Reasons to be Cheerful. Last week of the holidays #R2BC

Its the last Thursday in August so my last time hosting until October. I will be handing back to Michelle for September. The school holidays are racing to their finish and we have managed to pack quite a lot in. Here are a few things that have made me happy this week:

1) Kendal Museum

We went to the museum whilst friends were visiting. It was the first time for 4 years my son had stood next to the polar bear. What a difference:

2) Race photos

The official race photos from Grasmere Sports included this awesome one of my son's sprint for the line. He finished one second behind the boy in front:

3) Scottish Dancing

I went to the U3A country dancing class with my mum and my daughter. It always brings a smile on my face to have a go at Scottish dancing. Roll on November when we are going to a whole evening of it!

4) Peekaboo

I had fun tickling our neighbours' German Shepherd through the gate. He is a big softie to anyone he considers pack (which includes us and our guinea pigs!) but woe betide a stranger:

Kendal Museum

We hadn't been to our local museum for over a year but as a way of enticing children to walk into town whilst the car was being MoT'd then it worked wonders:

As soon as we walked through the door my children were commenting on the changes! It was a lot more open and seemed lighter and more airy. All the favourite exhibits were still there but also more things were on display. 

Then we went into the basement to see the Seen Through Glass, Darkly art exhibition by David Blyth. It is all based upon taxidermy so not for the fainthearted but there are some beautiful items too:

Keeping the magic

My 9 year old started questioning the existence of Santa last year and even more so this year. For her little brother's sake I'm trying to keep the magic for a bit longer.

Today we were helped by Kendal Museum's Polar post as my children wrote a letter to Santa!

Family Fun: Museums - Kendal Museum

Here we in week 9 and this week's theme is museums. These are great places for family fun especially on a wet weekend and many of them are free! We are very lucky to have a nice little museum here in Kendal which is within an easy walk/bike ride from our house. If you have a post about museums why not add it to the blog hop:

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On Saturday after doing some chores in town we happened to be passing the museum and the children were more than willing to detour in there for a bit of fun. In the downstairs section of the museum they have different exhibits that run for a fixed period of time. The current one is Rock Solid and is artistic interpretations of why Cumbria is short listed for storing nuclear waste (a highly controversial scheme):

The previous Egyptian exhibition was more interesting for my children so we didn't last too long before they wanted to head back upstairs to the main exhibition room. This takes you through the history of Kendal from the Stone Age to modern day with lot of items on display that have been found in the local area:

As you can see from the above photo my children know their favourite part of the museum and weren't interested in stopping to look as they were wanting to play with the castle in the medieval section:

My blog year in review: Part 1

It's been an amazing year for my blog which I started back in 2008. This was definitely the year that the blog switched from being purely personal to including reviews and actually started earning me some much needed income.  So much has happened over the last 364 days that I'm breaking this review over 2 days to make it more manageable. 


Part one is the first half of the year from January to June and how I saw it from my blog:


January


This was the month for resolutions and new challenges. These included:

1. 100 Books in a Year - hoping that if I add all the books I read to the children at bedtime I'll have completed this!
2. Fitness Friday - this was a great supportive blog hop that unfortunately dwindled as the year went on but it did help me do really well getting in shape at the start of the year. Lots more work to do! As part of this I became an ambassador for Change4Life
3. I also pledged to work on becoming self sufficient. I haven't 100% succeeded in this but things have improved
4. This was the month I joined Reasons to be Cheerful for the first time. A great blog hop that helps to focus on the positive not dwell on the negative.

The high point of the month was appearing on BBC Radio Cumbria. Amazing where blogging can lead you! The low point of the month and indeed the whole year was the loss of my Granny at the age of 98. A much missed lady she will never be forgotten:

February

I have really tried to use this year to showcase my photographs. Not only through The Gallery and Silent Sunday posts but through stand alone posts such as this one from Bowness. I carried on my great relationship with Treasure Trails Cumbria with their fabulous murder mystery walks.

Karin started a Flashback Friday hop which I really enjoyed taking part in. This was the month I started reviewing iPhone apps with a debut from Peppa Pig. I did also manage a rant about the National Health Service. After signing up to the Become a Mumpreneur course I was quite happy to promote it.

Family Fun: Kendal Museum

Today we were in search of family fun on a shoestring and went for our first visit to Kendal Museum as entry is free and we only had to stump up a £1 for an hour's parking (with hindsight 2 hours parking would have been better!). It's only open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays so there is a limited chance to get in but its worth it.

When we got in another child was asking about quizzes so I paid 10p for each child to have an age appropriate quiz. For my 4 year old it was to spot the objects matching the silhouette and for my 7 year old solve the hieroglyphics and find the objects mentioned in the museum. Both of these took us through all the various rooms in the museum with very keen children.

The museum has a great mix of Kendal/Cumbrian history back to pre-history, natural history and currently an exhibition on the Egyptian excavations of John Garstang. There are also a couple of exhibitions (1 art and one natural history) centred around the dodo:

These are designed to make you think about extinction and what we can do to prevent more animals becoming extinct. I would love to go around without my children to read more about the exhibits!

The museum has a very hands on approach to history and encourages children to try things and get involved. Both of them enjoyed trying out the rock xylophone and having a go at being mini archaeologists:

All in all a fab and incredibly cheap way to spend a couple of hours as a family. We will be back and next time will allow more time to explore. The children were proud of their Kendal museum badges they got for completing their quizzes and I'm sure they will be happy to have a go at another one next time.

Having had a quick browse of their web site whilst writing this they also offer adult education evening classes and a children's astronomy club. A great local resource so we need to use it (and make some voluntary donations/spend in the shop) to keep it free).