"Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway."

Day 125:

I love it when Opeie shows me a picture he's found on the internet and says "Can we build this?". Mainly because it means an afternoon of sitting down with the LEGO and working something out together. Its rare that he ever wants to add Technic functions into builds but this kinetic cowboy build by Tankybrick had really got him excited. So we watched their video about 50 times to try and work out the functions. After building pretty much the entire thing no matter haw many times we watched the video we couldn't work out the final piece that got the horses moving as the video wasn't very clear. After a stressful 30 minutes or so of trying all sorts of different elements we finally cracked it. It definitely wasn't the same piece, and the horses the finitely don't run as smooth as theirs but overall it came out great and ended up being a fun afternoon building with my bestie.

"Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms."

Finally some proper sunshine. We had some pretty great weather last week and we've been doing the best to make the most of it. A few days back it was hot and bright and it had put me and Opeie in a great mood. I asked him what he wanted to do and he said "ballpit" not my first choice on that glorious day but he was adamant so that's where we headed. As we drove down the country drive to get to Apley farm shop I noticed all the animals were out so I asked Opeie if he'd like to feed the animals first (anything to keep us out in the sun a little longer).

We'd visited piggs play barn loads of times, it's the cleanest soft play that we've been to so it's the one I'd rather go to, we've never taken advantage of the animals there though until now. Opeie loved that we could go inside the rabbit, chicken and Guinea pig run to feed and pet the animals.

there were Donkeys, pigs, sheep, goat, chickens, horses a pony and what i thought was a Llama, until Mrs M laughed and pointed out that it was an Alpaca (same thing aren't they? haha) 

It was only a couple of pounds each to get in and was worth every penny. The animals looked happy, the staff all had smiles on there faces (that could have been the sun) and although there was the disappointment of our bag of food running out it was a lovely way to break up the morning before heading indoors to a sweaty soft play area.

"My life is an ongoing, ever changing adventure."

Mrs M was doing her usual yearly bit for charity this weekend and as much as I wanted to get involved this year it wasn't really fair on Opeie, so once the car had been unloaded and gazebos had been erected, me and my little padawan set about our adventures. It was another beautiful morning so we headed over to the Lickey hills, I used to go there a fair bit when I was younger so it was nice to know my way around. There's two main parts, being the forward thinking dad that i am i decided on the side with the visitor centre as I thought it would be a safer option for our newly qualified, big boy pants wearing toilet user.

I packed my backpack with snacks and books and lifted the little adventurer to his favourite spot on my shoulders. It was exactly how I remembered it which was nice, it was quite early so there wasn't many people about. First thing Opeie spotted was the playground, most of it was for bigger children but that didn't stop Opeie. I find when we're at playgrounds or soft play areas that a lot of children are so rude. Opeie tries to make conversation with any child that makes eye contact and some of them look at him like 'why are you talking to me', I always think its such a strange attitude for young children you would think they would all be really smiley and happy of the interaction.

After charging round the playground for a while Opeie's eyes lit up, he got really excited and was repeating 'Gastons cave', I looked over to see what he was talking about and it was a rock sculpture next to the park. Opeie explained to me that Gastons cave was really messy so we pretended to have brooms and sweep it out. 'Gastons house nice and clean' I think that means we did a good job.

We headed off for a walk through the hills but didn't get very far before Opeie rubbed his tummy and and said 'Opeie hungry'. We found a nice grass area to sit down and while Opeie had some snacks i read him a few of the books i had packed. It was so lovely sitting under a tree reading in the nice weather.

Snack time passed and we continued our journey through the woods. I love just walking about in this lovely weather, we could hear the birds tweeting and rustling through the leaves and Opeie was on butterfly watch and there were plenty to keep him occupied. As we were walking deeper in to the forest we saw a horse coming towards us and Opeie froze and we watched it pass by. Opeie then referred to me as 'Daddy horse' and i galloped after the horse doing my best vocal impressions.

We ended up in the middle of nowhere and we had been doing a lot of walking down hill so the walking back was starting to seem a little daunting in the heat with Mini Lester Piggott on my shoulders commanding me to 'go faster daddy'. We eventually found our way back to the car park but we walked straight past and to the gift shop as Opeie had spotted an owl mask when we first got there and was talking about it for a lot of the morning. I requested the owl mask but then Opeie said 'Daddy fox in socks' and 'Mommy......' (pointing up at a hedgehog), so they came with us too.

