Life with Olivia

The photo prompt word on Friday was chew and I couldn’t think of anything! Now I can’t even remember what we did on Friday!
I remember on Saturday it was mum’s birthday and I made her a cup of tea then I went on a day out with Guides. We went on an adventure zone day and did so many things! We did apple bobbing, toasting marshmallows, made dampers and cooked them, made a tent, sign language and whistle communication, peeling potatoes, writing with a pen in your mouth or holding it with your toes, singing round the campfire….I can’t remember the rest! Then Adam stayed home with me when mum went out with her friend in the evening.
Yesterday was my friends birthday party but his birthday’s really today. We got the train to Totnes and then got picked up to drive up to Dartmoor to meet everyone else. It was really, really brilliant and fun! We all had a picnic and some of us went paddling and swimming in the river. I had a go on a mountain board which was so much fun. Some other boys there let me and my friends borrow their inflatable boat too. We played pass the parcel and there were loads of bubbles. One of our little friends climbed a tree for the very first time and her mum asked me to take a photo of her!

I got to catch up with some of the photo prompts too!
The first one is chew which is the one that I got stuck on! At the end of the party when we were packing up to go we saw two little ponies with their mums. They were so cute!

The next one is Self Portrait Saturday which I did today after mum showed me how to use the timer. It took a bit of practice!

But I finally got it right!

For Show Off Sunday I took a photo of the pebbles that light up in the city centre at night. They keep changing colour but this is my favourite colour!

Today’s word is fall so I took a photo of a rose that has lost most of it’s petals!

I’ve caught up with everything now! I’m going to go and help mum make a cake for a strawberry trifle. It’s my favourite!

It’s a lovely sunny day today and today’s word is sun!
I didn’t take a photo of the sun but I did take two photos though.
This is the first one.

It’s a mini jigsaw of Sunflowers by Van Gogh. I love Van Gogh and Monet. They’re my absolute favourites! We got it at the National Gallery when we had a weeks holiday in London a few years ago. It was such a cool holiday! We stayed in a hotel right over the road from Hyde Park! The last time I went to London was last August when we were staying at my granny and grandpa’s house in Hastings. We went up to London quite a few times. I love London!
We’re going up again soon. Mum got a email this morning about a Tutankhamun exhibition that she registered for so she can buy tickets before they go on sale. I love ancient Egypt so I can’t wait to see the exhibition! It starts on November 15th and goes on till next year but I want to see it as soon as possible!
My second photo is the big golden sun in the bathroom.

It’s a bit dusty! It hangs over the bathroom door and I had to stand on the toilet to get a good photo!

Maaike nominated me for a Nice Award! Thank you very much!
Here it is!

I’m going to nominate my mum because she cooks me nice food, takes me nice places and lets me use her new camera!

Yesterday was really good. We went to Cockington village in the afternoon to have a look around and meet up with some friends before we watched Romeo and Juliet in the evening. Here are some photos.
We walked from the train station.

I loved this pink house! It was a tea room and there was someone playing a piano in the garden too.

There was a pond in the garden aswell.

The village had lots of thatched houses. I loved the horse and carts too!

We saw this in one of the barns.

This was the garden of the pub where we had a drink.

This is the big house where there are lots of arts and crafts workshops and a education centre too. The play was on the grass in front of the house.

I liked this window inside the house.

This flower was in the garden.

Today’s photo prompt word is fly. So I’m using this photo from Cockington for it. I know the baby ducks are too small to fly yet but they will fly soon and they were really cute!

Mum took this photo of me and my friend B on one of the swings. It was so much fun!

The play was really good! I love Romeo and Juliet and this one was set in America and there were cowboys in it! It sounds weird but they all spoke the proper Shakespeare lines but with cowboy accents! It was brilliant!
We had to catch a train at 10:35 and when we were waiting for it we saw a fox walking along the train track and then it jumped up to the other platform!
We didn’t get home until quarter to 12 and I went straight to bed!
I stayed in bed for ages this morning. I’ve done a bit more painting on the stoneage scene and I’ve been making a present for my friend too. It was her birthday yesterday so I can give it to her when I next see her!
The best news today is that mum got a phonecall and I am doing drama all next week!! YAY!! I’m going to be in a real play! We’ve got rehearsals all week and the play is on Saturday! It’s going to be so brilliant!

I had lots of fun at the two workshops on Thursday. I think my favourite was the one at the cathedral where we made gargoyles and did some brass rubbing. Mum got me a photo permit so I could take some photos inside the cathedral too.

On Friday mum had to look after some of my friends. So we had a picnic on the hill where we go blackberry picking. Then we went paddling in the panny and went to a fun day near to us. I showed them how to play mancala when we got home. It’s one of the ancient games I played at the museum.

