Sundown Adventureland and Geocaching

A trip to Retford for some Geocaching and adventures at Sundown. We couldn’t believe it when we woke up to find it was pouring down with rain. We did check the weather at Retford and it said it was cloudy with a small chance of rain, so we braved the idea and prepared just in case.

Thank goodness it cleared up and to the point of sunny and hot by the afternoon. It was the best outcome in a way because it did put some of the public off going along to Sundown Adventureland which became our first part of the day.

Thank you to Sundown Adventureland for gifting us the tickets.

 

We thoroughly enjoyed the rides, we felt Robyn was a perfect starting age at three years old, she didn’t want the rides to end. Riley enjoyed the storytelling of the rides and it certainly helped his imagination and role play throughout the day.

 

Sophie enjoyed the play areas and making games up to involve Riley and Robyn in play. They were happily playing in these areas and we found that we could have a short break as mum and dad.

 

Be careful though because your children might end up wanted. There was so much for them to do, interactive games, walls, buttons, rooms, acitvities, areas. The wild west themed part of Sundown was our favourite but it was a hard pick.

 

To describe the park is in its title Sundown Adventureland, the three children certainly had their own adventures and came together as a trio as well. They were all tuckered out by the end of Sundown but we did have some time for Geocaching.

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We were especially excited to meet Honey and Sunny themselves at the summertime fun activities, the children enjoyed a boogie with them and joined in the conga line. Robyn didn’t want Honey and Sunny to go, this made her day even more special.

We think our video speaks for itself, you can also watch us Geocaching in action. Have you found the church micro in Bole?

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbfPc1fzSO4&w=560&h=315]

 

Jen says “What a fantastic day out for young families, it has everything you could want. Make sure you explore the whole park though as there is plenty to discover”

Rob says “Fabulous family entertainment. A fair entry price and we look forward to seeing what the Christmas season is like at Sundown”

Sophie says “I think that you should go to Sundown because you get to have lots of fun with your family and make memories like I did”

Riley says “I liked Sundown because the rides are very cool and the water ride was the best”

Robyn says “Can we go again?”

 

Further information about the Summertime Fun… 

“Summertime Fun” activities will run between 12pm and 6pm on the picnic field until Sunday 1 September. 

Every day from 12pm, the park will be hosting children’s party games such as school disco classic ‘four corners’ and the limbo, giving every child the chance to win their very own bear. Visitors can meet Honey, Sunny, Kiki and Koko and pose for photos from 2pm, before they get the party started with conga lines, agadoo and the macarena on the picnic field until 6pm.  

The park’s usual attractions, shops and restaurants will all be open until 6pm including a four-storey indoor play area Crash Landings, liquorice and sweet-smelling fairy-tale Lollipoppet Castle complete with its very own sleeping dragon, the Wild Ostrich Safari Ride which takes you through the African Savannah on the back of an ostrich, yodelling goats and talking potatoes at Sundown Market, and many more interactive rides and play areas. 

Tickets for adults and children over 90cm are £16.75 and children under 90cm go free. Family passes are also available to purchase. To book, visit: https://tickets.sundownadventureland.co.uk/webstore/shop/viewitems.aspx?cg=pkt&c=pkt

For more information about the event, visit the website: https://www.sundownadventureland.co.uk

 

The Gilmour’s

Hull Fish Trail

A couple of month’s ago we had a local adventure in discovering the Fish Trail in Hull City Centre. I had completed this as a child but despite living back here for over five years, I hadn’t taken my three children to discover the 41 different spots.

Our adventure was a part of The Hull Hub Issue 7 which is currently available to pick up at different locations in and around the city. You can also read online.


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Issue 7 of The Hull Hub

 

We also captured some footage of our discoveries and wanted to share it all with you. Enjoy…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFRMzD0Ybr4&w=560&h=315]

 

Jennifer.

Milestones

We have hit another Geocaching milestone and so we felt we should share all of our milestone videos with you. In descending order for you.

 

Thats right we have hit the milestone of 400…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=graEkyFiqoU&w=560&h=315]

 

Here’s our 300th find video:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuA-ahmB08o&w=560&h=315]

 

Here’s our 200th find video:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqOL2HmNSbI&w=560&h=315]

 

Here’s our 100th find video:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU3ys_IvbJY&w=560&h=315]

 

We hope you’ve enjoyed celebrating with us.

The Gilmour’s

Our Caches

The other week we received an email providing us some statistics on the caches we have hidden.

I have to admit I was impressed with the total amount of times our caches have been found. We love reading the logs and finding out what others think of our hides.

Screenshot at Jul 14 09-47-55

If you haven’t found any of our cache’s yet here is a list of them available in East Yorkshire. We have plans for more and we hope to build a trail in the future.

