Today we had a family day.   Lyns had a rare day off but she had left it up to me to plan what to do.   Fool!   I had them both in the car by 9:30, yes you read that right 9:30, and we headed out.   I had kept it as a surprise for both Lyns and James and had even set the sat nav whilst hiding it.  Lyns looked truly nervous as we sped down the A64.   She knew it was about 30 miles from the house and was in the direction of Leeds so she spent most of the trip trying to guess where we are going.   Searching through google, she named almost every toddler suitable activity on our route.   It was not until we started following signs for the Royal Armouries that she reaslised where we were going.   I had chosen this as there was a Legends of Arthur event on.

We got parked and walked the couple of minutes to the museum.   As it is a National Museum, it is free entry which was very welcome.   However, before we could go in, there was one important thing we had to do.   Luckily for us, there was a cafe located right at the entrance.   

Once we had sated our thirsts, we headed into the museum.   By chance we found ourselves in the hunting section.   James was enthralled by the life size replicas of various different hunting acts from throughout history.   The models were amazing to see. 

We were due to our first activity at 11am.  There were things on evey half hour however, not all were suitable for toddlers.   The first one we wanted to do It was the telling of Arthur’s story.   It was really well done and the lady telling the story kept the children entertained for the whole half hour.   More or less evey child got to act part of it.   James’ starring role came about when he got the chance to do some sword fighting, foam swords only.   He was very unsure to start with and the little boy he was fighting with was not sure what to do.   With a little encouraging, James turned into a cold blooded killer.   There was a real look of fear in James’ opponents eyes as James tried to decapitate him!   Good lad! 

After the story telling, it was time to explore the rest of the museum.   There is so much to see there.   James loved the interactive displays and the videos.   There was also time to grab some lunch.   We had picked up a packed lunch for James but bought ourselves some sandwiches which were ok, the tea and coffee however... 

Next up was the combat.   There was a re-enactment of one to the most famous Arthurian battles, so famous in fact and I paying that much attention, that I have forgotten its name.   The re-enactors were really good, even if there ‘battle’ had been choreographed and heavily practiced.  Once James had got over his initial reservations, the loud noises scared him a little, he loved it to bits.

After the battle, we headed to the arts and crafts.   Here James (daddy) got to paint a shield.   Whilst daddy might have done the painting, you would have thought James had done it!   We left the shield there to dry and finished our explore of the museum.

After picking up James’ shield and having a quick look around the shop, we headed home about 3pm.   By this point, both James and Lyns had had their fill of the museum.   If it had not been for the activities it would not have been a great place to take a toddler.   That is not a slur on the museum as there is so much there and it is really interesting, but for a toddler, or a long suffering mummy, once you have seen a knight, you have seen a knight.   That being said, when James is a little older, he will love it there.   What made it good today was all the activities to break up the day.

 We got home and had a picnic tea with all the left over nibbly bits we had not eaten at Christmas.   After that we all had a boogie in the living room which James found hilarious.   He was dancing to everything throwing himself through our legs at any opportunity.   A lovely finish to a fab day.