Reflection on 2011.

2011 was a big year, the biggest yet I'd say. 

So many things happened to make me who I am today. 

Each year me and my best friend always say "well, it's been an interesting year" and laugh about all the dramas we'd gotten ourselves into (mainly concerning the male species haha!)
Picture Heavy Post- just a warning!

In 2011

A guy at sixth form tried to destroy my social life and the rest of me through rumours, bitching, back stabbing and lots of horrible bits.

I finally started going out with my prince charming who I'd been admiring from a far for a year and a half haha!

I did my A Level Exams and survived! (yay!)

Left sixth form forever! 

I went to an initimate gig with my favourite band and met them afterwards!

I went to my Summer Ball!

I went on a massive once in a lifetime holiday to Malta with my family and it made memories to last forever!

 

 
 

I spent the summer with my (then) boyfriend and had the most perfect summer ever! (All photos included him and he wouldn't be ever so happy if they were on the internet haha!)

I turned 18, finally not a baby! 

I was a youth leader on a summer camp and it was the best ever year (and I've been 7 times now!)

I got my A Level results and managed to surprise myself and everyone else!

I got into university :D 

Went seperate ways with boyfriend as he couldn't handle long distance

Said goodbye to my family and friends which was the hardest thing I've ever done.

Moved to North Wales and started university.

Met the most amazing people at uni who have changed my life

Actually having to become an adult with cooking and cleaning and everything!

I said it had been a big year. So much has happened, and most of it all amazinly lifechangingly good! 
I've never laughed so much than I have this year, with new friends, new jokes, and old friends and memories <3

I can only hope that 2012 is filled with as much love and laughter as this year has been.
Those that read my blog can come to their own conclusions, but I am a very blessed and fortunate girl with the most amazing people in my life, who love and care for me. I try not to take it all for granted. I may moan and winge, but I know how lucky I am compared to others.
I'd like to thank God, my family and friends for giving me a life I don't deserve.

I hope you all have a blessed 2012 and look forward to reading all your blogs and getting to know you all that little bit better next year. 

Happy New Year :) xxx

All photos taken by myself or my family.

Christmas, OOTD and looking like a Dalmation..

It feels like it's been forever since I've blogged, in reality it's probably only been a couple of days.

I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas, and you got to spend it with the ones that you love!

This year I was a very spoilt girly and was very blessed, and I am very thankful for everyone to gave me gifts.

I'm not sure on doing the whole 'this is what I got!' thing as it seems a little showy off to me, however if you would like to see, please comment and tell me and I shall :)

Christmas in my house isn't a massive affair usually, but as me and my brother don't live at home anymore, this years emphasis was on spending time together, which I think although we attempt to do each year, we fail due to being very materialistic! But this year we've managed to really value our family and visited lots of them as well as managing to spend time with them :)

I went to my aunts house on Christmas day as usual and we playing 'Million Pound Drop' in game form, it took me at least 15 minutes to put together the board as I actually had to make the desk with the flaps and things. Which caused much hilarity as I attempted to make it. But we had a nice time and is tradition. 

I spent boxing day with my immediate family, eating LOADS, and watching all the Christmas TV we didn't see when we were at my aunts, which was the best. That is what I love about Christmas, we also watched Bridesmaids which I got for Christmas, it is hilarious! Me and my mum went to see it for my birthday in August, but I forgot how funny it was! Does everyone else think its that funny or is it just me haha?
My mum had to go back to work on Boxing day, but only for the morning, and has been working all week until 4, so it's just been my dad and my brother (and me!) in, which has been nice to spend time with them, although I miss my mum when she's at work!!

I have a couple of photos to share from Christmas Day:
The first I think is funny, we have a tradition on Christmas Eve where we get to open a present of pj's so we can wear them on Christmas morning, this year, mine were in the form of Dalmatian Print! I know they're not officially Dalmatian related, but I think they look like they are. And I also got a gilet from my brother, and together, I thought I looked like a dog in a little jacket haha .





