Road Trip With Seven Kids and Two Mum-Mobiles!

It can be pretty hard to keep the kids entertained throughout the summer holidays! If your older ones are anything like my son, he needs to be doing something every minute of the day and it can be exhausting especially when you have little ones to look after too!

Call us crazy, but me and one of my very best twin mummy friends decided to pack the kids up in our matching ‘mum-mobiles’ and head to my dad’s caravan close to Morecambe Bay.

We have 7 children between us ranging from age 2 to 8 years old, which includes two sets of 2 year old twins! We knew it probably would have its stresses, a couple of nights in a 2 bed caravan with 7 kids? But, we hoped the fun and enjoyment would outweigh any stress and hardwork.

We both said bye to our husbands on the Sunday evening once the cars were packed and the kids were in the car. We were feeling optimistic that the kids would sleep on the way there as it was bedtime as we left, my three even had their pj’s on! I think daddy was looking forward to some peace and quiet!

As I arrived, I was able to place Oscar pretty much straight in bed and that was that! It didn’t take Lauren long to settle her twins Tilly and Heidi either, we were doing well! That’s where our brilliant plan fell flat! Isla decided to be a cheeky madam and decide that that was the night to learn how to get out of bed, walk out of her room and laugh at mummy. The older ones also thought it was funny to mess about, which was expected I suppose as they were excited about our trip.

After several trips to put Isla back in bed and having to split up the older ones, we finally had 7 sleeping children and us mummies could enjoy a chat, a pizza and a much needed glass of wine.

We were up early in the morning. We were in a caravan with 7 children, of course we were up early! There was no such luck of a relaxing morning, me and Lauren got a quick brew before it was time to feed the 5 thousand, or that’s how it felt! A pack of weetabix, half a box of cheerios and almost a loaf of bread later we managed to finish breakfast and started to get the kids dressed.

They were soon moaning they were bored. They didn’t understand that us mummies needed to get dressed ourselves, wash the breakfast dishes, make a picnic, change several nappies, pack the cars for the day etc. We filled the decking full of toys as it was a nice day and let them all outside. They loved it! Now they were happy and entertained for 5 minutes whilst we finally got the boring jobs done and headed out.

We parked up at Happy Mount Park before 10am on the Monday morning. In the first 10 minutes I lost count how many time the older kids (especially my son) asked was it dinner time yet! We bought Splash Park tickets, which are only £1 a person which help make a day out affordable, especially when you have lots of kids.

The kids absolutely loved the Splash Park, well 5 out of the 7 did, you can win them all! Tilly and Heidi preferred to just watch but they loved joining in asking was in dinner time yet (anyone else’s kids obsessed with food?)

At half 11 we finally gave in and headed to find a nice spot for our picnic. The kids were very happy to see us unpacking food out and we all enjoyed the 5 minutes of peace and quiet.

After dinner we spent a couple of hours in the park. The older kids wanted the zip wire, sand pit and large play area, after spending time there we also played in the toddler play area too trying to keep everyone happy. We had a lovely time in the park!

Our aim for the day was to have fun but also to tire those kids out! We left the park and decided to have a walk along the promenade. Before any of the kids had chance to moan about walking, I quickly showed the kids my Geocaching app and that soon got their interest! Joshua loved explaining all about what geocaching is and why we love it. If you haven’t heard of geocaching before, in a nutshell it’s a kind of treasure hunt that you do with a GPS device such as your phone. We soon found what we were looking for and the kids loved it! I even had a painted rock or two that the kids could hide so they really enjoyed their walk and it was nice not to have any moaning.

Pretty soon the questions about when is it tea time so around 3.45pm we headed to the local McDonald’s for a treat tea, the kids were over the moon! The older kids ran to the tablets that McDonald’s have now, which we didn’t mind as they hadn’t had any TV or ‘screen time’ since leaving home the day before. I was even able to enjoy a hot toffee latte! 7 happy kids and 2 happy mummy’s!

