We have had a really good weekend, lovely weather and lots of family time.

Friday evening we went to my cousins surprise party.  Everyone had a really great time, lots of dancing and singing, really nice food and best of all being with family.

Saturday - well, not such a good start - as we were staying at my parents on Friday night, James woke up at 4am (having gone to bed a lot later also) and realised he was at his grandparents and got all excited and wanted to get up.  I tried my best but I just could not get him back to sleep, so rather than wake everyone else up, I took him downstairs.   Not good enough, he wanted to wake my Dad up.  Which he did.

So my Dad and I were up from 4am, and in the end I got Mike up at 6am and we drove to Exmouth and back to try and get James back to sleep.  He still only slept for an hour in the car though, and then we went in to find the others awake,and we all had breakfast.

So,a Mum who has had about 5 hours sleep, a 3 year old who was short of his normal sleep time by about 4 hours, a Dad who has had early starts all week and only 6 hours sleep, plus two children who are tired, and Grandparents also tired, a hot day, plus nerves and excitement because of the England Match in the World Cup.  So NOT a good combination.

But we managed to get through the day, we left the men watching sport - rugby - two matches in a row,followed by two World Cup Football matches.  My Mum, Becky, James and myself headed to Budleigh Salterton to visit her sister.

Had a really nice time, spent time in their garden, then my Uncle took James onto the beach (about 25 yards from their house) for a paddle, followed by Becky and me,very slowly as it is a pebbled beach and we had inappropriate shoes on.

Back to my parents house, James had a sleep during the ride back, then home for us to prepare for the England Match.

We drew 1-1 against USA.  Not bad for a first game, and I think this will be the hardest game we will have in our group. We played well, apart from the poor goalie making the biggest blunder I have EVER seen in football. Oh well. I expect I will get loads of stick at the HE Group this week, as they were all saying how rubbish England are (cant seen the point in that) and as most of them do not really know much about football anyway (which is even more annoying) I can imagine that they will be saying that that's England finished!  Think I will avoid talking to them this Wednesday.

Anyway, Sunday we didn't wake up until 9am,must of all needed it.  We spent a lovely day in the garden. My aunt and uncle came round with two budgies for us (as my cousins didn't want them anymore) and the are really cute.

Parents came round in the afternoon for a BBQ, then it was an early night for James and me as he didn't sleep during the day - so I watched Germany thrash Australia 4-0 in the World Cup.

Today - HE, library, baking, gardening and lots of paperwork.  Mike on a split shift, but getting used to that.

Hopefully the sun will come out soon.

Have a good day -   Lou x