2016 - What a year!

Happy new year everyone! welcome to 2017.
2016 was a very mixed year, there was a lot of sadness, a lot of passings from incredible people and a lot of votes that didn't go the way a lot of people wanted... EEEK what a year eh!?

The year started very sad personally for me and my family, and my we had a death in the family over christmas 2015, and had the funeral in January, its always hard to loose someone, but we are so lucky to have such a tight knit family that would do anything for each other.

I decided in January i wanted to do something for me, so started singing lessons, I've always loved singing and find such a stress release in it, and saw progress after knowing the right warm up techniques.
I also threw myself into makeup this year, my other passion. I've always loved having a play but have never been very confident, so when i saw the 100 days of makeup tag floating around instagram, i knew i wanted to give it a go and see if i could improve. looking from my first picture to my 100th, i can happily say ive improved in my skills, and now feel more confident doing friends makeups as well as my own, but i am still learning, and am hoping to take a course in 2017 for special effects makeup, which is what i enjoy the most!

A few of my favourite makeup looks i did this year.

Pete and I started alphabet dating, which was great fun, going out on a date once every 2 weeks, with the activity beginning with each letter of the alphabet, arcade, bingo, cadbury world ect thats how we started, we got to the letter L which was London, and then unfortunately life got a bit hectic, and we stopped, but would fully recommend doing it, and we will definitely continue when we have more time again!

 C for Cadbury world

L is for London! one of few alphabet dates!

This year was quite a big year for us in the sense of our careers and jobs! I finally found a job in April that i could go to and still be a mum (which i found very difficult to find a balance, as being a mum is a full time job in itself!) i found a part time night job that i'm still at now, and Pete got promoted to be the manager of his pharmacy, and i am so incredibly proud of him!

One of my favourite parts of 2016 was that our family welcomed another little one. My sister and her husband has their 2nd son in March, and my god he is such a beautiful happy baby, i have never met a boy who smiles as much as he does, and i am so unbelievably in love with him!

We also took our first family holiday to Devon just before the summer holidays, and had such a wonderful time, i think you can sometimes get so caught up in life and with social media ( i know i can thats for sure anyway) and to have no signal for five days and just concentrate on the 3 of us was very welcomed and very needed.

One of the many photos we took on our week away ( There are also two vlogs up from this trip on my youtube channel!)

I have so many lovely amazing fun memories to take away from the year, Jacob turning 4, mine and Petes 1st wedding anniversary, multiple wine tastings, parties with our friends, bbqs, beach trips, kayaking, cocktails, christmas and everything else we did!

2017 is the year i'd like to continue what i started last year, i'd like to upload more singing videos, more blog posts and more main channel videos! i love youtube, and i love being able to watch all my memories back! I have a good feeling about this year, lets do this :-)

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and new year too! lots of love, xoxo

 My Garden birthday party with some of my favourites!

 Kayaking around Christchurch!

 Red arrows flying at the Bournemouth air festival

 Halloween, 3 out of the 4 makeups done by me :)

 All the kiddies meeting Santa <3

My little one leaving his letter and mince pie for Santa on Christmas eve! Just a few of my favourite memories to share with you. 

Alphabet Dating - C is for Cadbury world

In the new year whilst scrolling through instagram I noticed a lot of posts about alphabet dating, it's an amazing idea of planning dates throughout the year that start with each letter of the alphabet, making you think a bit harder and doing things you wouldn't usually do. Now as we have jacob, we decided to do some family dates with him and then some dates just the two of us.
For Date A we went to the arcade on Bournemouth pier, which Jacob loved, and kept hitting the jackpot twice winning 2 sets of £10 in 2p's, Which for a 3 year old was very exciting ( as it was for us to be honest!)
For Date B, Pete and I tried our hand at Bingo, neither of us had ever been to bingo, but we had so much fun doing it ( albeit neither of us won anything ) but thoroughly enjoyed it all the same

Now this brings us to Date C - i was very excited for this one as we planned to drive up to Birmingham and go to Cadbury world ( On valentines day - nothing better than a ridiculous amount of chocolate on valentines day, eh?) - I remember going here as a child and thought it was the best place to go in the world - so couldn't wait to take Jacob up, and i was not disappointed!

 We got here a bit earlier than our tour time, (Book online as there were no on the door tickets available on our day, as it was completely sold out!) so we decided to grab a small bite to eat in their cafe, after our chips and potato skins had been devoured (Yum!!) we were allowed in for the tour, on the door we got given a nice little big of chocolate - a crunchie, curly wurly and a dairy milk each!

