Victorious Festival Portsmouth - The Perfect Festival for Kids

Back in the Summer Holidays, Elliot and I headed down to Portsmouth on Bank Holiday weekend to spend the day the Victorious Festival.

The Victorious Festival, now in it's 7th year, is a three day family friendly festival held on Southsea Common. Featuring many different stages and big names in music such as the Prodigy it really has gone from strength to strength over the last few years.

The music side of it wasn't really a draw for me as I'm rubbish at current music and haven't got a clue who's in the chart these days but the kids arena sounded fantastic and this is what swayed our decision to go!

Leaving Erin with my parents, we headed down to Portsmouth on the train from Poole. I've only been to Portsmouth a couple of times before so I was looking forward to going somewhere different - Elliot was excited just to be going on a train!

We arrived in Portsmouth just after 10am and we hopped on a Hover bus from the station which took us directly to Southsea Common. It was a beautiful sunny day and the view over the water to the Isle of Wight was stunning.

The festival itself was massive and I definitely underestimated how large it would be - we seemed to walk forever around the outside barriers to get to the entrance! Entry was nice and fast, our bags were checked and I picked up a lost child wristband to write my number on incase Elliot and I lost each other. We had a wander as we got inside the festival and it was the perfect time to get our bearings as it was still nice and quiet.

We decided to head straight for the kids area, where we quickly discovered that all the activities (including the face painting and bouncy castle!) were free - how amazing is that?! Featuring a whole variety of local businesses, all with children's activities we were spoilt for choice. Elliot decided to go on the bouncy area while there were no queues - this area was continuously busy all day so if you're thinking of coming next year, make this first on your list to do!

Some of the other stalls we visited were the RNLI where we learnt about safety in the sea, the Mary Rose museum where we were able to see and hold actual items that were on the ship, we played with ALOT of Lego with the team from the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and we couldn't resist getting a giant slush drink!

One of the things Elliot was looking forward to was the meet and greets and he was quite excited to spot Paddington Bear. He's always loved meeting characters and mascots...Erin is the opposite however, she runs a mile if shes anyway near someone dressed up! Through out the day we also met Finn & Jake from Adventure time and even some Princesses.

Just before lunch we headed to the stage where our favourites, Andy & The Odd Socks were due to perform. The sun was shining and it was a lovely atmosphere - there were rows of hay bales for the audience to sit on and space for the children at the front to dance. There was a children's entertainer, Ross Presto who was very funny and Elliot even got picked to join in with a game. He won a bag of sweets so that made his day!

After Ross came the Princesses who sang and danced to lots of recognisable pop/Disney songs - they even did Baby Shark much to the delight of the kids in the audience!

Finally the moment, we'd been patiently waiting for - Andy and The Odd Socks! We had a spot right at the front of the hay bales and Elliot had loads of fun dancing around and flossing to his favourite songs. It was probably one of the smaller stages the band have played but they certainly had a large enthusiastic crowd! The band have so much energy - they must have a pre-gig snack that includes weetabix and redbull because they do not stop! As always we loved seeing them rock out and it was great to hear Unique again. We love this song and the important message it puts across - and it's so blimmin' catchy!

As the band came off stage, eagle eye Elliot spotted Andy at the side saying hi to some of the audience so he dashed on over for a high five!

After all that excitement we decided to head out of the kids arena in search of something yummy for lunch and we were so spoilt for choice that it took us almost half an hour to decide! In the end we had ostrich burger and fries which was lovely, we sat under a tree with the Common Stage in the background and it was a nice moment of calm in the busyness of the festival. I have to say it was so lovely in the kids arena and then coming into the main festival where there were so many people was a bit overwhelming!!

After a quick stop at the Coca-Cola stand to try out the new zero flavours, we decided to head back to the kids arena where there was a ton of things still to be looked at! Top of Elliot's list was the Rebel Yarn Bombers - these lovely ladies had a massive selection of knitted monsters that were all lovingly handmade and even named. All the monsters were available to adopt for a donation and the money was being raised for the Roald Dahl Charity. Elliot took a l-o-n-g time to decide on a monster...and we even had to come back later in the day so he could get a couple more!

