Listography: Top 5 Places I'd Like To Visit

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The marvel and wit that is KateTakes5 has decreed that this week's Listography is places we'd like to visit.

I'm quite a homebird and don't like to spend weeks and weeks away from the little haven that is my three-bedroom, semi-detached suburban cocoon. Before The Boy we would have two breaks throughout the year, all just a long weekend normally in an European city. Some we revisited, like Prague and Barcelona, because when I find somewhere I like, I like to go back and explore more. However, I've always maintained that I will not take an infant abroad because I personally could not stand the stress it puts on them, you and every other person in the vicinity. That's me trying to have an easy life. It does however mean that I have deprived myself of feeling the sun on my skin for the forseeable future.

There are five places that I'd like to visit though before I'm too old and wrinkly to appreciate them:

1) The Greek Islands

We very nearly made it there. In the August before I fell pregnant with The Boy we started planning our October half-term holiday. I really wanted to go to the Greek Islands but was put off by the whole loo-paper in bin debacle. I decided that we'd probably do it through a cruise instead which would mean a) we'd see more of the islands, and b) I could flush my bog-paper! Finances meant that we'd have to put that off 'til the following year so we looked at Menorca instead. And then I fell pregnant so we stayed home and bought a car-seat and nappies instead!

2) The Galapagos Islands

I want to see the turtles lumbering around in their natural and protected environment. I want to see what made Charles Darwin think 'hang on a minute…' and I wouldn't mind enjoying the beaches either!

3) Alaska

Blame Northern Exposure!

4) Petra

I have inherited my dad's fascination with the place and it has nothing to do with Indiana Jones. I find the whole place completely astounding, a true Wonder of the World. To walk through that passage and see temples carved out of stone must be breathtaking.

5) The River Nile

This is somewhere that I've wanted to go for years and years! This one is completely down to Agatha Christie and Peter Ustinov, the glamour of the cruise-boats is amazing. So one day we will cruise 'up' the Nile from South to North (how bizarre?) enjoying the temples of Abu Simble and, of course, the Pyramids at Giza.

One day.

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Now pop over and read the other Top Fives using this little widgety thing:

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The Boy's Birthday

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My darling precious bundle of happiness turned two years old at 9.35 this morning. We've had a super day celebrating his birthday. I'm absolutely shattered after all the preparation, anxiety and entertaining so will share these photos as a record of his 2nd birthday.

Presents for Breakfast

The Birthday Cake

Party Food


ShowOff ShowCase: The One About Birthdays

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I like a good old birthday celebration. For my 21st my family and I went to London, for hubby's 30th I took him to Edinburgh for a surprise weekend away, on my 30th we stayed in a swish local hotel and then had a big garden party back at our house. I love it all; from the beginning stages of choosing the theme to making sure the balloons hang just so, and everyone getting their allocated party bag. Until The Boy was born, we had a little bit of a lull in reasons for a celebration. My son's first birthday was the perfect excuse to go overboard and plan a fabulous little birthday party for him.

It's The Boy's 2nd birthday tomorrow and so I am in full party-planning mode! Bring on the cast-iron cake tin, roll out the vibrant plastic 'crockery' and puff up your lungs in preparation for the balloons; he's going to be celebrating in style.

Therefore the theme for this weekend's ShowOff ShowCase is birthdays. I'd like you to dig out a post that you have on celebrating getting older; you, your children, your parents, when you were a teenager, a 'special' birthday, a magical party that you've been to, a dodgy party that you've been to!

Link up below and please add the badge using the html to your post so we can hop around and read all the other little birthday tales!

ShowOff ShowCase

Good Bloggers Pay it Forward

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It's true. Blogging as a simple exercise is a way of recording your thoughts, feelings and daily events. But blogging is so much more than that now, and for the vast majority of us it is about belonging to part of a community. There are the Elders and the Newbies. Having only started blogging in December of last year, I am still a Newbie. However, I do get the basic concepts and I like to support other bloggers. So I'm being a female and older version of Haley Joel Osment and joining in the meme where we are Good Bloggers (Who) Pay it Forward.

Now I have been awarded this pretty little badge by the ever-so-talented culinary genius that is Helen from The Crazy Kitchen and therefore hold the responsibility of nominating five lovely individuals that I think will pass the flame on in true Olympic-Blogging style.

Lauren at The Real Housewife of Suffolk County

Lexy at MammyWoo (just do it woman!)

Christine from Thinly Spread

Susanne at GhostWriter Mummy

Keith at Reluctant Housedad

These fortunate souls must now carry the beacon of loveliness by following these five simple rules:

1. Put the badge at the top of your post

2. Refer to the lovely blogger who awarded it

3. Pass it on to five others

Please?

The Land Of Me

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I am many things in my life (mainly exhausted), but the bit that pays the bills means that I'm a primary school teacher. More than that, I am ICT co-ordinator for a primary school of over 450 children. This means that not only do I have the responsibility of ensuring that Information Communication Technology is taught in accordance with the National Curriculum, it also means that I have to oversee that it is taught with enthusiasm and that the children are instilled with a lifelong interest in, and motivation by, technology.

The world in which our children will continue to grow up in is inconceivable. The technology that they will be using in ten years time, or as an adult, has not been dreamt of yet. This is why it is so important to instill an enthusiasm in learning through technology. Now don't get me wrong, I also trained as nursery nurse studying psychology and I know the stages of a child's development and the different phases of play. Which is why it is important to immerse them in a mix of the traditional physical toys playing with a person, as well as developing their technological awareness.

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