We’ve an event coming up. Join us for swimming and a picnic at Halewood Leisure Centre on the 20th January. We have the pool to ourselves for this inflatable session. Bring a picnic for afterwards, as you’ll certainly have burned up lots of those Christmas calories. This trip is free to our members but you must book your place. Read more…
Panto
On Friday 14th December we went to the Pantomime courtesy of Barclays. It was Cinderella at the Empire theatre. What a fantastic show it was, the families really loved it and the kids thoroughly enjoyed it. The setting was truly magical and we had lots of fun joining in. I was close to tears myself when they brought that beautiful carriage on stage (I want one!).
My nephews Matt and Will were there and they were screaming and shouting and
nearly off their chairs wanting to be heard, the laughter and their faces was a
picture in itself. We had a little girl who kept asking why she couldn’t go on stage, maybe in a few years she will be on stage entertaining us.
Thank you Lee and all at Barclays.
Alder Hey Christmas Party
On Sunday 9th December we had our annual Christmas Party at Alder Hey’s 01 clinic. This year we had a Magician in to entertain the children. Those that
watched him said he was magic, they enjoyed him and even participated in some of the magic. The magician also made balloon shapes for children too. Some of the children played in the soft play area in the clinic.
We had new families come along to join in the fun, some of them joined the Association on the day – so we hope you enjoyed your first Christmas party with us.
After the Magician we had our party food and then we had a visit from Santa. Santa had a busy time and had all the children wanting a present from him, it was just as well he brought a full sack of goodies to make sure each child received a present. We had babies from just a few weeks old to teenagers.
Thank you Dad. You know what you did and you were a big hit! Same again next year????
View Slideshow One, Slideshow Two.
Christmas Grotto
On Saturday 8th Dec we held our grotto at Stadt Moers for the second year in a row. Gordon and Aaron did a fantastic job of decorating the venue for us. It looked fab.
Santa turned up to visit all the good boys and girls and he even brought them an early Christmas present. We had some non-believers who came but I can assure you they left believing in Father Christmas. We had cake decorating and balloons and tombola which kept us busy for the three hours we were there.
Thank you to Father Christmas for coming along and an extra special thank you to Jo, Gordon & Aaron.
Halloween Party
Saturday 27th October was our Halloween party at Alder Hey. We had a good turn out and we decorated the clinic before families arrived. We had prepared “Trick or Treat” bags for the children to decorate themselves ready to put all there treats and goodies in.
We’d also got lots of games for the kids to play; we had dress a Witch, these were cardboard and they had a variety of outfits children could colour in and coloured glitter glue to add a sparkle to any witches outfit; we had make a spider using cauliflowers and tangerines plus straws and we had best dressed pumpkinks and best dressed outfits.
Thank you to everyone who made an effort here and came dressed to impress also those who made scary and fun pumpkins.
Another game we’d prepared was “duck apple”. This involved putting apples in bowls of water and the children had to dunk their heads to try to get their apple out. I must say the children were very good at this. The highlight of the event had to be when baby George crawled for the first time to have a go, his mum was so delighted! It just shows the children enjoy the events we do – it must have been good if a 9 month old crawls for the first time just to join in.
See the slideshow.
Alton Towers
Friday 20th July is a date we had been looking forward to. I personally had been praying for good weather for weeks now as it is our trip to Alton Towers and we’d been planning it for months. The day arrived and it was lovely and the weekend forecast was great – my praying worked then!
We all made our own way there, ready to meet in the bar of our hotel in the evening. This gave us the chance to meet other families and catch up with those we may not have seen for a while. We all met in the bar and I gave out welcome letters, car stickers, theme park tickets and water park tickets for those who purchased these separately. It was a good night and we all enjoyed chatting to one another which was the aim of the trip. Although we could not all sit together, as our group was large, the children enjoyed playing together and most families sat in groups with others.
One family who stayed commented “having the opportunity to stay over has meant that we have been able to meet other families in a similar situation to ours and has given both us as parents the chance to talk about how we cope but has given our kids the chance to mix with children in the same situation as they are often a bit outcast.”
Saturday was an early start. As we were staying at the hotel we could get in the park early. It was nice to see the families at breakfast and then we split up for the day at the theme park. I left the day visitors tickets at the hotel reception and headed off for the park. I wasn’t looking forward to our first ride “Oblivion” as I’d woken up that morning with a headache and didn’t want it to get worse. However, we all loved the ride and my headache was gone! Well now it was time to hit all the other big rides for the big kids and some of the smaller ones for the little children.
A few of us decided to meet for lunch so we said whoever arrives first should try to get seats for the 14 of us. When we got to the meeting place a few other families wanted to join us so then we moved even more benches together to fit us all in. Talk about taking over the place, you could see people looking. After the lunch and show I asked the characters to come and have pictures taken with our group and they obliged.
The day was one of the few hot days that we were lucky enough to get this summer which meant that there was no need to worry about the children becoming cold after riding the Log Flume and Rapids, which turned out to be a very popular choice. Youngster Grace Cartwright, aged 7, was so excited about her first ever trip to Alton Tower as it was the first time she has ever been tall enough to go on many of the roller coasters – much to her Granddad’s delight who got to ride with her. When asked what kind of day she was having Grace replied “Awesome, can you ask Val if we can come again when I am a bit bigger”.
