Birthdays - 2010 Onwards

All our future birthdays from 2010 onwards are continued on our new blog http://www.benandbarry.com

Elliot 7 weeks, Charlie 3yrs and 51 weeks!

This weekend we finally were free and popped up to meet baby Elliot. We also surprised Charlie with a 1 week early 4th birthday party! We had an excellent time just chilling and BBQing.

• See all the photos here...

Barry at Keith's 31st

While I was slaving away at work, Barry went to Keith's 31st Pirate Party!

Priscilla Queen of the Desert the Musical

This is the story of three drag queens travelling across the Australian outback to Alice Springs, one of them with a secret, to visit his son! The journey is made in Priscilla, a giant bus, stopping at various towns along the way. The bus is the star of the show and really goes through an incredible transformation along the way, I won't spoil it, but it really is very, very clever! The songs are old classics, such as Downtown and We are Family. The costumes are outrageous, as you'd expect from drag queen acts, with giant cupcakes, paint brushes, kangaroos, not to mention the wigs! This was thorougly enjoyable and funny, and have never heard such a loud long cheer at the end of a show. Highly recommended.


Direct link to video
Ben 5 out of 5
Barry 5 out of 5

http://www.priscillathemusical.com/

Barry's 35th in London

On Friday night we headed upto London on the train, which now costs £36.50!, for Barry's overnight birthday treat to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert the Muscial staring Jason Donovan!

We started out by checking into the St. Giles hotel, a very, very pokey hotel, but is well located on Tottenham Court Road. We then headed to the chinese we've frequented a few times now on Shaftsbury Avenue for a bit of crispy duck! Barry then got a hankering for vodka, so we tried our luck at the Ice Bar, we didn't get in, but we did have some cocktails in the Ice Bar Lounge which was very nice.

Saturday morning, I got bitten by something in Starbucks, just before we got on the open top bus to take a tour of London! It was a first for both of us at 35! We took the yellow route round the main sights, there is just so much history that the tour guide barely caught his breath!!


Direct link to video
Saturday afternoon we saw the show, which was absolutely fantastic!!

Jamie's 12th

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Weekend at Keith & Jo's

This weekend we celebrated Barry's late birthday at Keith and Jo's in Southsea. Played a load of Guitar Hero, had a cracking Chinese, then played Singstar until we were hoarse! On Sunday morning, some of us were a bit worse for wear due to wine/bourbon combo, but we walked down by the boating lake and along to the pitch and putt for a full on cooked breakfast.

We also volunteered to take Jamie home to Wear, as its right by my aunt's neighbours who were selling a car Barry was interested in. Literally 9 miles apart, but Barry ended up buying the new car!

Old (background) vs. New (foreground)

Charlie's Belated 3rd Birthday

We're a bit over a month late for Charlie's 3rd and we're also exactly 1 year away from our Florida holiday together! We went to Thomas Land in Drayton Manor Park, the weather held out and we had a nice day. The rest of the time we spent chilling and catching up over a game of Samba de Amigo. As usual a great weekend at Mark and Carol's!

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Watching Mark & Gareth on a high-spinning ride (left),and the safer option (right)!

Which one is Barry??

34th Birthday Legally Blonde Broadway Show

My afternoon birthday present from my mum was to see Legally Blonde the Muscial on Broadway. With such songs as "Oh my God, Oh my God you guys", "Is he Gay or European?" and the "Bend and Snap!", this was a faithful musical recreation of the film. With lots and lots of pink, cheerleaders, hunky UPS man and even the dogs all intact. A fun filled uplifting musical, like Hairspray, that needs to come to London!

Ben 4 out of 5
Barry 4 out of 5

http://www.legallyblondethemusical.com/

34th Birthday Helicopter Trip

Today is my 34th Birthday and Barry has treated me to a helicopter flight over New York! We fly around the whole Manhatten Island, seeing all the famous landmarks.

Two of the most famous landmarks

Keith's 30th in London

Today we headed to London to surprise Keith at The London Dungeon! Jo's friend Verity very kindly got us into the dungeon for free, and they'd done it up loads since last time we'd been (which was about 15 years ago). There was a ride up the Thames during the plague, and at the end of the day we got hung in a free fall ride!