The fruit leather was ready on Thursday so I took a photo of mum peeling it off the tray. It was really sweet and I liked it better than fruit winders.

Mum laughed at my teeth after I’d been eating lots of blackberries and took this photo of me.

Yesterday we went to Brixham to do a treasure trail. We went on the Golden Hind and then we met some friends. They helped us a bit to finish the treasure trail. We went paddling in the sea and then we went up to an old fort to watch a little play about why they built the fort there.
I left the camera on the train and mum’s not very happy. So that’s why there’s no photos from yesterday. I’ll have to do the photo prompts again when mum gets a new camera. But mum’s phoned lost property and I hope we get the old camera back.
I made mum a cup of tea and breakfast this morning to say sorry. I’ve been helping lots to tidy up aswell.

Hello again.
Sorry I haven’t blogged for ages. I’ve been very busy lately doing all sorts of things.
I’ve recently turned 11!

I’ve joined Girl Guides, M and D have joined too! We’ve been rafting and canoeing with them aswell.

Me and mum went camping for the very first time with one of our groups. We went to East Prawl. I loved it! I flew my kite too, it went really high. Gordon had to show me how though! We went for lots of walks and to the beach.

With FRL we did some things at Haven Banks. Today we did wall climbing. And I reached the top! We’ve also done archery and kayaking. I think my favourite was kayaking. The next one is raft building. I’m on the reserve list for that.

We also went abseiling and went on a zip wire at Chudleigh Rocks. We went on the Tyrolean aswell.

I can’t remember everything we’ve done.
So I’ll borrow some photos from mum’s Flickr to remind me.

Mum’s also set me up with my own Flickr account so I can upload all my own photos now too! Here’s two I took yesterday and today.

See you later!

I’m ill and I’ve got a cold.
So mum is typing for me and I’m telling her what to say.
On Tuesday we went to Di’s house. I was supposed to finish decorating my box. But I felt like drawing instead. I copied a map of Devon and Cornwall. Instead of writing the different places on the map, I wrote them at the side and drew a little picture of what each place means to me.
For Exeter I drew a bike because we are riding our bikes a lot.
For St Ives I drew a little sculpture like Barbara Hepworth.
For Newquay I drew a disco ball even though we went to the zoo there. But that’s where Adam went for his birthday and went clubbing.
For Plymouth I drew a boat.
For Dartmoor I drew a clapperbridge.
And I drew a funny picture of Maisy as well.
I like going to Di’s house because I get to see Gypsy and Di always makes lovely cakes! Yum yum!

On Wednesday we went to group. A man called Chris came to show us some bushcraft. We lit some fires. It was really cool. I had to use a fire steel like I use when we go to LEEP.

I went to drama at the Phoenix later and we rode our bikes home. I think that’s when I got ill! It was really freezing and raining and I was really tired!

On Thursday we met Di at the community centre. I put my name down for volunteering at the garden again. Anderson gave me extra free biscuits! I really like Anderson, he’s really funny. We were going to the museum with Di but she had a headache and I felt ill so we didn’t go.

Today me and mum went to Dawlish Warren. We were supposed to go with the natural history group but it was bad weather so nobody showed up! It was just me and mum! We still had a nice time though. I used my new binoculars that I got on Wednesday. They are fantastic! They’re really brilliant! I love them!

We took some hot soup with us. But it wasn’t really cold at all there. It didn’t rain either.

But there were lots of puddles everywhere!

When we got back to Exeter it was a lot colder and was really raining hard. Then I started to feel really horrible so mum got a DVD (Spirited Away) from the library.
When we got home we went up to mum’s room and watched it. But mum fell asleep before it finished!
I’m going to have my bath now! Night night!!

But here’s a photo of the Japanese Golden Eagle before I go!

Mum’s a bit annoyed because in the photo it looks really easy to make. But it really wasn’t at all!

The last time I did my blog it was last Saturday! That’s over a week ago!!
But we have been quite busy and when I wanted to do my blog I had to go to bed.
So today mum promised that I could spend as long as I want to do my blog and put some photos in aswell!

Here goes!!!

Saturday 3 Februaury
Setsubun
This was only yesterday and we did lots of Japanese things. I made some paper dolls.

They were lots of fun to do. It was a bit lke doing origami. This is my favourite!

Setsubun is bean-scattering day so I threw some beans out of the front door and shouted “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” It was so embarrassing!

It means “Out with devils! In with good fortune!” Most of the books and websites we looked at the translation was a little bit different. Some said “Devils out! Luck in!” or sometimes it was ‘happiness’.
We watched Howl’s Moving Castle. It was brilliant! I absolutely loved it! I really liked the music aswell. I did a page in my scrapbook aswell.

