Hello Everyone and welcome to the first post in our new series "The Hocks On" where we will be discussing absolutely anything that happens to be on our minds that week!
As our blog hit Ten Thousand views this week, we thought we would take this opportunity and make our first post a Thank You Post.
Now, we know that compared to the more "famous" bloggers and their millions of views, ten thousand views may seem like nothing, but to us it really is an achievement. When we started this blog, we didn't even think about it getting any views at all, we just saw it as a fun way to fill our spare time and a way to keep a record of our lives as a family and to write about things that we are interested in and enjoy . However, since our first ever post on 1st January 2015 "Meet The Family" which you can find here, our blog has become more and more popular each month and this month we hit 10,000 total views! We really are so grateful to everyone that has visited our blog, whether you are a regular viewer or just a one-off visitor, knowing that people are actually reading and enjoying our posts makes writing them even more fun!
So, we thought today was the perfect opportunity to look back on our blog so far and tell you all about our most successful and personal favourite posts we have written so far!
Now, firstly. as we are just a "normal" family, and live very "normal" lives, we don't have something exciting that we have done every day to write about, so we thought a fun way to keep our posts regular in between our posts about fun things we have done would be to start blog "series". Our blog series' have proved to be very successful and people seem to really enjoy them! We do like to change our series' from time to time so that they don't become boring. Here are the series we have had on our blog so far..
Getting To Know The Hocks.
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Our first and still our favourite series was "Getting To Know The Hocks". During this series, each week, a different member of The Hocks had to answer a series of questions all about themselves in order for you to get to know them better. The questions consisted of everything you could need to know about us, from where we were brought up, to our favourite food! It is safe to say, we had quite a few rather funny answers!
The Weekend Review
The Weekend Review posts were just a brief post each Sunday evening where we told people all about what we had been up to during that week. We decided to stop this series as because we are just a regular family we found that these posts were just getting a bit repetitive!
Simple Slimming Suppers
During this series, Anna kept track of her weight loss and shared with you lots of yummy Slimming World recipes that she had made that week. Anna has lost some more weight since this series finished but she does admit she has become a little bit lazy with it and needs to get back on it much more strictly again to ensure she doesn't put any weight back on!!
Top Of The Hocks
Top Of The Hocks (now being replaced with The Hocks On) was a weekly series in which we shared with you our "tops" that week! This list included Song Of The Week, Movie Of The Week, Image Of The Week, Quote Of The Week and much more. As much as we thoroughly enjoyed writing this series, we decided that it had been going on for long enough and it was time for a change. We are sure there will still be the off Top Of The Hocks post here and there though!
Hocks Summer Holidays
Hocks Summer Holidays is our most popular series to date and also one of our favourites to write. It is no secret that The Hocks absolutely LOVE a holiday so we thought what could be more fun than to look into what summer holidays were available and at what price. We found all sorts of holidays to choose from, from cheap and cheerful caravan holidays to super duper expensive all inclusive holidays abroad! Do keep your eyes peeled as I'm sure "Hocks Holidays" will be back in the future!
Hocks A to Z
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In this series, each week we take a letter from the alphabet the choose a word to talk about beginning with that letter that relates to The Hocks in some way. Look out for next weeks post which will be the letter K!
The Hocks Summer Outings
Following on from Hocks Summer Holidays, in Hocks Summer Outings we look into where you can go in this country for a nice family day out during the summer holidays and for what price!
So there we have it.. there are the blog series' we have had so far. As we said, we do try and change the series' now and again so do keep a look out for any more new ones we may have in the near future!
So, now we have looked at our blog series' so far, we thought we would let you know what our top 5 most popular posts have been so far!
5) Hocks Summer Holidays- Disneyland Paris
Getting To Know The Hocks.
.png)
Our first and still our favourite series was "Getting To Know The Hocks". During this series, each week, a different member of The Hocks had to answer a series of questions all about themselves in order for you to get to know them better. The questions consisted of everything you could need to know about us, from where we were brought up, to our favourite food! It is safe to say, we had quite a few rather funny answers!
The Weekend Review
The Weekend Review posts were just a brief post each Sunday evening where we told people all about what we had been up to during that week. We decided to stop this series as because we are just a regular family we found that these posts were just getting a bit repetitive!
Simple Slimming Suppers
During this series, Anna kept track of her weight loss and shared with you lots of yummy Slimming World recipes that she had made that week. Anna has lost some more weight since this series finished but she does admit she has become a little bit lazy with it and needs to get back on it much more strictly again to ensure she doesn't put any weight back on!!
Top Of The Hocks
Top Of The Hocks (now being replaced with The Hocks On) was a weekly series in which we shared with you our "tops" that week! This list included Song Of The Week, Movie Of The Week, Image Of The Week, Quote Of The Week and much more. As much as we thoroughly enjoyed writing this series, we decided that it had been going on for long enough and it was time for a change. We are sure there will still be the off Top Of The Hocks post here and there though!
