now, and it was a surprise to see how crowded a big city can get on a Saturday afternoon.  Wycombe's Eden Shopping Centre can get a little busy, but I'd never call it crowded, this was a shock!
The weather was lovely for November, with blue skies, and Mum suggested we go to the Christmas Market they're setting up in St Anne's Square. It would be lovely now, but many stalls were still being built on that day. We did have a very nice hot chocolate though while we watched the world go by. We wandered past Manchester's equivalent of the London Eye, and when we got home Lara tried on the first addition to Grandma's new dressing-up box - the elephant outfit.

On Tuesday we had a day out to London Zoo. The weather was still lovely, and being midweek the Zoo was nice and quiet, apart from the odd school party. The new penguin enclosure was a favourite attraction, but the giraffes, meercats, lions, tiger, butterflies, and monkeys all ran them a close second.

This weekend has been a bit of a mixture of trying to tidy the house, do some christmas shopping, and poor Olga wore herself out stripping the dogs, but of course they look wonderful for it afterwards. I'll post finished photos when I remember to take some, but here are a couple with Lara helping and documenting:

 Careful with those scissors, Olga!:

Oh, hang on, I found a video I took with the kids in it:

A quieter time (apart from the fireworks)

Bonfire weekend passed uneventfully, apart from one of our neighbours having a visit from Fireman Sam and his cronies - his fire had got a little larger than he intended, and I think a neighbour whose garden backs onto his phoned the fire brigade, to protect his fence. Lara thought it was wonderful.
We had a nice visit from Auntie Cath & Uncle Nick, with cousins William and Elizabeth on Saturday morning, Lara was soooo excited. After that I took her to Littlewick Green for a Dad's & Kids afternoon - a pub lunch followed by a GeoCaching walk - you use your GPS on your smart phone to find "treasure" hidden by other GeoCachers. It was only a mile and a half's walk, but it was good fun for the kids, although I probably carried Lara at least a third of the way:

On Sunday we played a bit on our new (second hand) Nintendo Wii, then took the dogs for a good walk, this time Lara walked the whole way, probably another mile and a half. Lara modelled for some photos of herself holding photos of herself:

Olga is "showing" more and more now, as her body recovers from the pneumonia, to the point where I suggested she should use her bump to ensure she got a seat on the bus yesterday, when she went to Reading to see Lucy.  Lara has become very accostomed to the idea of a baby brother, and the hugs for him have multiplied. We've started buying odd bits and pieces for him that we reckon we'll need, first on the list was a very portable Samsonite pop-up travel cot, identical to one we borrowed off Anton and Becca when we took Lara to Russia when she was 6 months old. It was perfect for that trip, and Olga won one on eBay for a fiver, with the seller living only 2 miles away, we couldn't say no!

Junior Update - 20 week scan

Olga had her 20-week scan this morning, and even after all the trouble and illness over the past 5 weeks, Junior was given a clean bill of health by the sonographer, he was happy with everything he saw, and Junior is on the line or above in the 4 graphs that were put into Olga's notes for whatever measurements were taken. What size would Junior be if Olga had been fit and healthy for that time!! :-)
As I say, the sonographer was able to see everything he needed to see, and something he didn't need to see, but asked if we wanted to see it - a little dingle-dangle! Junior is a he :-)
Still all on course for March 27th then. Tonight we break it to Lara that she's going to have a brother, and not the sister that she's been seeing when she looks into Mama's bellybutton...
Here he is:

Mama & Papa - a study in pencil

Lara brought this home from nursery earlier this week. It's not their policy to teach the kids to draw, more to encourage them to learn on their own. Lara seems to have learnt how to draw people, and faces in particular, over the last month or so, and this has been her best effort to date. She even got our hair right!