Aden's 30th birthday

Today was, my cousin, Aden's 30th birthday. I would love to give him stick about it but I passed that point a while ago. We were all meeting at the Inn on the Lake in Godalming for lunch. Unfortunate;y we were meeting at 12 for 12.30 which meant a boy missing a large chunk of nap and having to eat almost an hour later than normally. Luckily forewarned is forearmed so we gave him as much nap as possible and had plenty of milk/snacks ready and waiting. We popped him in year plus clothes (thanks, Pauline)for the first time today and though they were baggy they weren't really very long on him. We have also decided next week is new shoes time!

We were fairly early but, shock of all shocks, there were some chants there first. So we sat and chatted for a bit with Nan, Ann and Mum and Dad before people began arriving. We all ordered in dribs and drabs to try to ease the pressure of over 30 people ordering at the same time and the food came fairly quickly.

I had roast chicken, John had roast pork and Nathan had mushroom and cheese on toast (with cooked cherry tomatoes which he ate as messily as possible!). My chicken was beautifully moist and just fell off the bone but unfortunately almost entirely lacking in taste. John found the same with his but I am unsure of Nathan's opinion...(he did occasionally get confused and shake his food and chew his maraca)

A high point in Nathans day was when the gorgeous but very shy Faith arrived and he was immediately besotted.

In fact even his adoreable Aunty Crispy wasn't enough to challenge his adoration

Nathan was at times quite restless as his lack of nap caught up to him and his tooth to the left of his 2 front teeth ( mirroring the one that caused problems at Christmas) started to properly hurt. He roamed like a wild animal for a bit

Once everyone had eaten the top tier of Aden and Lucy's wedding cake, Minas Tirith, was bought out, besieged (with ancient candles) and devoured. The cake was gorgeous and had survived being frozen beautifully. Despite many guests having seconds, and sending a plate of cake out to the kitchen, there was still around 1/3 of the cake left!

I tried to get Nathan to nap for a bit but every time he approached it someone came over for a cuddle or the new object of his affection, Faith, danced past. As some eventually started to leave, we decided to head to Broadwater Lake and let him have a sleep. I think he was asleep as we pulled out of the car park and slept all the way to and around the lake, waking only briefly when we put him back in the car to go see Nanny van.

He wasn't best pleased to wake up

We arrived to find Nannies as I remember it as a child - nowhere to park, and almost standing room only!

Nathan sat on Lucy's Dad's feet, crawling over dad and anyone else within reach, crawled after Faith and, when Shannon sat on he brothers lap (whose name I can't remember but both of them were lovely - really well behaved and pleasant to chat to) Nathan decided to climb on top and give them both a cuddle - both of them were very forgiving despite his tendency to grab whatever lump of flesh/clothing he could find.

We left around 6ish with a very tired boy to beautiful clear bright night skies. Unfortunately, we didn't get home in time to see the ISS. Boy ate some his Dad's leftover pizza and then, with little objection, went straight to bed. I was surprised - when we left we still had the occasional patch of snow left but by the time we got home it was all gone.