Tin Box Traveller Diaries: June 2016

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I think June has to have been my favourite month of 2016 so far. From 1st June when we boarded a flight to Barcelona right up to the last week when I attended the Britmums #BML16 conference, it has been a blast!

Here’s a taster of what the Tin Box family got up to in June:

Travel

• If you follow me on social media or read the blog regularly I would like to say sorry (sort of) for all the cruise spam. In case you missed it we started our month flying to Barcelona to meet Carnival Vista – Carnival Cruise Line’s new flagship. I’ll keep it short here…we had a great time.
• On either side of our cruise we were able to see some of the sights of Barcelona. We stayed two nights at Hotel Leonardo and saw Park Guell, Las Ramblas, Barcelona Beach and Aquarium Barcelona.

Home

I have two toddling explorers! Tin Box Baby has well and truly found her feet! #clickinmoms #totsphoto #childhoodunplugged #littlefierceones #ig_motherhood #cameramama #momswithcameras #curiouslittleexplorers #littlestoriesofmylife #myhappycapture #thehappynow #lifecloseup #toddlerlife

A photo posted by Claire – Tin Box Traveller (@tinboxtraveller) on Jun 20, 2016 at 12:06am PDT

• After the cruise we had a few weeks at home during which it was just me and the girls. Mr Tin Box was off hiking and biking in the Breacon Beacons with work and we amused ourselves with a couple of days out in Devon (see Adventures).
• The girls have really been enjoying swimming and are becoming very confident in the water, which is a pleasure to see.
• Speaking of personal developments, Tin Box Baby is now walking. This has made me reconsider her blogging persona, but I’ve come to the decision that ‘Baby’ is a good title for at least a few more years.
• The last week of the month I was blogging and working in Hampshire and London. I spent 11 hours on trains, two nights in a hotel and three nights enjoying being looking after by my mum – lovely! However, by the time it came to hop on the train home I was looking forward to my own bed.
• While I was away Mr Tin Box took the girls to visit their grandparents and Great Grandma in Hampshire. I was able to meet up with them for an afternoon, which made my trip away a little easier.

Adventures

We’ve been searching for the Gruffalo in our local woods this morning. We didn’t find him but we did spot lots of beautiful foxgloves #flowers #ukexplore #walk #woods #mumsofinstagram #toddlerlife #Dartmouth #devon

A photo posted by Claire – Tin Box Traveller (@tinboxtraveller) on Jun 16, 2016 at 4:31am PDT

• On one of my days off with the girls we took advantage of the lovely weather and visited Torre Abbey in Torquay. The gardens are lovely at this time of year
• We also enjoyed a couple of walks with Tin Box Dog in our local woods. The foxgloves were out and it made for so great Instagram pictures.

You can see pictures from all our adventures at a glance on my Instagram account.

Blogging

• If you’re part of the parent blogging world it would have been hard to miss the social media buzz about the #BML16 Britmums blogger conference at the end of the month. 500 bloggers converged on The Brewery in London for a day packed full of sessions on how to improve our online game. It was my first Britmums and I had a ball. Thanks to the following ladies for their company: Alice (Alice & Amelia), Amy (Everything Mummy), Cathy (Mummytravels), Elizabeth (Wandermum), Franca (A Moment with Franca), Fiona (Coombe Mill), Gretta (Mums do travel), Janice (Tots2Travel), Kara (Chelsea Mamma/Are we nearly there yet?), Karen (Mini Travellers), and last but not least my next-door roomy, Lisa (Travel Loving Family).
• I was also up for an award at #BML16 in the Travel blog category. I’m so grateful to everyone who nominated and voted for me but I knew I would not be a winner on the night. Getting to the final five blogs was beyond my expectations, so thank you so much for your support. The top prize went to the very deserving Cathy at Mummytravels who I’ve been following since I first started blogging. Her blog is seriously slick!
• In other blogging news I’m excited to say I’ve been asked to be a campaign ambassador with an organisation very close to my heart. You’ll hear more about this very soon.
• On the blog I’ve been writing about our visit to South Devon Railway, 11 reasons Carnival Vista is a family-friendly cruise ship, our day out at the Eden Project, a review of Purple Parking, Devon’s Midsummer Dreams Festival.
• My Travel Timehop guest bloggers in June were: Marcie from Marcie in Mommyland, Jo at Kiddieholidays, Marta at Learning Escapes, and Louise from One Bag Two Sugars. Thank you all for sharing such great memories!
• My most popular blog post of the month was Carnival Vista: our 8 day family cruise – I’m glad people liked it!
• Blog posts that I contributed to in June included How do you do it with Clare at Sons, Sand & Sauvignon, 36 British Beaches for Guaranteed Family Fun with Alison and the team at Space in Your Case, Feature Flip by Mim at Love from Mim.

Catch up with what what we got up to in May 2016 or skip ahead to July 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.  

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