The Grand Canyon. I really don't think I'm going to be able to put into words just how majestic this place was. We had two days to explore it and the nearby town of Williams, but I feel like we could have spent weeks at the canyon and still not seen all there was to see. I have to admit it does look slightly fake at first, just because you can barely take in the sheer size and scale of it. The first day we were there we started off at the visitors centre of the South Rim and walked along the canyon rim trail. We didn't go as far as we had anticipated but there was a lot of stopping to take photos and the icy conditions made you a little more cautious, especially as there wasn't a lot between you and the edge of the canyon!
Day two we did more of the Canyon, but from the other end of the South rim, so that we could see the Desert watchtower. Then we spent the rest of the day in Williams looking round the famous route 66 town. There wasn't a lot to do there as most of it was shut up for the winter so we didn't spend long there. We did eat (for the second time) at an amazing little Italian bistro which had a brewery attached. The food was insanely good.
And of course no trip would be complete without a bear...
There you have it, the Grand Canyon in one blog post. If you ever get the chance to visit it you really should. It's breathtaking. H
Whilst my parents were here we undertook a rather long road trip, about 7 hours to be precise. Our destination was the Grand Canyon in Arizona but on the way there we decided to take a detour via the Hoover Dam. The dam itself is built on the border between Nevada and Arizona so it was an excellent way to ensure Mum and Dad properly visited the two states. The Hoover Dam was built in the 1930s and is one of the largest concrete structures ever. As my Dad is a civil engineer by trade, and a rather big fan of concrete we assumed this would be a good stop off. I was expecting him to be rather excited but to be somewhat underwhelmed myself as funnily enough I've never been that impressed by concrete! I couldn't have been more wrong. We arrived at the the dam having driven past Las Vegas and we drove over the top of the dam to park on the Arizona side.We then walked back across the dam so that we could see it from all sides and angles.
Dad and Andrew decided to take a tour of the power plant, however Mum and I were not so sure about it as there were signs warning you not to go on the tour if you were worried about small spaces. Not wanting to chance it we had ice cream in the sun, whilst the boys went about their geekery!
I love those photos, they make me think of those government adverts where you see people in their work place talking about pensions or how the new working wage is helping them. Sorry, my brain thinks weirdly! Once we had seen everything it was time to hit the road again for another 4ish hours until we arrived at our final destination; the Grand Canyon. H
I am rather behind on our blog posts as its already January 6th and I've not even updated you on things we did over Christmas, or said goodbye to 2015. I apologise. For a start we took a trip over New Year which put us all out of sync but then we launched back into the regular rhythms of life and haven't had a chance to catch our breath. But I'm on it, I promise! Starting with our round up post from 2015. It certainly was a busy year. I feel like we visited a lot of places, had some visitors and generally achieved a lot. It was also a pretty big year for a certain husband of mine too.
So here's our top ten events of 2015: 1. Having Andrew's family come over to visit us. 2. Travelling up to Seattle by train and seeing the beauty of the West coast. 3. Watching a couple of American Football games, particularly the Seattle Seahawks. 4. Our friend Tim's visit and seeing Yosemite and other great places with him. 5. A certain someone turning 30! 6. The amazing Alaskan cruise. 7. Meeting Mr James Corden himself. 8. Going home to see all the family, especially Mr Elisha after turning 1! 9. Seeing the band Muse perform, and watching Andrew's face as the drones flew round. 10. The stay at the beautiful cabin in Lake Tahoe (more to come on that later). As you can see its been a pretty busy 2015 and unsurprisingly 2016 is shaping up to be just as crazy. We have a visit or two lined up with family members and then in the middle of the year we are going to be celebrating my brother getting married which means a trip back to England! Yay! There's also the scary event of me turning 30, but we won't mention that again. Ever. We are so grateful to God for all the things that happened in 2015, even some of the tougher things which have allowed us to grow, especially as a couple. We look forward to facing 2016. As ever, updates will be on the blog so you can feel somewhat involved.
It's Christmas!! To be fair the Christmas excitement has been filling our household since early November, perhaps even October for some of us. We had watched some Christmas movies and Michael Bublé was already playing. But as soon as thanksgiving was over we went straight to hunt for our tree and yes it is another huge one. We managed to get another 9 foot tree, although I suspect its a little bit taller than that. Andrew is very pleased with himself as it was one of the biggest trees there. We did look at another tree but when the guy held it up it was just too large. It would have filled our living room. Putting the tree up in our house is always fun. Poor old Macintosh always gets a bit scared and worried. He doesn't like this giant green thing that's invading his space. The size of the tree means I always end up standing on something trying to help balance it and keep it straight whilst Andrew's fixing it into the base. Eventually its done and then suddenly Macintosh remembers he likes giant green trees. They provide him with an additional water bowl and he can also crawl around underneath it whilst it strokes his back. Silly dog! So anyway, we kept the cardboard houses Andrew made last year and just added some new pieces that we bought. I tried to keep the natural look going with lots of natural textures and red and white as accent colours. Its not quite Pinterest worthy but I love it.
