There are some things that happen through the world of blogging that really mean I am the world's best mummy. Taking my son to Legoland for a birthday treat a few days after his 4th birthday is one of them.

Well he doesn't understand what blog awards are, let alone the MADs.

To be honest, he doesn't even know what a blog is.

And if you called him The Boy he'd just be confused.

Basically, he thinks the postman is a really kind man to keep giving us presents for him to play with.

I've digressed. A lot.

The very kind and lovely Sally from the MAD Blog Awards team is the person who should be getting the praise and smiles for us being able to visit Legoland back in June, which just happened to coincide with his birthday. She had arranged for all the finalists to have a special day out there together, and although we were a little bit late and missed the first part of the day with the official meet and greet, we had an amazing day in gorgeous weather enjoying the newly opened Duplo Valley and desperately trying to fit everything else in.

This was made significantly easier due to the fact that we were given VIP wristbands, which we thought acted like the Q-Bots, allowing us to go through the fast track path on most rides. On the last ride, we discovered that the gold VIP wristband actually meant we got to queue jump every ride. Did I say that I love Sally yet?

Highlights from the day included:

• Duplo Valley: newly opened a few weeks before, the two different water parks and adventure play area were a welcome break from the structure of going on rides. The Boy was quite comfortable in the younger water park area, but when he tried to venture up to one of the water slides in Drench Towers, a huge gush of freezing water from the tipping Lego block drenched him and knocked him over. One of the many fabulous attendants on duty brought him down to us, where we then retreated to the safety of the Duplo Valley adventure play area and he learned how to swing along monkey bars.
• Atlantis Submarine Voyage: We'd missed this ride when we went to Legoland back in March, and I was very eager to have a go on it. The part submerged 'submarines' move slowly through the water with windows in the bottom half of the walls which allow passengers to see the many forms of sealife swimming around. Clever additions are Atlantis ruins, fish and divers made out of Lego blocks. The sealife area afterwards is also excellent as children are able to pop their heads up into a tank via a dome to see fish swimming all around them. It gets very crowded though so timing is key here.
• Driving School: He loved being able to drive a little car around, albeit proving that he is distracted way too easily because watching the children in the other cars was far more interesting than looking where he was going. There may have been a four car pile-up. This was also where I managed to accost the altogether charming Lucy from Capture By Lucy and have a thirty minute chat with her and her lovely family. The Boy likes her because he said she sounds like Candi from the Skyline Gang at Butlin's. This is a compliment as he loves Candi.

After the many hours traipsing around, we still didn't managed to make it around the whole park, missing out on Kingdom of the Pharaohs, Pirates Landing, Land of the Vikings and Knights' Kingdom.

Nothing for it, we'll just have to go again!

Sally, can we have some more gold wristbands please?

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We were invited to visit Legoland as finalists in the MAD Blog Awards, and we received free entry and VIP wristbands for this. I wasn't asked to blog about it, I have chosen to do so. Thank you to Sally and the MADs team for making this happen, and to all those fabulous people who voted for me to be a finalist.