 I was so impressed with how it was all laid out, as the last time i came I was 6 or 7? so i dont remember a huge amount, you started walking through a forest where the cocoa bean was discovered, then you move into rooms with a tv screen showing how the cocoa bean is made into chocolate, which was really fun as the seats moved when the cocoa beans get shaken, and hot air is puffed in when they are being roasted!

 once out of that room you move into this where you can chose to see something how its made and packaged, we watched creme eggs and chocolate buttons as those are our favs!

 So much chocolate - i almost wanted to jump in!

 This was probably one of my favourite parts mainly because you get more chocolate! they have cups of melted chocolate and you can chose what you'd like in it, Pete and I chose marshmallows and J chose white chocolate buttons!

 After the chocolate tasting you can then see people making gorgeous pieces like the one above! Incredible almost to pretty to eat... almost ;) there were also huge rooms where you can see machines packaging the chocolate and boxing it up ready for it to be taken away, which was so interesting to watch, but unfortunately you are not allowed to have cameras out for that part.

 On a walk around all their old advertising posters and videos we got to see the gorilla playing the drums! woohoo!

 Lastly we stopped in the shop - and my goodness their chocolate is such good value! we bought two huge cadbury bars ( and i mean huge) for £6 and they also have a factory shop where everything is going cheap - some bulk bits too!

There are also other attractions at cadbury world! The bourneville experience, theres a 4d cinema experience, and a huge play park for the kids.
It was such a fab day out, and can't wait to go back again!
I'm almost drooling writing this and thinking about the amount of chocolate we ate and saw!haha, yum, hope you enjoyed this post, and i will keep updating you with our alphabet dating!

lots of love, Liz x x

Longleat safari Park - Feb 2016

Back at the start of Feb, my mum, sister, nephew, and myself and Jacob took a trip to Longleat safari park, being that it's not to far from us we've been quite a few times and absolutely love it there.
We'd booked the tickets in the hope that it would be a dry day - however woke up to be disappointed that it was foggy and raining. Even so we packed the car up with a picnic lunch and went on our way.

We arrived as it stopped raining which was fab, but it being February it was bitterly cold, not only for us but for all the animals - so in the safari section a lot of the them were huddled together where you couldn't see them or inside (i don't blame them it wasn't a nice day ) however i am surprised that longleat opened so soon in the year - as our weather is never very nice around this time until it gets to late march- april time - so if you were thinking about going i would definitely recommend to wait until it gets warmer as you wont see a lot!

So the first main section we got to were the monkeys - our favourite! but they were so cold they all were huddled up in their shed, ususally they all run about and sit on your car, we had one little one sit on our car which we loved, he was very cute!

All huddled together! they are so cute- but they were so cold :( (Photo taken by my mum - Catherinedashwoodphotography)

 I didn't take many more pictures from the safari as it was hard to see - the lions all looked very cold - the wolfs were inside as it was so muddy - the big cats were all inside - as were the giraffes & elephant. Like i say i would not recommend the safari in Feb!

 We then had our picnic lunch in the car before going outside to the rest of the park! Grabbing a white hot chocolate for the walk round to keep our hands warm! (excuse the chipped nail polish! oops)

 all the trees were decorated with these lanterns and Chinese dragons everywhere - it looked amazing! it did another down pour of rain whilst we were there, so again things were limited (and as the park wasnt opened fully still) but we still made the most of what we could.

 This was probably our highlight of the day - the bird feeding area. you pay £1 to get a little tub of bird feed, and they all flock around you. My nephew loved it so much he did it twice - and i even had a go (being fearful of birds this was quite an achievement) haha! we always go past this in summer as it always has such a huge queue, so it was really nice being able to go straight through to feed them!

 We then went into a room where you can see guinea pigs, and reptiles and even got to hold a snake or a tarantula, my 4 year old nephew was incredibly eager so he did both, and loved it! i have to admit i took a step back when he held the tarantula - he's a lot braver than i am!

 We then finished the day by having a little look round at the rest of the animals that were out, the porcupines & a meerkat enclosure you can walk through.

Overall I would say its a lot of money to spend when not all the animals and attractions are open - but when the sun in shining and all the animals are happy and warm then its an incredible day out and i'd highly recommend it! 

We all still had a fab day, it was just unfortunate it was so cold when we went, but will definitely be paying another visit when its get a bit warmer!

Lots of love, Liz x x