Coming in through the front door, the first thing you'll see is our wreath. Its the same twig wreath that I just keep adapting to fit the occasion. So far its been completely worth its money!
There is our giant tree. Complete with crooked top section and Macintosh asleep on "his" sofa. The tree rather dominates the room but it makes the place feel Christmassy quite easily!
The stockings are pinned up on the sideboard in the absence of a fireplace. (Macintosh has his by his bed!) The advent candle is on the sideboard too so we remember to burn it. We also got this amazing red and white patterned candle on sale last year and I've been waiting excitedly to burn it ever since. The logs were scrounged from the desert around us and hauled back by Macintosh and Andrew after their long walks.
The other sides and surfaces have little touches of Christmas, from garlands to cardboard houses or other bits. It helps spread the Christmas feeling around the room. Our open plan living space can feel quite large so with a giant tree and lots of Christmas bits scattered around it makes it feel cosier. But the dinning table is my favourite part by far. On one of Andrew's walks he found a long log that he adapted into this amazing centrepiece for the dining table.
That bit might actually be Pinterest worthy as I stole the idea from there in the first place. Andrew drilled some holes in the logs for the candles and voila a centrepiece. Can't wait to start eating meals at the big table. So there you have it, our Christmas decor for 2015. As many of you won't get to see us over the holiday season I hope you can picture us having Christmas over here a bit more now. H
We used Peter's trip as an excuse to sneak in a couple of sports games so that we could give him an "American experience" but also so we could tick some more off our list. First up was an ice hockey match.
I chose the matches to go to and decided that since I was in LA I should really go see the Anaheim Ducks who are in fact The Mighty Ducks. Yup, I was fully expecting to see Emilio Estevez coaching them and some impressive flying V formations. Unfortunately things have moved on since the nineties and in fact this game is played by fully grown men, not kids. Shame. But they were still pretty impressive.
The NHL games are definitely entertaining and very full on. It was rather loud and noisy with lots of entertainment slots in the breaks. Every time the home team won there was lots of noise and flashing lights with everyone cheering their heads off. The cheerleaders came out on skates at different points and did their thing too. There were even a few minor fights which we enjoyed!
Andrew got quite into it in fact, he was screaming his head off. Apparently he really likes hockey and has chosen it as his American sport. I however disagree. I have well and truly become an American football fan, especially after our next sports game.
So the final sports game was an American football game. We've been to a pre-season NFL game so we decided to try a college game as we had been told they were pretty impressive. They weren't wrong. We went to see the University of Southern California, known as the Trojans. It was homecoming week too so it was insanely busy and so much fun.
The build up and entertainment factor at a football game is definitely bigger than the hockey. When we arrived and finally found our seats there was a humongous marching band on the field playing and entertaining with a guy dressed up as a soldier in full costume leading them around. After the fireworks the team took to the field and the game began.
Half time saw the band take to the field again, but this time it was 1000 strong! It played some impressive tunes and just took our breath away at the sheer size of it. No university game in England really has this much pomp and circumstance! Its insane!
But I have to say that the highlight of the game wasn't winning the match, it was what happened every time they scored a touchdown. Just watch and you'll see!
Yup every time they scored their mascot, Traveler the horse, would charge up and down the field whilst the band played and the crowd chanted! It was truly insane.
But thats just one of the reasons I love football (said in a slow Southern drawl!).
So this is the first Macintosh Monthly post! Hooray! October was a bit of a blur if I'm honest. We spent the first half of the month separated from Mac because we were in England and then the second half of the month was all a but topsy turvy as Andrew had to go back to England again. Poor old Mac didn't know what was going on with all the suitcases being packed and unpacked all the time. Still we survived October and more importantly we survived those crazy flash floods that happened. For those of you who weren't aware our area had a crazy amount of rain in the middle of October, all on one night which caused some crazy flash flooding. There's an article on the BBC about it here which just shows you a little bit of the aftermath and a youtube video shows you what it looked like as it was happening. Thankfully where we were it wasn't that deep but there was mud flowing freely down the streets. The next day everything was brown and there were still huge mud flows and puddles everywhere. This was one of the streets right next to where we live.
Obviously Macintosh thought this was brilliant and used it as an excuse to go wading through all the mud and puddles.
As an owner, who would have to bath him when we got back, I decided he could only go so far so he ended up having these cute little bootie looking mud patches. He's hilarious. So that was our major excitement for the month of October. I have to say the mud lasted for ages and we had many muddy walks. Until eventually the Californian sun dried tall out and then it cracked into something strangely beautiful.
