The sharp-eyed amongst you might have noticed this shiny new badge appear in my sidebar recently. I am delighted to be able to announce that I have been selected to join the Center Parcs blogger family for 2012/13. I achieved this by winning a Tots100 competition where we were asked to create a Pinterest mood board of our ideal Center Parcs family break. You can see my board here. As one of their 12 family bloggers I will be working with the Center Parcs team, taking part in regular challenges (I don’t know much about these yet other than they should be something fun for me to do with the kids), and also I will get to take the whole geek family on a short break at my chosen Center Parcs (Whinfell Forest) to review.
I don’t often enter blogging competitions like this, but as soon as I read the details I was inspired, and I had a really clear idea of all the things I wanted to include in my Pinterest board. We have stayed at Center Parcs a few times and I have some great memories. I particularly enjoyed digging through my photo archive for things to add to my board, and I was particularly pleased to rediscover this piece of the film of the geekdaughter, aged two, having fun in the playground at the Sherwood Forest Center Parcs – wasn’t she cute?!
My first experience of the Center Parcs team was last week when they arranged a meet up at the Sherwood Forest Center Parcs for all the family bloggers. We had a lovely day, and they managed to give us a real taste of Center Parcs in a short time. After coffee, pastries and introductions we headed into the Village centre to try our hands at pottery painting, one of the many activities available on site. I must confess to feeling slightly lost to start with, as I’m not really known for my crafting skills, but Sally and Merry looked after me, and I managed to produce something that looks half decent (or at least I hope it will when it’s finished – we had to leave our creations there to be fired and they’re being posted out to us when they’re ready). We then enjoyed lunch at the Foresters’ Inn, and then took a leisurely stroll back to the village centre with plenty of time to chat to each other and the Center Parcs team before it was time to head home.
On our stroll through the site we managed to get a glimpse of the latest additions to Sherwood Forest – the Treehouses. Wow these look amazing – I couldn’t get over quite how beautiful they are in real life! Sadly the Center Parcs blogger family won’t get to stay in these, but they really are the ultimate in luxury accommodation. Hot tub, games room, en suite bedrooms, but they don’t come cheap – maybe if I start saving now I can afford one as celebratory getaway for my next milestone birthday!
Over the next few months I’ll let you know how we getting on with the challenges being set (and if you’re a blogger it’s worth keeping an eye on the Tots100 blog for details of these, as there are another 4 places in the Center Parcs Blogger Family to be won over the course of the programme). Now I just need to decide when we’ll take our family break and get it booked! I can’t wait!
Disclosure: Center Parcs paid my travel expenses for this event and provided a goodie bag for me to take home.
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Ohhh good luck, and well done, look forward to reading all about it. A x
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