So what is a famiversary? Its our little family’s word for the day on which the children came to live with us, a day special to only us. The birth family don’t know the exact date of when the children left care to be welcomed into our family, so I feel its our exclusive day to celebrate. It also isn’t the day of the legal adoption which was a very uneventful day in our lives six months later, as the hearing is done in a closed court case. We did have a court appearance where we met the Judge who presided over the case and met up with our social workers and this was our celebration day, a month later. Our day in August is just for us and as it normally lands on holidays we always have a special little treat. As it was 10 years this year, I had started to make some plans at the beginning of the year, options included afternoon tea at the Ritz or a trip to Harry Potter world but sadly these have all been put on hold temporarily. Perhaps 11 is the new 10 for celebrating!

This week it did feel like we all had all seasons in a week, we went from a wet, stormy day to a hot day on the beach bathed in sunshine. Here are some of the things we did this week.

We celebrated our famiversary ..

On the day of our 10th famiversary, we went to the beach. It was the place we took the children on their first weekend with us (I remember a cold, damp day) but this year with bright sunshine it was the best place to go. Our bay is normally calm and gentle, but on this visit, the waves were incredible and they were definitely the highest we’ve ever played in, the children loved it! After a morning at the beach, we then chilled for the remainder of the day before enjoying a takeaway of everyone’s choice, an Indian for tea. A simple day, perhaps not quite what we had imagined, but it was spent together as our little family and that is all that matters.

We helped to celebrate a big birthday ..

My lovely cousin celebrated a big birthday on the same day as our famiversary. She is a special person in our family and has always been so kind and caring to us all so we were keen to join her in her celebration at the weekend. It was a very well organised with guests coming at different times of the day and Covid secure. We joined her for morning coffee and cake at the local airfield, which was a great spot and kept the children interested as the adults chatted. We took a picnic on the day too and then went to a local beauty spot along a river to eat and play, making it a lovely, relaxed day.

We played games ..

Wednesday was a very wet and miserable day and we had a little mini games tournament. Little Man bankrupted me and Little Miss and thrashed Mr S. in Monopoly, he was so chuffed! We also played my favourite Qwirkl, but again I was beaten by one of my children, they’re good at strategy! I am competitve when we play so for them, success is all the sweeter.

We spent a lot of time the skate park.

Little Man has become obsessed with his scooter and tricks this holiday and we have spent a lot of time at the local skate park, this week we even did two trips in one day! He’s seen the poster for a ‘jam’ next week, organised by a local charity and is practising very hard. He’s now at the age, when we’re not willing to leave him at the skate park alone, but he wants others to think he’s independent. Our compromise is that I sit on the grass opposite the ramps and read or walk around the park where I can keep eyes on him at all times. Its a compromise which is working well so far.

We bought school shoes.

I dread buying school shoes any year but this year the thought of a busy town centre, queues, wearing masks was just too much, however I came up with a plan. Little Man’s new school is in a small town which has a small Clark’s shoe shop. I decided to use the trip to time the journey from home to school so booked an appointment in advance on the website for 9am. The plan worked perfectly and we were the only customers in at 9am and were out with the purchased shoes before 9.15am. The organisation in the shop was seamless and its a plan I’ll definitely use again.

And finally

For Little Man, next week is the final week of the school holidays, as he goes back a week before our daughter (same local authority) and the same week as me. We are all ready and even though its a new school, he seems genuinely excited by the return to school. There will be a few final treats next week, it seems that it is simply not just the end of the summer holidays but also the end of a strange period of our lives as we’ve been home together since March 20th. Its been hard at times, but I think I’ll remember this period with fondness for the time we got to be together.