Dad of Crazy Twins

Me and My Dad:   2: Movies   Like a lot of people my Dad and I share a love of movies. From being a child up until now we still watch movies together on a regular basis and I have great memories of watching movies with him. In this post I am going to share my memories of 5 movies that we watched together and why they have stuck with me. Here goes... 1: The Rescuers Down Under I love animated movies - always have done and always will. Growing up my Mam was not a huge fan of cartoons so we very rarely watched cartoon movies as a family and watched live action movies instead. From an early age I was introduced to some absolute classics such as "Gremlins", "The Goonies", "Private Benjamin", "Overboard", "Big Business", "Indiana Jones" and a whole load more. But my Dad and I would watch animated movies together on a regular basis. The very first movie I went to see at the cinema was with my Dad and we went to see ...

Me And My Dad:   1: Video Games   Growing up my Dad and I had a great relationship. I don't have any vivid memories of him shouting at me or us fighting over trivial things (although I am sure they did happen). Looking back over my memories of growing up with my Dad I can totally see where my love for movies, video games, horror, reading, quizzing and cooking came from. For my next few posts I am going to delve in to each of these a little further...starting with Video Games!   I am now 36...my Dad is 64. Two days ago he sent me a WhatsApp message with a link to a video on YouTube for a recent video game called "Thimbleweed Park". He wrote:   "Have you seen this? It is done by some of the guys who did Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion. It look's great"   Reading that made so many good memories float back from the late 80s/early 90s when my Dad and I were obsessed with Point and Click Adventure Games on the PC. I was really lucky to have a...

I am a big fan of video games. I always have been from a very young age as my Dad was a fan and we used to play them together. I have very fond memories of playing video games with my Dad (I will save details on that for another post) and I hope that the twins and I will be the same when they hit the right age. I am a bit of a Nintendo fanboy and I still have all of my Nintendo consoles from when I was younger, and a stash of games, that I can't wait to crack open with the girls one day. These are the top 5 Video Games that I can't wait to play with the twins...they are all Nintendo ones. 1: Super Mario World, SNES, 1990 This is easily one of my all time favourite games. At the time it was revolutionary due to the way it played. You could work your way through each level and each world in a very linear fashion by finding 35 "exits" or you could try and get 100% completion by finding all 96 "exits". I can proudly say that I have done this on more than o...

CHRISTMAS BARGAIN HUNTING: TIPS FROM A DAD       Christmas is just around the corner and will be here before you know it. My wife and I, like a lot of families, find Christmas to be a ridiculously expensive time of year. However, does Christmas need to be as expensive as it can be? I genuinely believe that you can have a great Christmas without spending thousands and thousands of pounds. In this post I am going to share with you my Christmas Bargain Hunting tips which I believe will help to make Christmas a little easier on your wallet. Here goes...   1) Start Early: This one is an obvious one but a one that not many people do. I always start getting presents in for the twins around August. The reason for this is that many shops are starting to get prepared for Christmas so they are clearing room on their shelves. This is a great time to pick up some bargains from some of the bigger supermarket chains and retail outlets. Here are some...

VEEMCDEE   A couple of weeks ago I responded to a PR request from "Veemcdee" to do a review on some craft packs. I won't lie - I had no idea what "Veemcdee" was or what they did so I did a quick research on my phone (during a game of mini-golf) and figured "why not?"   The response from "Veemcdee" was instant and very friendly and just a few days later I received a package through the post. Inside were two craft packs.     As soon as I opened them the twins got their eyes on them and were instantly intrigued. I am guessing this is because of the colours and the shapes and the fact that they look interesting and inviting. I let them have a look but explained we would be looking at them in more detail at a later date.   So - what is "Veemcdee"? This is a company that is a bit like those subscription boxes that you see plastered all over social media except they deal in craft supplies. You can get a rolling subscri...

BLACKPOOL ZOO   We have visited Blackpool several times over the past few years with the twins. We mainly visit as Kate's Aunty and her wife live there and it is nice to visit them and for them to see the twins (and us, I guess). Usually we do the "typical Blackpool stuff" like going along the prom, taking in a couple of fairground rides, a donkey ride, some ice cream etc... and we have been up Blackpool Tower. This summer when we visited we decided to visit the zoo for two reasons:   1) We have never been 2) The twins love a zoo   So that is what we did. We drove to Blackpool and met up with one of Kate's Aunties (the other was at work...we had dinner with her later on) and we hit the zoo...here is what we thought...     Blackpool Zoo is way bigger than we anticipated...there is loads to do and there are loads of animals to see. Like most zoos it is broken down in to sections: Waders...