Some of the yarn bombers work on display - impressive!

The next few hours were jam packed with lots of making in the arts and crafts tents, Elliot played some football with Little Kickers, he built some sandcastles at the beach area, he checked out the instruments at the Ready to Rock school and we even got to sample some really really yummy Montezuma chocolate...guess which bit was my highlight ;)

I have to say that everyone we spoke to on the stalls was so friendly - we met a really lovely young lad on the Foster Portsmouth stall who spent ages colouring with Elliot and helping him choose about a thousand stickers to go on his sheet! He told us all about how Foster Portsmouth had helped him throughout his childhood and how passionate he was about getting the word out about fostering. He was called Elliot too!

Elliot and Elliot! Foster Portsmouth

Our final activity of the day was another Andy & The Odd Socks set - I think this one was even busier! We bumped into some friends of ours, Laura and her son Max from Max and Mummy and we had a fab time sat with them. The boys were off down the front throwing some shapes whilst we sat and relaxed on the hay bales!

After the show Elliot managed to get selfies with the band so he was one happy boy, always nice to chat to them and they are always so friendly to us.

With a fond farewell to our friends, it was time for Elliot and I to head home. As the kids area was drawing to a close, the rest of the festival was starting to get even busier with crowds of people streaming through the gates. Perhaps we'll stick around for the evening entertainment next year!

The Victorious Festival was bigger and better than I'd imagined and we were absolutely blown away with how amazing the kids arena was. There was so much on offer and you literally could spend all day in there - pretty much like we did!

We look forward to seeing what next year has to offer :)

ANDY & THE ODD SOCKS ON TOUR! (EASTER 2018)

If you hadn't already guessed, we are pretty big fans of Andy and The Odd Socks! Elliot's been a fan of Andy since he was very young (he's always been really into dinosaurs) and it was a natural progression to become fans of his band too.

Andy and The Odd Socks sing funny, catchy songs and have been entertaining families up and down the country over the past few week weeks as they embarked on their biggest tour yet!

We were lucky enough to catch them at their Bristol show last week and we had a fab time as always. Being super organised we arrived very very early for the show and although it meant a bit of waiting around, it did mean we were one of the first ones in and able to nab the coveted front row seats woohoo!

clutching two of his faves - his sister and a sausage roll ;)

The show itself was brilliant as usual - high energy, lots of audience participation and lots of dancing from the kids (and parents!) in the crowd. The Dinosaur Football Legend Megamatch song even had a t-rex which came bouncing up the aisle along with the giant football that narrowly avoided my head haha!

Ninja Pig required some help from the audience and a willing Dad came on stage to be dressed up - to be fair he did very well keeping in time with the dancing!

The highlight for Elliot was Ghostbusters. He's always loved that song and even more so now it's been covered by Andy - this version is just so catchy and loved the bands Ghostbuster costumes!

Cousin Mac was a new addition to the band and he seamlessly took over keyboard and vocals - we're not sure where Random Keith has gone, Elliot said "perhaps he's poorly?" :)

Rapping robots

It was lovely to hear Unique again, such a great song with such an important message - and so blimmin' catchy too, my sister had it stuck in her head for days after the show!

We were lucky enough to have meet and greet tickets (along with most the audience judging by the size of the queue!) and Elliot got one of his pictures signed by the band which we are going to frame for his wall. He loved it that the band recognised him again too! Erin wasn't quite so keen on posing for a photo - this is the exact face she pulled when she met Father Christmas!!

Andy and The Odd Socks are playing a ton of gigs this year including Shepherds Bush London, Ipswich, all the Butlins locations and a whole host of festivals.  For more info and  tour dates, check out their website: http://www.andyandtheoddsocks.com/

We loved our day out in Bristol and can't wait for our next Odd Socks show! 

