June's Holiday In A Day
When we started doing the Holiday's in a day, the idea was that other than for Flyfour and I, it would be a surprise, where we were going and what we were doing. The children loved this and were happy for the surprises as long as they knew that we would follow a certain routine (Activity 1, Lunch, Activity 2, Activity 3, Supper) so they would know what to expect, without knowing what exactly we were doing.
Then of course came the idea, that they wanted to plan something. We managed to get them to agree to plan a trip with one adult, so Top Ender picked Flyfour and Dan Jon got left with me to help organise a Holiday in a day trip. Dan Jon and I got to go first and we decided our trip would be in June and so quickly started planning together. Dan Jon wanted to do a sort of treasure hunt, which luckily doubled up with something I had been thinking of doing and so, everything came together quite quickly.
We started by ordering a map from Treasure Trails. I had heard about them a few years back, because they have a map for a town not too far from where my Nan lived in Norfolk and Dan Jon and I looked over the ones for the City of Oxford, as it is quite local to us, but somewhere that we haven't really explored.
The trail we followed (Oxford City and Meadow) was fun and we almost missed a couple of clues, but we quickly got used to the sorts of places we needed to be looking and found the walk to be quite fun and explored parts of Oxford that a "normal" tour wouldn't have had us go. I'll write another post about the map and trail because it is really fab and totally something you and your family should go and do.
We followed this up with lunch which wasn't a Picnic! The children were rather pleased that we stopped at McDonald's, although Flyfour and I were after a visit to Wasabi or Itsu (I will get another member of my family to like Sushi one day!) and made do with a window seat in McDonald's where we then watched the Oxford Pride Parade as it went past.
St Martin's Church, Bladon was our next destination, as Sir Winston Churchill is buried there and Dan Jon is currently studying famous British people at School (he has picked John Logie Baird as his personal project) and we thought that this would tie in nicely.
Thanks to Wikipedia and Google we had a quick history lesson in the grounds of the Church and even did a little bit of Genealogy detective work (as one name was mentioned on three different graves as a relative) before heading off to our third and final destination.
Dan Jon had planned that we would all go and play Laser, but when we arrived the venue was closed due to a flood! We decided to pop along to our new indoor Mr Mulligan's local Minature/Crazy Golf course and have a go.
IT WAS BRILLIANT.
Okay, so it was a bit busy and a bit expensive (£25 for 12 holes, £35 for 24), but it was a lot of fun and I can see us going again for birthday's, special occasions (a few of my friends have already started to arrange a girls night out) and the like.
We arrived home, tired but happy and loving our latest holiday in a day and had given Flyfour and I a brilliant idea for some future trips!
Then of course came the idea, that they wanted to plan something. We managed to get them to agree to plan a trip with one adult, so Top Ender picked Flyfour and Dan Jon got left with me to help organise a Holiday in a day trip. Dan Jon and I got to go first and we decided our trip would be in June and so quickly started planning together. Dan Jon wanted to do a sort of treasure hunt, which luckily doubled up with something I had been thinking of doing and so, everything came together quite quickly.
We started by ordering a map from Treasure Trails. I had heard about them a few years back, because they have a map for a town not too far from where my Nan lived in Norfolk and Dan Jon and I looked over the ones for the City of Oxford, as it is quite local to us, but somewhere that we haven't really explored.
We followed this up with lunch which wasn't a Picnic! The children were rather pleased that we stopped at McDonald's, although Flyfour and I were after a visit to Wasabi or Itsu (I will get another member of my family to like Sushi one day!) and made do with a window seat in McDonald's where we then watched the Oxford Pride Parade as it went past.
St Martin's Church, Bladon was our next destination, as Sir Winston Churchill is buried there and Dan Jon is currently studying famous British people at School (he has picked John Logie Baird as his personal project) and we thought that this would tie in nicely.
Thanks to Wikipedia and Google we had a quick history lesson in the grounds of the Church and even did a little bit of Genealogy detective work (as one name was mentioned on three different graves as a relative) before heading off to our third and final destination.
Dan Jon had planned that we would all go and play Laser, but when we arrived the venue was closed due to a flood! We decided to pop along to our new indoor Mr Mulligan's local Minature/Crazy Golf course and have a go.
IT WAS BRILLIANT.
Okay, so it was a bit busy and a bit expensive (£25 for 12 holes, £35 for 24), but it was a lot of fun and I can see us going again for birthday's, special occasions (a few of my friends have already started to arrange a girls night out) and the like.
We arrived home, tired but happy and loving our latest holiday in a day and had given Flyfour and I a brilliant idea for some future trips!