Weekend Away

It was time for Craig and Graham's Mum to have her once a year reunion with her university classmates. This year's destination was a bed and breakfast place up in the hills of Taichung in a little town called Shinshe. After arriving at the B&B there was a short interlude of hanging around in the air-conditioned room but the boys had too much energy to stay still for long.

Craig and Dad went out to the garden where they kicked a ball and had a look at some butterflies that were flying around.

While they were playing Craig almost stepped on a tiny little frog. Luckily, the little fella hopped away into the bushes.

Taking photos of a group of flying butterflies is pretty much impossible, isn't it?

Craig soon became bored with playing with Dad but luckily someone in the traveling party had brought some bubble-making equipment.

A group of adults had found a place to sit, drink tea and chat while the large number of children began playing amongst themselves. However, Graham was too small to join in. Dad offered to take him back to the room so that Mum could talk to the other adults for a while. Graham had heaps of fun with his Dad's keys.

He really seemed to like the taste of the Swiss army knife.

But he stayed awake much longer than expected and then fell asleep when they were driving off to dinner. Dinner was at a restaurant that specialised in mushrooms. With Graham asleep, Mum could eat in peace, that's probably why she was smiling, despite the fact that dinner was largely mushroom-based.

After dinner, everyone drove back to the B&B where Craig had a snack before some pottery lessons for the kids were the next bit of entertainment.

Craig had some fun with the clay.



But, after a short while Craig did his best to not join in anymore and started being a nuisance. That's his way of saying, "I'm bored and don't want to do this."
Meanwhile, outside Graham finally had the dinner he had missed when everyone else was eating mushrooms.

At breakfast the next morning Mum was the only one who was fit, happy and healthy. The sun had risen very early waking up Craig and Graham much earlier than usual. Dad had a splitting headache. So, Super Mum had to hug Craig to make him feel better while feeding Graham with one spare hand. Truly, a Super Mum!

After breakfast most of the kids took turns feeding a goat that had shown up in the front yard of the B&B.

Craig is really not brave when it comes to dealing with animals and he needed plenty of help from Mum with the feeding.

After packing up, everyone then traveled to a strange tourist trap that calls itself a summer resort. Craig refused to pose for a picture.

Being part of a group photo was just as uninteresting for him.

It was very hot walking around so the little family found a place to sit beside the little lake where the breeze was blowing.

Graham was bored and needed a game but there weren't any toys at hand.

A game with Dad's cap put a smile on his face.

Unfortunately, there are no more photos from the rest of the day because Craig's Dad's phone suffered a major malfunction and refused to work until it was taken home. But, apart from a long drive home down a very full freeway, there wasn't much to see.