American Adventure

In a couple of days we will be setting off on our American Adventure to Los Angeles and Las Vegas and we are all starting to get really excited about it now. The kids are practically bouncing off the walls in anticipation!

This will be our first ever visit to the USA and we are going as a pre BIG birthday treat with my Dad and his wife who have been many times before ~ this will be their twelfth time in Las Vegas! My Dad has very kindly taken some time to plan out our days to make sure that we get as much from the experience as we possibly can. It is definitely not going to be an holiday for relaxing! But there will hopefully be lots of fun to be had by all!

Our Itinerary for the days ahead looks like this ~

Day 1 ~ Travel to Manchester by train ~ staying overnight in order to catch our flights the next day.
Day 2 ~ Flights from Manchester to Philadelphia, then Philadelphia to Los Angeles.

Now, I have to be honest here and say that I am not particularly looking forward to the long flights which are 16 hours in total each way. We have only ever previously done short trips over to Europe, but everyone reassures me that the flights will seem to go by fairly quickly as there is so much going on to keep you occupied. I really do hope so!

Day 3 ~ Los Angeles ~ Heading off to Malibu Beach, Santa Monica and then onto downtown Los Angeles to see the Walk of the Stars in Hollywood Boulevard and other Hollywood sights.
Day 4 ~ Los Angeles ~ Universal Studios ~ this is the day that the kids are looking forward to the most!
Day 5 ~ Driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas ~ stopping halfway at the old Wild West town of Calico.
Day 6 ~ Las Vegas ~ Visit to the Hoover Dam.
Day 7 ~ Las Vegas ~ Visit to Red Rock Canyon.
Day 8 ~ Las Vegas ~ Spending the day sightseeing around Las Vegas.
Day 9 ~ Flights from Las Vegas to New York (JFK), then New York to Manchester.
Day 10 ~ Train from Manchester to Edinburgh, then another train home, then I imagine it will be straight to BED to sleep off the jet lag!

Over the last couple of days I have been working like an absolute mad woman washing clothes, sorting clothes and stacking clothes in readiness for packing the all the suitcases tonight and I've also managed to find the time to make myself a Stars and Stripes Bag Tag so I can hopefully recognise the aforementioned suitcase at the airport!

See you all when we get back in a couple of weeks :O)xx

Looking Forward ~ 2015

The year ahead looks like it is going to be a bit of a BIG year for us here in the Button Tree household ~ Firstly, three out of the four of us have fairly significant birthdays happening throughout the year ::

Next month I will be having a very BIG birthday which ends in a Zero!
In May my "small" boy will become a Teenager and turn Thirteen ::
In September my "little" girl will turn Sweet Sixteen::

Also in February we will be taking our first ever trip to the United States of America. My Dad has very kindly offered to take the four of us on a wonderful American Adventure to celebrate my BIG birthday. We will be going to Los Angeles for the first few days and then we will be taking a drive up to Las Vegas for the rest of the holiday. We only have five weeks to wait until we head off on our trip and to say that we are all very excited about it is a bit of an understatement!

I haven't really made any other plans for the rest of the year yet ~ other than all the usual plans that tend to be made at the beginning of each New Year. (And then never happen!). A couple of other bloggers posted this list of Things To Do in 2015 and it all does seem like pretty good advice to me ::

2015 To Do List

Eat Less,

Move More,

Buy Less,

Make more,

Stress Less, 

Laugh More, 

Feel Blessed,

Love More, 

Find a quiet spot every day

and breathe :O)x

The one thing that I definitely want to get around to doing this year is to be making more. I haven't really been spending a great deal of time on very many woolly activities for a while now ~ but this year I should hopefully have a bit more time on my hands to surround myself in huge piles of squishy yarn again. I have lots of crochet plans and yarny projects swirling around in my head and it's now up to me to make them happen!

I am absolutely bursting full of excitement and anticipation for the year ahead and am looking forward to seeing what 2015 holds for me and my little family :O)xx

Monday Fun

Monday was the last day of the school holidays for us so we decided to try and pack in as much fun as we possibly could. We had arranged to spend the day with my very best friend who lives in the beautiful Scottish Borders and had all been looking forward to it for ~ what seemed like forever.

First stop was Ceramic Experience ~ my two small people had been excited about this for weeks and absolutely love this kind of thing.........they LOVE looking at all the little white ceramic figures and take ages choosing just the right thing to paint ~ this time it was a little hedgehog and a little dog. They LOVE rolling up their little sleeves and getting stuck in with all the colourful paints and brushes ~ there is usually lots and LOTS of paint on clothes and faces and arms but it is so much fun watching their little creations take shape.

Then there was a leisurely walk along the river Tweed ~ stopping every so often to throw in a stick or a stone ~ which sometimes seemed to me to be more like half a tree or a rock! Small boys and water ~ what is that all about?? They just can't help themselves!!

We stopped for a very tasty buffet style chinese lunch which went down a treat and then we made our way to Harestanes Visitor Centre which is just outside Jedburgh. I love everything about this place as there is just so much to see and do.

There are little thatched houses to be explored............


There are willow sculptures to be found............


And pretty gardens made with paper too..............

It was a lovely day out! A most enjoyable way to spend the last day of the holidays!

However ::

There were two very grumpy and tired children on Tuesday morning ~ very reluctant to go to back to school and now they are both on a BIG countdown to the Summer holidays!

I have to say though that I am somewhat enjoying the peace and quiet and the routine of getting back to normal. It is lovely to come home from the school run and to be able to sit quietly with a cup of tea and some crochet and indulge in a little ME time :O) xx

Farmhouse Holiday

We had a wonderful weekend staying at this lovely Farmhouse Bed and Breakfast, which I can highly recommend if you should ever find yourself looking for a place to stay near to Alton Towers.

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t that great but the scenery is glorious and the children can play safely too.

We fed some goats


We played with some Farm kittens

We visited a Zoological Park where we saw some Meer cats ~ which caused much hilarity as it just reminded us of Alexander from that brilliantly funny advert for Compare the Meercat.com!

And some Flamingos.

We had a lovely, but very wet day at Alton Towers, but it didn’t stop us from having a lot of fun. We were not brave enough to go on any of the fast and scary rides, but enjoyed all the small child and parent friendly rides with the Berry Blaster being our very favourite. We went on the Sky train and later found out that one of the stations that we were in caught fire and was completely burnt down the same day!

We are off again later in the week to spend a few days with my Aunty and Uncle in Weardale, County Durham. Hopefully the weather will have dried up a bit by the end of the week, but if not then I’m sure we will still have a lovely time :O)