What to do in the School Holidays - part 2

How about some free things going on during the summer, all those days out can work out quite expensive.

Abingdon Museum has just reopened after a refit and the excellent cafe throwing buns has opened buns in the basement. The museum is on our to do list this summer as we haven't been since its reopened.

Ashmolean Museum, oxford, has museum pick and mix every wed and Thursday up to 16 August and a Friday tour and draw up to the 17 August. Few others things going on so have a look at their family whats on page

Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, has various family drop-in sessions and also activities for older children

Oxford University Museum of Natural History and Pitt Rivers have joined forces with some joint events an Olympic adventure trail every day, Tuesday and Wednesday backpack activities and 23-24 August Museum Masquerades.

The Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock, is one of our favourite in the area, there is always lots to see and do for the children. During the holidays there are lots of activities for a small fee.

Take a splash, with the sun still shining why not take a trip to the Abbey Meadows in Abingdon or Hinksey Park in Oxford to splash in the water feature, or take your swim suits and have a dip in the pool.

Get into a book, check out whats on at your local library this summer, activities on at most libraries and they are all taking part in this summers story lab summer reading challenge

Oxford Family Sports Day 2012, will be at Bury Knowle Park, Headington on Sunday 12 August. This sounds like a great day to try something new, or watch the demonstrations.

Back to the paid things again:
Botanic Gardens, Oxford, have a different family friendly event every Thursday afternoon

Harcourt Arboretum, Oxford, has a different arboretum Olympics each Tuesday afternoon, and also from now until 2 September a geo-caching treasure hunt. Explorer backpacks are also available to borrow every day from the ticket office.

Oxford Playhouse has one production on this summer for the kids, wheels on the bus on the 13/14/15 August. Shows at the Playhouse are always excellent and this one is worth a visit with young ones.

What to do in the School Holidays - Part 1

The school holidays have started and while the kids are having a great time some parents are already wishing it was September. So what is there going on in Oxfordshire over the next 6 weeks, here is a short round-up of things local to us.

BBOWT have family fun days at some of their larger sites, different themes each week. Examples are animal games, wild about dinosaurs, remarkable raptors, Bug Hunt Safari, wildlife detective and many more. Take a look at their whats on page to see whats near you some are free and some a small donation. 


Earth Trust have a summer clumps club, forest school for preschoolers, family bushcraft day and a night time bat walk, check out their whats on pages for more info 


Millets Farm the maize maze is due to open this weekend... little bit late due to the weather but better late than never. We've never actually been round the maze before, maybe a visit with our preschool friends is in order before they all go onto school. Each Wednesday during the holidays there is a different themed activity at at cost of £2.99 per child. I like the sound of the wildlife wooden wind chimes. Events page for more info.

Mostly Books wheres wally hunt finishes this weekend July 28th... so better get skates on with this one. There will be a party on the 28th. One event I think I better get a ticket to is Rescue Princess Party with author Paula Harrison on the 7th August, this is just up Charlottes street. 13th August is 'Hugless Douglas' creator David Melling doing drawings and activities.

Part 2 of this post is to follow... so many things to do!!!

Legoland, Windsor

We love Legoland so much that we seem to return every year, and this year Charlotte was now tall enough to go on the big rides. Mummy doesn't do rides very well but Daddy happily obliged on all those I couldn't stomach. We loved them all, the big ones, the scary ones, the more sedate ones, something for every age. I think our family favourite ride is Atlantis, the submarine ride. This is excellent but over so quickly... I wish it was longer. The fish ponds at the end for the kids to feel the sea urchins and crabs were excellent. We got really soaked on Pirates Fall which was Mummy's favourite, Daddy's favourite ride is The Dragon roller-coaster and Charlotte's was the L-driving school. At 4 she is still 2 years off the bigger driving school, and I can't wait for her to be old enough for that. When my brother and I were younger we went to Legoland Denmark and I still remember the driving school there, and I've kept my driving licence.
New for 2012 was the amazing looking Legoland hotel, living only an hour away we had no reason to stay but I would have loved to sneak in and look around. Also new was the Star Wars miniland experience, or geek central for Daddy! Mummy doesn't do star wars but Daddy and Charlotte said it was excellent.
The weather was a bit unpredictable the day we went, but thankfully we managed to time it so when it rained we could dive into the theatre for a 4D experience. This was the first time we have done this and it was excellent, so well done conveying all the emotion with no words just expression and with the added 4D extras.
We had reviewed Legloand last year, but its just so much fun that I thought I would do another update.
http://www.legoland.co.uk/

