"Not all those who wander are lost."

We were having our usual fun at the park today, it was cold and the sky was grey but we were wrapped up warm, scooting, chatting and as always enjoying each others company. It was a nice relaxing and lazy Sunday afternoon after a busy day yesterday. But then disaster! the smallest member of our family unit decided to run off and like a rocket he was gone... But where to?

The thing about our quick footed little three year old is he's pretty good at hiding and being that small he fits into spaces us fully grown humans just don't fit. After a brief scout around the area Seth decided it was time to bring in back up. 

The Spy Net RC Recon Video Bot is a serious bit of kit based on a military prototype and has even been featured in the tv show 24. It is perfect for any budding little super spy in the making but also comes in handy for us clumsy parents who misplace our loved ones.  I would have been so excited to have owned something like this when I was younger, I was a huge James Bond fan and inspector gadget was one of my heroes. The Goonies was my favourite movie and I was always trying to make cool gadgets like Data. I just wanted to be a secret agent where very item around me, no matter how insignificant could be used for something AWESOME!

The RC Recon Bot is a strong durable piece of tech and it's solid outer shell means that it can withstand a fair amount of banging about. The unit can be thrown over any wall of ahead of you around 30ft for obstacles blocking your vision and can be used as a robot roaming vehicle with built in camera and a video screen on the remote. You can manoeuvre the robot 360 degrees and the lens can be manually adjusted to suit your roaming needs. To start our afternoon child hunt we dropped our unit down a hole in the parks climbing frame and began our recon mission...

Seth was up first and went looking around the smaller climbing frame for his little brother. The RC Recon Video bot has been able to get over every terrain we have tried it on so far, the tooth like wheels even got over a raised door frame at nanny and grandads house which i thought was really impressive, so roaming around this smooth wooden structure was no problem. Mrs M looked a little concerned about the welfare of the unit when it approached the slide but because of the solid casing, bouncing down the slide wasn't an issue. Sadly still no sign of our missing boy though?

Mommy was up next taking the unit over a bench and off the other side to search underneath too. but the boy was nowhere to be found.I love it when Mrs M gets involved in our adventures. We set up an assault course at home to put the device through its paces and she got quite competitive.

My turn to continue our search and i had a feeling Opeie may have been across the wobbly balancing beam, i was sure our robotic rescue unit could also balance across the full length of the beam and i was right the controls can be crazy if you want it to spin around lots but on more delicate journeys it works well under the pressure and can be quite smooth to control.

Where was that child of ours hiding???

Almost running out of places to search we guided the RC Roamer towards the big climbing frame hoping to get some sort of lead as to where Opeie had got to.

Seth had to get the bot over a difficult bit of the park and we had a couple of issues with the wheels not being able to get over rope ladders (well you've got to try) but from a tactical view point the unit was tackling every task and obstacle with the greatest of ease.

Thinking we had combed the park area thoroughly we assumed the little secret agent had fooled us and we were ready to give up, when we spotted something in the distance and sent the RC unit to investigate our findings.

There he was that little angel of ours quietly reading a book. The spy Net RC Recon Video Bot completed its first full mission perfectly, finding the lost member of our party and returning him to the people that love him most. 

With the mission complete it was time to head home, all that was left to do was test the range on the remote, if you can see that little dot on the white line ahead then you can see it can go a fair distance with the video feed staying as clear throughout its journey.

Seth being the massive Bond fan that he is has gone Spy Net mad so this afternoon we headed up to our local toy store to spend Seths winnings that he had been saving from hustling Mrs M every week over who was going to be star baker on the bake off each episode, she'll never learn.

We came home with the Spy Net Laser Trip Wire ready for our next adventure and since the visit the big kid in me is pining after the Ultra Vision Goggles, I could have so much fun with those babies! Stay tuned for our next spy related caper.

"Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent."

Last week we found out that Bigjigstoys have chosen us for another year to write for them as their Play Patrol bloggers which we are so excited about. The boys loved receiving the Bigjigs packages every month last year and really enjoyed reviewing some great items. Seth decided that this year their identities are even more secret and Bigjigs have even asked for their code names this time round. After careful deliberation with the boys (after all agent names are a serious thing). Here is Agent Freshmaker and Agent RockRock, masters of deception.

"P for pneumonia, pterodactyl and psychosis"

When we became play patrol agents for Bigjigs Toys one of the wooden toys I really hoped we would be lucky enough to review was the Chunky Alphabet Puzzle as we're teaching Opeie his letters. He's been able to say his alphabet for months but he doesn't understand which letter is which so you can imagine our excitement when we opened our recent mission and found the item inside. We took the Alphabet puzzle with us on our travels yesterday and enlisted the help of an outside agent, auntie Lottie.

I knew that Opeie would like it and its already been played with a lot. I'm really hoping that it will help his understanding of letters over the coming weeks. We've been working on Opeies colours too over the last two weeks so I was pleased to see that Bigjigs Toys had colour coded the wooden blocks to go with the spaces in the alphabet board, on the board they had also included the lower case letters in each slot which I thought was a great touch.

As much as we loved the toy there was one or should I say two issues. Not with the toy on the whole but with the letters 'K' and 'Z', both of these letters only fit one way Round which probably seems like an I significant issue but for a two year old learning his letters via a wooden puzzle it can be quite frustrating when he is expecting each piece to fit. Opeie knew that he had the right letters for the slots but they just wouldn't go in which ended up confusing for him.

Apart from this though the Chunky Alphabet Puzzle is a great toy and I wouldn't let that put me off buying something that I know would benefit Opeie's development. This item is going to become very useful as Opeie is learning and anything that keeps him motivated to learn and entertained at the same time will always be a fantastic toy in our eyes. A definite thumbs up from Gifts From the Pirates.