Kinetic sand - its amazing!

Earlier this week I received my kinetic sand kit, I have tried a cheaper version of this before and found it OK, so I had high hopes for this kit. It did not fail to deliver.

Lately Sunday seems to be our family fun day, we've been cooking roast dinners for the whole family including my 3 nephews, brother and sister in law. So why not open the sand up as a surprise.

 This was a complete success, all four kids and four adults loved it. 

The kit included Purple sand, a tray, a small shovel/spade and three moulds ( crab, castle and starfish).

The kinetic sand can be shaped into any shape but once the mixture has started to break up it falls apart in what I can only describe as fluffy soft sand. 

 The sand holds together really well once formed and doesn't break apart as long as it is left in that position. The small soft grains are so soft that my two year old nephew was giggling as it fell onto the blue table.

  

From the ages 2-34 years old we all played with the sand for almost an hour before dinner was served. The various building abilities from person to person. I myself made a fantastic wall while others tried to sculpt a dog out of the sand.

My nephews loved it so much ( 2, 9 and 12) they've asked for different sets each for Christmas. That's an easy thing to get and not a bad price either for the hours of fun they will all be having. 

Bellz! The challenging magnetic game

When the nephews come round to play there's only one thing to do, crack open the newest game in the house. This game has a magnetic wand with four different colored bells.

The idea of the game is to choose a color bell and to collect all the bellz of that color without touching or collecting any other color on the wand.

When collecting the bellz its harder then you'd think to collect one color. I love a challenge in a game though.

 
The youngest nephew dove straight in with a little help from his Dad they managed to get 3 before picking up any other colors. This ended their go. With the oldest nephew taking charge collecting 5 bellz and then TJ then taking his go and collecting 3 it was my go. Taking just 2 bellz before my turn was over I found the game to be very frustrating but fun at the same time.

The end results after a little cheating from the nephews and TJ, I lost pretty badly with the nephews drawing and TJ wiping the pouch clean of his colors. 

Overall the game was highly entertaining and kept us all busy for about 45 minutes. We played best out of 4 games and I still lost but enjoyed every second.

Bonus print is the way forward

Animal kingdom from the sky

Typhoon lagoon 

  I'm fed up of seeing the same calendar on all my friends walls and thinking I wish I'd done something different. So I did this year I have decided to make my own calendar with my own pictures. I added all my favorite holiday snaps and the end result was amazing.

Discovery cove - TJ and my nephews 

I cannot wait to start seeing my favorite photos at the beginning of every day on display.

The display to do this was easy to I decided which photos I wanted for each day and made the choice of background if I wanted it ( which I decided it looked better without) and uploaded the pictures and waited less then a week for the calendar to arrive.

 The photo album was a little bit trickier due to my internet going down on various occasions during the uploading time. Which was due to poor service provider problems.

Queen Mary Ca.

  When choosing to do a photo album there is so much to take into consideration including photo size, writing (if any), How many photos per page?  

Disneyland Ca.

 The photographs I chose were placed automatically in the album as each folder uploaded from my computer. I found this helped me as it saved time on trying to decide which photographs to choose and put up as my favorite. You could place up to nine pictures per page including captions if needed. 

When the photo albums came back I was amazed at how well they have turned out with such clear pictures and writing on each page. 

Calico and Barstow Ca.

 This picture was printed on a board and came with the fixtures ( no nails) so it could be hung straight away. Again the quality of the photo is amazing. This photo was originally taken on my phone and zoomed in slightly. The photo has come back arger then the original so no doubt it would have had to have been blown up a little to fit the board. 

The image was taken whilst visiting Calico ghost town near Barstow California. 

 I have had another picture printed on to wood but as it holds a direct view of my sons face I have decided not to put it up. The picture quality again for this photo is fantastic and so clear.

It's amazing how they've done it too I never thought about printing straight on to wooden planks before.

 Bonus print have impressed me so much that I will now only use them to print my photos and I print a lot as I also scrapbook.

The prices are the best put there to and if you sign up for email updates they also have some really good offers running most of the time.

Knotts Berry Farm was deserted which worked out amazing for us..

When visiting somewhere for the first time you expect it to be daunting. Honestly because of the time of the year that we went it was quiet which made visiting Knott's Berry Farm Theme Park such an amazing choice.

The musical part of the park wasn't the best I've heard and the actors and actresses seemed a little bored of the act. Saying this the guy that was chosen from the audience did throw a few curve balls towards the actress which made the show a little more entertaining.

When walking around the park it was like a ghost town, being in a ghost town has it's advantages.

For example walking straight on to the roller coasters. I did three coasters within 15 minutes including walking from one coaster to the next.

The view from the front of the queue is always awesome when there's only you and at the most 100 other people in the park. 

The mine train was a little dated for the adults but for the children who were on the train they enjoyed being on it.

The park is the oldest theme park in the US which began as a farm in the 1920's. The Knotts family specialised in boysenberry's. Selling jams, drinks and pies a restaurant was born. 

With all the history that is involved in Knotts Berry Farm and an area that is dedicated to the Old West when the ghost town was built in the 1940's. The buildings are authentic. The mine and log ride were purchased and added to the numerous attractions in the 1960's.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

My Dad posing with a few of the locals.

The coaster rides are amazing my favorite being the Xcelerator. Be prepared to sit in a hot rod seat that smashes 82 miles per hour in 2.3 seconds. Racing up 205 feet into the air before plummeting back down towards the ground at a 90 degree angle  this ride is a must for any thrill seeker. 

