"Passion surprises. One doesn't search it. It can happen to you tomorrow."

Day 101-102:

Yesterday seemed to fly by and I didn't take a single photo so I'm lazily adding these two days together. Last year we visited Attingham park a few times around this time of year in search of the Lesser stag for Opeies photo collection of found beetles. Each visit we came away with some photos of some interesting new beetles but sadly never the Lesser stag. As we walked home yesterday through the woodland near us, we turned over logs looking for beetles and there she was, sitting there waiting for a photo. I love how things like this can really make our day and we can now cross off Lesser stag from our list. Next up... we still haven't found Opeie's favourite, the elusive violet ground beetle.

"Dad! don't you think it would be cool if batman had an AT-AT? He could call it the BAT-AT!"

"Dad! don't you think it would be cool if batman had an AT-AT? He could call it the BAT-AT!" was pretty much all the motivation I needed for a couple of nights building while the boys were in bed. I don't like Star Wars at all... but I do like Batman and if I can have some fun giving those boring Star Wars kits a DC twist to put a smile on the boys faces I'm all over it.

Turns out that having a quick flick through the instructions, I had pretty much every part in our LEGO collection, it was just a case of rummaging and finding every single piece (in black of course).

In great Opeie style, Not being completely satisfied that I made his crazy BAT-AT comment a reality, his usual critical self explained that it was far too black and needed a little something extra. I was informed that there needed to be a disco in the back with Batman DJing (that kid always needs a bit of glam). So being the LEGO lovin' Dad that I am, always aiming to please, I added a disco in the back and a mixing desk into to the front (My dad points have gone through the roof).

I'm not sure that Snuffy likes his new friend though!

"Collecting is more than just buying objects."

When I first started writing the blog it was going to be a pretty unpersonal affair. No names and no pictures of us just posts about playing and a homage to mine and my boys love of toys. All our posts were about new toys we had found and how we loved playing. The early posts were dominated by one range of toys in particular. A collection I had started for Opeie when I found out he was on his way, that collection is still going strong and locked away for when he is a lot older despite not adding to it for about 6 months, until yesterday.

I was drawn into the Marvel Super hero squad range from the moment i saw them. Aside from the more 'grown up' collectors ranges like 'legends' or 'select', super hero squad boasted the largest variety of heroes and villains aimed at a younger audience. These figures are great, a cute introduction for younger children into the magical world of comics and all the characters I grew up admiring.  Opeie's collection is pretty immense and even though I've got a lot of the characters there are still loads I need to track down. Yesterday's delivery added a few great characters I was missing, Thanos, Gambit, night crawler, Beast etc and has relit the flame for hunting down the missing characters.

It's great to see when I'm looking online that some of the characters I own are fetching much higher than the £5.99 asking price I found them at when I first started collecting. The internet has been a god send for anything we're collecting but while we were in Florida last year we popped into target and i spotted three boxes of figures from the Iron man 3 movie. The problem with collecting a range like this is that most of the characters were never released in this country so finding them has been daunting at times.

 I love collecting, there's something so satisfying about finding the things that you are looking for, my inner geek comes out full force. When I first met Mrs M she saw it as hoarding but I think she understands now especially after I tracked her down most of the Dick Bruna book collection a few Christmas' ago for an advent gift. I love jumping in on other peoples collections too I find it all quite exciting.

Well as I said the new additions were delivered yesterday which spurred me on to get the rest of the collection out while Opeie was having his afternoon nap. Seth hadn't seen them all out of storage and his eyes lit up at the amount of characters that were there. There will probably be many more posts abot these figures, at least until i have completed the collection. I have a few collections on the go for the boys, i think it will be nice to have something to give them that they will love and who knows they might be worth a little something by then.