On Sunday night the Xbox stopped working – it appeared that the power brick was not able to supply the Xbox with enough juice.  Simon set about diagnosing early on Monday to find that sadly the power supply was fried and needs replacing – GREAT timeing 🙁

It seems that the power supply unit is not something that can be purchased from the usual outlets and so the only option is online 🙁

Simon ordered one yesterday lunchtime and INCREDIBLY it arrived this morning to save the day 🙂

The boys will probably not want to play on the Xbox tomorrow but you can bet that if they do get any new Xbox items from F.C. and want to play with it, we would have been in BIG trouble…. 🙁

All’s well that ends well thankfully 🙂

Saturday 21st December 2013 can mean only one thing – it is the Santa Special day 😀

We head out to enjoy a nice lunch at the Dog and Gun in Oxenhope before boarding the 2:40pm train.  Lunch was fantastic as always and the train was on top form too.   The boys had a GREAT time on board and got really involved in the singing and booing at Scrooge.  This year it was not dark as we left the train – it is usually dusk and so the whole event just feels a little big more festive for some reason.  This year we didn’t get the dark until we were back in Halifax picking up Pepsi and Max from their week long holiday at Granny Cuckoo’s 🙂

Nice lie in yesterday – the boys didn’t awaken until after 8:30am 🙂 Clearly needed the sleep

After a nice breakfast and completing the Elf Treasure Hunt, we head into the park to enjoy the rides and of course to meet F.C. Only about 1/5 of the park was open and we felt that while it was nicely decorated (including some ‘snow’ on the hundreds of Christmas trees) the rides were a bit poor really. The kids enjoyed themselves however so all was not lost, and they particularly enjoyed building their own LEGO Christmas tree ornaments and decorating their own gingerbread snowmen 🙂

The Father Christmas experience was really lovely with a little trek through a patch of Christmas trees and half a dozen little wooden summer houses, each with its own F.C. Ours was really good and he had our boys transfixed for the few minutes that we were in with him. They both received a lovely blue cardboard bag containing a really nice LEGO gift – an airplane that they were both more than happy to receive :-). We were worried that Olly might be given a Duplo set but thankfully not.

They both made some purchases in the large shop from their Grandad David’s Christmas present fund 🙂 both are highly excited to get on with the building process so maybe they will get a chance to start them today befor we head out to the Santa Express in Oxenhope.

Finally, the Star Wars experience at LEGOLAND was the last thing that Daddy and Elly walked through before we departed for home – it was REALLY good – shame that the camera ran out of battery power before we finished though 🙁

We should definitely go back to LEGOLAND in the summer time and stay over in the hotel again – it was a wonderful experience that I am usr we would love to repeat.

Mummy and the boys came over to LEGOLAND in Windsor this morning and Daddy got on the train to Windsor after work.

We enjoyed a lovely dinner in the restaurant “Bricks” and the boys played with the large LEGO blocks and the Xbox360’s that were setup for the kids to play the various LEGO games 🙂

Then, there was a fantastic show put on for ‘Cinderella’. It was really well put together and had all the kids AND adults transfixed for 35 minutes.

The bedroom is really cool with a kids area that has it’d own TV and bunk beds. The final touches in the hotel are just amazing – I.e. It is clear that expense has not been spared when it comes to making the place just great.

We meet Father Christmas tomorrow and there are several rides available for the boys to enjoy and then the journey home….

So Daddy got on the 5:18 train yesterday morning down to London Town and Mummy and the boys set off in the car just before lunch.  Sadly the car trip was not quite as rapid as the train journey so by the time they arrived they were all pretty tired and definitely in need of fresh air and excitement 🙂  Bruce did a great job of apparently taking them on a tour of all the little roads between the M1/M25 junction and Ealing…. 🙁  Took as long to make that part of the journey as all the rest added together it seems 🙁

Anyway, once we were checked in, we rapidly got our shoes back on to head into the city.  The boys were wired with excitement as we boarded the tube at Ealing Broadway station, heading for Bond Street station.  As with all things kid related the journey would have been just fine at 10 minutes long, so being 25 minutes made it 15 too loooooonnnnnnnggggg. 🙁

Anyway, we ate dinner at Pizza Express and then walked to Hamleys.  Olly wanted to pitstop in the Disney store on Oxford Street and subsequently made his purchase – a HUGE Dusty the Crop Hopper plane from the Planes movie.  It is so big that he couldn’t carry the bag as it just dragged along the ground.

Hamleys was fun and the boys actually wandered around for 45 minutes and didn’t find anything that necessarily floated their boats (would you believe) although Olly had already made a purchase he was actually not really in purchase mode (incredibly !).

We then started out to Harrods in search of the Toy Kingdom when it began to pour with rain 🙁  We jumped on the number 22 bus and it dropped us off nicely in Knightsbridge pretty close to Harrods.  So, that is two of the three required transport types down (Tube and London Bus) 🙂

Harrods Toy Kingdom came up trumps and the boys both acquired a couple of little items that made them happy for the journey and mummy and daddy saw a kids 2 seater open top (petrol powered) Range Rover for a mere £39,995 🙂 Made us smile.

Last trip was back on the tube to get to Acton Town and then the Black Cab ride back to the hotel to complete the transport type requirements as set by Olly 🙂

It of course took about an hour to cool down and get to sleep so by 11:30pm, all was well.

Until 4am when the floor above us began shaking as what seemed like a heard of Elephants ran through for about 40 minutes 🙁  Thankfully the kids did not awaken through the noise.

As Daddy departed to go to work at 7:45am he spoke with the hotel management who rather promptly refunded the cost of the nights stay which was a nice bonus.

Today, Mummy and the boys are heading over to LEGOLAND and Daddy will get the train over there after work – all fun for the Rust’s this week 🙂