Why a Surprise, you ask.  Well this year we will be travelling with Joanne and Tristram and their children, Lillian, Claire and Hugh, for most of our time away.  It has always been an aspiration of ours to take our grandchildren overseas and to Disneyland and this trip is the realisation of part of that dream. We have 18 days at the beginning of the trip on our own.  We teased the children with a Big Surprise for well over a year before we finally revealed what it was on Christmas Day, 2017. Between ourselves and Joanne and Tristram we have planned a trip to the East Coast of America, visiting New York City, Washington DC, Amish Pennsylvania, Florida and the Florida Keys and of course how could we forget Disney World in Orlando.

We surprised the children on Christmas morning by creating a treasure hunt. Each piece of treasure was an envelope with 1-2 words inside which they then placed onto a wall. The last clue was the word ‘America’ cut into individual letters that they had to unscramble. The entire sentence read “On the 23rd March we are all going to AMERICA.” The children were then presented with their passports as part of their Christmas presents.