24 July 2023

Our Family French adventure Who says you must fly when you go on holiday abroad. If you have never tried driving, I would hugely recommend it. It doesn't have to be a long time in the car, you can break the journey up like my family did into bite size chunks. We started a 10-day French driving holiday but with two children in tow we wanted to make sure they didn't hate the car by the end of the 10 days! We sweetened the journey for the kids by heading to Disneyland Paris first. My tip is always start with what the kids want first. This will make your life so much easier. We headed to Disney and stayed at the Davy Crocket Ranch. It was perfect for us. We had a separate room for the girls, plus a kitchen and outside area. Our lodge was secluded but only a 5-minute walk into the ranch village for drinks and meals. The drive took 10 minutes to the parks, and we had a fantastic 3 days enjoying the rides, eating lots of ice cream and meeting our no 1 reason for going " The Avengers " Our second part took us 4 hours south to where my dad lives, and we have a fabulous time enjoying much needed family time. Our 3rd part took us to a French campsite for 3 nights, this was the perfect place to relax after what was a busy time in Disney and lots of walking whilst at my dad’s. We enjoyed the lazy river, had fabulous meals in the onsite restaurant and enjoyed the entertainment. We stayed in a caravan style lodge which had all the facilities we needed including much needed Air Conditioning and a beautiful outside area where we could enjoy some red wine whilst the sun was setting. Our final stay was about 1 hours from Calais, we stayed 1 night to break the journey up and it was a stunning little French village with canals and little French houses. It was a beautiful place to go for an evening stroll and have a glass of wine or two in a local bar. This is something we will most definitely be doing again. It’s different from the main beach holidays we normally do. France is such a wonderful country and a shame never to visit.

18 May 2023

It has always been a dream of mine to take my girls to Lapland since my 1st daughter was born 15 years ago. Finally in December we made that dream come true and it didn't just live up to expectations it literally blew them out of the water or in this case the snow ! My holidays have always consisted on Sun, Sea & Sangria and I was swopping this for Snow, Ski and Santa. If you can imagine back to when we were all 8 years old my Graces biggest dream was to meet Santa and I will never forget her face when she finally did that and he even had our naughty elves waiting for for her at his house and the way in Lapland. The look on her face will always be the most magical memory of my life and even now looking at the photo still brings tears to my eyes. After a long day on snowmobiles, meeting reindeers and travelling on a sleigh guided by huskies, we spent hours just taking our sleds to the top of the hill and riding them down on to the frozen lake at the bottom of our hotel and just laughing until tears rolled down our faces when we inevitably ended up on our bums and then and for us to climb back up and do it all over again. The resort of Ruka was a magical village where every night we would sit by the huge log fire with a drink and watch in awe at the men and women taking part in the World Ski championships. Lapland has well and truly taken our hearts and something none of us will ever forget. My top tip : Don't bother with fancy clothes, lots of leggings, thermals, hand warmers and always two pairs of socks !!