2012 4pk News | Four Passion Killers

Dan completes The Moonwalk!

At 8:17am yesterday morning I burst into tears as I crossed the finish line of The Moonwalk, the tears weren’t for me they were for Daniel as he had just completed the walk too! For those readers that don’t know about The Moonwalk it is a walk that takes place in London each year where 17,000 women (& a few men) walk 26.2 miles, a marathon, through the night to raise money for breast cancer charities.

Dan has wanted to take part in The Moonwalk since he was 5 years old in memory of his Nana. Last October the applications opened & I asked Dan if he would like to take part now that he was old enough to do it and he said “of course I do.”

We started training in January of this year and since then we have walked over 200 miles; just this training alone took huge commitment from Dan, with some training walks occuring after he had played a rugby match on a Sunday morning.

Yesterday evening finally saw the arrival of Dan’s challenge and he was full of confidence that he was going to be crossing the finishing line & collecting his medal on Sunday morning.

We left Hyde Park at 00:07 and as we left Nina Barough, the founder of Walk the Walk, spotted Dan and when she found out he was just 13 and was doing the walk she said “I am so proud of you for doing this, well done.” This spurred Dan on during the night as he kept asking “I’m going to make Nina prouder by finishing?”

The first 17 miles were a doddle for Dan and between miles 10 & 17 he took off by himself at a speed that neither I or Beverly could keep up with, we only caught up with him as he queued for a toilet break at The Royal Albert Hall. During this last third of the walk we walked past the Breakthrough Breast Cancer buildings where the name of Dan’s Nana is on a plaque – it was special for me to be able to show Dan this & I have to say I had to fight the tears back at this point.

From mile 19 onwards Dan started to struggle as his right ankle was starting to hurt, we slowed our pace and fuelled him with enery gel and jelly babies. The poor boy kept asking “are we nearly back at the park yet?” At mile 22 I really thought he was going to give up but thankfully a few fellow walkers saw he was hurting and gave him a huge confidence boost by telling him that he was amazing for doing the walk!

We reached the park around 7:30am and Dan got his second wind and he sped up, well sped up as much as you can after walking 24 miles. The last 1.2 miles seemed to go on for ever but with each step I could see the sense of acheivement growing in the face of my child.

We crossed the finish line at 8:17am and I immediately burst into tears – I was (and am) so VERY VERY VERY proud of what Dan achieved and I watched on with great pride as he received his finishers medal and a huge hug from the volunteer who told him “she was honoured to be giving him his medal.”

I hope Nina is proud of him too!

You can still donate to our fundraising pot too – simply click on the link below:

www.walkthewalkfundraising.org/BADmoonwalkers

Under 8′s Most Improved Player 2012

Josh as you’ve likely seen has had a pretty good rugby season since last year. Despite not being able to start playing until the end of September because of his knee injury he got straight back into his usual great tagging and occasional try scoring. Come the turn of the year he’d scored 5 tries, not bad seeing as he only plays once a fortnight and the aforementioned delayed start.

However, something strange happened once the year turned and a newer, faster, more skillful Joshua emerged almost out of nowhere and amazed everyone including his coaches at the transformation from a good player into a brilliant player. The remaining half of the season, well half of the half as he doesn’t play every week as he’s at his mum’s, he notched up a stonking 18 tries, half of them coming in a mini tournament where he played three 10 minute games and scored 9 tries in just one morning!

So this clearly didn’t go unnoticed by his coaches and in the more recent tournaments he’s played nearly every minute of every game, making some brilliant last ditch tackles, reading the game well and obviously scoring one or two tries along the way.

His performance in the second half of the season meant the coaches had almost no choice but to award him the Most Improved Player trophy due to his huge leap forward. That left a very proud Dad happy because he’s put a lot of effort into his rugby this year and its great to see it recognised and most importantly for Josh he’s got more hunger now to wrestle the Player Of The Season trophy off of his team mate Christian; who I might add has had a lot of assists from Josh this season.

Those two will be battling out, in the nicest possible way next season which brings a new dimension too; no more tag rugby. Full contact from September, Josh can’t wait to start flattening people!!!

One person that deserves recognition too is Josh’s older brother Dan who I believe has helped bring Josh’s game on immensely with all the practice tackling that seems to going on constantly in the garden. He’s imparting what knowledge and skill he’s already learnt on to Josh which is helping bring Josh along at a rate of knots and whilst he’s struggled a bit this season he should feel proud of his part in Josh’s progress and needs to keep his chin up and keep positive about next season.

Daniel if you actually read this, I’m proud of your performances and determination this season and for what you are doing for Josh.

Well done Josh, I’m very proud of you; brilliant effort :-)

Sale Sharks Tournament

At 8am we all arrived at Edgeley Park for what was to be an action packed day.

Josh & his U8s squad were playing in a tournament ahead of Sale Sharks last match at Edgeley Park against Harlequins.

