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This day I love.......

A rainy day in the school holidays can either mean braving the wet weather and playing outside, the girls did not want to do this or staying inside and playing games. They opted to play games. I love playing board games and I love how it can spark so much conversation and discussion. This is also the case when playing with a 5 and 4 year old.

As Little man napped we decided to play the first of our board game, postman pat word rhyming game.  There are two games within the box, we played the word rhyming game.  The great thing about this is that the cards are coloured, so those who cannot read can match up the colours.  However it did mean that my eldest, who is able to read, spotted this and instead of rhyming just matched up the colours.  


Later we decided to play another game, Don't rock the boat. This game had us all laughing and made some serious concentration faces, the tongue of concentration even made a few appearance.



The game involves balancing penguins on a wobbly pirate boat, a penguin goes overboard and you loose. Rather simple concept but ever so fun to play. The boat bobbed up and down as it was loaded with penguins. Each penguin that fell over board was met with a laugh and the game restarted. Little man, who was now awake, stood and watched from the safety of his jumperoo. He was totally mesmerised by the game, and the girls just loved seeing how many penguins they could balance in one go.


It might have spent the whole day raining, but that did not matter as we had such a good time indoors.

All words are my own opinion 
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Very recently, and yes I will blog about it soon, we went on our first cruise.  It was also our first holiday abroad as a family.  As it was our first time on a cruise I wasn't sure what to expect and to be honest was nervous about the whole thing.  I suffer from bad sea sickness, in fact most times I just look at a boat and that's it, so a cruise has never been on the top of my list but I have heard wonderful things so wanted to give it a go.  I felt the boat move only once and was never ill.  In fact I had more problems when we got home getting my land legs back.

I thought it would be nice to put together some top tips from our recent experience to help those who are also going on a cruise for the first time:

1. If the cruise line offers book ground transportation from the plane to the ship, and back again.  This worked out a lot cheaper than us getting a taxi, we got there with minimum fuss and everything was taken care of.  It was a lot less stressful

2. Have swim costumes, towels and a change of clothes with you to carry onto the ship.  You board the ship before your room is ready.  It could be several hours before you go inside your room.  Having swim kit with you makes sure you can use the pool and relax on the ship.  A change of clothes is also nice, just to freshen up after travelling.


3. A fellow blogger Su Tyler advised that on busy days such as Sea days have a look at what other activities are happening on board the other decks of the ship.  There maybe a quite spot away from the hustle and bustle of the main activities.


4. A tip which came from Carnival cruises is to book a table at one of the on-board specialty restaurants.  Many ships have a variety of restaurants on board, it makes for a great  change and for something special to your holiday.

5. Check if you have been allocated a dinning time.  Some ships do.  Others don't and if not think about when the busy periods might be and avoid them.


6. If you can upgrade to a room with a window it is definitely worth the money to do so.


7. Pick your cruise line company.  We went on a cruise with Disney and we heard a man complain that there were too many children on board and that they were ruining his holiday.  Yes a serious complaint, which leads to the question who are Disney target audience and what are the likely average age range on that ship?  Disney for example cater for kids and families with some adult only areas and other cruise line companies cater for adults with a few kids areas, others are in-between.  It is worth researching the company to see what they have to offer, and the likely demographic aboard.  Likewise don't let a bad experience with one company put you off cruising, try a different company.


8. Check out the ships.  Cruise line companies often have more than one ship.  They vary in size, as do the rooms inside and the facilities on board.  Have a good look at the ship before you go.


9. We pre booked our port excursions as it meant we could plan our days.  We found however we had booked too much and it would have been better to have had a few days on the ship.  I would think about the excursions as they are worth booking.  We found out that if on a pre booked trip and you get stuck in traffic which therefore leads to you missing your back on board time, the ship will wait.  I am not so sure it would if you were not on a pre booked excursion.

10.  If you enjoy it and want to do another book on board.  We wish we had as we now realise the deal on board booking was actually really good.


We loved every second of our cruise experience and really think the way forward for holidays are cruising.  Every day you wake up with some where new to explore.  If it is a Sea day there is so much going off and we were very well looked after the whole time.

I have not been asked to write this post, it is all my own opinion.
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As its pretty much rained all day today, the girls and I have had to stay inside.  Now my girls are not one for staying inside, they get a little stir crazy.  They like to be outside exploring, running and playing.  We had to make do with indoors, which altered our plans, but my eldest came up with a better one.  'Let's make some boats'

So we did, three to be exact.

