"Friendship is a sheltering tree."

A few days back me and Opeie were sitting on the sofa ploughing through a pile of books and we started to read a book about plants that were found during the jurassic time period that were eaten by Herbivores. We soon came to the Araucaria, a tree that still grows today and can be found in South America, Which got us talking about our awesome friends Sam and Jamie who are backpacking in South America at the moment. Opeie asked me if I thought they could get a picture of them standing next to one while they were there and as we had been chatting to them on and off while away we set them a challenge. 7 hours later we received "Challenge accepted....and done... We can see one from our window", which they sent us a picture of.

But by Opeie's challenge rules we needed to see them standing next to one. We had told them about why we wanted a picture and how the challenge had come about and being the amazing friends that they are they fully embraced our request and we received a few more pictures which Opeie loved.

 I cant even begin to tell you how awesome these guys are, I feel really lucky to have them as friends. Being able to chat to them and exchange photos and videos while they are away is going to be a great bit of home education for Opeie (and Seth), learning about different cultures from books we're going looking for in the library and being able to see things from them as well as setting them more challenges. Seth has sent the next challenge, to come up with a food that we don't have in this country, should be interesting.

Seth's challenge got me thinking about a game we could play while they away which I'm going to mention to them when we talk next.

 The South American fun didn't end there though and we were soon sent another fun dinosaur related picture, Amazing! I know which direction I would be going after seeing this sign!!!

I know you will be reading this soon so thank you guys, the pictures have really been entertaining us over the last few months, enjoy your trip x

"This place makes me so nervous, all I can think of is food!"

As if LEGO isn't entertaining enough, they are constantly releasing kits and themes that take me right back to being a child myself, Back to the future (my second favourite film growing up), Ghostbusters and now a whole range based on that anxious dog and his gang of mystery solving friends that took up many hours of my viewing time. The LEGO Scooby doo range is awesome and the four remaining kits are definitely on my wish list after receiving the Mystery machine.

The theme was a little lost on the boys to start with as they had never really watched the show but they loved building the kit and are eager to get their hands on the bad guys that are spread throughout the kits. Whats nice about this range is the price as three of the kits are at the lower end price wise (always good when you have LEGO enthusiastic youngsters that NEED them all).

As always we love how all LEGO themes work hand in hand and writing this post gave us the chance to rebuild the monster fighters castle and break out an army of baddies, Usually with most of the LEGO kits we get, they inevitably get broken up and move on to become custom creations but i have a feeling that this cult van will be staying just the way it is.

Fingers crossed, He-man will be next on my trip down LEGO memory lane.

he product was provided by LEGO GmbH without any obligation in regards to the content of the review’

The Pirates Vs The Land of the Living Dinosaurs

I've been doing all i can recently to throw myself in to Opeie's new love by coming up with fun themed things to do and places to go. A couple of months back a friend of mine put up some images on Facebook and I got really excited. Her little boy was looking very excited standing among life size dinosaurs and it looked AMAZING! I assumed that they were on holiday and that the attraction was going to be miles away so i was pleasantly surprised when I contacted them and found out that the awesome looking dinosaurs we had seen were just down the road at the West midlands Safari Park. I had not been to the Safari park since I was a boy myself so i had no idea about the Land of the Living Dinosaurs.

Although the trip was for the boys i was really excited to see some big scary dinosaurs after all of the books we have been reading together. As we pulled into the main entrance of the safari park we spotted two dinosaurs waiting to greet us and i knew we were in for a great visit. It was fairly early when we arrived and we made a Bee line for the Land of the Living Dinosaurs which was really quiet as the bulk of the visitors had gone straight for the Safari tour.

Being able to sit in the jaws of a dinosaur pretty much kicked off our Mesazoic adventure. I was in my element which is still surprising me to this day. Like most boys I was a big fan of the dinosaurs and I was captivated when we did a project at school, but that's as far as my Dinosaur love affair went. This time though like some sort of parasite I have been feeding off Opeie's excitement and passion. The great thing about being a hands on parent is that when your child is into something you can go all out and throw yourselves in to a world of fun.

As we passed the Dino jaws and rounded the corner, all those books that we had read, documentaries we had watched and never ending dinosaur activities we had been keeping ourselves entertained with over the weeks was staring us in the face. It was like all the previous weeks fun had been building up to this very moment and i was loving every minute of the expressions on the boys faces. Its that kind of moment that really makes you realise that as a dad, you are doing an awesome job.

THERE ARE DINOSAURS EVERYWHERE!!!

With tales swinging and heads moving about watching you, The Land of the living Dinosaurs really was an amazing place to visit, the fantastic weather really added to the day and we were all having an awesome time.

The only negative about the trip was that there was a board with information for the Archaeopteryx (Opeie's joint favourite dinosaur, with the Triceratops) but no feathery dinosaur to be seen anywhere? A little disappointing but there were so many other dinosaurs there that Opeie soon forgot about that.

"Mommy, mommy......A TRICERATOPS!!!"

Only half way round the park and Opeie's day had reached its peak but there was more to come. He was hoping for at least one Triceratops and there they were, his beaming little face said it all. As if a life size Triceratops wasn't enough the boys then spotted two to ride on, AMAZING!

Next we moved on to the Dino dig area, where there was a dino handler taking care or a baby raptor which was really cute. Opeie gave it a stroke and then began to explain to the lady that the raptor was a 'Therapod' and if it was a Velociraptor it was Cretaceous but an Eoraptor was Triassic. The poor staff member looked at him like he was talking another language haha.

The Dino dig area gave Seth a great idea for something we could do at home and as I like to accommodate as many of the boys creative ideas as I can, I put his idea into motion this week. I'll write about it very soon, but it was an amazing idea.

I was really hoping to see my favourite dinosaur during the visit. So you can imagine my excited when I spotted a Pachycephalosaurus staring at me. By this point I had reached excitement overload, it was such a great place to take Mrs M and boys, interesting and educational.

From a home education point the West Midlands safari park is a great learning resource and the opening of the exhibit couldn't have come at a better time for us as a family, with dinosaurs being at the forefront of everything we do these days.

The Land of the Living Dinosaurs was a fantastic place to visit, interesting and educational and I would love to visit again later in the year when they have the dinosaurs at night event. I bet the dinosaurs look great in the dark. I think Opeie's love of dinosaurs will be around for a while and no matter how many fun activities we do and places we go it will be hard to beat the excitement we got from spending an afternoon with real dinosaurs.