The U8s played brilliantly in their pool matches; drawing 1 & winning 3! Josh scored 2 brilliant tries as well.

Warrington met Bowdon in the final who were a force to be reckoned with & unfortunately due to the speed & discipline of Bowdon our boys couldn’t win.

When the tournament was over we paid a trip to the Sale Sharks shop before finding our seats for the match. Only Mum & Dan have watched Sale Sharks play live before, so it was a first for the other 4.

Sadly it wasn’t to be Sale Sharks day either as they suffered defeat.

Josh received his runners up medal on the pitch at half time & we saw Uncle Simon as he was on Paramedic duty.

We had a brilliant but exhausting day & an early night is on the cards for all of us!!

Top Trumps

Today is the last day of our school holidays and unlike the rest of the week it was warm and sunny so Joshua & Dad decided to have a game of Star Wars Top Trumps in the sunshine. Harry was milling around in the garden as well and decided to “join in” too!

When Harry got bored he decided that he would give his big brother Joshua some hugs instead; despite only spending a few days a month together you can definitely tell that these 2 brothers love each other a lot!

And for the record Joshua beat Dad at Top Trumps!

An Afternoon with Hughie

This afternoon we were supposed to be going to Splashzone with Auntie Melissa, Uncle Simon & our cousin Hughie; unfortunately when we got to Splashzone it was full but firtunately it was sunny so we decided to go to Walton Gardens instead.

We like going to Walton Gardens as we can play in the park, play football, look at the animals in the zoo and have ice cream and this is exactly what we did this afternoon. We really enjoyed playing football and whilst the ball was being passed around Harry took Mum & Emilie for a ride on the train.

There was also a running race held – apparently Auntie Melissa (Personal Trainer) couldn’t race against Daniel as she didn’t have her trainers or sports bra on – we’ve heard all the excuses now! So instead Daniel had a race against Uncle Simon. Much to everyones amazement Uncle SImon beat Daniel by a nose length, but Auntie Melissa said this only happened because they raced downhill and therefore Uncle Simon had a weight advantage!

We ALL had fun playing in the park – Mum, Dad, Auntie Melissa and Uncle Simon particularly enjoyed playing on the horse!

We had a brilliant afternoon and can’t wait to spend more time with Auntie Melissa, Uncle Simon & Hughie!

Letter Cakes

As you will probably know by now Emilie loves to bake and to help Mum prepare our dinners; which the boys like as it means they get cake and they don’t have to help prepare dinners!

This afternoon Emilie asked Mum if she could bake something all by herself & Mum said that she could. Emilie chose to do a sponge cake but without realising she chose to make a genoise sponge cake which meant that it didn’t rise as she had expected to do.

Not detered by her baking mishap Emilie decided to cut letters out of the cake using our letter cutters and sandwich them together & decorate them with nutella. They might not have been what she was planning to make but they were delicious non the less!

Girly Time

This morning Emilie enjoyed some girly time with Mum, as you can probably imagine living in a house with 3 brothers means that Emilie doesn’t get a lot of time to be girly and is somewhat of a TomBoy just like Mum used to be when she was younger. However, every so often the girly side of Emilie breaks out and she asks Mum if she can have a manicure.

Mum promised Emilie a few weeks ago that she could have a manicure when she was next on school holidays and so this morning Mum & Emilie went to Fuss so that Emilie could have her nails done by H.

Emilie chose sparkly blue finger nails and as an extra treat she chose sparkly purple toe nails.

Camping Boys

Following on from the abandoned camping on Saturday evening Joshua decided that he wanted to give it another try and so he asked Daniel if he wanted to camp out with him. Daniel said yes and so on Tuesday evening they camped in the back garden.

It was quite cold so to make sure they didn’t get cold in the night the boys had a double duvet to lie on, sleeping bags to sleep in and duvets to cover them. They retired into the back garden at 8pm with Dad’s iPad so that they could watch a film in the tent.

They appeared this morning just after 9am proclaiming they had had a brilliant time & that they hadn’t been cold at all.

We forsee many more back garden camping adventures this summer!

Family Time

We like school holidays as it usually means that we get to see our cousins Amy & Callum – we really like it when we get together as we always have loads of fun.

As soon as Auntie Jennifer, Amy & Callum arrived the 2 girls disappeared up into Emilie’s bedroom not to be seen again until lunch time. Callum & Josh played together nicely on the Xbox and Harry kept Auntie Jennifer entertained.

We had yummy scrummy pizza for lunch followed by some chocolate cookies which were delicious. After we had eaten our lunch the sun came out so Callum, Joshua and Dad played football in the garden, Harry slept, Amy & Emilie disappeared again and Mum & Auntie Jennifer had a good old chat!

Sadly at 4pm Amy, Callum & Auntie Jennifer had to go home – we hope it isn’t too long before we see them again!