ANDY'S DINO RAPS - BREWERY SQUARE, DORSET

If you have children of a certain age, they will no doubt be familiar with Andy Day and his dinosaur adventures. It's staple viewing in this house and has been since Elliot was old enough to know what a dinosaur was!! And if you are a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that we are big fans of Andy!

Brewery Square in Dorchester recently announced that Andy would be coming along on Easter weekend to perform some of his dino raps so of course we knew we had to be there! Elliot was insistent he was to wear his Andy costume so the weeks leading up to the show were mostly spent googling "how to make a gizmo"... 

The day of the show dawned and Elliot and I made our way down to Dorchester on the train. This itself was a bit of a novelty for Elliot as we rarely go anywhere on the train despite living just minutes away from the station! Erin was spending the day with my parents and my husband working, so it was lovely to have the day just with Elliot to spend some quality time together. 

We were quite early arriving into Dorchester so we decided to have a go at the Easter Egg trail - this was a brilliant, free initiative run by Brewery Square. We had to find 20 pictures of Easter eggs that were hidden around the square in shops and restaurants. Most were on the front windows but a few were hidden inside and it took a bit more searching! 

As luck would have it, we bumped into Andy by chance as he arrived to set up the stage - Elliot ran across the square shouting "Andy!!!!!" - I hope Andy wasn't hoping to sneak in without anyone noticing because I'm sure the whole of Dorchester heard Elliot's voice ;)

Midway through our easter egg trail, we noticed that it was starting to get quite busy so we decided to get a spot near the front of the stage while we could and continue looking for eggs after the shows. Turned out to be a good plan because it quickly got very very busy and it seemed to be standing room only in the square! 

It wasn't long before Andy came on stage much to the audience's delight - there were certainly a lot of little excited faces and I'm pretty sure most of the parents knew just as many lyrics as their kids! Elliot was right down the front and it was hilarious watching him dancing and roaring away. 

At one point Andy started talking about the next rap and how it was about a species who were ancestors of early man. Elliot turned round to look at me with a massive grin on his face and he knew exactly what the rap was! He shouted out "Australopithecus!!!" at the top of his voice, hilarious! 

With lots of audience participation, and even some dad dancing, the show was a big hit with the crowd and I guarantee most people left with the Gigantoraptor song stuck in their heads!!  

Luckily for the people of Dorchester, Andy was performing twice so we had a bit of time between the two shows to finish off our easter egg trail and grab some lunch. Brewery Square has lots of places to eat including Nandos and Zizzis but it was absolutely packed so we headed up to the high street for some food, and also a chance to warm up. 

Andy's second show seemed even busier than the first and there were definitely more people squeezing in near us at the front. Elliot enjoyed himself immensely again! (And yes, he shouted out Australopethecus....and mumosaurus....and Gigantoraptor....sorry Andy!)

After the show had finished we were lucky enough to be on the meet and greet list (thank you to Charlotte at Brewery Square for arranging this) so we headed across to the Premier Inn to meet our friends and get in line. Elliot had his costume back on, his gizmo was ready and he was clutching an envelope of drawings for Andy! It was a fab meet and greet, we didn't feel rushed at all and the boys spent lots of time chatting to Andy about their pictures. It's funny looking back at the very first time we met Andy in 2014, Elliot was so shy and quiet and literally went mute. And in the photos he looks terrified! It's the complete opposite now, we can't shut him up ;) 

Soon our time was up and we said our goodbyes, Elliot and Luke were buzzing! We rounded off the day with a quick trip to see Dippy again - thought we'd make the most of it while he's still here in Dorset. It was much quieter than our last visit too so we were able to head straight to the special selfie panel to take some photos. 

We had a fantastic day out - thank you Andy and Brewery Square! 

                                                                        

OUR 2017 HIGHLIGHTS!

I love looking back at all that we've done - I'm always surprised by how much we have squeezed in and this past year was no exception. New babies, days out, holidays, theatre trips...the list goes on! Here's our highlights of 2017..