Now back to the park for round two. While there we bumped into a few of our day visitors and we all had a fabulous day, shame it closed at 6pm. Those that purchased water park tickets said they greatly enjoyed it too, so much to do and so many rides to go on. As the day drew to an end there are always ones who just want one more quick go and for Jason and Michael Casey and Aaron and Thomas Mawdsley–Welsh that ride would be “Sonic” – a roller coaster with a difference as not only do you get the trills of a regular coaster you also get to be spun around at the same time – not for the faint hearted.
Crocodile Hunt
It was mid morning on a Saturday when members of the Association meet in a field in the middle of the Cheshire countryside. All around the noise of excited children could be heard from the for large slides that stood in the foreground, beyond lay more structures that the shrikes of children could be heard coming from. As some parents stood watching as their children slid down the bumpy and reverse slides, some also stood there a little upset that an upper age limit of 15 and in some cases 30 had been put on some of the attractions giving many a parent a reality check that yes in fact they were getting old!.
After almost two hours of throwing themselves down slides, across moving beams and being bounces down a rather large mechanical slide, it was time for lunch where we compared notes on what we had done and what could possibly lie ahead of us in the woods.. As we followed the trail through the woods and along the steam we had to negotiate a number of obstacles that we came across at one point, some of the smaller children worried when we came to a cannon that even the biggest of them could climb through.. As we moved around the trail the obstacles got bigger and harder to get past but the children pushed on in the hope of catching a glimpse of the Crocodile who is said to lurk around these parts, then in a clearing in a patch of woodland inside a small metal hut we came across the croc, who was not to please to see us and spat water out at you if you got to close.
Once we had our glimpse of the crocodile and survived, it was back to the cars after another successful outing.
Children’s Heart Association at Disney
For ten families their Christmas started early with a magical trip to Disneyland Paris, thanks to the Children’s Heart Association. On a cold and wet Friday morning the families met at Liverpool’s John Lennon airport to be treated like royalty thanks to Val and the staff at the airport who had arranged a private lounge and priority boarding. The short flight to Paris was met with lots of excitement by the younger members of the party with one little boy shouting “Mickey Mouse come out come out wherever you are” as soon as the plane touched down on the tarmac.
Whisked away to the Sequoia Lodge Hotel with no time for unpacking, most families spent the remainder of the day exploring the Magic Kingdom, having tears on the way back to the hotel from children worried that it was the only time they would be getting in the park.
Day 2 got off to a terrific start with families meeting for a character breakfast at Café Mickey where a non-stop parade of characters came to the table for a meet and greet, much to the excitement of all the children. The highlight for many was the Saturday evening finale in the Magic Kingdom. Hundreds of people lined the parade route to watch the magic procession of coloured floats filled with favourite Disney characters, fulfilling all children’s dreams of being waved at personally by their favourite character.
As ever all good things have to come to an end. Day 3 saw tired and weary children and adults alike pile onto a coach back to the airport. Amidst the chatter about who saw what and searching though bags of toys to show each other what souvenirs they were taking home, one lucky boy got to go home with the memory that he saw Mickey Mouse on his birthday, a memory Tony Walsh will treasure forever.
Halloween Party
Our Halloween party was held at Alder Hey and just a little earlier than the official date of 31st Oct. We had a good response to the party – not too busy but busy enough – and again we had an entertainer. The Children and some adults got dressed up in their best outfits and people really did make a fantastic effort so well done to everyone who joined in the fun. Michele Casey and her family not only looked great but also brought along some fantastic decorations for us to use, so thank you. My skull necklace and bracelet (my new best jewellery) were popular with the children who wanted to see them. My mum bought me these in America and i was glad she did.
We even had food at the party which we gave names to. So things such as traditional jam sandwiches were renamed. Can you guess the name of these?! There are some photographs from the party online on Flickr.
Yellow Duck trip
Yellow Duck, Liverpool. We plan months in advance for our days out and when it is a summer trip we assume (wrongly) it will be a beautiful summers day. Well in advance I had arranged this day, booked 2 ducks, arranged a swap in my work and booked a private room for our picnic lunches afterwards. What I forgot to book (well I wish I could) was the weather – it was rain rain rain.
We had departure times of 11.45am and noon so we all met at 11.30am at the stop at the Albert Dock ready for our departures. We had our photo’s taken then started to board. The 1st duck left and then the second one which I was on.
We had a commentator who was telling us about buildings of interest. When we hit the city centre as Liverpool is Capital of Culture for 2008, we have over 100 Superlamb Bananas which are very colourful. The children on my side would shout “Superlamb Banana” and then all children would dash to that side, then someone else would shout here is one on this side and the children dashed from one side to the other.
It was pouring with rain so we had to have the plastic side on so although the view wasn’t too bad it wasn’t marvelous. The children had a fabulous time and the tour lasted about 50 minutes. When we went into the dock we all had to scream as loud as we could for splash down and I am reliably informed by 2 children there are sharks in the dock water (what lovely imaginations they have). On the way out of the water we had to sing “We all live in a yellow submarine” and even without music we did pretty well – watch out as who knows, we might even get picked for Liverpool’s got talent.
We then headed for our picnic lunch and that was enjoyable, then on to see museums, etc. I believe a good day was had by all despite the bad weather and it was a good turnout.
Val