View our caches here:

Board Schools (GC75E4W)

Carlton Micro (GC76FJV)

Sophie’s Cache (GC7NXCB)

Riley’s Cache (GC76GTC)

Robyn’s Cache (GC7MQDM)

Travel Bug B&B (GC797W7)

Amy Johnson (GC81XMQ)

Treasure for Bugs (GC89FWT)

Travel Bug B&B is our most favourited cache, we did love placing this one out there to be found. All of them are child friendly, Carlton Micro and Amy Johnson are micro caches but the rest are big enough for some swag.

Happy Caching.

The Gilmour’s

 

Kids Rule the Day

Today we let the kids rule the day, that’s right! Yesterday Sophie and Riley received their school reports and because they were excellent we decided to let them take over what we do for the day.

We had four categories with three choices in each and they had to choose which one they wanted to do.

Outing

  1. Strawberry picking
  2. Ellerker Village summer fayre including duck race
  3. Geocaching

The kids unanimously chose Strawberry picking, it’s something we haven’t done as a family before so we were all excited and drove out to Eastfield Farm Strawberries.

What a fantastic time we had and yes they had to have their own punnet each, we will be eating strawberries all week. It is well worth the visit, the staff were friendly and the cheesecake was delicious (mummy and daddy needed encouragement since the kids were in charge for the day).

Lunch

  1. Picnic
  2. McDonalds
  3. Trinity Market

The kids chose McDonalds and they ate the lot, although this wasn’t the easiest out of the three choices they didn’t mind the little wait in the car on the way back from Hollym.

Activity 

  1. Biking
  2. Scootering
  3. Park (with hope the splash section is running)

The kids chose the park but it wasn’t warm enough for the splash section to run so we went from West Park in Hull to the Peter Pan Park for a change. They loved every moment and especially because they were in charge.

Pudding

  1. Popcorn
  2. Pick n Mix
  3. Magnum Ice Cream

The kids chose the Pick n Mix and this was the last part of the kids rule the day although they did come home and choose a movie as well as tea (they still had some room from the strawberries).

All in all the day was a success and we will be doing this again next year (if not before) for the weekend of the kids getting their report.

Sophie says “I think we should do it again and other parents should try it with their children”

Riley says “It was a good idea I have been waiting all week so we can rule the day”

The Gilmour’s

Chalking and Geocaching in Kooties Coveralls

We were gifted a Kooties coverall a couple of weeks ago and we have spent some time trying it out with Robyn (3).

WE WENT GEOCACHING, keep reading to find out our caching fun.

Robyn absolutely loves to pretend to be a doctor and make everyone better. There was an obvious choice when deciding which coverall to go for, you can choose between: fire fighter, construction worker, paramedic and police officer.

Kooties are a worlds first coverall that combines messy play and role play.

We have three children and so this is perfect for us as our washing machine is always on the go when they have been playing outside with chalk, painting with water or in the mud. Our kids seem to get covered in all sorts and so I was excited to see if it would reduce our in the week wash down with Robyn’s school uniform.

Robyn’s first impressions was that she couldn’t wait to get in them, she loved that she could be a ‘doctor’ and fix everyone back together again.  Robyn is 3 but 4 in November, we decided to go for a size 3-4 because she is on the tiny side. We were pleased that the Kooties coverall had plenty of space to grow but it didn’t matter that it was a bit big her her because of the elastic on the wrists and ankles. Either way they offer a lot of space making it easy to get the coverall over all of Robyn’s clothes.

The first thing we did was let Robyn chalk away and it proved useful because it meant her school clothes were kept clean. The chalk was easy to wipe off the coveralls as well. Find out about the chalking in the vlog (keep reading).

Whilst out Geocaching Robyn enjoyed searching for someone in need and running to help as well as running to find the cache. Often when we are out Geocaching we wear old clothes because we don’t want to get them muddy or grass stained, the coverall is a perfect alternative for the kids and it means we wouldn’t have to worry as much.

Robyn was very happy playing in the Kooties coveralls, you can see for yourself in this short video we put together. See what Geocache we discover…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNDGN-Zux1Y&w=560&h=315]

Visit Kooties Website * Find them on Facebook *Follow them on Twitter * Follow them on Instagram. 

The Gilmour’s

Friends On Every Street

This afternoon we enjoyed the sun and went along to the first day of Friends On Every Street pop up store. To be honest we have been excited to go along to this event since we discovered the reason behind the ‘Peter Levy Changed My Life- 29.06.2019’ when I posted our family feet pic on Insta. Glad to say that this photo has been used by Friends On Every Street and the Fruit Market as well.

Peter Levy Changed My Life

As soon as we walked down Humber Street we could see where the pop-up shop was because of the people crowding around the entrance, we soon found out that Peter Levy himself was present. What a fab turn out and soon you could see a sea of people wearing the iconic shirts.

friends on every street inside

Anyway, we decided we couldn’t miss it and with the build up on social media it has been enticing. The kids were also intrigued to find out what all the fuss was about. There’s lots of photo’s to come because there was so much to take in, we have narrowed it down but it was difficult. It is well worth the visit if you don’t have anything to do tomorrow or just go anyway, it will be the last day and open from 12 midday. There’s refreshments and music which gives it a brilliant atmosphere.

