Isla's Days

Wednesday, 14 November 2012

Birthday treats

Hello! This is a bumper post of our trip to Essex. We had a terrific time.

Birthday presents and enjoying the beautiful North Essex countryside

Oh and LOTS of delicious birthday food!

Colchester Zoo

We had an amazing time at Colchester Zoo! The chimps and orang-utans were fascinating to look at, and it was great to see ostriches, white rhino, zebra and kudu all together in a massive enclosure. Just like being on safari. Andrew made friends with a Francois Langur who kept coming over and whacking the glass whenever Andrew went near to it. We took a 'Choo Choo Train' to Madagascar and walked through very close to ring-tailed lemurs. They jumped across the enclosure between us, brushing Andrew and Isla with their tails on a couple of occasions! Isla loved the train, so we ended up going on it twice.

The highlight for us all was hand-feeding giraffes and elephants. The giraffes were very gentle, even when Isla was teasing them and not handing over her leaves - Andrew got a lick from a giraffe on his hand when it was trying to get hold of Isla's leaves. The elephant was also very gentle and sucked the pieces of cabbage and carrot from our hands with his trunk. We all got snotty hands!

Andrew's friend Francois

On the 'choo choo train'

The ring-tailed lemurs having a nap on our first visit to Madagascar

Doing a quick check-up

Breakfast with 'Raa Raa' and fun at the playing fields

Friday, 9 November 2012

A trip to the zoo

On Wednesday we had a little trip to the zoo. The lion was roaring and stomping around very impressively. Isla enjoyed looking at some of the animals, and going on the play equipment. She was a bit concerned when a butterfly landed on me in their enclosure though! There were loads of butterflies out although I couldn't photograph them. After the zoo, we went to Royal Fort Gardens where there is a mirror maze: great fun!

Isla is joining lots more words together, so things are not just 'biiiig' anymore. She can talk about 'black taaty' (black Monty), 'black bird', 'yellow tractor', 'yellow car', 'taaty gone' (Monty's gone) and lots more. She tells me when it's dark outside, and if she can see the moon in the sky. She also told us that she had a 'pain' and pointed at her teeth, which is very useful! 'More biscuit' was her main sentence yesterday and meant that she got an extra biscuit at toddler group. It is very exciting every time she comes out with a new word and can tell us what she is thinking about. She understood us when we were talking about going to the zoo, and could tell us that she wanted to see a lion and a monkey there.

Watching the meerkats (my favourites!)

The meerkats were scrapping

Kea!

Sunday, 4 November 2012

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

On Friday, Isla and I went to The Mall to have a shopping trip. It was Isla's first look at proper Christmas trees, lights and decorations. She was very impressed and actually said 'wow' when we saw a tree with flashing lights! We bought an owl decoration for our tree and also bought a couple of winter dresses. The shops got very busy and by lunchtime, when we left, the car park was full.

On Saturday night, we watched fireworks from our upstairs windows. They were really impressive ones of all colours. Isla said 'biiiiig bang' a lot, but enjoyed looking at the fireworks. She thought we were going to watch a fire engine though, as she said 'naa noo' as we went upstairs to our viewing point!

Today it snowed!!! Proper big flakes that settled and meant we needed wellies, gloves and hats outside. Isla was a bit unsure of the snow and didn't want to walk in it. She had a little go on the sledge though, and enjoyed that a lot. We enjoyed going for a drive through the snow and looking at all the trees, fields and houses covered in white. Feel very Christmassy now, and it is November now so not long to go. I may even look out the Christmas music soon.