"I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay Wastin' time"

I can't even begin to tell you how much I am loving this sunshine. Waking up in the morning and seeing it desperately trying to find a way in under the blinds, sets me up for the day and where there is sunshine there is adventure. If you read our previous post then you will know that after a trip to Liverpool to pick up Mrs M's passport we were eager to get back there with the scooters to scoot Albert dock. Well, last weeks sunshine and lack of needing to be anywhere important was all the fuel we needed to pack up the Micro-scooters and head out.

Opeie was the DJ during our journey and with Justin Bieber and Taylor swift being his choice of soundtrack I couldn't get there (and out of the car) quick enough. When we arrived the sun had dulled a little but we were confident that weather wise it was going to be an awesome day. I used our outing to put the Pedalflow to the test as it had not been out long distance and I really wanted to see what it could do.

The thing that was so appealing scooter wise during our previous trip around Albert dock was the flat, smoothness of the area and the huge amount of space to bomb about. On top of that there were ramps to raised levels, which made our scoot even more entertaining. Its great to be scooting around new cities as it gets Opeie asking lots of questions and for homeschooling these kind of days out are a great source of education and experience.

I mean where else are you going to scoot past a picture of the Beatles made entirely of Jelly beans?

Scooting together has really become our thing. That special father/son time where we can concentrate completely on having fun while whizzing around. It has given us an extra level to this amazing relationship that is continuing to be built daily. This awesome bonding time is made even better when Mrs M and Seth are scooting with us.

The evening we got back from our trip, I sent a picture to a whatsapp group of all the cool moms I hang out with. One of the moms recognised the Beatles jellybeans, which started a conversation about the universities we all attended. Emma over at Another Last Story mentioned her time as a student in Leeds and how lovely the city is. Which without thinking got me asking "Whats the scooting like?", it made me chuckle to myself that I have actually reached the point in our family scooting adventure that I am measuring the appeal of a new city solely on the ability to scoot there. That's how much of an impact those wheels have had on our life though.

As much as we love those wheels of ours, the afternoon wasn't all about scooters. With every city scooted we also try to hunt down any museum or educational establishment to add in to the adventure, Its what makes our home education so great. We had visited the Tate and the Museum of Liverpool during our previous visit but this time we headed towards Liverpool's 'World Museum' as I had read some great reviews (and they've got dinosaurs!).

The great thing about all three of the museums that we have visited in Liverpool is the size of the lockers available which comfortably held a Pedalflow, a Mini Micro and our bags and coats, genius! When we were getting them back out before leaving there was a mom with her two children who was very impressed by what we were pulling out, which started a long chat about Micro Scooters and all the benefits to having them and again the impact they have had on our lives. I think that may just have been another customer coming their way.

The museum was great, with lots of different themes to keep us both entertained. The dinosaurs where what had me hooked when I was researching online but there was and eqyptian themed floor, a planetarium, an Aquarium and lots of other interesting things to look at and information for the little sponge that travels with me.

(Get a room Starfish!)

I was expecting the dinosaurs to be Opeie's favourite part of the visit but it turned out to be and exhibition called 'eye for colour - the rainbow revealed!', a collection of information and activities around how colour is formed and how the eye processes colour. Opeie got to learn about how colour is used in art and we went over colour mixing again but this time using light too.

There was a great section on colour in the animal kingdom and how colour was used to attract mates, scare off predators and also how it was used to stand out. Opeie's favourite part was using colour as camouflage to blend in to a surrounding environment.

We could have quite happily spent the bulk of our visit at this exhibition as there was so much great information to keep us entertained. Using the Dog, Fish and Bee heads below you could move them around to look about the room and it gave you an idea of the colours that these animals can see compared to what we do. Opeie of course used them to pretend he was a spy and I had to jump out and make faces while he was looking around.

The museum visit really added to our already eventful scooting adventure and as we pushed off in to the sunshine we were reminded yet again of just how much Micro Scooters has been shaping these amazing homeschooling days together.

$£%&@!**$%@&.....Brains!!! @£$!%&*£@$&!£@%$&*.......BRAAAAAAAAAIIIIIINNNNNNNNSSSSSSSS!!

We lost a lot of good men today, they may have turned in to flesh eating zombies but they served our team well.

Today was D-day! The morning that Seth had been going on about all week. Excalibur martial arts (seth's Tae Kwon Do class) had organised a Nerf war to celebrate their sons birthday and it seems to be an annual event with these guys. To prepare ourselves for the big day I had brought myself and Seth new weapons as Seth found reloading our other guns difficult due to his muscle condition. I got the guns that could hold the most bullets thinking that would mean less reloading but when they arrived and Seth realised he couldn't load them on his own we had a week of stress and anxiety. Concerned that he would be open to attack it was obviously playing on his mind a lot especially at bedtime (when is he going to understand that best friends stick together and I'll always be his wing man).

They had a nice easy lesson today so that students could conserve their energy for Saturdays main event and as the older children and adults classes follow his we had a couple of hours to kill. Seth has been asking for weeks if he could go on the Bridgnorth cliff railway and our extra time loitering round Bridgnorth made it the perfect filler. We had Seth's friends from school William and Matthew and their dad Steve with us for company which made it more fun. Before going on the cliff railway though we walked along the city walls and admired the one remaining wall of the castle. Seth spotted a cobweb on the railings and with a very serious face asked if it was a medieval spiderweb? Genius!

After our mini adventure and cliff rail ride we headed back to base to prepare for battle. The leisure centre hall had been transformed into a battle zone with cardboard box barricades everywhere you looked and a camouflage netting covered maze in the centre, a role playing delight for all the kids (and us eager big kids). Mrs M had kindly filled my bag with face paint so quickly got the boys ready for their imminent scrap.

Seths taekwondo teacher had come up with an elaborate storyline and from just looking at his get up you could tell that he was really in to it. As he bellowed out commands us grown ups chuckled at he rear, the problem was us old timers at the back with our intermittent hearing had no idea what he was saying, so oblivious to any role playing that had been set we took the unclear directions and translated them in to something us dads could understand 'if its under 5 feet tall shoot at it'. The kids were darting about at crazy speed and for the first time I was really feeling my age. It seems that (although I had never seen them before) a couple of the kids had taken an instant disliking to me and were hell bent on unloading ALL of their ammo on me. (On the drive home Seth informed me that its because I have a villainous beard).

Everyone was having a whale of a time and I was most impressed by the 6 year old sniper that managed to shoot me in the jugular, quite the marksman. Seth and William were joined at the hip and whenever Seth managed to sneak up on me he managed to get me on the face which was closely followed by a second bullet from William. I seemed to spend most of my time picking up darts and reloading until a young lady called Emily started bringing me handfuls of ammo she had found, what a little angel. (sadly i didn't get a photo of her).

The final battle was understood by the grown ups clearly, as the children built one large barricade to hide behind us big kids were a pack of zombies coming to storm the trench. The children shot at us to try and fend us off and i lost both arms in the process but managed to get to the wall. As the zombies were tearing at the walls the children (especially the ones that had run out of ammo) were screaming excitably, it was a lot of fun.

It was two hours of mayhem and not eating since early that morning was taking its toll and i was getting very tired. So as everyone flattened the boxes for recycling we made a hasty get away (sorry guys). We definitely look forward to doing that again next time.

Thanks Excalibur and Happy Nerfday Reilly