After the hanging we headed along the Thames and had a drink in a bar on route to the London Eye, which again was free! The sun was setting and we had good clear views over London, apart from the photographic family who seemed to be in all places in the booth at all times snapping away!

Once the wheel had finished we hopped on the tube and headed to Planet Hollywood London. Keith was dying to see Arnie artifacts including the Terminator. He also has a Terminator cocktail which had gin and beer in it!!

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Jamie's 11th Birthday

Jamie, Keith, Jo, Beryl, Ray and Honey came up today to celebrate Jamie's 11th. It was supposed to be a nice BBQ, surprise outing (which is still under wraps), and nibbles 'n tipples. However due to our crappy british summer, everything was rained off!! We still had a nice day playing games and watching films, and the surprise is on ice until later ;-)

Beryl's 64th

Today we headed down south for Beryl's birthday. The weather decided to behave itself, so we had a BBQ, but that was after the long delay of everyone trying to put it together! Cracking food, flowing drink, pressies and yummy donuts!!

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BBQ construction and finally fire!

My Little Pony makes an 80's comeback, 2 weeks late!

Awhhhhhh

Mmmmmm donuts!

Keith's Housewarming, Jo's Birthday

After the yummy meal we headed on over to Keith and Jo's house, where Keith was just moving in, and it was Jo's birthday!

Thank You for my Birthday Surprise!

We've just finished editing the video (thanks Julie!) from my birthday at Monkey World. Have also send everyone a DVD of the photos and video. Had a fantastic day, thanks everyone for coming!

Ben's 33rd Birthday Surprise

Well Barry did it again with a big surprise for me. After a long drive with having no clue as to where I was going we turned up at this beautiful little B&B in Dorset. Walking through the door I saw mum and Julie waiting. Little did I know that Carol and Charlie weren't far behind, and that Keith and Jamie would be coming on Saturday! We had a fantastic roast dinner from the carvery that night and retired to our huge, comfortable rooms.

In the morning Barry gave me my present of a monkey and told me that we were all going to Monkey World! I knew it was down that way, but didn't realise we were 5 minutes around the corner! We had a fantastic day, which went far to quickly, wandering around Monkey World, seeing rescued monkies from all over the world.

• See all the photos here...

Charlie's 2nd Birthday!

Mark, Carol, Charlie, Gareth and Lisa all came round this weekend for our gang get together and Charlie's 2nd Birthday. We were going to go down to the flat on Hayling, but the weather report was crappy, however in the end it came out boiling hot and we were in Basingstoke!! Oh well!! On Saturday we decided to have an unplanned picnic in the park, and after a quick trip to Sainsbury's for sarnies we were ready. We had an excellent weekend just chilling and playing.

Barry's 33rd at Disneyland!

Well the plan for LA all along was for Barry to be there on his birthday. And after two lazy days by the pool, what better place to celebrate than at the "happiest place on earth"! The parks here are much smaller than in Florida, so we decided to get a park hopper, so we could do Disneyland and California Adventure all in one go. The parks were quite quiet, so actually got round all the rides we wanted between 9am and 3pm. We managed Soarin' twice, which is a cool gliding simulator over California, plus some LA only rides like Monsters Inc., India Jones Adventure and California Screamin' roller coaster. We wanted to do the Nemo ride, but the queue was over 2hrs for that, as it was new!!

After all the rides, we crossed back over the road to the hotel for a splash in the pool, before heading back for the evening shows. We saw the original Electrical Parade in California Adventure, which brought back memories of when we saw it as a family in the 80's. We then crossed back to Disney to see the "Remember... Dreams Come True" firework display to music, which was superb, and also see Mickey battle his imagination in "Fantasmic!" special effect bonanza!! Needless to say we we're quite knackered after all that!!

• Disney's "Remember... Dreams Do Come True" fireworks (video)
• Disney's "Fantasmic!" (video)

BBQ in the Sun

Had a fantastic weekend and Mark and Carol's. Treble birthday celebration, Mark's delayed 40th, Milo's Gareth's 26th and Charlie's 1½! We chilled out, went to see Spiderman 3, played loads of games and eventually had a BBQ when the sun came out. Unfortunately we had to zoom off on Sunday morning as I'm going away on business :-(

Charlie on her bouncy castle

Gang minus Milo Gareth