Back at the caravan we decided to scrap our early bedtime and strict routines that we both follow at our homes. We rounded the kids up and headed out of the caravan site and straight onto the beach. The beach right next to the caravan site is a rocky beach, not sandy but my three kids love it. They love nothing more than collecting shells and throwing rocks into the little pools. It wasn’t any different with our friends, all the kids loved it. It was extremely relaxing, even with 4 toddlers. All the kids seemed really chilled out, it was a lovely way to wind down before bedtime. The older three searched for seashells and collected them up. The younger four just seemed happy to walk and be free. Here’s a couple of gorgeous pictures from our evening, we almost walked as far as Hest Bank, which is pretty far with so many little legs in tow!

Getting the kids in bed and asleep was much easier the second night. They were all so tired. We set the older ones up outside, where they first washed their shells before giving them some colouring pens, they loved colouring them in and chatted quietly about where they were going to hide them then next day.

Apart from Isla (again) the younger 3 went straight to sleep, and soon all children were tucked up in bed. Me and Lauren enjoyed the pleasant evening sat chatting on the decking.

Tuesday morning started pretty much the same as the day before. Up early and quickly feeding 7 hungry children. Whilst we got ready again, we let the kids sit on the decking and colour in some more shells and rocks which worked well and kept them happy. We packed another picnic and we were soon off for another day full of adventures.

We drove through Morecambe and parked in West End Morecambe close to the old The Battery Hotel where we headed on foot towards Heysham village. From my previous post you may know how much I love this walk and Heysham village, so I was excited to show Lauren and her kids one of my families favourite places to visit.

The kids soon started hiding the shells they had coloured in and we could all just enjoy the walk and the view. The walk towards Heysham has plenty of things along the walk for the kids to enjoy including a climbing wall and shadows performing poses and exercises that the kids like to copy. I love anything that kids entertained when we’re out and about.

Just before we got to Heysham village, we reach a little playground that was great for all ages of kids. There’s a sand pit with a slide and digger, tunnels, a range of swings and plenty of climbing frames. We spent some of the morning there and even had our picnic (at about 11 o’clock in the morning, after being mithered to death for food!) in the park.

After dinner and another play, we walked into Heysham where we had a stroll round and took the older kids to the loo. We had promised the kids ice cream on one of the days so we decided to head to a favourite place of mine, Mad Hatters where we order 7 ice cream cones (at only £1 each!), 2 lovely hot brews and a large slice of carrot cake for the mummies to share. We received lots of looks and lovely comments about our well behaved children (the sat lovely eating their ice creams, no moaning at all, haha), people seemed amazed that we both had a set of twins!

It unfortunately started to rain, I still believed it was going to brighten up soon, so we packed up and headed back along the sea front. The older ones enjoyed the shadows again and even walking along the rocks, they were just happy to be out and about.

As we got nearer to the car, the rain stopped. We decided it was too early to head back to the caravan, they would get bored and we didn’t want that. We dumped most of the bags in the boots, put the kids wellies on and headed onto the beach! The kids had a blast and so did us mummys !

Mainly due to several kids needing a wee, we ended up popping in a local cafe near the beach and seeing another like playground. Obviously the kids wanted to go in so we let them have half a hour running wild. Whilst they were playing, me and Lauren came up with a lovely idea for a final treat at tea time before we headed home. We could tell we had some very tired children, we even had a little ‘sulker’ (Joshua) so we headed back to the caravan.

Whilst Lauren packed a bag of plastic plates, blankets, drinks, pizza and yogurts, I headed to the local chippy for a couple of portions of chips. The very tired 9 of us walked through the caravan site to the sea front for a special picnic tea which was lovely.

After a little walk to walk off our tea, we headed back to pack up the caravan and head home.

Overall we had a fantastic few days and I really mean it! Your first thought when someone says ‘caravan with 7 kids’ is OMG but I really loved all of it, maybe I could have done without being asked is it dinner time every hour of the day (Joshua) but apart from that I can’t wait to do it again.

Joshua (if I let him) would easily be a TV addict. To my amazement, the TV didn’t really go on at all, we were too busy and the kids weren’t interested.

I do love to be beside the sea!