The next one is my outfit of Christmas Day! I got the outfit for Christmas :)




I went to see New Years Eve with my two best friends from church last night and thought it was fab! I wasn't expecting it to be very good I'll admit, but it surprised me with it's storylines and the face that it was also funny!



In my university CU, we did this thing where we each wrote a poem or a prayer on a piece of paper, folded it up and put a Christmas tag on it signing our names. We then put them all in a box and took one out at random and put it under our tree. On Christmas Day we opened it up and it reminded us the real reason for Christmas and why we have these celebrations as we so often forget. I thought this was a really good idea, and I opened mine up at about 7:00am on Christmas Day (I reverted back to a 7 year old this year and woke up 5 times during the night and eventually settled on being awake at 6:30 haha) and was so glad I had. It really reminded me of God's gift to the world, and that He put his almighty self in the form of a baby who couldn't even see 10 inches ahead of himself to die for us. Here was mine, I hope you find it as special as I did :)

I hope you can read that, if not and you'd like to know what it says, let me know and I'll type it out :)

I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas and are enjoying the holidays!
My next post will be a VERY awkward but hilarious story that happened on Christmas Eve!
xxx

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Hope you all have a lovely relaxing few days and get to spend lots of time with your loved ones!

Hopefully Father Christmas will bring you all that you wished for.

Also, thank you to all those who are working on Christmas, police, doctors etc, those who are serving in Afghanistan and those who are away from their families.

Thinking of those who have recently lost loved ones, or who are going to be having a hard Christmas.

weheartit

Merry Christmas to you all, thank you all for reading my blog :)

xxxxx

I'm an Essex girl again :)

I'm home!

I'm an Essex girl in Essex again! :D

On Saturday I was reunited with my parents at Euston and it was beautifuuuul!!

Being home is amazing, yet cold. We have loaads of heating in Wales as it's so cold, but not at home, so I'm wearing lots of layers.. but I don't care, cause I'm home! :)

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On Saturday evening I went to a nativity at my church with all the little children, was SO CUTE.

It was called 'Born in a Barn' and they were basically all dressed as animals in the scene that Jesus was born, rather than the usual Mary and Joseph and 3 kings.

The angels were all the little ones, and they were gorgeous dressed up in white dressed (there was one boy who wasn't in a dress haha) and tinsel in their hair. Cuteness.
Going to church again was so lovely, as I got to see eveyone and feel like I belonged again!

On Monday we went to pick up my brother (YAY!)
(My brother's doing a leadership course at an organisation called 'Soul Survivor', he's working for the church and with the young people within it, He's going to Malaysia and Australia next year as part of his course, so jel.) 

Before we both left, me and my brother were really close, we usually go in phases, but we'd gotten to the we're best friends stage. So leaving him was really really hard.

But we went to pick him up from his flat house thing and bought him home.

So, we were REUNITED AGAIN :D
I even watched Indiana Jones because he wanted to and it was his first night home, that's how much I missed him. (admittedly it wasn't that bad, I was just very tired and missed a few bits so it didn't make so much sense)

Today was high emotions.

We went to see my nan in her home (she's very ill, dementia, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's all rolled into one), of course it's always nice to see her. But it's also really sad, as my mum always gets upset as my nan never knows who we are, and obviously that's hard coming from the woman who bought her up and well, her mum.
Then we went to lunch with my aunt, uncle and second cousin who I hadn't seen in a year or so, which was nice. But obviously the topic of conversation as always was my nan.
In the afternoon we went on a tour of cemeteries! I know, could not think of anything else to cheer us up haha! We visited my mum's dad, who I only have one memory of as he died when I was 4. Although it's a very happy memory of sitting on his lap. We then visited my dad's parents who died when he was quite young, so I never met, as well as both sets of grandparents, who again died before I was born.

