I did not feel brave enough but the children did!

On Friday night my husband decided to tell me at the last minute he was taking us to an event that was being held by springboards family fun day at hetton lyons counrty park.
He seemed to make me believe it was all about the boys and their toys , Car owners who loved to make their vehicles look all new , shiney and pimped . 

In reality it was a little more than that.

We turned up , the weather not looking so great so find the park was filled with teams who looked like they were practicing to be pro cyclists.
There was hundreds of them , I felt almost shocked that so many people had an interest .
They were fleeing at full speed around the lovely lake which was the centre of the park  and it looked a great little treck for them. They looked like they were having so much fun and I actually thought about what it would be like to get on a bike again, feels like it has been a lifetime since I rode one.

First thing we came to was the climbing wall, now Sian my eldest daughter was given a certificate in her asy year of school after going on a school trip to have her teachers find she was rather good at it and climbing to the top in minutes . We immediately tried for Sian to show us again , this time with us watching her to cheer her on. 
Philip her older brother of two years was also up for climbing the wall and so we decided they should both have a race to the top . 

At one point Sian got only half way and decided she could not go any further but stayed put until her brother decided to give in about 3/4 of the way up. 
As soon as he released and dropped from the wall, Sian then got her confidence back up and went for it , all the way to the top . 
We teased her brother that she had got to the top and he dared not to and Sian came down hesitant to not let the safe harness bring her to the floor safely but basically holding on to the wall and manually climbing herself back down till her dad grabbed her harness 1/4 of the way and pulled her away to give her a friendly little buzz of the freedom .

Of course we could not get away from the fact that my husband was there to see the boys from the VW and VAG Owners North East Group which he speaks to regular. The children admired one of the artwork on one of the vehicles. 
They take great care in looking after their vehicles and this mr had most certainly took pride in his Transformer and its details. The children most certainly loved it .

After that we decided to go around the other side of the field where Sunderland council had some tents up , there was one tent in particular that we spent a while at , the creature tent.
In the tent there were various reptiles and animals that the children were very happy to have a hold of.

Their dad and I were , lets say a little more hesitant . We did not feel comfortable at all and felt like we were being brave untill they brought out the tarantulas and snakes.


My children ar so much braver than I am these days.

Kaiden holding a Bearded Dragon, we owned some of these when he was a baby but as they grew bigger my husband started to squirm at feeding them the bigger insects.

The Boa Constrictor, known for wrapping its prey and squeezing the life out of them, luckily this one had its eye on the cute furry animals the smaller children were holding and had already been fed.

Sian holding a cute white rabbit, not as scary as the others , I like this one more

Drew loved the Guinee pigs

Leon also loved holding the Guinee pigs although I think it got a little hungry as it started to nibble at his coat

This terrified us all, Philip, the eldest of the children felt really brave and held the spider along with another one , the gentleman who was showing the animals asked for Philip to wear the gloves as he himself was allergic to their hairs and I think he also scared him a little by telling Philip they could bite.

This fella actually grows four times bigger and is capable of eating snakes , I was more scared of this than any of the others .

So after my children proved to be more braver than myself, we decided to go let them get their faces painted .

Sian opted for the Unikitty from Lego movie

Leon and Kaiden went for the Superheroes Spiderman and Superman

Libby and Drew then chose Anna and Elsa from frozen

They looked fabulous but unfortunately when we got home we realised that Spiderman was allergic to red face paint so he had a rash for a couple of days.

We then got a little hungry and decided to go grab something to eat, there was a little cafe in the centre which is situated in the park itself and the children grabbed a pit noodle while I opted for Stilton quiche and cheese and tomato quiche which was delightful .

Having instructed the children to take a loaf of bread with us to the event incase there was going to be a duck pond we decided to have a ponder to see if there were any and low and behold we were met by a lovely swan .

At one point we saw a mouse run under the rocks the children were playing on , they found it quite amusing for a while till it refused to come out

We spent the day their and followed with a play in the actual park . We had a fabulous day and what it even better was the fact it was all completely free. Fresh air and plenty to do , no complaints and tired feet by the time we all got home.

Dare say they slept well that night , first time in a while, hope there is another soon.