It's AJ's 3rd Birthday!

What a day!! Well it was a long time ago now as we've got bogged down with life but Archie's Birthday was a big day for the Heningtons.

John took the day off and the big plan was a day at Tokyo Disney...Hooray!! It was a weekday and not even Summer but it was still pretty busy- not that queues for the big rides were a concern for us!!

Despite Daddy being a bit of a cynic it was a great day and we all had fun and ate a lot of caramel popcorn. Archie got on his first rollercoaster- From the queue below he was quite happy watching the scared people but once faced with the carriage he went very quiet and tried to run!...

The rest of the day was sadly missed as the camera ran out of battery power so the nightime parades are just our memories although we will go again!!! John wants to beat his high score on the Buzz Lightyear ride- to infinity and beyond!!!

Archie's Birthday also meant lots of cake and presents! There was a lot of Thomas so Mummy and Daddy got Spencer for his railway but he was a way behind his real steam Thomas with highly annoying jingle....we look forward to those batteries running out.

All in all it was a great Birthday and the first one that felt truly real with Archie- lets just hope he doesn't get more hyper from now till his next!!!

AJ's Birthday Cake

Unable to pop down to Tescos to buy one and having left it a bit late to buy one Aiko decided to do it herself!!! Scroll down for a step by step guide to how Percy (Perthy-in Archie speak) was made.

Solid food

Because Archie is so active there's always a lot of news and things to write about but for Millie just looking cute or filling nappies isn't much to write home about. Now though she's really beginning to do stuff and this milestone is her first proper meal. As you can see it looks like the human dustbin gene has been passed on by Aiko. After a few 'mmm this is different' expressions Millie gets down to some serious eating- even the spoon...

http://www.youtube.com/v/K9tLQ436fL4

This photo has nothing to do with her first meal but is a spectacular bogey bubble- it's amazing the amount of fun you can have with a young child and some dishwashing liquid...that's a joke of course- it's just a bogey..

Terminal 5

What could possibly go wrong?....well going through terminal 5 on the opening day was always a recipe for disaster but intially it all seemed great. We met John's Uncle Paul who had flown in from Hong Kong to visit his Mum/Johns Gran for breakfast and then after a lot of hassle got throgh to departures- we ended up having to be escorted through as Millie ticket had issues- or rather they thought it did but as it turned out it was no problem.

We then moved through to the lounge and enjoyed that until we realised we were late for out flight and ran sweating to the gate...only to find no anouncment and no boarding. We had to wait 3 hours in the end.



The delay was quite frustrating- they had nice wine in the lounge but as we had no idea how long it would be we couldn't risk going back.....shame.





Still in the end we got the flight, Millie had a box to sleep in and T5 wasn't as bad as waiting for out cases for over a week- Also it's not often you see Gordon Ramsey in the flesh is it?....

Wilstead

One final and important

stop off before our return to Japan!.. John's Sister family. It's been quite a while since we saw them last so Rhonnie, Kit and Ivan have all really grown up.
Ivan conversations were very philosophical and entertaining- like asking us if Millie would learn to walk like he (and Rhonnie,Kit, etc) did. He was also very generous in allowing Archie to play with all of his toys- toys being a restricted item on our flight over!

Rhonnie was the older, wiser and generally taller than everyone else- not that hard in our group it has to be said but next time we return she will be taller than John.

Kit was a ball of energy and almost pulled Johns ears off during a spot of wrestling...ooOh referee!! Also outside

tactical 'I'm just taking a photo' recouperations were needed so John could keep up the footballing pretence whilst chasing Kit around the garden!

On the day before we left John Parents came down for a trip to the Whipsnade Zoo. It was bloody freezing as one would say in the UK and the Zoo Railway was more like the trans-Siberian crossing. Warmed ourselves up with a nutritious meal - burger and chips!!
Back at Paulas we had the obigatory group photo- rather a odd mix of people almost out of picture, too close or too far...Ahh the joys of self timer photos! All we had to do was pack our cases...just and then what else could possibly go wrong.....

Cholwell Hall

The last times we have gone back to the UK there has usually been a wedding that pulls all Johns friends together for a lot of eating, drinking and late nights talking rubbish! This time we had to organise a one off event as no-one was getting married!

Thanks to some brilliant organising (by Charlotte) we secured Chorwell Hall nr Bath and had a great weekend.

There are some good cooks among us so we ate well and then in the evening we retired to the party room. Chorwell Hall had a Piano which was quite out of tune but that didn't bother Archie, Flo and the other children.

Outside in the garden was a good play area as well -

it was a bit chilly but a good way for the children to burn up some of that excess energy.....bit too tiring for John though!