It was really sad, as although I never met them, therefore couldn't miss them. It's sad that I never could meet them, never have little chats with them, sit on their knee, or have Christmas with them. Anything that other people get. My dad never talks about his parents, as they both died in pain, so it's not good memories.

 

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That's been my week so far.
Tomorrow we're going up to London to see the lights and sing carols in Trafalgar Square, which should be good family christmas times :)

How is everybody else's weeks going? xxx

A night in heels, 6 mile walk, another night in heels =death to feet.

So on Tuesday, I went to Embassy (as usual), it was fun :)
To be honest, I can't remember much about it apart from the last 15 minutes which were cer-azzzzy so it can't have been that exciting.

My crazy 15 minutes started with me dancing with my flatmates, until a group of guys surrounded us and tried to dance with us, unfortunately the one that tried it on with me was going about it in the completely wrong way ie grinding and groping, so I swiftly moved on haha. Next was a guy called Leo, now Leo is, in the nicest way possible..not smart. He's best friend's with my flatmates really good friend and he text my flatmate saying he really wanted to come over and dance with Zara, now Zara was so not interested so we thought it would be funny to tell him to come over and dance. So he came, and danced next to us and we tried to get Zara with him, until he pulled my flatmate over and said "I meant the other one!", me...oh dear. So we chatted about our assignment for a while (he's on my course) and then a reeeeaaally hot guy asked me to dance, and I was subsequently pushed onto him by my flatmates..thanks guys. He was very pleasant, and danced like a normal human being, ie not groping or grinding ha, and we got on very well :) UNTIL, another guy from my course, creepy Nick (have I mentioned him before?) literally ran over to me, grabbed my arm and pulled me as hard as he could until I was off the dancefloor with him. I had no idea what was going on. He started slurring things, and I had no idea what he was saying, all the while the hot guy was just looking as puzzled as me, we eventually established he was saying he was very drunk, was going home, and wanted me to go with him. Lovely. After I'd escaped creepy Nick, and went back to hot guy, another guy came up to him who I'd met a couple of weeks ago and said "she's mine" !!!!.
We left at that point, I don't think it could've been any more crazier, cause I genuinely had no idea what was going on!!

We'd planned to go on a pleasant walk around Anglesey on Wednesday, little did we know it wasn't going to be a pleasant walk for long..it turned into a frog march!
6 whole miles in the absolutely freezing cold and the bitter wind, I thought my face was going to fall off. However, it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
We drove to the general area of the walk, but had to walk 4k before we actually got to the start of the walk, and obviously we had to get back somehow. We were at a place called Newborough Warren, and ended up at Lover's island, which happened to be a nesting site of some rare birds. Here are a couple of pictures I took of our walk :)

It was really beautiful :)

Last night we went Occy, wch was £4 entry!! It was free up until last week, which was £2 if you weren't in fancy dress, and this week it was up to £4, ridiculous. Especially as the cloakroom is £1.50 on top of that, and that is an essential when walking home at 3 in the morning in north Wales!
It was fairly fun, wasn't the best.. but I eventually found myself upstairs in the cheesy music room, which was so much fun it's unreal, it was a good change to club mixes! Me and my friend Ben gained some fairy wings somehow, the girl either said "do you want these?" or "are these yours?" I couldn't tell..either way I said yes haha :)

But as the title of this post suggests, my feet were in agony. On a normal week my feet are killing me by Wednesday night after Tuesday, let alone after a 6 mile walk!
They've just about recovered, as has the rest of me. I didn't get up until half 2 today, and it was bliss :)

I'm very sorry if this was very rambly, it's 1:42am right now and I couldn't sleep, so blogging was the sensible thing to do. I'm also really hungry but cannot be bothered to eat anything and have to brush my teeth again.. I think I'm going to heat up my microwaveable sheep and see what happens..hopefully sleep :)

I hope you're all good and festive! xxx

ps- thank goodness for spellcheck, this didn't make any sense in my state haha!

A weekend of Chrismassyness! (and seal spotting: when dogs attack)

So I'm feeling festive finally! :)

I had such a fab weekend, I thought I'd share it with you.