NEW ARRIVALS

The absolute highlight of January, and actually the whole year was welcoming baby Erin into the world! 9lb on the dot and the spitting image of her big brother, my planned c-section went very smoothly and we were soon home getting used to being a family of 4. She slotted right in and it was hard to remember life without her - and we've been very lucky as she was such a good baby!

It's mad looking back at these photos from when she was a newborn, you do forget how small they are! Elliot has taken to big brother duties like a duck to water - he loves making her laugh and they have a lovely little bond. She's going to be walking soon I think so I might have trouble on my hands once they get up to mischief together!

DAYS OUT

We have had some lovely days out over the year including Gruffalo hunting at our local country park, spotting dinosaur bones on the Isle of Wight, taking in some fantastic scenery here in Dorset, pretending to be knights at Corfe Castle, dinosaur crazy golf, stomping round model villages pretending to be giants, paddling in the sea, climbing trees and so much more.

We are so lucky to live here in Dorset because there is so much to see and do!

LIVE SHOWS

I've always loved going to live shows and concerts and it's brilliant that Elliot enjoys this too, Erin has also demonstrated a love for music and dancing so I'm sure she will be coming along with us in the future!

This year we have been really fortunate to see lots of family friendly shows and these are definitely some of our top moments of 2017. We had the pleasure of seeing Andy Day and his band The Odd Socks twice this year. The first time was at Camp Bestival which despite the mud was a brilliant day out! It was also our first time seeing Andy the Odd Socks live - we've had the songs on repeat for ages now so it was great to experience them live.

Our second live Odd Socks show was in Richmond and was one of two special gigs to launch their album. We managed to nab seats right in the front row so we felt very special and Elliot absolutely loved the show. The highlight for him though was afterwards when we met the band, Andy remembered him and knew him by name and the band said they'd seen him on YouTube!!

Another highlight for Elliot was going to see Justin Fletcher's live show in Southampton. We've seen him before a few times and always had a great time, this was even better though as we had such good seats right near the front. Justin came down to the audience and Elliot was over the moon when he said hello to him! We also got to see Mister Maker in Bournemouth which was another fab show - and who doesn't love dancing to the shape song :)

HOLIDAYS

We had a big holiday this year and the four of us flew to Orlando for two weeks. I was slightly apprehensive about travelling such a long way with a 5 month old baby and at certain points I did wonder if I was crazy but I needn't have worried! Erin was absolutely fine on the 10 hour flight and she had a lovely time throughout the two weeks. Florida is one of our favourite holiday destinations, there is just so much to do, even if you don't visit the theme parks. We just did Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure which are our favourite parks. Elliot was chuffed because he was tall enough for lots of the rides (he was too short last time) and he became a bit of a daredevil!

Florida Memories

We also visited Clearwater Beach which holds fond memories for us - last we went there we didn't have kids so it was abit different this time round! We had a lovely evening strolling along the beach, watching the sunset. We also managed to see a launch at Kennedy Space Center which was a brilliant experience! There's still so much we want to experience in Florida so no doubt we'll visit again soon.

As well as our long haul holiday we also had a mini break to the Isle of Wight which was a bit of a spontaneous last minute idea. Well, as spontaneous as you can get with two children under 5! We only stayed for 2 days but managed to squeeze lots in including the highlight of the trip which was fossil hunting on the beach. Elliot was in his element and we even managed to find the famous dinosaur footprints which was amazing!

FUN WITH FRIENDS

We are very fortunate to have a lovely big group of close friends here where we live. Us Mums met at our local Under One's group when the babies were small and we have all stayed good friends since. Nowadays there are alot more of us with lots of siblings so it's always a crazy time if we all get together!

We've had some fantastic times together this year including the many birthday parties we've hosted. We also put on a mini sports day for the kids in the Summer Holidays which was fun - although it didn't quite go to plan when the weather wasn't on our side! Fortunately we were able to hire a local hall that very morning so we held it inside, everyone took part.....even the mums ;)

There is so much more that I didn't have room to include but needless to say, 2017 was a great one for us and I can't wait to see what 2018 holds!

What was your highlight of 2017?