It’s been a while since we saw my parents, so this weekend we’re taking a family road trip to see them. They live about 10 minutes away from Windermere in the Lake District so there will be plenty to do when we’re there.

It’ll take around 2 hours to get there so I have to make sure that the kid’s portable games consoles are fully charged and the portable DVD player still works, as they get bored really quickly.

I would of liked to visit the Windermere Steamboat Museum, but it’s currently closed for redevelopment thanks to the heritage lottery fund. So it will definitely be a place to visit in the future, but I’m sure we can find lots of interesting things to do; probably to do with eating lots of ice cream and playing in the amusements

It’ll also be nice to see my parents, as it’s been nearly a year since I saw them last and of course their dog Poppy, who is just great with the kids.

Hope the weather will hold out as it’s nice and sunny here at the moment.

After trying out the new Microsoft Kinect at a friend’s house over the weekend I decided to buy one, but because I’m quite addicted to Call of Duty: Black Ops and FIFA 11, I decided to buy a new Xbox 360 and Kinect bundle to hook up to the main TV. I bought it from Amazon for £220 which is a bargain considering an Xbox on its own is £150 and the Kinect retails for around £130.

It got delivered yesterday and after spending half an hour or so setting it up it was time to play. We got Kinect: Adventures with the system (I think this is the launch game), which has a bunch of mini games and campaign games to get you started.

I can’t believe how accurate the Kinect sensor is, it tracks your whole body especially in the fish tank and ball blasting games, and the voice recognition worked straight away even with my brummie voice. All in all this is a great purchase and will keep the whole family entertained; I’m going to get the Kinect: Sports and Dance Central games as well, but can’t wait for what the future holds.

My son’s birthday is coming up and he wants the new Sony Ericsson Vivaz mobile phone, luckily I got his first contract just before his birthday a couple of years ago so he is due for an upgrade. The only trouble was that the mobile company he is with, Virgin Mobile doesn’t stock the phone so he will have to change mobile service providers.

I checked various mobile phone comparison sites and found a T-Mobile contract with free handset, 300 minutes, unlimited text messages and free accessories for £25 per month, it also includes unlimited internet which is good because I know he will use it.

Now I know it doesn’t seem like a lot for his birthday as it is a free phone, but I do pay his contract every month so he is getting a good deal if you ask me, that is of course till he gets a part time job (hopefully sooner rather than later, he’ll be 16 next week), then he can pay for it himself.

I’m intrigued to see what the Sony Ericsson Vivaz is like, especially with its HD video recorder and how the touchscreen compares to my HTC Magic.

I’ve got a face dress party coming so I’ve decided to go as a zombie. I’ve got some ripped jeans and a white slim fit t shirt, and some FX stuff for my face. I’ve been looking around for coloured contact lenses, I’m drawn between two pairs.

1. The Zombie branded pair has a very small pupil with a larger black circle around the outer eye.

2. The solid black lens is just one solid colour.

I think that the Solid black colour gives a better zombie look. The party is about a fortnight away so I don’t have to worry too much at the moment.

At a push I could get some white UV contact lenses which would give that extra sparkle.

I’ve seen that I can keep the contact lenses for around 3 months in some contact lens solution. So I might even where them on general pub outings.

Prices seem to vary a bit from site to site, but I think that I’ll get a slightly more expensive pair as you pair for quality, buy cheap buy twice is my moto

Me and my wife have been thinking of having a weekend away for a couple of months now and we’ve decided to go to Belfast. Neither one of us have been to Ireland before so though this would be a great getaway where we could relax for a couple of days.

There are lots of cheap flights to Belfast and their tourism website has lots of things to see and do including visiting St. Anne’s Cathedral and the Titanic Boat Tour, as well as various shopping centres to keep my wife happy.

Being an up and coming city, Belfast has a plethora of restaurants and pubs to choose from, I just hope we can make up our minds when we get there

All we have to do now is set the dates book the flights and hotel and make sure the grandparents can look after the kids for the weekend and we’ll be sorted!

It’s my brother in laws birthday next week and he’s bit of a smoker to say the least. So i thought I’d get him some blunts as he currently uses a bong and i thought he might like a different method of smoking.

Packets of blunts are quite cheap so I’ve spent around £10 on varying makes and flavours, I also bought him a tobacco tin to keep his blunts in, that way the open packet will keep fresher for longer, not that it will get much chance to lose flavours at the rate he smokes.

Hopefully he’ll like his present as my birthday is coming up soon and i don’t want a poor present, else his wife will be getting a tenner in a card.

I’m hoping they’ll be able to get me a voucher for asda so that i can get a new game for my xbox 360, ive been looking at getting Battlefield Bad Company: 2 when it comes out in march. To be honest I could probably hope for asda to stock it at £25 on the day of release and that means I’d probably only need to spend a fiver on it.

When I say my wife goes shopping, I mean I get dragged along as well Now like most men I don’t really like shopping and don’t see how my wife can spend nearly 5 hours on the high street looking in every shop and through every clothes rail, but each to their own.

My wife wanted a new dress for her Christmas party, which is quite a formal affair where the men wear tuxedos and the women wear long dresses, but luckily I already have a tuxedo so it was only my wife to sort out. We left the house at 11am on Saturday and started trawling the high street looking in brand name stores as well as boutique clothes shops for the perfect dress.

After a couple of hours of shopping and becoming increasingly irritated at the amount of people blocking doorways and isles, my wife finally found a dress she liked in the Republic. She tried it on and asked me what I thought, which I replied ‘it looks great’ as I had been saying all day in the hope of ending the shopping early and watching the football.

She decided to get it and I was surprised to find out it only cost £30 for the dark blue formal dress (like this one). We loaded up the car (I bought myself the Band of Brothers box set on Blu-ray from HMV) and headed home.

I got back just in time to see the Man Utd match, they lost 1-0 but at least the Christmas party is sorted!