On Saturday, I went to see Arthur Christmas with my flatmate. It looked very childish, and it was...but it was also awesome! It was such a cute christmas film, would definitely recommend it, and will now be on my list of christmas films to watch every year! We were also the oldest ones in the cinema by far..average age was about 5 haha.  (minus parents of course)

We then went to the christmas fair in the town centre, it was like a proper funfair with rides and fire eaters and reindeer's (we didn't manage to see them though :( ) and a fireworks display..and it was impressive and a half! It started kinda small, and then it properly started, and man was I impressed! They were massive and looked so gorgeous, and that made us feel mega festive!
Then X factor to top it off :)

Sunday, I went to church in the morning and that was really good, I think I'm really appreciating the church I found in Bangor right now, they're all so friendly, and I'm really learning a lot from it. But I really do enjoy it, rather than it being a chore on Sunday morning. 

Next, we went seal spotting!!
My flatmate does marine biology, and also drives with a car in Bangor! (best thing ever) He was told about a secluded bay where seals gather so we made an afternoon of it.
We had to do a bit of cliff climbing up a dirt mud track to get there which was rather dangerous haha, I slipped down the hill on the cliff which wasn't pleasant and the steepness of the track going up and down was very worrying at times..but we eventually got to the bay, and there were seals already there!
We stayed there for an hour or so and we saw 4 seals, a couple came very close to the shore so we got a chance to see all of them from the top of the cliff. It was so lovely to see them in the wild, as I'd only seen them in sealife centres/sanctuaries/zoo's before. 

In the first picture there are 3 seals if you can spot them, and the second is one of the seals that almost came out.

My flatmate gave me a heart attack at one point, where she was only about 10cm away from the edge of the cliff because she kept on edging back after a dog was chasing her. She was so close to falling and she didn't even realise. When I saw it happen, I screamed at the top of my voice trying to get her to stop. It could have ended so differently, and I'm really thanking God that no harm came to her!
Apart from that, we had so much fun, and was so cool to see the seals!



In the evening, I went to another carol service, and it was so cute! The whole hall was lit up with fairy lights and we sang all the classics, was gorgeous. And I could belt them out! Seriously felt so good to belt out 'Oh come let us adore him' on the last line when we all got louder..

The whole weekend wiped me out, and I finished it by watching the x factor final results.
So glad Little Mix won! They totally deserved it, not just because Jesy's from Romford haha.

Also, this is a picture of the teacup necklace I spoke about last post...




How has everybody else's weekend been?!

xxx

Outfit of the night :) Elf dress up #2

Wednesday nights at Occy are student nights, and last week the decided to spring a charge on us!

Usually it's free before midnight, but they changed it to £2 after 10:00pm, but free before 11:30 if you're in dress up.. so there was only one thing we could do, dress up! :)

In the months I've had this blog, I've already shown me dressing up 3 times, so as you can tell, I love it haha. This week was a little unsavoury for me however.. the theme was 'Sexy Santa'. The thing is with nightclubs, especially occy, the DJ's scream things like "where are all those dirty girls" and "Ohhh that one's got bigger tits than I've ever seen" about random girls when they're like 40 year old men. It may be that I'm a bit of a prude, or just being a Christian influences how I see things differently, but I really don't enjoy that bit.

Don't get me wrong, people can do whatever they like, I'm not against it, I just don't enjoy it. So the sexy santa theme kinda lended itself to girls wearing outfits that hardly covered anything, which is absolutely fine for them, I just can't take part in that.

*serious bit over haha*

So I dressed as an elf!! A little differently to the one before, to make it a little more interesting.