 There are so many amazing rides to choose from including the rides for the children at camp snoopy. The show for me was a little bit on the young side so we left it early. All the children were clapping and singing with the songs and joining in. 

Super cute Pencil pets create your own kitten kit.

Pencil pets are super cute and made out of rubber, these kittens attach through and on top of your child's pencil making writing fun. 

Pencil pets come in two different colors

• Orange and purple 
• Pink and blue

I received the orange and purple pack. everything in the picture below was included in the box.

After we choose which pieces we were going use we set about putting our kittens together.

 After putting Kittens together on there own pencils adding different extra parts like the sunglasses or the badges. 

The end result whilst writing although this was fun to do the toppers were heavy to write with when on top of the pencil. Resulting in not only my hand hurting after a while but also TJ's.

Although this was the worst part about the pencil toppers they can still be used off of the pencils as an ordinary rubber that can be taken off and put back on whenever needed.

I think these would be a fab extra for those kitten mad children as an extra stocking filler but that's just my opinion as I like to make sure I shop early for presents.

Our stay on the Queen Mary ship.

From the docks this magnificent boat looks amazing for an 86 year old thats seen over 800,000 passengers and troops on board and traveled a distance of over 600,000 miles in the 31 years in the maritime life.

She was purchased by the City of Long Beach CA. In 1967 and has remained here for over 40 years.

Along the promenade deck there was various rooms to go to which included the children's playroom exhibit. this room is fully blocked off by windows but as you can see its a replica of back in the 1940's. Although the toys and chairs have not been used or played with for many years they are still in pristine order.

Whilst being on board we felt the sudden urge to eat and as we were on the promenade desk the Chelsea chowder house seemed to be the only one that was open. 
Within minutes of walking in the waitress had served us and got our drinks order, which at this point was lovely and very much needed as we'd not been anywhere after getting our hire car. 
Once we ordered our food it was served within 20 minutes steaming hot and tasting absolutely fantastic. I ordered the Chicken Pasta Alfredo in a white wine sauce, this tasted and smelt magnificent but I could not finish the meal even with my massive appetite I ate as much as I could and I still had over 1/4 of the bowl left to eat.

My Father ordered the Fish and Chips.... such a typical English man. I was a little surprised when the waitress had asked if he wanted vinegar as this is the first time I've been asked in the USA on holiday about vinegar. 

The view from our table was amazing we could see as far as the eye could see. 

From one side of the boat the view of Long Beach and the Skyline were clearly visible throughout our stay. We watched the a few boats pass by and asked our waitress if the building that was in plain sight was the aquarium,  turned out it was the convention centre and the aquarium was past the little village that could be seen next to the marina.  

The room were kept in the condition they would have been when the ship was still being used as a cruise liner. 

Our room had two single beds in that were against the wall, both had bedside cabinets and air vents close to the beds also. 

The room was very out dated but looked as it would have during her sailing days except for the flat screen television in the room.

The bathroom on the other hand I would not recommend flushing the toilet in the middle of the night due to the loud bang when flushing with the foot bar. 

If you are tall please be aware that the shower in our room was very low. I am short but I still found that I had to bend at the knees a little when  washing and rinsing my hair as the shower is positioned around about 5ft high. 

 Staying on the Queen Mary Ship was amazing and I would do it again if given the chance. 

I did not find any problems or hear any noises throughout my stay, nor did I see any ghosts but each to their own as I do not believe this may have clouded my judgement as to whether the ship is haunted or not.

Perhaps in your visit you can tell me what spooky goings on you heard or saw to change my mind on whether ghosts exists. 

The British Airways flight to California ...

The airport terminal was so quiet. 

Visiting california has always been on my bucket list and when my dad asked me to go with him I jumped at the chance.

We arrived at the Heathrow airport, London an hour before check in and found ourselves looking for some where to eat. There are two restaurants check in side of security but one was closed.

We choose to eat at Carluccio's where we ordered colazione magnifica. Eggs with grilled smoky pancetta, sautéed mushrooms, tomato and toasted Italian bread. Coffee or tea and a fresh juice which cost £9.95. I have to say it tasted amazing and would recommend it to anyone that has time to eat at that time of the morning. 

Our plane being prepared for the flight.

After check in and baggage check. I found myself heading towards duty free. Which wasn't much cheaper in the sweets department then Asda or other larger shops. Although I didn't buy anything I still wandered in and out of each shop looking at the extortionate prices and to be honest I walked out of the shops giggling to myself.

The flight itself was beautiful, smooth and easy going.
Although the air stewards weren't on the ball with serving drinks. They were with food. Each meal was served at just about the right time. Although first choice for food was already gone, the cabin crew were polite and apologetic for the lack of chicken provisions.

The female pilot - yes female made the flight a pleasant with occasional turbulence and a perfect landing, I didn't even think we had hit the tarmac it was a smooth landing.

Passing through border control LAX took around two and a half hours from getting off the plane to collecting luggage.

View from the cabin window as we flew over the US.

Getting the rental car from Avis couldn't of been easier. After exiting the airport we stood on a platform and all the car rental businesses had buses waiting to take us to their lots.  

Once at Avis we stood in line for five minutes filled in a few forms and we were set to go.

I did download NAVMII navigation but found it didn't work. Lucky for us I managed to connect to wifi and search on Google maps and keep the directions to the hotel which we wouldn't of found if it wasn't for  GOOGLE MAPS.