Yes, there obviously has been a lack of blogging on my behalf recently, but this is because we suddenly and quite expectantly have flown off to England earlier in the week. Andy's nan passed away and his mum is due for triple surgery next week, so we decided that we needed to be with the family.

Right now we're in his nan's old house, getting everything ready for the funeral & in a few days we'll head up to Norfolk to be nearer his mum & dad's house.

The kids have been amazing through this whole upheaval. They were as good as gold on the flight over, which is always a worry, as you never know how your children will behave when they are forced to sit down and share a confined space with tons of other people for such a long time. Lucas was actually trying to figure out which cloud was heaven & was expecting to see his great-grandmother fly by when we were up the air.

Anyway, I'm going to keep it short. Just wanted to let you all know where we were.

Enjoy your family and friends! They are precious!

Well, it's still hot here. There was meant to be a cold front coming in now, but apart from it being pleasantly cool last night, nothing much has changed in the temperature during the day. Maybe it's a tat cooler than it was, but that's it.

Some good news: the house is getting closer and closer to getting finished. Yeeha! There are so many people working in there today, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, builders...it's quite a sight. I think that in another week or so we'll be able to take out the partition wall and live in the whole building.

Lucas is back in school (another 'Yeeha!') and little Aidan is still fighting off a cold, the second one he's had in a row now. He's still happy as anything and he doesn't act sick during the day, apart from the fact that he's gone off solids almost completely now (how on earth can I start weaning him, when he keeps getting flu's and colds?) But at night he has such coughing fits that he ends up vomiting the phlegm all over the place. It's hard to figure out what to do. Are these just viruses he picks up, is it something else? Am I worrying too much? Am I worrying too little? Oh, the predicaments of being a mother...

And then there's the Jungle Dome, of course. Well, we're still very busy, with a lot of families staying with us (which Lucas is very happy about). But starting next week it will be a bit more quiet again, so we can look at going away for a weekend soon.

And that's all really.

Oh, and that's not me in that fridge. I just found this picture online and found it quite funny...

No, it still isn't finished. But we're getting there now. Our kitchen is coming along nicely as you can see. It's going to be finished with lots of Mexican tiles.

Anyway, in another month we should be done. And, even tough the end result will be great, I don't think I'll ever build a house again. It will have taken us more than a year (about 14 months in total, I expect)

Still, we will be living in our dream house & that can't be too bad. We may even forget about the whole process once we're in.

Andy, John, Lucas and (barely visible in the cart) Aidan. Behind them is the scariest ferris wheel in the world. It goes incredibly fast and there are no rails around it, so if you don't watch out you'll walk straight into it. I also noticed an overall lack of safety features on most the rides, with little kids flying up in the air on all kinds of machines, without even a basic safety belt or bar. It's all so Central American.


Check out Lucas and Andy in some sort of go-cart/buggy thing...


Plus some rather fun live music. The woman dancing with the MC is a person from the audience, hoping to get a free CD. Oh, and isn't the little girl dancing at the side cute? By the way, I'm sorry for the awful sound quality