Bekonscot Model Village and Railway, Buckinghamshire

We had a really lovely day at the very popular Bekonscot Model Village. Bekonscot is one of the oldest original model villages in the world with quite a history that you can read about on their website or whilst going round the site. I don't remember the numbers but whilst there I read a notice about model villages dying out and there being so many less than a number of years ago, so its great to see this model village so busy and they also donate a lot of money to local and national charities.

The area around the model village is a housing estate, and limited car parking is provided on the church grounds opposite or local roads.
When we arrived we headed straight for the lake and played with the little power boats and then onto the children's playground which is really well designed (this is meant to be at the end of the village, but we went the wrong way around!). Beside this was the cafe with indoor and outdoor seating (some covered areas if it rains) where we had our picnic, we did buy ice creams in the cafe and the selection of food looked really nice.

We then spent ages going around the model village, you could easily walk around 2 or 3 times and spot something different. There is also a raised platform for an aerial view. There is a very complex gauge 1 model railway running around the site, which all the kids got excited about watching them going into and out of the tunnels. A few highlights are:  a miniature Bekonscot village with some great puns for the shop names, a lovely traditional fair, look for the lady washing her windows, a coal mine (very popular with the children), a burning building, ascot race course and a working water mill. Even the gardens are amazing, with minature trees and plants all trimmed to scale.

An extra cost to the entrance fee is a trip on the narrow gauge railway, which was a fun but short experience.

The site is really child friendly, and no problem at all for pushchairs. We had a really great time and could have spent a lot longer wondering around looking at everything.
http://www.bekonscot.co.uk/index.php

Disneyland Paris

We have a mini princess in the making in our house, I'm sure a lot of 4 year old girls are in love with Disney Princesses and so we got this bright idea of taking Charlotte to Disneyland Paris for a last holiday before she starts school... ahh is she really that big now.
What a real princess of a holiday it turned out to be. We went to London the night before and spent the night in Kings Cross Premier Inn, and for a budget London hotel this was great and so close to the train station, they served up an excellent breakfast that kept us going all day.
We splashed out on standard premier tickets for the direct Eurostar train to Disneyland. Its not first class but the extra leg room and a nice light breakfast was great, the bag given to the kids at St Pancras station starved off any train boredom and got us all excited about Disney (not that we weren't already brimming over with excitement) and before you know it we were delivered to the doors of the park.
A short walk from the station to our hotel the Newport Bay, we were greeted with huge queues but we had pushed the boat out again and upgraded to admirals floor so skipped the big queues and checked straight in and up too our room. No time to look at the wonderful view over the lake we were keen to get into the Disney magic. And magic it was, everything Disney does is amazing.

A few things we did to make our holiday extra special was booking a character dinner at Inventions (the restaurant within the Disneyland hotel), really excellent food. It was buffet service and we went back a good few times to fill our plate up. We booked for 6pm which turned out to be a quiet time to go and meet Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Suzy, Perla and Gepetto. Charlotte danced with Mickey, he also conducted whilst she sang its a small world, Pluto drew a picture of a bone when we asked what is favourite food was. Such a memorable evening we didn't want it to end.