Hocks Summer Holidays
Hocks Summer Holidays is our most popular series to date and also one of our favourites to write. It is no secret that The Hocks absolutely LOVE a holiday so we thought what could be more fun than to look into what summer holidays were available and at what price. We found all sorts of holidays to choose from, from cheap and cheerful caravan holidays to super duper expensive all inclusive holidays abroad! Do keep your eyes peeled as I'm sure "Hocks Holidays" will be back in the future!
Hocks A to Z
.png)
In this series, each week we take a letter from the alphabet the choose a word to talk about beginning with that letter that relates to The Hocks in some way. Look out for next weeks post which will be the letter K!
The Hocks Summer Outings
Following on from Hocks Summer Holidays, in Hocks Summer Outings we look into where you can go in this country for a nice family day out during the summer holidays and for what price!
So there we have it.. there are the blog series' we have had so far. As we said, we do try and change the series' now and again so do keep a look out for any more new ones we may have in the near future!
So, now we have looked at our blog series' so far, we thought we would let you know what our top 5 most popular posts have been so far!
5) Hocks Summer Holidays- Disneyland Paris
During this Hocks Summer Holidays Post we looked into what you could get up to and how much it would cost for a family of 4 to stay in Disneyland Paris for 4 nights during the Summer hols!
We looked into all the hotels owned by Disneyland Paris and prices ranged from £3196.32 (OMG!) to stay in the 5 star Disney Castle to £1362.24 to stay in Disney's Hotel Santa Fe. All prices included tickets to the park each day and having been to Disneyland Paris before, we can safely say, it is well worth the price it costs. It is truly magical and we thoroughly enjoyed writing this post. It's safe to say it made us want to go to Disneyland at some point soon!! You can view the post here.
4) Hocks Summer Holidays- Center Parcs Europe!
In this Hocks Summer Holidays Post we looked into how much it would cost for a family of 4 to stay in one of the Center Parcs Europe parks for 4 nights this Summer!
We looked at parks in the Netherlands, France and Belgium and prices differed depending on which park you wanted to visit and the accommodation you chose. As you all know, we are HUGE fans of Center Parcs UK and we have to say, Center Parcs Europe looks well worth a visit! You can view the post here.
3) Gran Canaria 2015!
This post was written by Anna and was all about the holiday she went on to Gran Canaria this year along with Allan, Rosie, Eifion and Lynne.
Anna wrote this post like a diary and wrote what they had done each day during their holiday. They all had a wonderful time and it proved to be a very popular post! You can view the post here.
2) Anna On Living With Epilepsy!
After a very tough week one week with her Epilepsy, Anna decided to write this blog post all about Epilepsy and what it was like to live with the disease. Anna actually really enjoyed writing this post as it helped her get a lot off her chest and helped her let off some steam! It proved to be another very popular post, even being shared by the official epilepsy charity on social media! You can view this post here.
1) Hocks Summer Holidays- Center Parcs UK!
Our most viewed post to date (by a long way!) is out Hocks Summer Holidays Center Parcs UK post! This makes us so happy as you all know how much our family adore Center Parcs, it's our favourite place to be together and we have created so many wonderful memories there and hope to make many many more in the future. During this post we looked into how much it would cost for a family of 4 to stay in each Center Parcs UK park for 4 nights during this Summer Holidays. We found this post so easy and enjoyable to write as we love Center Parcs and know so much about it due to having been there so many times ourselves! Roll on our next visit in April 2016! You can view this post here.
So there we have it, they are our Top 5 most popular posts so far! As you can see, Our Hocks Summer Holidays proved to be a huge success!
Now, although this blog is about all of us, Anna and Colin write the actual posts. Considering they put so much time and effort into the blog we thought we would end this post with them letting you all know what their personal favourite post they have written are so far..
Colin's favourite post to write so far is..
Colin On Living With IBS.
His favourite post to write was the one he wrote recently about his struggles with managing his IBS. It was so easy to write as it just came out from how he was feeling that day and how he feels every day. Both Colin and Anna struggle with IBS as do a few other members of our family. Hopefully this post has helped others suffering from it and can help to get people talking about it as talking makes things so much better. It is nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed of. You can view this post here. Colin's favourite post that has been written by Anna is her Disneyland Paris one, it has made him really want to go there!
Anna's favourite post to write so far is..
Gran Canaria 2015!
This post was her favourite to write because it was so enjoyable reliving the wonderful holiday all over again whilst she was writing it and going through all her photos she took whilst she was there choosing which ones to put in the blog. It will always be a very special holiday to both Anna and Allan as it was their first holiday abroad with Rosie. Anna is so pleased that she will have this post that she can show Rosie as she gets older to remind her of what a fantastic time they had. Hopefully the whole of The Hocks clan can go back there together one day, we just need to get Tommy on a plane first!! You can find this post here. Anna's favourite post that Colin has written so far has to be his post on living with IBS, she fully understands how he feels and feels like he wrote it so well.
So there we have it, that is the end of this weeks The Hocks On post! It has been so lovely looking back on our blog! We hope you have enjoyed reading it and look forward to hopefully seeing you next week!
