And let the activities begin...

I know I have posted anything for a little while -- so figured I would put everything we have done over the past week into this entry. ;o)

While it was raining on Sunday (and basically has rained every day for almost the past 2 weeks!), we decided to take the children to the National Sea Life Centre in Birmingham. Brett, Kendall & Kameron loved seeing all of the fish and sealife and enjoyed learning new things about them.





This fish (looked like a catfish but I'm not sure that is what it was) was swimming with the stingrays and ended up jumping up out of the water like he was trying to escape. ;o)


They got a kick out of watching the otters.

After having some ice cream and leaving Birmingham, we decided that on our way home we would stop at Stratford-Upon-Avon (the city where William Shakespeare was born and where he died). We visited the cottage where Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare's wife) grew up. It was a really neat cottage and the rooms upstairs were setup in a way that we hadn't ever seen before. Following our tour of the cottage, we walked around the garden area and through a beautifully wooded area. It was very peaceful and everyone seemed to enjoy it -- except for Kameron. Everytime she heard a noise, she thought it was a scarab from Egypt that was coming to get us. ;o) (She did finally calm down after I explained what the sounds were.) When we left the cottage, we drove to Shakespeare's house (which is in the center of town); however since it was raining and we had already seen a beautiful cottage (plus we would have had to park and walk quite a distance), we decided to just look at the outside of it and drive back home. Originally we were wanting to make that visit as a weekend trip to see a variety of things in the town -- but are really glad we only drove through, saw a few things, and left to go home. Definitely not someplace that the Manwaring family could find things to do there for a weekend. ;o)



Can you see how Kameron is attached to Brett? Again, she thought she was hearing the scarabs.

The girls attend Playgroup every morning of the week except Tuesday. On Tuesdays, they are going to continue participating in Gymmies class (for ages 3 & 4) at Sims Gym in Peterborough. They absolutely love it! There are many new families that have moved to Peterborough within the last few weeks; however there is one family who has a daughter that is 3 1/2. We picked Natascha and Jasmine up Tuesday morning and they joined us at Gymmies class to see if they liked it. Jasmine fit right in -- and Natascha and I got our workouts for the day by having to warmup and cooldown with the children. ;o) Following Gymmies, we went to McD's for lunch and then played at Jasmine's house for an hour or so before going to pick up Brett from school. The girls had a ball dressing up like princesses and dancing around.


Brett was set to have his first soccer game at Alconbury on this past Saturday; however it was rained out (I know, shocking isn't it?!). While practices are being held on Tuesdays, we just found out that games would be played on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Oops -- Brett will only be able to make the Saturday games and not the ones on Wednesday as I signed the kids up for swimming lessons at the Splash Academy in Peterborough on Wednesday nights. We figure it is MUCH more important for the children to learn how to swim rather than how to play soccer.

Getting ready to go swimming...

They have to wear the swimming caps. The girls wanted their ears tucked inside the cap; however Brett said he couldn't hear very well so he wanted his ears out. Maybe he should rethink that! ;o) Bless him...