There was a lot to observe and it felt like an alternative art gallery, there were lots of photo opportunities and with directions and instructions we couldn’t go wrong.

We were particularly excited about this photo opportunity, Robyn our youngest wanted to pose for the camera but Riley was taking the mick out of me because I had a snap taken laying down before (cheeky thing).

A snapshot of the wall’s and what there is to see, we spent a while observing and having a nosey around. As I mentioned before, it felt like an alternative art gallery that expressed the love of Hull (its people, places and slang).

Peter Levy was present and so it only felt right to grab a photo with him. We had met him last year at the Freedom Festival and Sophie had a picture with Peter then, Sophie wasn’t shy to let him know of this and I mentioned she had his signed sticker on her bed frame. It made it more memorable and Sophie won’t forget it, she gave him a hug which was quite sweet.

Sophie says “Peter Levy is a very nice guy who is very intelligent. The wall art was amazing because it had all the colours of the rainbow”

riley insta wall.JPG

It wouldn’t have been complete without an Insta wall with a lot of the fun gimmicky work of Friends On Every Street. We spent a lot of time giggling to ourselves and perhaps sniggering as well, even coming home and looking back on the photo’s we found new re-created logo’s we hadn’t spotted before.

We couldn’t resist splashing the cash to buy some local swag and investing in a Levy’s shirt, pin badge and sticker pack! We congratulate Friends On Every Street for their genius work and have enjoyed seeing their journey so far, we look forward to seeing what’s yet to come.

My MacBook has had a make over and I certainly feel ‘cool’, yes I said it. My hubby has been subtle with his placement of his sticker as you can see, clearly didn’t want to potentially over kill it (like me).

Thank you so much for a fun afternoon and there will soon be another feet family photo on social media, keep your eye’s peeled and nose’s pinched.

Jennifer

Fun Science Workshop

In the last half term the three little Gilmour’s went to try out their first Spectac-u-lab workshop. We had in fact won a giveaway for one of their places and it was something we had seen online but hadn’t had the chance to try it out. We paid for the other two spaces so all three children could go and enjoy the workshop together.

We had selected the rocket workshop and was excited to find out what this would entail. Not only would they create the rockets but they would find out the science behind them. Katy is the owner of Spectac-u-lab and she is creative with the science. The children could understand why the reaction would create the result.

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Table’s prepped, rockets selected, stickers at the ready. Oh wait and…

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…Well equipped.

I have to say it was a huge success and all three kids enjoyed it, they continued to explode their rockets and create at home.

If we were closer to the venue we would certainly go to the Spectac-u-lab CREST Award, it’s perfect for my eldest.

The workshops are affordable, fun, creative, interesting and educational. Thank you Katy for a memorable morning.

Workshops are usually priced at £5 per child per workshop, each workshop is an hour.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhLActZe0tw&w=560&h=315]

This half term:

28th May: Bath Bombs – Winterton

29th May: Egg Parachutes – Beverley

We plan to go to the Egg Parachute workshop and this time bringing Daddy with us to enjoy the fun.

 

Did you spot us? #ITVTonight

Last week we were on the ITV Tonight programme, did you see it? Full info on our previous blog.

We have to report that since filming we have managed to keep our shop to £60-70 a week which is simply fantastic for us. We have managed to keep our Lurpak replacement, which I thought would never happen.

Here’s the link to the programme on the ITV Hub.

Also, something you didn’t see on the filming is that there is the Asda Farm Stores range and an Asda Growers range. When out shopping, the Growers selection is what your eyes’ are guided too.

Jennifer 3

I went out with Rob for the first time shopping after the filming and showed him the different ranges because initially I thought I was shopping the more basic brand. There were times he picked up the Growers range thinking there wasn’t the equivalent, I then pointed where the Farm Stores range is placed. You have to work hard to see it because sometimes it’s as simple as a different label, sometimes it’s on the next shelf along, sometimes on the opposite or in a different isle altogether. Now we have got used to looking and give more time for our shop it has become a lot easier. I would encourage you to have a look when you are next out shopping, to be it feels like a tactic so you don’t see it the Farm Stores range because they don’t want you to buy it.

Let us know what you think and what you struggle with OR are savvy at.

Jennifer

Tonight on ITV

Tune in this evening when The Gilmour’s feature in the Tonight programme at 7.30pm on ITV.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGhr2mW-cP4&w=560&h=315]

All about supermarkets and how we shop as a family, but my husband and the three children had no idea that I swapped their food for the basic brands. I swopped the cereal boxes over so they wouldn’t find out… and cooked just like I normally would.

Gilmour family 2

What were the results?

What were the findings?

Did Rob, Sophie, Riley and Robyn find out?

Did the notice a difference?

tonight itv

Find out tonight on ITV, 7.30pm.

Jennifer