M Is For .... Marvel

I am linking this post up with the lovely Charly Dove and her 

wonderful Alphabet Project.

Yes to some this might be a boring M but for us in our house we love Marvel, the children have Marvel comics, story books, various toys, cups, clothes and even bedding and just so mummy and daddy don't feel left out we have our Marvel bedding too, so for this week's letter.

M Is For ...... Marvel.

Well that's my M Is For .......

Stay tuned for my N Is For .........

L Is For ..... Long

I am linking this post up with the lovely Charly Dove and her 

wonderful Alphabet Project.

Last week we took the children for a walk over the fields behind our house, we are very lucky because we have open fields and woodland there and canal routes going all different ways.

One particular canal goes through a tunnel which spans almost 1.8 miles long, so this week's addition to #AlphabetProject is:-

L Is For ..... Long

Well that's my L Is For .......

Stay tuned for my M Is For .........

#Wicked Wednesdays

YOU looking at me?

YOU looking at me?

Don't you know I'm related to the 

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES.

The Dog's Doodahs Review

In this day and age you can purchase greeting cards for every occasion, Christmas, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Birthdays and Get Well Soon, everyone has a occasion of some kind to purchase a card for 

(examples below).

 

In this digital era you don't even need to leave the comfort of your own living room to purchase your cards, you can do it all to your very own personal touch online.

So when The Dog's Doodahs got in touch recently to see if I'd be interested in working with them I couldn't say no especially as it's my little Brother's Birthday soon and a personal card from the kids and I would be perfect for him. We also chose a card for our friends son's 6th birthday too.

After looking through all their wonderful cards we finally chose these two for my Brother and the U R 6 Today card for friends son.

Its so easy to use The Dog's Doodahs website, you simply flick through the cards to see which one(s) you like the look of, whether it's a non-personal card or you fancy sending that special person a lovely personal card there's so many too chose from and then you order it, sit back and what for it to be delivered to either you or the person in question.

The non-personal cards (example below) vary between 79p and 99p and cover various occasions, some have verses and others are plain inside.

The personal touch cards (example below) vary too, some you can only change the persons name on the front of the card and write your own verse inside and others you can change the persons name and add their picture too the front of the card and you can also add pictures of them on the inside of the card and write your own personal verse too.

These personal cards vary between £2.99 for a square card and £5.99 for a A4 card.

The postage for the cards varies between 60p for a square card UK 1st class post and £6.75 for a super size card Royal Mail special delivery service. 

We ordered our cards in the evening and I received a email the next morning to say they'd been sent out and I received them all together the very next morning.

Comparing these prices to other card shops online I believe these prices to be very reasonable.

I was sent a discount code to purchase different cards through The Dogs Doodah's website and review their products and service.

The views and content of this post is all mine apart from the images of the cards they are from the website.

Grand National Time Again

It's almost that time of year again where every man, women, dog, cat and gold fish put their heads together to try and pick the winner of the Grand National.

Even if you don't bet any other time of the year, for some reason you want a cheeky flutter, 50p each way on the outsider, who knows the rest will fall and your selection will cross the winning line and you stand victorious with your winning betting slip.

Working in the industry for the last 11 years I've seen all kinds of people walk through our front door with the winning horse and various reasons why it's going to win.

"It won last year"

"It's the brother/sister/cousin to the horse that won last year"

"It's been tipped up by that guy off of the telly"

"My mate said it's a shoe in to win"

So many of these customers with their hopes and dreams on whatever selection or selections they have on their winning ticket.

Over the last few years my brother has picked the winner of the National in some bizarre ways, his picked names, his picked colours, his plucked out of a hat and his most bizarre way by far was putting the horse names on the floor and dropping his necklace on the paper whichever it covered he chose, strangly he got first, second and third that year lol.

Do any of you have and bizarre rituals or ways and means of selecting your horses for the Grand National?

Meeting Famous People/Celebrities

In this day and age famous people/celebrities are constantly in our lives through all the different media channels available to us today.

Unfortunately this leads to them having to do everyday things in secret or under guarded protection but occasionally you are lucky enough to see them at petrol stations, in supermarkets or even in your local pub/restaurants.

I have been lucky enough to meet various celebrities/famous people over the years, I've meet :-

Sarah Ferguson the Duchess of York, I was about six and handed her a bouquet of flowers when she came and opened a new section of the factory my Dad, Mum and Nan worked in.

Over the years I've meet various celebrities from the world of film, tv and sport at events such as sports memorabilia exhibitions, book signings and more recently when we've taken the kids on days out where we've meet Mr Maker, Mr Bloom, Dr Ranj, Chris and Pui and the ever wonderful Alex Winters.

Two of my stand out meetings of celebrities has to be, one:-

When I meet Paul Shane, (him off Hi-De-Hi and You Rang M'Lord) whilst I was on holiday in Benidorm, he was drinking at our friends bar and we got a quick pic of him and JR and two:-

When I was lucky enough to bump into the one and only Melinda Messenger whilst on holiday at Euro Disney. We were looking round the shops and noticed her shopping with her children and kindly asked if we could have a photo with her, she was so lovely and friendly.

My Dad meet a famous person once in a bizarre twist of fate, at the time he was working as a shoe repairer working in Wolverhampton and one day in worked Les Dawson who needed his shoes fixed for a show he was in that very night, obviously a bit start struck my Dad fixed them and as a token of his gratitude Les gave my Dad tickets for his show that very night.

