"Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier."

I hate talking about politics, it really does bring out the worst in people but with all the rubbish that has been going on lately like voters getting their knickers in a twist because elections haven't gone their way and the rise of racist propaganda portrayed in the media, there has never been a better time to have a long play/discussion with Opeie about diversity. Opeie asks the usual questions that a 5-year-old would ask while taking in his surroundings. "Why do people have different coloured skin?", "Why has that lady only got one leg", "Daddy why have you got tattoo's and piercings?". The answer is simple, we are all different.

Someone came up with a great idea about making a globe out of LEGO, to learn about different countries and nationalities, which would have been awesome. This, however, would have taken weeks to do and while we were talking about the 'people are different' subject I wanted to cover all kinds of people while playing. We decided to make a park for a variety of characters to have fun in and while I quickly knocked up a quick basic park, I asked Opeie if he could make different kinds of people and families. I was just about to type that Opeie had done a great job of being diverse when recently reviewing the LEGO City - Town fun in the park kit, but then I realised that if you bring your child up knowing everyone is different and respecting people for who they are then this way of thinking for them is just the norm.

When Opeie is playing with his Minifigures and roleplaying there is nearly always same sex couples. He has always been taught that people can fall in love with whoever they please, that men fall in love with men and women with women as much as men and women, again this is the norm. So when adding these families into his games he is simply doing what he feels is natural. The one thing that sticks out for me when I am watching Opeie play is just how much 'Love' comes into everything he does. I thought it was really cute when he found a gold LEGO ring and had a lady proposing to her girlfriend.

Opeie informed me that it is okay for nan's to be in love too and rightly so. There is not a single ounce of prejudice in that little cutie.

Last week we all lay on our bed and watched youtube videos of the paralympic wheelchair tennis and we were all mesmerised by it. I was shocked to see the wheelchair being moved so quickly and was genuinely impressed by the skill and power involved in the game.  The videos really had an impact on the boys which was great and got them asking lots of questions. Opeie asked if I could help him build a paralympic tennis player for his park and of course I was more than happy to oblige.

Opeie is a big fan of the Mohican which got us talking about people that choose to stand out from the crowd, altering the way they look with eye-catching hairstyles/colours, tattoo's, piercings and quirky clothing. This is always going to be something the boys understand because of the childhood I had growing up. I wore some crazy things over the years and was covered in piercings and its only been the last few years that I have started to be a little tamer. Because of this Opeie made some great alternative people for his park.

'Love' continued flowing through his creation and a little bit of generosity inevitably came out in the build too. We had a discussion this week after finding a mobile phone on the floor while out scooting at the beach. Opeie proudly handed the phone into the parks reception and I told him that we should all try and do at least one good deed a day. It is something I have done for a while now and something that hopefully I will instil in the boys. There was no surprise that in Opeie's park a kind lady was giving some money to a homeless man. I asked Opeie why he had made each person the way he had and he told me that this lady was a Man that preferred to be a lady (which stemmed from a conversation we had ahead a few weeks back).

I was so proud of how Opeie approached this play session and it made me realise that I are doing a great job of bringing Opeie up with an open mind in a world that still isn't quite moving in the right direction. I just hope that things are a little less dramatic for the boys when they are adults. whatever happens though they will always have Love!

"It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength."

New LEGO kits for us are always exciting! When you have a real passion for a product, like we do with these amazing bricks every new kit released tends to get those corners of my mouth pointing upwards. What really makes me happy though especially as a custom builder is a new LEGO piece. To anyone else it would just seem like an insignificant piece of plastic but each new element created can open up a world of building possibilities.

When I first saw the LEGO City - Town fun in the park kit I was in complete awe! I know, I know, that sounds ridiculous but as I have said many times before, LEGO is a way of life in our home and has a huge effect on how me and the boys interact every day, so it's only natural that these little things (to us) would be a big deal. With so many Minifigures in the kit, there is a great selection of torso's faces and legs. I'm not sure how many of them are new designs but I've not seen most of them before and didn't have any of them in our collection so from a custom builders point of view, the body parts alone would have already had me hooked on this interesting kit.

What did make me laugh to myself was the fact that for the first time ever LEGO had made me broody. With the inclusion of the amazing new baby minifigure, It had me wishing there was a baby in the house just so the Lego adventures that we come up with for our posts could include a Gifts from the Pirates baby. 

What really touched home for me about this amazing kit was the wheelchair included in the set. When you have a son with a disability who is as much of a fan of LEGO as his brick obsessed dad, having these sort of extras is really important. Seth isn't in a wheelchair but he does have mobility issues himself and for me seeing this little piece of plastic showed that the world of LEGO was becoming even more diverse.

I had made a wheelchair myself a few months back when I needed a professor X for something we were building. It turned out fine but this new LEGO wheelchair has a lot more playability.

I love a kit that Spurs on some serious LEGO roleplay. What I found really interesting about this kit was the fact that when I opened the box for Opeie to build, for the first time ever he didn't follow the instructions when building the Minifigures. He sat and created his own little families and friendships and all I could see between his characters when I looked at what he had created was love. It made me realise how innocent Opeie still is and being homeschooled means that he will keep that innocence for a little longer. 

It may be a bold statement but for me, this kit is my favourite from this year so far.  While Seth and I like to create large structures, Opeie definitely concentrates more on the characters, their personalities and what sort of people they are. These City characters have been played with every day by Opeie and I imagine they will all be going on many adventures over the coming weeks (possibly even to a volcano).

