Special Holiday Memory

I recently wrote a post about my holiday memories in regards to Halloween, well off the back of that I have decided to write another post about one of my special holiday memories at Magic Kingdom.

We had walked around Magic Kingdom for most of the day taking our own photos but also having photo taken off us by the parks photo crew. 

Towards the end of the day you can go along to the photo shops and view your pictures and purchase them if you wish (similar to how you do at Alton Towers or Drayton Manor).

Well we thought whilst it was parade time (which we had already seen by the way) we would go off to the photo shop and take as look at our photos, little did we expect to happen what happened to us whilst at the shop.

 

We went into the shop got greeted by the very friendly shop staff (like you do in all the Disney shops) and shown our pictures on the computer screen, some of the pictures we liked some we didn't to be honest. Well we decided which we were going to have and completed and transaction and left the shop.

Nothing unusual about that I hear you say and yes you're totally right nothing out of the ordinary at all, but as we were exiting the shop we noticed a side corridor leading to what looked like a mini cinema. We were right it was leading to a Kodak mini cinema area, full of old pictures of Disney World,  original Disney characters and it was also showing a short film about the history of Walt  Disney and the Disney Parks.

Boring I hear some of you say, yes possibly but here's where the magic of Disney gave us a special holiday memory, for we were the only ones in this room, little did we know it was where the characters came into for a break from the baking Florida sun.

This was where we got this special unique photo of my wife with Pinocchio posing in a photo. (You have to look very carefully to the left of my wife).

Scarecrow Weekend

Today my wife and I took the kids to a small village near us called Belbroughton.

Why did you take them there? I hear you ask, well I'm about to tell you.

Every year at around this time the village comes alive with visitors flocking to see their scarecrows.

Yes you heard me correctly their scarecrows, some of you may about now be thinking god good what's fun about scarecrows, obviously you haven't been to Belbroughton scarecrow weekend.

For 16 years now they have annually held this weekend of fun for all the family. The villagers make their own scarecrows and display them outside their houses. This year after a competition vote the village chose the theme 'What Made Britain Great'.

Their were all kinds of decorated scarecrows from Winston Churchill to Wayne Rooney from Florence Nightingale to Mary Poppins and from Margaret Thatcher to Mo Farah.

As well as having all the wonderful scarecrows to see the boys got to make their own animal feeds at the RSPB stand, stroke a skunk at the animal stand and have their picture taken with a pumpkin man.

All in all it was a fun afternoon out for everyone.

  

My NFL Experience @ Wembly

With the NFL game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Pittsburgh Steelers being played at Wembley this evening, it got me thinking about the time I was lucky enough to be able to go to Wembley and watch a NFL game for myself.

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I went on Sunday 28th October 2008, along with my father in law, my sister in law and her husband who are both huge NFL fans to watch the game between the New Orleans Saints and the San Diego Chargers. My wife was left behind although she really wanted to go with us she was heavily pregnant and was due to give birth to our first child any day. 

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I must admit that I am not really a NFL fan by any stretch of the imagination. I had seen bits and pieces of the odd game here and there but nothing more than a few minutes, certainly not enough to understand or even appreciate the sport by any means.

Saying that, when the opportunity arose to go to Wembley to be part of this huge fixture, of cause I jumped at the chance who wouldn't?

As I previously mentioned my sister in law and her hubby are massive NFL fans, they had already been to the previous year's fixture at Wembley, the inaugural game between the Miami Dolphins (who sis in law follows) and the New York Giants, they said the experience was so amazing that i wanted to go along and find out for myself just how amazing a game could be.

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I had never been to Wembley before so that for me was a first in itself, to go and watch a game of American football at the home of  football seemed strange at first but once there I forgot all about soccer (shall we call it for our friends from across the ponds) and I got caught up in all the glitz and glamour of a football game.

Wembley was awash with colour, massive support for both teams, every direction you looked all you could see were jerseys and flags supporting not only the two game teams but every NFL team. It was an amazing sight to witness banners, flags and jerseys of all teams coming together for this one game. 

I must be totally honest with you now, although it was the longest four hours of my life, watching this sport I had no real idea of what was going on, what decision were being made for what tackle, who was throwing to who and why there were so many stoppages in play, I actually really enjoyed the experience of my first and probably my only ever American Football match.

The game finished 37 - 32 to New Orleans Saints, so the Saints fans both there and afar went home happy, but I think everyone at Wembley went home happy after enjoying such a great night of sport.

To end all I will say is come on you Vikings.     

My Sunday Photo 29th September

This photo is of my two boys playing nicely with their duplo sets. To be honest it lasted for quite a while before they got bored and started arguing over the same man to put in their respective fire truck.

Reminiscing Good Holiday Memories

Two customers of mine are off on their annual monthly holiday to Florida next week, (i have been to Disney World Florida twice and thoroughly enjoyed it) and along with my wife recently writing a post about halloween it got me thinking about when my wife and i went to Disney World, not only were we there celebrating our honeymoon but we also joined in with the many thousand of other visitors to Magic Kingdom and participated in their halloween celebrations of Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.

