How are you surviving the school holidays?

OK, I know that Scotland are already back at school but this week is like the halfway point for us in our school holidays. I wondered how everyone else was doing?

We're doing surprisingly well. It was an inauspicious start to the holidays, what with me being ill and struggling for the first week, which was of course the week that husband had taken off work - which was good because he could amuse the children, but it was bad because we missed out on family days out. Although we did go to Old Trafford for the Olympic football.

Two excited children

That's Team GB down there!

Although, recovering slowly from a bad chest, the walk up 5 flights of stairs nearly killed me. And they told me at the top that I could have got the lift!

And then, to celebrate the opening ceremony the next day, we had an Olympics-themed tea.

I know top left should be blue but I couldn't find
anything suitable!

And then, of course, we had the Olympics to amuse us all. The first week, Missy Woo went to dance summer school at the local village hall so Monkey and I watched most things just the two of us, when he was here. And then the second week kind of merged with the first week, with us hoping it wouldn't end.

On the last but one day of the Olympics, I took the children to MediaCity to see a special preview screening of a new Justin's House episode in the piazza.

Yes, Justin is on stage there before the episode was shown on the big screen - we were asked to stay sat down so the children could see what was going on.  To make it even more exciting, afterwards, we were invited for lunch in Dock House (the building you can see top left of the picture) along with lots of other lovely bloggers and we got to do this.

Notice smiley excited Monkey there. Two hours before, he'd told me that he was too old for Justin's House but soon changed his tune. (You can also see the edge of Geekmummy trying to get the geekdaughter out from under a table as she hid from Justin!). Monkey was actually most impressed with the huge slices of pizza on offer. He had three.

Which brings us onto this week. We've been chilling a lot (and missing the Olympics) but Missy Woo has just come back from an overnight visit to Granny and Grandad's, during which she had her birthday treat from them of a trip to see the Dora the Explorer show, as well as being spoilt rotten by Granny buying her clothes and more presents. Monkey and I stayed home and made cake - I can blame  Great British Bake Off for his renewed cravings for cake. He also discovered a programme on CBBC that he liked this week called "I Want My Own Room" and got very excited when they visited Dock House, showing them visiting the building we'd been inside only a few days before.

Today marks the end of the fourth week and it actually feels like it has flown. Missy has two parties this weekend and then husband is off next week so we're hoping to go on some days out then we are going to my niece's wedding over the bank holiday weekend.  After that, we will be into the Paralympics. The most exciting thing about that is I managed to secure tickets for one of the athletics sessions for all of us this afternoon for just after the children go back to school. I couldn't believe it! We are all now really excited and have something to look forward to once the holidays are over.

How have your holidays been so far? I hope you are surviving. Let me know how you're coping and what you've been doing.