We also booked a princess make-over, again at the Disneyland hotel. Various packages to chose from but we went for the 60 euro package of make-up, hair, tiara, photo shoot and single photo. We took along our snow white dress and added a Belle tiara. she looked so pretty and was a lovely surprise.

To top it off we then went for lunch with the Disney Princesses at Cinderella's restaurant. This is not a cheap dinner but its such an amazing moment to have lunch with a prince and 3 princesses. Being Cinderella's restaurant you are guaranteed to meet Cinderella but we also met Prince Charming, Belle and Aurora. They were all so friendly and lovely and chatty. Cinderella and Prince Charming danced in front of us and then they all came to greet us and they also danced with Charlotte.

Around the park we met Buzz light year, who is so tall all the little ones were a bit scared of him, Tigger who is so bouncy, Eyeore, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Duffy Bear, Rapunzel and Tiana.
We seemed to badly time the shows in the studio park but did make Lighting McQueen stunt show which was fantastic and made us all jump and hold our breathe.

The 20th celebration fireworks at park closing time were amazing, we were all wowed by the Jubilee celebrations with the projections onto Buckingham Palace, well this was Disney's version onto the castle 25mins felt like a few seconds there are no words to say how stunning and amazing it was. We saw it twice from different directions but could happily watch it again and again.

I think Charlotte's favourite ride was its a small world which we did 7 times, I'm still singing the song now. She even enjoyed the scary rides like the haunted house and Pirates of the Caribbean. There were long queues for some of the popular rides so we didn't manage everything but we had a fantastic 4 nights. We were very sorry to be leaving the Disney magic to come back home but we were so tired we couldn't wait for a nice lie in. We are now saving for Florida... this may take us some time!

Open Farm Sunday 2012

Sunday 17 June is Open Farm Sunday. Sadly we can't go this year but we had such an excellent time last year. The weather was so wet and miserable I don't think the farmer was expecting anyone to turn up but turn up we did. We visited Hill Top Farm in Steventon (a cattle farm, which sadly isn't open this year) and got a superb tractor tour of the farm and information about all their crops, a look around the cattle, join in with feeding the young cows, tour of the outbuildings which they converted into offices and lease out to bring in much needed money. Hill Top Farm is family run and was lovely to hear about how farming had changed over the years and what new ideas and technologies are being brought to the farm.
Every farm has something different going on, so take a look at the Open Farm Sunday website and see what your local farm is doing, anything from meet the animals, bale climbing, nature trails, tractor rides, farm shops etc

Slimbridge Wetland Centre, Slimbridge, Gloucestershire

Slimbridge Wetland Centre is a great place for people of all ages, not just those who are into photographing wildlife as there is plenty of things for everyone. Charlotte was a bit 'seen one duck seen them all' but there were plenty of boards around to explain the different types of ducks, and the reserve is split into areas of the continent. Plenty of quiet bird hides for those who like to spot something more unusual and out of the way of the popular central areas. For the kids there was a number of play parks, there was a canoe safari (looked great but we didn't go on it) and the best bit welly boot land. On the day we went it was more swimming costume and crocs. Welly boot land is a stream that you can build dams on to learn about the flow of water... or just run and splash in to cool off on a hot day.

There are areas you can hand feed the ducks, hands-on session with frogs and toads, otter feeding session. Check the noticeboards for a what's on that day when you arrive, there was a lot more on than we managed to do or space to mention here. There were some great pond dipping areas, but sadly no nets, we were really looking forward to the pond dipping too, was a really fun pond dipping game available. We took our own packed lunch, there are plenty of benches and picnic areas around, but we did stop for a drink in the restaurant and the selection looked quite good.

The whole area is flat and really accessible, including a lot of the hides, the whole reserve is really well planned out.
We had a really fun day, and it was a full packed day, as we left Charlotte asked when we will be going back... would like to say its because she liked seeing all the birds but I think it was more to do with welly boot land.
http://www.wwt.org.uk/visit-us/slimbridge/