Our fun didn't end there with the LEGO building. On the evening that Opeie built the kit I popped out to pick a friend up from work and he had very kindly got hold of the fountain kit for the boys, to say thank you for helping him out earlier in the week. All this LEGO City fun has got us all talking about whether we should make our own custom LEGO city so watch this space.

If from the post I haven't made it clear just how great the Town fun in the park kit is then I'll leave you with this. If you are a fan of LEGO you need this in your collection.

"By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show."

In the world of blogging you meet some amazing people, but a lot of the time never in person, which is really unfortunate. Emails can go back and forth for years and you can build some pretty amazing relationships with companies. So when the chance arises to meet one of these amazing people it can be both exciting and a little unnerving, especially as I worry that I come across a lot less confident in the flesh. So this week I was invited by Micro-Scooters to attend an event to showcase the new Emicro one, their latest electric scooter which (being a HUGE scooter enthusiast) I was really excited about. The meeting gave me and Opeie the chance to have a couple of days adventuring in London (with of course, our scooters for getting about).

If the thought of a couple of days in London scooting wasn't enough, on the train down we received an email to say that one of our previous trips to London had made it on to Micro-scooters blog, titled 'Opeie's no tube scooter challenge' , so Opeie spent the journey down there telling me he was famous and the news had made us even more eager to get some wheels under our feet. We got off of the train and headed straight for the science museum as per Opeie's request and after checking our scooters in to the cloak room we had a great look around talking about all the things we could see. Opeie informed me that he would like to do a Space project at 'Daddy school' and after watching a video of Charles Michel he would like to attempt some food art this week so I'm looking forward to that.

Ive talked about it before but the great thing about having the Micro-scooters with us in London is that you get to see a different side to this amazing city. The none visually stimulating dark tunnels lined with posters for theatre productions and movies becomes amazing architecture, interesting people (not crammed together like sardines) and beautiful street art. From a home schooling point of view there really is no better way to take in London for everything it is.

When we have the scooters with us we always do a little investigating around Hyde park, the park itself is so much fun on wheels and aside from all of the amazing things to look at it can be used for getting to different parts of the city quickly while entertaining the kids. I love that with the scooters we can go long distance, in great time and without the 'daddy my legs are hurting'.

We always try and investigate areas we've not been to before as I think its important to show Opeie that there is so much out there. In London EVERYWHERE makes you think, there is so much diversity and taking Opeie to places where he is asking questions and constantly looking about for inspiration for things he wants to do is what home schooling (for us) is all about.

Day two of our trip and we woke up and made a bee line for Southbank after being told by our friend Katy that we should check it out. Its somewhere we had been meaning to go during other visits but until we arrived there I hadn't realised how close we had been to there on a few occasions. We had been on the London eye last year and around that area and had almost made it there when scooting along the Thames from the Tate Modern.

There are lots of interesting things to do around London and so much of it is free, having the option to dip in and out of these places and not having to worry about spending a fortune is great. we popped in to the Tate Modern and had a great trip to the Horneman Museum, which had an interesting dinosaur exhibit on, aimed at children. But aside from all of the museums and culture there is a never ending amount of fun to be had outdoors and being on the scooters really opens that up to us. Opeie developed his own form of parkour while out and it was great watching him climbing up pillars and walls around Waterloo station.

By the time we reached the apartment late that afternoon we were exhausted, but I still had the Micro-scooter event to look forward to that evening, so I mustered up the remainder of my energy and made my way back towards where we had spent our afternoon. Rather than scoot there (which I really should have done) I decided to walk and I can honestly say it wasn't for me, haha. When you've been whizzing around all day on wheels and have been reaching your destinations it great time, being on foot just doesn't cut it.

There's something pretty fun about walking in to a bar and seeing those scooters that I adore so much lined up and ready for action. As always though I was a little apprehensive walking in, not having the troops with me to break the ice but Ive never had a warmer welcome. All those years of passing emails back and forth and I finally got to meet the lovely Dannii who made me feel very special. Dannii was the first person I ever spoke to since working with Micro Scooters so it meant a lot to finally meet her, as expected it was like we had been the best of friends for years.

Getting to chat to other scooter enthusiasts was so much fun and I met some really interesting people. the star of the show 'The Emicro' is a really awesome bit of kit. It is the first motion controlled electric scooter which had my undivided attention from the moment I pushed off. Instead of just getting on and being ferried about, the Emicro still needs a physical kick off and an occasional push and thrusting motion every now and then to keep up momentum, which I love as it continues to keep the scoot physical. The more energy that you kick off with the better assisted the battery and journey is, genius. Racing it along the side of the Thames was the perfect place to scoot and I could get up to a great speed, not quite the Emicro's top speed of 15mph though. As I scooted around it got me thinking how great the scooter would be for Seth, because of his muscle condition he has days where he struggles on his scooter, the Emicro could definitely keep him up to speed with us which would be great for his confidence.

During the event we got to see an Emicro being put together which was really interesting as I had no idea that the motor was in the rear wheel. I would love to get my hands on one of these to go out for a solo adventure to really put it to the test. With it needing only 60 minutes to fully charge you could do some serious distance in the space of a day, scooting from train station to train station while charging during the journeys.

The event was everything I was hoping it would be and as I said before I met some really amazing people. It makes all the difference when you turn up to events like this and everyone there is passionate about the products.

With a few more hours left of our London adventure the following morning, we made the most of the scooters before heading on our journey home. Micro scooters from day one have brought me closer to the boys and having these as something we can share has been very special to me. We are already planning our next scooting adventure which looks like it is going to be lots of fun so stay tuned.