This was the finished product: 

Excuse the quality - I was trying out different settings for my self timer :)
Outfit:

• Elf hat - Poundland. They do still sell these, but with ears...I took mine off cause they looked horrific on me haha.
• Brown Vest - £3.50 Peacocks. 
• Red top - I do voluntary weeks at home and we do community work, we get t-shirts for a corporate identity. This was one of my old ones for 2007/6ish, and I cut it up and was wearing it inside out.
• Black skirt - School range in Tesco, no idea how much it was
• Tights - 2 pairs of skin coloured tights 

Makeup/face:

• Liquid eyeliner - Avon Lasting wear
• Mascara- Collection 2000 Super Size Lashes/ Collection 2000 Skyscraper
• Lipstick - Barry M, Sunset 151
• I curled my hair :) 

When we got there, I was wearing my coat and we got to the booth where you had to pay. She looked at me and was like 'you have your hat, and yes okay you're wearing a santa dress', obviously I wasn't but I wasn't going to argue for free was I! But apparently, they had strict instructions to only let girls who were dressed up in these sexy santa dresses...I think that's a little too far. You had to dress questionably to be able to get in for free... obviously I didn't haha, but I still thought that was too far.

I went to the uni christmas fair and bought the most gorgeous teacup necklace, I'll show a picture in the next post.

Going to watch Arthur Christmas and some fireworks with my flatmate today..trying to feel christmassy!

Anyone else got an christmas dress ups? Or Christmassy things this weekend?
xxxx

Dear Santa ♥

I've taken this off Life of a Sweetaholic. She has such a good blog I thought I'd copy this bit, check it out! http://sweet--rachel.blogspot.com/

Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?

Hot Chocolate for sure! With lots of cream and marshmellows, I keep on buying hot chocolate in uni, there's a particular cafe under the university who does lush hot chocolate.

I've never had egg nog, but I can't imagine it tastes nice...the name doesn't exactly scream nice does it? Anyone else tried it?

Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?

I'm pretty sure the elves do that bit, although Santa does put the bows on at the end...just to make them extra special :)

Coloured lights on tree/house or white?

We always go for white lights and then have a theme of colours for the rest of the tree.. white lights are more versatile with themes. My dad doesn't let us put lights on our house...every year I try and persuade him!

Do you hang mistletoe?

I don't, I can just imagine the awkwardness when you end up (or knowing my friends, being pushed) underneath it with some random person haha.

When do you put your decorations up?

We usually do it 2 weeks before Christmas, but as I'm at university at the moment, I decorated our flat last Saturday, and my mum will decorate the house whilst I'm still here... I'm quite sad I'm missing out on that, me and my mum do it together every year.

 What is your favourite holiday dish?

Oohhhh, I do love the actual Christmas dinner! 

But on Christmas Eve we always get loads of food, like a buffet with mini everything (cheesecakes, burgers, pizzas), lay it out on the table for the evening and watch a Christmas film, and I love doing that...so I think the buffet may win.

Favourite Holiday memory as a child?

Being really really happy surrounded by my family :)
But I get that memory renewed every year, as its hard to pin both my parents and brother down for a whole few days! 

Also, I guess getting presents that are truly surprises.

Like one year, I got a tv for my bedroom, and I hadn't asked for one at all, hadn't expected it, in fact the thought of having one hadn't crossed my mind, but my parents were really generous and bought me one :)

When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?

I've absolutely no idea,  I can't actually remember believe in him but I'm sure I did :)

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?

Not really, we had never done it but last year we were watching 'Modern Family' and they had a tradition on opening a present of PJ's every Christmas eve. So we decided to do it! 

It was probably a one off though haha...

How do you decorate your Christmas tree?

White lights, a colour theme for the baubles, the usual ornaments like a birth announcement for my brother (they never thought of it for when I was born haha) and ones that we made when we were little :) And then beads and fake snow..and the topper changes every year depending on how my mum feels!

Snow! Love it or Dread it?

I love snow itself, because everything's so peaceful, quiet and beautiful.

However I absolutely detest when it gets so icy as I'm clumsy under normal circumstances, let alone ice. And now that there's Bitch Hill in my life, it will not end well.

Can you ice skate?

