Archive for the ‘Family & Parenting’ Category

Elina and Venla were in Finland last week to see the family. As well as catching up they went to a bouncy castle thing, built a snowman and met Santa. Everyone is a lot more grown up than last time we were there!

We were hosting my parents this week. It was lovely to see them and have them here. We did a birthday meal at the Step Inn. I was too ill to enjoy it unfortunately but the food was delicious. We also managed to fit in a trip to Johnnie Fox’s and plenty of walks, too.

Just wanted to say a big congratulations to my mum who ran her first ever 10k at the Abbey Dash yesterday. She also raised over £500 for Age UK! You can continue to contribute to the fundraiser here.

Venla had her second birthday party of the 2023/2024 year today. I’m not ready to have a daughter with a better social life than me. It’s too much too fast!

We’ve been searching for a bike for Venla for a while as she wanted to move to a peddle cycle. This was a tough challenge because a lot of them are twice as heavy as my bike. I get that I have a fancy bike that is super light. But sitll, even my first cheap cross bike was around 11kg. Many of the children’s bikes, which are half the size, are significantly heavier than that.

Thankfully, we eventually managed to find a Frog 52. It comes with a spotty design. How come grown-ups never get that?

Last week, we welcomed two new additions to our extended family when my sister gave birth to twin boys. Congratulations to Katie and Simon. Venla doubled her number of cousins in a single day. I’m not sharing any photos to respect their privacy so here is a stock photo of some babies:

364 days a year, Irish people complain about British people coming over and imposing their culture. But once a year, on the 17th of March, all of that goes out the window and every one parties in remembrance of Saint Patrick. Typically a parade is involved somewhere.

It was a traumatic day for Venla because she had an ice cream but the ice cream was too cold. Somehow she got through the experience though and we made it safely home. At least Fluffy had a good time.

We went to The Vanilla Pod for Elina’s birthday this year. It was busier than expected but they managed to seat us pretty quickly. Elina was a little disappointed that her potato salad actually had salad in it but otherwise very happy. The South Korean chicken was good, too. And they do slushies in a lot of different flavours.

Venla recently completed her 21st junior parkrun, earning her the marathon wristband (21 x 2k = 42k). She didn’t look too impressed but I think she’s mostly there for the food trucks after the run.

Yesterday, Venla set a new PB at Marlay junior parkrun: 15:15. The big shift, though, was that she ran the whole thing for the first time (with me, at least).

I don’t encourage pacing because that is a boring adult thing to do. Sprinting a bit and then walking a bit is usually much more fun. But Venla spontaneously decided halfway around the course that she wanted to try and run all the way to the end. And she managed it!