After lunch i assumed Opeie would want a nap, it was getting to that time of the day but he had other plans. As there was no chance of him going down we drove over to the other side of the Lickey hills, the side with the castle. As soon as we got out of the car and Opeie laid his eyes on said castle he was off like a whippet. Its not a proper castle it's only little and was built i assume just for the view, to Opeie i bet it still looked huge though.

Opeie soon started to feel a bit tired so we headed back to the car and went for a drive to get him off, it didn't take long. As soon as he was off i found a quite shaded place to park and reclined my seat, trying to get as comfortable as you can with a steering wheel on your knees. Mrs M text and said she would be late finishing so i did a bit of internet searching looking for somewhere close to go and keep Opeie entertained. We ended up going to the Botanical gardens, it was close to where Mrs M was and I'd been there before with Mrs M on a uni trip and knew Opeie would at least like the shop and the playground. He woke up not long after i pulled in to the car park so the adventure continued...

I don't think that Opeie was the slightest bit interested in the beautiful plants and flowers but he was loving the big fish. Opeie made a new friend called Eva on the playground which was really cute and i chatted to the girls mom as they played, its nice on these days out when its just the two of us to have a little adult conversation.

We only stayed for an hour or so as it was getting close to mommy pick up time and i had some work to do taking down gazebos and loading everything back in to the car. Me and Opeie had a fantastic adventure and I'm really looking forward to the next one, he really is one of my three best friends (I'm sure you can guess who the other two are).

"Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies."

Ive been up since 5:45 this morning with Opeie watching Fraggle Rock (Thank you guys). I still feel shattered after yesterday's fun packed day and poor Opeie didn't sleep very well because he was out of his routine. After Seth's Tae Kwon Do class (which i will be writing about very soon on a separate post) we took a drive to Lichfield to see our friends Chris and Michelle. The weather was lovely so we headed to...

I'm surprised we got this photo as even through he is a photographer Chris struggled with the ins and outs of a lens cap???  It was a great afternoon out and made a really nice change getting to see and feed the animals. Seth really enjoyed feeding the goats although got a little stressed at the one greedy one that was on a mission to empty out his bucket. I really enjoyed spending time with some adults as when your a stay at home dad some days the only people i seem to speak to are the boys especially during the summer holidays. The boys love them both too which is great and they think Seth and Opeie are great.

As i mentioned in previous posts I'm not much of an animal person i especially despise horses, don't know where it has stemmed from but its here and here to stay. I did have a great time though and the boys loved it, what i lack in enthusiasm for animals Michelle definitely makes up for 5 times over. She loves all animals and they all seemed to warm to her too, im shocked we managed to get her to leave she was in her element.

Mrs M was happy she got to see some sheep, its quite often i catch her at home flicking through her copy of Beautiful Sheep that i brought her a few Christmas's ago. Seth even got to ride on one which as you can see from the picture he was pretty chuffed about. He was almost as excited when he got to milk a wooden cow., cant beat a bit of faux farming.

Opeie wasn't a great fan of the noise though and got a little upset, it was fairly busy to so must have been a lot for him to take in. We were asked if we wanted to hold a chick, but after Opeie Hulk smashing my xbox last week i thought it best to avoid any nasty accidents. Seth on the other hand was more than happy to have a little chick sitting on his shoulder (i love Seth's expression...'I'm really comfortable, Honest').

After the farm we headed back to Chris and Michelle's and had some lovely food and as usual some great conversation. They even surprised the boys with some gifts which was really kind of them and i will be writing about them separately. I got to have a good rummage through Chris's toys which was one of the things i was looking forward to the most (have a read of his post "Life's like a movie, write your own ending...") and then we headed down the park.

This park was amazing and Seth was totally blown away by the fact that he finally got to have a go on a zip wire, he always talks about wanting to go on one and since doing so it's all he has talked about at home. Apparently we have to take him back within 20 days? i have no idea why 20 but he was very direct with his point. So it looks like i better do as I'm told or there might be trouble.

Even the grown ups got to play around and i was pleasantly surprised that Mrs M went on the zip wire too. I don't know who enjoyed it more her or Seth. It was a fantastic weekend, spent with 2 amazing people. Thank you so much guys and I'm sure we will be coming to see you again very very soon.