I've been once, I can't say I was very good at it, not good combination with my afore mentioned clumsiness haha.

Do you remember your favourite gift?

My favourite gift..there have been many.

One that stands out is a present from an ex boyfriend last year. 

We'd been best friends for a year and a bit before we went out, and we knew each other really well. So for christmas, he got me a toy Red Panda. I am obsessed with Red Pandas, and it was so touching that he'd actually listened and hunted out a toy one (which is actually harder than you'd think as they're not common animals) and to this day Ming Carlos is a very treasure friend and one of my favourite possessions.

We dressed him up in winter gear haha.

What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you?

Spending time with my happy family. 

My parents work a lot, and are so committed to working hard to have money to spend on us, sometimes we hardly see each other (obviously before I went to uni), so any time we spend altogether and in a happy warm environment is so special :)

What is your favourite Holiday Dessert?

Custard :) I don't like Christmas Pudding, but I adore the custard haha.

What is your favourite holiday tradition?

Lounging around, watching christmas films, and eating lots with my family :)

What tops your tree?

It differs every year, usually a different variety of star.

Which do you prefer giving or receiving?

I love giving gifts that I know my family are really going to love and appreciate.. but of course I love getting them too :)

Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum?

I don't have them often enough to be able to judge...

Favourite Christmas show?

Ohhhhh, anything christmas themed haha!

Saddest Christmas Song?

Are there sad christmas songs?!

What is your favourite Christmas song?

All I want for Christmas is you....haha :)

Feel free to leave your own answers so I can have a nosy

xxxx

Christmas in Bangor :D

Christmas is hereeee :D
I'm finally feeling more chrismassy -despite dressing as an elf in the middle of November, I haven't felt the least bit Christmassy...until now!

So on Saturday, my flatmates were either at work/home/or actually doing work SO I decided to surprise them and decorate the flat :)
I made a Christmas tree out of a cereal box and coloured it in (so much colouring yesterday!)

This is where the One Direction Poster was in our kitchen, it got taken down by my warden for being a 'fire hazard'. Personally, I think she was jealous that we had a One Direction Poster and she didn't, so now it's living on my bathroom door :) 

I googled how to make paper doll chains, and made a few rows of them, and this was the end result! :) 

The lighting's a bit rubbish, but you get the picture, these are on the wall next to the one above in the kitchen.

Next I made some snowflakes out of paper - I am particularly proud of these, because I think they're very pretty :) I also made a paper chain out of plain white paper. I put them on the windows in the kitchen and some on the kitchen door. And it all resulted in a festive kitchen :D

Ignore all the rubbish on our table, the cleaner puts anything on the work surfaces in a pile on the table and half the stuff never gets moved afterwards. 

What do you think? :)

My 2 flatmates that are here at the moment didn't seem too thrilled haha, but my other 2 flatmates haven't seen it yet..so hopefully a better reception from them :D 

As I'm a very fortunate girly, I have 2 advent calendars this year, my parents bought me one when they came to visit and I was very kindly sent another one by my old youth worker from church. 

It always makes my day to have my chocolate. And also is a fab way to count down the days till I go home.  I'm so looking forward to going home, literally can't wait!!! 

Finally, I said I'd post a picture of my nails when I have my new Rimmel Double Decker Red which I blogged about here on. Apologies for the chips, I've been wearing it since last Thursday. The colour is so gorgeous, the camera really doesn't do it justice. It's a very Christmassy colour too :D 

Is everyone else chrismassy yet? Any pictures of decorations? 

xxxx


Also, last night me and my flatmate had a bit of a sugar rush at midnight and decided to draw our flatmates as snowmen (its weird I know ha)
But this is on our front door, and the one on my door is below.. :)

There's an inside joke about the carrots, they take the mick outta how I say Lasagne (they're northern and I say it too Southern haha), you've heard about Creepy Tom here (it's a funny story for those that haven't read it haha) and one direction on my body. Also I have a panda hat..hence the panda hat :)