We made our boats out of different materials to test how they would float.  If I had known this was the planned activity I would have made ice boats.  I think its a lovely way to teach children about melting, but we had plenty of fun with our boats.

The first boat we made was made from straws.  We tied bundles of straws together and created a raft shape.  I had some off cuts of felt that we used for each of our sails.  The thing is with straws is they are rather tempting to play with, so the girls did just that

straws everywhere

Luckily there was still a few straws left to make our boat

straw boat

For our next boat, I cut the bottom off a plastic box.  The box had previously contained chocolate brownie bites from Asda, so I had to eat all the brownies just so we could make the boat. Ah well.  

My eldest decorated her boat with foam shapes and again we added a straw felt sail

pirate boat

Our third and final boat we made from wooden sticks

making boatglue sticks


wooden boathelping with glue

After playing with all the straws [and the glue] we headed upstairs for a bath and to test out our boats.  Which one would float? 

The first boat we tested was the straw boat, it started quite well until the straws filled with water and then the boat began to sink.  My eldest thought this was very funny and kept getting the boat out the water to start again.  


testing boat

She started to use the boat as more of a submarine and asked me for her pirate boat.  I passed it to her and it floated really well.  Until my youngest got hold of it and took the sail off.  The girls enjoyed playing with this boat and passed it to each other on top of the water.  It soon became a scoop and they starting pouring water into the bath.


testing boat 2

Our final boat to try was the wooden sticks.  My eldest was very excited about this one, however I think the fact that all kids glue is washable may have lead to a slight boat mishap


broken boat

The girls had a lot of fun with the boats and both making them and playing with them was great messy play.

This day I love straws, boats and a spot of messy play
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I love taking the girls places where they can run free and explore.  When #lovecravendale provided me with tickets to Newby Hall and Garden I was excited to take the girls, having never been before it seemed like it would be a lot of fun.  First we had to pass through a real prison cell door, I was rather fascinated by it.

Prison door

My eldest daughter loved the drive up to the car park.  There are sheep roaming free and she kept pointing at them through the window.  We parked in the free car park and headed over for some lunch.  Although a little cloudy we decided to sit outside and the girls, joined with H and J from Hollybobbs, had fun running round the enclosed garden.  We were even joined by a robin. 

eating sandwichrobin on bench


taking a breakplaying nice


running free


There was lots to see and we even found some giraffes

the giraffes

The girls had a lot of fun on the adventure playground.  They really wanted to go on the boats too, but we decided against it having the little ones.

down the slideover the bridge


boating lakeclimbing ladder


bottom of the slide

It also seems that any where we go we come across a large sandpit.  It took a lot of persuasion to coax the girls out of the sand pit.

playing in the sand

A change of clothes was needed after the girls ran through the water play ground.  Later in the day we saw several children running though in swim wear, I think this maybe the way to go next time we visit.

playing in the water

The girls had fun exploring the wonderful gardens.  With hidden dens in trees,trying to climbing trees and exploring the water together.  It was really lovely to watch.

through the treesbob in the gate

looking for frogslooking in waterflowersclimbing tree


 After a walk around the gardens it was time for our train ride.  The train ride is an extra charge but at £1.80 per person [children over 2 and adults] it was a reasonable price to pay.  My girls really enjoyed the ride and my eldest could not contain her excitement at riding the train.

waiting for the tunnelon the train


watchingthrough the tunnel


past newby hallover the bridge


all aboard

The girls started to get a little tired.  Luckily I had BOB with me and the girls could all relax together as I pushed them through the lovely flowers in the garden.

3 in bob

 We arrived at the house, there was a lovely lawn that was perfect for playing on.

bob and the house

running aroundpicking flowers

All the children had a lot of fun exploring and running free.  It was so beautiful to watch them all play together.  Newby Hall and gardens really was a great family day out.  Thanks once again to #lovecravandale for providing tickets to Newby Hall and gardens.  Why not start collecting tokens from special Cravendale and exchange them for great family days out.

This day I love running free. 
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About me

About Me

Welcome to This Day I love.

My name is Leyla, also known as Mum to my 3 humans and dog Mum to J. I have a passion for the outdoors and love to run. I can often be found off road exploring the trails and fells and covering distances all the way up to 50 miles. As a family we love travelling and discovering new adventures, as I try and run around the world!

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