Whilst Disney obviously celebrated halloween in a kids and family friendly way, over at Universal Studios they were catering more for the adults who wished to join in their halloween celebrations. So much so that I have never seen such a scary advertisement boarding or have i seen one since as scary, the television advertisement was just as scary consisting of a young man getting his fortune read from a crystal ball and having freddy, jason and IT appear out of the dark and surround him. 

I think that i will stick to the Disney version of halloween celebrations thank you, although the villain Disney characters like Maleficent, Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook and Oogie Boogie come out to play, it is halloween after all lol

Walkers Mighty Lights Review

My eldest lad JR started reception school two weeks ago, at his school he is lucky enough to be able to chose between school dinners or a packed lunch from home.

My wife and I as parents try our best to give our three children as healthy meals and snacks as we can, whilst at school JR gets a healthy balance of meals if he opts for the hot school food, we like to think our lunch box alternative is equally healthy if he decides to go with that option.

Whilst we were searching the shelves in our local supermarket, deciding what crisps/snacks to include in JR's lunch box we noticed walkers mighty lights.

Upon further inspection we discovered that these crisps were 30% less fat than standard crisps and suitable for vegetarians too this made them perfect for JR's lunchboxes for him and his friends to share if he so desires.

You can pick up a multipack of these crisps in one of three different flavours - roast chicken, cheese and onion and lightly salted.

The recommended retail price is £1.59 but at the time of this review they were on offer at £1 for a multipack, which made them a perfect choice for health and finance.

The great thing about these crisps is the whole family can enjoy them at lunchtime or at snack time.

My youngest lad TP enjoys his snack time whilst his elder brother is at school, so we thought why not allow TP to enjoy a tasty healthy packet of crisps too.

He loves the roast chicken flavour, (he must take after his dad for that lol). He also enjoys the fact that the crisps are a ridged shape, he said "they bobbly on tongue daddy" I think that means he enjoyed them as he finished of the whole packet and asked for another one.

My daughter who recently celebrated her first birthday is also partial to a packet of the roast chicken flavour crisps, as these crisps are so full of flavour and healthy for you we allow L-A to have a packet with her lunch.

All three of my kids really enjoyed these crisps, usually we end up cleaning up other crisps and snacks left over at lunchtime but not these, the kids ate up every last crumb.

Jackson even turned to me and said "daddy I love these crisps they are the best ever".

I must agree with him there, the ridged shape of the crisps allows the crisps to be so full of flavor in every mouth full and at 30% less fat than standard crisps they are good for you too.

I must admit that I am partial to the odd packet of crisps from time to time but now i have found a packet of crisps that are not only good for value but they are also healthy and full of flavour.

Afternoon out with the family

The last two weekends I have been lucky enough be able to take the kids out once I had returned home from work.

Last weekend the wife and I took the kids over to the canals behind our house to the Netherton boat show.

The boys enjoyed looking round the stalls at all the wonderful things the different stalls had to sell. They got to see various items from the different barges and also models of the barges too.

They enjoyed looking at all boats and barges and talking to all the barge folk.

Although the whether was a little on the rubbish side we still had a good time.

This Saturday we took the kids to Netherton fun day. The fun day is all about people coming together to remember Netherton's history, to celebrate the past while enjoying the present day.

There were many stalls to look round and purchase items reflecting Netherton's history, JR had a go on the tombola and won a few prizes and people were even walking about wearing costumes from different eras, there was even a good old town crier telling you what was going on.

 

All this was going on and what did my boys want to do? My boys wanted to go on the fair like all the other children around them, because they had been very good whilst we looked round the stalls we  took them on the fair.

  

The boys went on the tea cups, the merry go round and the pirate ship a few times by themselves and they also went on the teacups with their mum and sister.

We finished our afternoon in Netherton off by visiting the Dudley Zoo animal stand where the kids got to meet and stroke various animals. 

 

Whilst we were admiring the animals we were slightly distracted by two gentleman dressed in Victorian clothing walking around in a mini hot air balloon and basket.

It quickly became apparent that these gentlemen were street artists who put on a comedy magic act, which to be honest was a little basic but still enjoyable and that was a nice way to end our afternoon out.

Phineas and Ferb: Rockin' and Rollin' Review

I was recently approached by rockandrollbabyworld to see if I would be interested in reviewing the 3rd installment in the Phineas and Ferb franchise titled: Phineas and Ferb: Rockin' and Rollin' album.

My boys love watching the TV show of Phineas and Ferb on the Disney XD channel so naturally I jumped at the chance.

This album was released on Monday 9th September and it contains 25 various songs which span the four seasons of the hit TV show Phineas and Ferb.

This is not a greatest hits album but it does contain unreleased fan favourites. The music on the album can be enjoyed by all with a bit of country, dance and R&B thrown in to make this album fun and upbeat.

I was right of cause, as soon as I started playing the tracks the boys were up dancing about and thoroughly enjoying all the tunes on the album.

This CD album is available to download on iTunes, the individual tracks cost $1.29 and the album itself costs $9.99. I think this is a very reasonable price as it converts to around 80p per track or the whole album you can purchase for £6.20. (Conversion rate checked on Friday 20th September)