June was always going to be a hard month t o follow – it had everything. Foreign travel, visiting family, lovely days out and some blogging highlights. However, July hasn’t been all that bad either.
We’ve been doing more things at home and maybe that’s a good thing as August and September are shaping up to be super busy.
So, thanks for the breather July. Here’s your highlights:
Travel
- July saw me catching up with our recent travels rather than doing any. In fact, I haven’t left Devon all month. It’s been a time to recharge batteries on the beach, write up a few destination posts for the blog, and plan our summer adventures. Read on for more on all these.
Home
- We had some special visitors at the start of the month – Tin Box Grandma and Grandpa. It gave us a lovely excuse to go swimming and sightseeing
- The Tin Box girls had lots of play dates with friends, which they loved.
- Mr Tin Box was working away A LOT this month, so thank goodness for our visitors and friends keeping us occupied!
Adventures
- Our weekends were where the adventures happened this month. We made another trip to River Dart Country Park – we are starting to become regulars. The weather wasn’t as warm as when we visited in May but the girls still enjoyed the adventure playgrounds and artificial beach.
- Another highlight was staging our own garden festival with the Caravan Club’s Big Little Tent Festival.
- We paid our first visit to the Woodlands theme park just down the road from us in Dartmouth. Tin Box Tot was in slide heaven and I may have got a slightly soggy bottom from the waterslides too.
- Our water babies continue to love swimming so we took them to the pool in Torquay and to the beach a few times.
- We were invited along to the Midsummer Dreams Festival one weekend, which was a lovely theatre event in the grounds of Dartington Hall just outside Totnes in Devon.
You can see pictures from all our adventures at a glance on my Instagram account.
Blogging
- All through the summer I’m supporting the Caravan Club’s Big Little Tent Festival campaign as an official festival blogger. As I mentioned above we have staged our own mini festival in our garden.
- I was invited along to a couple of Devon blogger events this month, which is always fab as the other blogging mums here are so lovely. I also got to find out more about the gorgeous new lodges at Crealy Meadows and the bedding made by Naturalmat for hotels and travelling.
- I had a few social media follower milestones fly by quicker than I could process them. On Twitter I went over 5,000 followers, on Instagram I reached 2,000 and on Facebook I went over 500 fans. The social media geek in me was very excited by all of this, so big thanks if you are among my followers there.
- I’ve also been setting up reviews of some family-friendly holiday resorts and hotels that we’ll be visiting in the next few months. Watch this space!
- On the blog I’ve been writing about our city break in Exeter, our new travel gadgets and gizmos, how we would do a European road trip with kids, how to throw your own garden festival, where I get my travel inspiration.
- Reviews I’ve done include Unique Planners by Pirongs, Leonardo Hotel in Barcelona, the Eyefi MobiPro wifi SD card, Sunuva kids beachwear and Rockin’ Baby summer holiday clothes, Midsummer Dreams Festival, and Halford’s Ultimate Camping Guide.
- My Travel Timehop guest bloggers in June were: Sharon from After the playground, Georgina from A Little Lipstick and Ann from Rainbows are too beautiful. Thank you all for sharing such great memories!
- My most popular blog post of the month was 55 great Devon family days out. This was group effort, so I’m so grateful to all the bloggers that helped me with their suggestions for great family days in the county.
- In July I was featured in Mother & Baby magazine with my top family travel tip, as well as in 5 top UK destinations to visit this summer with Wander Mum, Armchair Travel with Toddlers on Tour, What kind of camper are you? with Space in your case.
Catch up with what we got up to in June 2016 or skip ahead to August 2016.
As ever, thank you so much for reading! I love hearing what people think about my blog so feel free to leave a comment below or browse around. You can also find me on Bloglovin’, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube and LinkedIn.