On Easter Sunday the Easter Bunny paid us a visit so there was a big egg hunt so having tired the children out we fed them chocolate to get them hyper again!!





Despite it being quite manic it was great to see everyone in one hit and fun to see all the children of different ages getting bar the odd incident of things getting out of hand. Meal times were certainly interesting-!








This was a first night bath with Otto- before Archie got carried away and almost took Otto's eye out whilst playing who can push the table football handle the most- Sorry about that!! Two boys in the bath a recipe for disaster- especially as Archie is used to a no holds barred wet room in Japan. A lot of towels and calming words got us through!!


We generally stayed around the house but on the Sunday we did find a local steam train to ride on and quickstop at a pub. Thanks to Uncle Marcus Archie even got to stand on a real train..whilst their backs were turned!!

Brentwood

John had to pop into work for a couple of days so that meant another move and another chance to meet up with friends- sadly not everyone though -as usual . Did get to meet up with the Fowlers and another chance to have some pub grub- There's nothing really like it in Japan! Apart from all the Irish bars but they are usually on the 9th floor of some highrise- not a rain drenched car park in sight!

Stayed in a hotel which had a huge bed that we all usually ended up in. Quite high though so Millie had to always be placed in the middle!!

God Parents

Staying with the Pinner People is always fun and we were proud to be able to stay in their new extension- very nice!

This visit was a double whammy as the McCanns came down- boy was that a hectic day as the mobile children went at it 10 pin bowling down the hallway. At one point it seemed they had decided to try some kind of hybrid bowling where they used the power of srceams to knock the pins down but soon reverted to just throwing themselves at them instead.

Pops & Nanny

Sedatives - where would we be without them? it's not normal for us to give sleeping tablets to them but they were really annoying us so... NO thats just a joke... this was naturally induced. It was a scene we would see many times as we did spend a lot of time in the car!

Next was John Parents house; Archie enjyed himself here as Nanny and Pops have more toys than Mummy and Daddy....and they have a dog. Actually at first he was quite scared of Podge the Dog but within a day he was quite besotted and followed him around.

This was quite a relaxing time- the house was made of brick which was a good step up from the caravan. It was nice to see Nanny and Millie hit it off- been a while since there's been a new girl in the family so it's a nice change from the boys who basically like hitting , pushing and jumping off things!

Of course we found time in between relaxing to go shopping and, whilst Archie amused himself with Thomas, John bought 8 cans of underarm deodourant- with all the toiletries we purchased they must have thought we had serious hygiene issues. That would have been a bit embarassing to consider but luckily Archie distracted us by climbing into the window at Superdrug and pulling down a display poster....sorry!!! Then John left the credit card in the machine!!!...arrgh chip and pin novice!!!

Wales

The month of March was dominated by our holiday to the UK. It's a long flight home but undaunted by the fatigue we decided to drive from Heathrow to meet John's parents in their caravan in Wales coast on our arrival. Well I suppose it was John who really decided this and as punishment we had horrendous downpours and survived the journey on a large amount of caffiene. The man in Costa coffee was impressed by a large coffee and double expresso chaser, even more when he saw the 2 cans of red bull for emergency use....both of which were used.

John had been doing major research on things to do in Wales and discovered it is littered with old railways and as luck would have it was able to find one running during our stay. We took a return to the Dolgoch Falls- getting off 3/4 of the way along the line to have an hour to wander around before catching the train as it went home again. As you can see we really packed well for the great outdoors but nothing gets in the way of an idiotic photo pose! The weather just about held (just a bit of sleet) and our journey back was liven up by various incidents with sheep on the line- How British (or Welsh) is that!

The weather then got worse (still very British) as a storm rolled in from the Atlantic- we had a couple of interesting nights in the caravan. It didn't blow away which was a bonus but with strong winds it was quite hairy to say the least and all the rain meant the the site got quite waterlogged- more about that later.

The visit to the caravan also meant we could stop by John's Aunt and Uncle and see his Gran- Millie's the second Great GrandDaughter so far neatly sandwiching the 3 boys that have gone before so I think Johns Gran was pleased to meet her!


Archie just ran around apart as usual not paying much attention to anything until the ham and cheese came out. Archie already was showing signs that he was pickign up a lot of new words although I am not sure the use of Brie is going to be too helpful for him!

It was great to see everyone but as was going to be the norm we couldn't stay too long and soon we had to leave for John's parents in Burton on Trent. The car ( a very nice Audi A6) was packed meticulously in the rain and finally after many typical Henington 'is the window open' moments we left....but not quite as first the car got stuck in the water logged grass- typical! After a lot of phones we were finally rescued and towed from the bog by a nice man in an Astra!!


Right off we go!!!