Triplets

Introducing the new triplets of our very good friends Mark and Catrina. They have struggled for years to have children and these three little miracles were conceived by IVF. They are now one week old!

Tadhg (pronouned Ty) was born weighing only 1lb 14 1/2oz. He managed to breath by himself for 2 hours yesterday!

Michael is Tydhg's identical twin. He weighed in at 2lb 5oz and is now up to breathing for 5 hours on his own.

This is Ciara who was the heaviest at 2lb 14oz. She is breathing for longer on her own each day.

Unfortunately our friends live in London so we don't get to see them as often as we like but we are hoping to go for a weekend towards Christmas. I'll keep you informed on the babies progress. xx

Last weekend found the Berkleys in Newcastle for the Great North Run 2010. We set up the tent on Friday and had fish and chips then on Saturday we headed into the town centre for shopping and the Great City Games.

Haile Gebrselassie was there as part of the promotion for the Sunday run - the boys got his autograph. He went on to win the following day.

Alex and Nick enjoyed meeting some of the athletes including Hannah England who told us she was preparing to set off to the Commenwealth Games in Delhi.

Saturday was a cold night in the tent but was helped by the alcohol consumed by Mrs B in a lovely little Ialian restaurant which we found, then it was up early to head into town again for the Great North Run.

Andrew and Darren ready to run the 13 mile half marathon. It is the biggest half marathon in the world with 54,000 people taking part this year. Darren finished in 1 hour 33 min a personal best and Andrew finished in a very respectable 2 hours 2 mins. The runners even managed to beat myself, Alex, Nick and Darrens' partner Andrew to the finish as we were stuck on a bus for two hours!

Further photos of the run can be found at www.greatrun.org/Events/Event.aspx?id1

Andrew's race number was 65 which can be used to access his personal race photos.

Happy Birthday Mr Ben.........................10 years old this week.

Our lovely cocker spaniel Ben was 10 years old on the 15th, the only problem was we thought his birthday was today the 17th and it wasn't until we checked his paperwork that we discovered the mistake! Ooops!
To celebrate I created a mosaic of some of my favourite Ben photo's, you'll see our darling Bess in some of them.
Tomorrow, the 18th would have been her 13th birthday so we're celebrating her too!

How empty our lives would be without our precious pets.
News from Rhonda.......................she now has her blog set up but it's not yet running.
Watch this space.
http://sisdownunder.blogspot.com/

Weekend news

Well its been a very wet weekend in Oldham.

Saturday morning saw Andrew out for a 'parkrun' in Alexander Park, Kathryn and Nicholas at the opening ceremony for the Saddleworth Village Olympics and Alex doing what teenagers do best - staying in bed.

The Olympics started with about two hundred local children setting off balloons followed by various athletic events. Check out the photos at www.saddleworthvillageolympics.co.uk

The afternoon saw us all at Manchester City for the football - unfortunately we only got a draw and got soaked to the skin walking back to the car.

Sunday was a classic chill out day and then we find ourselves back at Monday again.................

Barnyard Bash @ The Texas State Fair.

In 2008 I was lucky enough to be taken, by two great gals Susan & Genie, to the Texas State Fair held each autumn in Dallas, TX.

Boris III a.k.a Trey

and so even though I'm a little late in linking to the Barnyard Bash, graciously hosted  by Lynn @ "Happier Than A Pig in Mud", I still wanted to share some pix from that trip.

It's dinner time again for one little piggy.

Now head over to Lynn's place for more farmyard frolics!

Whilst we're waiting for Rhonda...........................

So far only two of the three sisters have tackled the new blog.

I've had my Normandy Life blog for over two years now and love to blog several times a week about my life in France.

Kathryn (or KE as I call her) is just finding her feet with this blog although her husband (the Judge) has been blogging for some time.

Rhonda (left) & me (right) with Nana Bottomley in the middle.

So whilst we're waiting for Rhonda to join in the fun, here are some pix from an old photograph album of me and her as little girls.

Goodness knows what's in the bucket!

Italy

Andrew, Alex and Nicholas at the top of Mont Blanc

Here is Big Nick all ready to go!

Newbie

As this is my first Blog post EVER any mistakes must be wholly excused.

The rain is still coming down in Oldham but the school holidays are still going well - in the main due to the fact that the children have hardly been here. A good time was had by all the Berkley boys in Italy last week, the highlight being white water rafting and a trip up Mont Blanc.

I've had plenty of time to catch up with my work but still feel to be getting nowhere fast - not a bad thing I suppose, there is no prospect at the moment of being out of work anyway but it very difficult to keep everyone happy.

The plans for our ski holiday to Italy with the gang next year have been 'scuppered' all the plans had been made but at the 11th hour we realised that the week that we were booking was NOT the boys half term holiday and as we now feel that Alex is of an age when he can't miss school for holidays we decided not to join the party - gutted! Now back to plan B to maybe go on our own possibly at easter.

Well thants all for now. KE xx

take three sisters.....the beginning

After chatting long distance this morning with sister Rhonda about how much my life has changed since I began my blog Normandy Life over 2 years ago, I thought wouldn't it be great if the three Smith sisters got together with a blog of their own.
A place to share pix and tales of our everday lives, each one so very different from the other two, with each other and anyone else in blogland who cares to follow along.
It has been almost 17 years since the three of us were last together, Kathryn & I with other family members flew to Australia to attend Rhonda's wedding, and oh! how our lives have changed since then.
There's been another wedding (Kathryn), a divorce (Rhonda, sadly), 2 babies (Kathryn), 2 grand children (Rhonda), we lost Bill our lovely Dad in 2008, quite a few house house moves and a new country, France (Margaret).