Christmas Holidays 2012

This year, the Christmas holiday period consisted of great deal of travelling in a short time. We awoke Christmas morning around 6am with 4 excited children desperately trying to pull there present full stockings upstairs to safety of there bedroom. After the frenzied ripping of wrapping paper and a breakfast consisted of the evil brown stuff (chocolate, for all those who do not know adult code for chocolate ), we ventured down to Hayling Island for 11am to have dinner with the Hammond mafia. Dinner consisted of Indian takeaway followed by gateau from a local bakery and nibbles from Iceland. The afternoon entertainment involved Wii Party, Karaoke and the Danish present game, where a pile of  mysterious presents were wrapped up and a dice was thrown.

1 = take a present from another person

5 = give a present to another person

6 = take another present from the pile

Game ends when last present is open. Presents have to be under 1 pound and range from 1 sock to a can of de-icer.

Traditional Christmas dinner  - Chicken Shaslik and Sag Panir

The party game that could end friendships and marriage.

Game recommended for any party.

After a good sleep at the local Premier Inn and good hearty breakfast we set of to Ely to see John & Laura. Apart from the rain the travelling was good. More presents were exchanged which then resulted in scooting in the rain and dodging flying nerf disks, which came from the toy gun to end any game of make believe soldier warfare. ( Sorry John you had to wrap the present up at some point )

After a dreadful M25 experience we arrived back in Weymouth and are enjoying the local landmarks on a morning walk with the dog.

Hammond Tanks

Last year we won a raffle prize of a family ticket to Bovington Tank Museum, so we decided with the last weekend to go before the ticket expires we should venture out. The museum stocked 260 tanks just when you think you have seen 1 a different one comes along. The museum was very put together starting with world 1 and ending with tanks of today.

New recruits!

Who wants to join Rebecca and her army! I know which side I am joining!

The smile of victory

In to the trenches we go!

Inverness Panoramic

Panoramic Inverness view - can you spot the join!

Trip to Inverness Part 2

View from the hotel, loch ness river

After a previous hard day's work we decided to take the morning off and take a trip to hunt for nessie.

Looks like we were out of luck, the nessie hunter was not there or was had he been eaten!

Just to make sure the sat nav directions were correct.

No its not the Nessie!!

But is that the nessie

Trip to Inverness Part 1

On my first visit to the Inverness highlands I was greeted with sunshine and warmth which is not common for that area. Once arrived at my hotel in my hire car of a brand new Kia sportage, we were feeling very peckish, so we ordered from the restaurant.

Free canapés - Duck heart, salmon balls, caviare

Tomato Jelly, Lettuce soup and something else but who cares it was free!

Now the expensive stuff!

Pigeon with cuckoo spit

Sea Bass with more cuckoo spit

Spooky Cookies

On my return from the creek I was baring gifts for the kids, one of which was a spooky making cookie kit, which consisted of gumball eyes, candy teeth, and chewy worms.   One dinner the kids did enjoy!

Olympic Hammond

Trip to the Olympic park was amazing, we woke at 3am and set off to catch the coach at Ringwood. Spent time in the stadium with amazing atmosphere then took a trip around the park to check out the rest. Coming home was a disaster first we could not find the coach stop to get back to Victoria and none else could help so we braved the London underground and survived, then once at Victoria we had a coach driver but no coach, so he had to find a replacement which was good but had no air conditioning working. Finally back at Ringwood to find out that we had left an internal car battery light on and had a flat battery. All in all it was a good day

Up the orbit tower next.

The things you do for a free bottle of coke

Shame we could not pick up a free BMW

Olympic torch come and went

The Olympic torch relay came to Weymouth and the children were allowed to take time out of school to see this once in a lifetime occasion.

Waiting for this historic moment, with our freebie samsung clappers and cola drums

The crowd gathers, the police man is very good at standing still and in the way.

Looks like someone has kidnapped the Olympic mascot

Here comes the torch

There goes the torch!

Little did we know that torch handover was about 50 yards up the road, but we did manage to see some of us on the London 2012 torch relay video site.

Weymouth Olympic Torch

The Olympic torch has come to Weymouth, and party on the beach was going ahead no matter what the weather. So after work I had only one taker who wanted to brave the storms to see this moments occasion. So me and Bethany travelled by train to town then somehow managed to walk straight in to the exclusive blue wrist banned party without having any bands, the view was blinded by umbrellas but we were kept warm by the huddling bodies. The party was ruined by the weather as some dance acts could not perform due to a slippery stage, so we managed to find what seemed to be a good viewing point to see the arrival of the torch by row boat.

View point ... nice umbrellas!

Someone is happy with their freebie drum!

Torch coming in to land, a lot of footage was destroyed by the couple in front waving flags and phones in my view...... I am not bitter!!

Weymouth Floods

With the strange summer we are having, I manages to have a before and after photo of the rain fall.

Before

After

Sports triumph

Last year Oliver won a trophy in tag rugby, after competing in eight weeks of various sports. This year all four little Hammond's wanted to take part and try to win their first trophy. They all competed well and we are very proud of their efforts. One trophy was won and that was the skipping race trophy.

Skipping race winner!

Walk at Swan Lake

First day of sunshine and warmth which seems like at least year since our last sight of the bright yellow ball in the sky. We decided to revisit Abbotsbury Swannery to see the swans and have a go at the willow maze.

 Mummy Swan with baby looking very proud, or ready to attack!

 Another Mummy looking proud and ready to attack!

The willow maze with the giant willow egg in the distance.  Can we get to it ?   Yes we can!

Or maybe not, inside the maze and lost!!

But hang on it we have understood the ninja way of the Beagle!

Here we go 

Afterwards a play at the park

Can you see the others!

 Jacob riding the snail but will eat it later

Rebecca see sawing with nobody, so she can go at her own pace !

Sea Glass Adventure

Another sunny spring day, and off to the sea glass beach we go. We set the children a mission to fill a sandwich bag full of sea glass before we could go home. It did not take to long!

Looking for sea slugs.

Buckley wanting to get to the ducks without having to swim for them.

Playing follow the leader.

Sea Glass hunters.

Another Accident Another Tooth

One thing us Hammond's seem to be good at is damaging teeth. Bethany had an accident today at school which has seriously damaged one of her teeth, yes the one that used to be grey before the new one grew. She has had an x-ray and we are waiting for the results on Friday.

Poor old brave Bethany

Return to Arne

With the superb weather we decided to head for Arne and have a picnic, we managed to survive the journey without any doggy sick, which was amazing!! but it was me that was driving.

Local resident

2 eager children testing the local temperature

Lunch time!! Buckley on the lookout for crumbs

Buckley taking Jacob for a little walk, we missed the best video clip of Buckley running with Rebecca trailing behind, but I guess that will have to stay in my memory.