My wifes most interesting meeting of a celebrity would have to be without a shadow of a doubt when she meet Jack Charlton on a motorway service station.

They were having breakfast and realised they were seated behind him, once he'd finished eating they began speaking to him, someone came over for a signature and he replied with "I'm busy at the moment I'm having breakfast with my friends, come back in a bit" which she thought was great that he was her friend.

Have any of you guys meet any celebrities or famous people in any weird or bizarre circumstances or situations?

Easter Bonnet Parade

Last Friday was my boys last day of term at school before they broke up for Easter holidays and it was also TP's Easter Bonnet Parade, he was so so excited to show everyone his bonnet he had made with his mum during the week.

Once we'd arrived at nursery TP put his coat and bag away and with pride he put his Easter bonnet on the table with all the other children's bonnets.

There were lots of wonderful looking bonnets on display, small ones and tall ones, round ones and square ones, there was one with dinosaurs on it and even one that was designed to look like a  Minion.

Before it was to time to collect the kids at home time we along with all the other mums and dads gathered in the playground awaiting the arrival of the children to parade their fabulous bonnets.

The children appeared and walked around the playground showing off their bonnets with pride to everyone.

Three children's bonnets were chosen as the best three by the schools head teacher but there were no losers they all won a goodie bag full of chocolates and a certificate for participating in the parade.

Visit To Sea Life Centre Birmingham

On Saturday we took the children to the Sea Life Centre in Birmingham.

Upon arrival the children were given a little booklet, within this booklet was a stamp section for each of the zones within the 9 zone collectors activity trail, they had to complete various activities in each zone then stamp their book to say they'd done so.

They were also given a Spongebob Square Pants sticker sheet and stickers and dotted around the centre were various Spongebob promotional stands telling them who they had to search for in the promotional aquarium tank and put that characters sticker on their sticker sheet.

We made our way round the centre looking at all the sea creatures of various size and shape.

The children were fascinated by what they saw, L-A enjoyed standing and looking at the penguins swim around and around their enclosure.

TP loved looking through the hatches in the jelly fish zone, he also enjoyed touching the star fish but best of all he enjoyed meeting his name sake Tyler the turtle.

JR enjoyed touched the star fish too although it took him a bit to pluck up the courage to do so but best of all he really enjoyed watching all the different sea creatures swim above, below and around him in the under the sea tunnel.

Our visit to the Sea Life Centre was really enjoyable, it was great to see the children stand there in amazement watching all the different sea creatures of various size, shape and colour.

The only part of the visit which neither of us enjoyed which was a shame really as the children were really looking forward to it was the 4D cinema. The Happy Feet film in all honesty scared them to the point that they clung to their mum and myself in fear.

Visit To Hatton Adventure World

Saturday afternoon we took the children to Hatton Adventure World in Warwick.

I'd been invited to take the children along to their Eggstravaganza event and to possibly test out their new laser tag attraction, unfortunately as my eldest is only seven I couldn't take him on it as the minimum age is eight, maybe next year we can test it out. Having said that we didn't let that spoil our day, especially as at their age they love chocolate that much that they much more preferred searching for hidden Easter eggs lol.

When we arrived at the entrance gates for the park the lovely lady in the booth gave us our wrist bands and gave the children a Easter egg hunt sheet, for the Easter egg hunt they had to find 12 promotional bunny rabbits dotted around the park, take note of each ones colour and when they had found them all hand in the sheet and collect their Easter prize.

We wondered round the park looking for the bunnies on the Easter egg hunt whilst doing so we took a tractor ride and learnt some interesting facts about Hatton park and the animals and wildlife that life there. We also went to see new born lambs and their mummies and chicks and their mummies too. We went in the scales and tails house and the children got to hold and stroke a bearded dragon and a blue tongued lizard.

Before we took the children on the Easter egg hunt we stopped by the bird of falcon centre and we saw a falconry display which was pretty awesome to be honest, the kids loved it, they asked the man lots and questions and they weren't even bothered by the sight of the falcon eating his chick for his lunch.

It was time for the children's highlight of the day, the part they were really looking forward to, the Easter egg hunt. We gathered near the volleyball court along with many other eager children to meet the Easter bunny and join him on his Easter egg hunt. Well once wed listened to all the Easter jokes and the health and safety instructions we made our way the the field containing the Easter egg hunt activity.

The children had to find five wooden eggs, a blue, red, yellow, orange and green one which they would exchange for Easter eggs. The children searched around the field looking behind trees and the many different obstacles within the field till they found all five eggs then they took them in to be exchanged for chocolate ones.

After all the fun off the egg hunt, we took the children to pick some daffodils for their Grandma which they really loved doing, they carefully picked them making sure they didn't damage any of them. 

As it was getting cold we decided to make our way indoors and let the children play on the indoor soft play area and giant slides whilst we had a much deserved coffee.

Once mummy had finished drinking her coffee she decided she wanted to test out the slide so took the children on it several times, it was so nice seeing mummy and the children having so much fun together.

Before it was time to head home we took the children to have a bit of chill time on the fair, they enjoyed going on the tea cup ride and lady bird ride with mummy.

We had a fabulous afternoon at Hatton Adventure World and can't wait to return possibly later in the year or definitely next year.

#Wicked Wednesdays

To be honest I don't really know what to say about this photo, randomly JR was trying to blow back up a squashed soft play ball.