Friday 2 February
Groundhog Day
Today was Groundhog day. We were going to watch the film but it didn’t come in time.
We looked at some videos on youtube and read about Punxsutawney Phil. He’s really old. He drinks a special drink every year that makes him live for another seven years but I’ve forgotten how old he is now! I made a pop up groundhog. Here’s a page from my scrapbook.

Thursday 1 February
Paignton Zoo
We went to the zoo today with our group called Free Range Learning. We had to get up early and catch the train to Paignton. I loved the zoo! There were loads of peacocks!

My favourite animal is the giraffe. I drew a picture of one on the train coming home. I did some worksheets about endangered animals. Here’s the page in my scrapbook about it.

It’s got tickets and pictures of most of the animals we saw. Mum got them off the internet because our photos weren’t very good.

Wednesday 31 January
Storytelling and drama
We went to storytelling at the library. It was mostly children I know so it was fun to see everyone. Two of the stories were quite freaky! A bit scary actually!
But we got to see some things from the museum. My favourite was the big fan. It came from Africa. We went to Hawkins Bazaar with Lisa and got some things. We got a magic garden, a zen garden and a window bird feeder. Then we had to go back to the library and Mum saw M and R’s coats that they had left behind. We were on our bikes so we couldn’t take them home and our bags were already full! We gave them to Claire instead and she phoned Lisa straight away for us. Then we went to drama. My friend Stephanie gave me a little Scooby Doo activity book. So that was kind of her.

Tuesday 30 January
We rode our bikes into town. I got some more geomags. I bought a video in the library. It’s a Famous Five one! I love Enid Blyton! Mum bought lots more in Lush!

Monday 29 January
Okehampton
We went to the group in Okehampton today. But we had an old timetable so we missed the first bus!
Barbara let me borrow her daughters bike. Lisa and the girls came too. We got some lovely food in Waitrose in Okehampton. Mum moaned that she spent too much money!

Sunday 28 January
Shakespeare
I made a big Elizabethan theatre. It’s got all the characters from A Midsummers Night Dream and the script too. I had to work out all the stage directions and where the characters have to enter. I really liked it. It was so much fun!
Mum made a little Globe theatre. I really want to go and see the real one in London. Maisy liked watching the play!

I made some other models from a website too. There is also some fairy furniture that I really want to make!
We watched Henry V. I didn’t like the battle scenes. They were gruesome! I had to hide under mums duvet!

And that was my week!!!
My back is really aching now because it has taken me hours to write all this!
I think I might go and play with some of my geomags now and put my bird feeder on my window.
See you later!!

I haven’t blogged for even longer this time!!!

WEDNESDAY
We rode our bikes to group but we went to see Lisa, M, D and R first. That was fun!
I saw T my boyfriend at group. He’s really kind to me. He’s giving me his old mobile phone I think!
I went into the scrapstore with mum aswell. You have to be 10 to go in. I have been waiting ages because I was 10 last July! I got some paper and some really pretty bits of fabric but I don’t know what I’m going to do with it yet.
I went to drama and did some games. I’ve got a really nice friend in the younger group that I help out. She is only 6 and she’s really sweet. She told her mum that I’m her best friend!
We rode our bikes home again.

THURSDAY
We rode our bikes AGAIN! We went to pottery and T went aswell. There were lots more people than the last time we went. Even B and D came. I made a rooftop.

It’s called a Clay Relief Roofscape. I am really pleased with it!
We rode our bikes home again!
Lin, J and M came over and we watched Charlie and the Choclate Factory. We had some microwave popcorn. But mum burnt it by accident! We could still eat most of it. But the burnt bits tasted revolting!

FRIDAY
We got the train to Dawlish Warren and did a scavenger hunt on the beach. There was me, J and M, and M, D, and R aswell.

We found some really cool shells and I did lots of digging.

But the best bit was we saw wild ponies!!!

They were so gorgeous!! I loved them!! They came right up to us!! I think they were looking for some for food! But the signs said we mustn’t feed them anything at all because it would make them ill so we didn’t.
I really want to go back and see them again!!!

TODAY
Yesterday was Australia Day. I coloured in a picture of a kangaroo yesterday. Today I did even more about it. I did a comprehension worksheet about Sydney. I made a model of the Sydney Opera House. I did it all myself. Except mum had to print it for me!
I made a timezone model to show time differences. Australia is way ahead of us!
I made a picture of some aboriginal rock art aswell. I will put photos on later because mum has used all her flicker up for this month!
I found some videos on youtube about kangaroos, koalas, wombats and kookaburras.
I spent a long time on the computer today on line rider. It’s a game Adam showed me how to play. I really love it!! I played some games that J had linked to on his blog aswell. They were really cool too!