Holiday Happiness is . . . being a #MarkWarnerMum

So let’s be honest here, as a family of 6 with children ranging from 3 to 14 years old, we won’t be enjoying a week’s holiday in a Spa any time soon. Up until June last year all of our family holidays had been spent in the UK staying in cottages, caravans or camping in a tent. We love being outdoors, taking in the blue skies of Summer or even the drizzly days of Winter in the UK. As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing!

Our Beans are a spirited little bunch (think of the Duracell bunnies) they have mountains of energy so we like to do activities which will help them fall into bed at night with a smile on their faces and snoring in 5 minutes so that we can max out on quiet adult relaxation time (whilst we dream about one day visiting that spa together!).

When we go on holiday we love to walk around the local area, take in the sights, climb, swim and find adventure. A holiday is our opportunity to spend quality time together, to get Daddy away from his work phone and emails, to get him fully submerged into family life. Daddy, Curly, Little Bean and Beanie Boy are the thrill seekers of the family, for the past 7 years I have been the one mainly ‘holding the baby’ and in charge of the camera.

Last year we finally set foot on foreign soil with the Beans on our first family holiday to Menorca. We decided to ‘test the waters’ with a long weekend and it was so much better than we could have dreamed. We worried the Beans would drive us crazy on the plane or worse still . . . hate flying! In truth, they loved it so much they have asked regularly since then “when can we go on a plane again?”. They all coped well with the dry heat of the Menorcan sun, they were sensible around the swimming pool and somehow we even managed to feed our fussy eaters each night when we went out for dinner. In fact, there were times we wondered if perhaps we had accidentally brought the wrong children as they seemed almost perfect.

Being bloggers children, actually scratch that – being ‘my’ children, they are used to having a camera in their face 365 days a year and now that they are older they actively seek out fun family photo opportunities and Little Bean is starting to follow in my footsteps with her love for taking photographs too. It’s a lovely thing to look through your 7 year old daughter’s photographs and see life through her eyes.

Wherever we go in life my camera is sure to follow, whether it be my DSLR, my compact, the Go Pro or simply the camera on my Nokia Lumia. Life is full of beautiful colours, changing landscapes and skies which change in the blink of an eye. I love that you can take the same photograph at different times throughout the day and each one can be completely different. One of the reasons I started my blog was so that I could share some of my favourite photographs and memories of family life. Now that my Beans are older and starting to get more involved with technology they love to look back on the blog and see all of the fun things we have done together, it’s an opportunity for us to talk over favourite family times – it’s a great bonding experience and something we will treasure forever.

This is my entry to join the Mark Warner Ambassador Program to find a #MarkWarnerMum or #MarkWarnerDad