THE DAY WE PLAYED TOURISTS...

London. It's an iconic place that tourists flood into on a daily basis. Andrew and I hadn't been to London in over two years which is a real shame because we love it. So we decided that if we had the chance we would love to go back and visit, if we could. the family was game with our plan so off we trotted for the day ready to be tourists.

We did all the touristy things from Buckingham Palace to the Horse Guards to Big Ben to eating lunch by the London Eye. It was a great day and the train journeys went really smoothly considering how insane the underground can be in London. Prepare yourself for a deluge of photos that sum up our day!

 As you can see Andrew and I were having far too much fun being tourists and clearly needed to stop being so cheesy but it was so nice to be back in the capital. Throughout the whole day Elisha was amazing too despite all the crowds of people and travelling. It was so lovely to share it with him and the family too. 
H 

DUNSTABLE PART I

Most of you will already be aware that we took a two week trip back to England at the beginning of the month. It was a blissful time filled with lots of food, fun, family and friends. We took a fair amount of photos and have so many things we need to blog about, but I'm aware that I can bore the life out of people if I'm not careful. So I'm going to try and be a bit more succinct about this trip recap. Hopefully it'll mean there isn't too much waffle to read!

We spent the first week back home staying with my parents in their new house. I was rather excited to see it and couldn't wait to stay in it, especially as my sister, brother-in-law and 1 year old nephew were staying too. It was going to be a full house but I was so excited about it. Throughout the week we had days where we did lots of things but also days that were more chilled out and low key. It was definitely the introduction back into English life that we needed. 

There was a little park just round the corner from Mum and Dad's that we visited which was great fun, for both Elisha and all the adults!

One of our days out involved going to the nearby town of St Albans. Its a lovely place and has some great shops too. We combined a visit to their park with a small shopping trip. Ben, my brother, also introduced us to the nicest waffle place ever. We unfortunately didn't get any photos of the waffles at all, I think it was because we were too pre-occupied eating. Andrew certainly wolfed his down!

On some of the chilled out days there was just lots of time to play with Elisha and hang out. Obviously there aren't a billion photos to accompany this but here are a few.

Lastly, for those of you who have social media you will have seen that one more important thing happened whilst we were in Dunstable; haircuts! Elisha had his first one and then all the females got our haircut by our wonderful childhood hairdresser Sarah. It was so nice to see her and catch up. I think we all looked pretty good afterwards too!

So there we go, thats the first instalment of the first week. More to come soon!
H

THE TIME I SAW A POLAR BEAR...

You may have noticed that my zoo update didn't contain anything about polar bears. That's because we took so many pictures of the whole day, including the polar bear that it would have been too long. So instead you get one whole post about it!

First off its probably fair to say that I was far too excited about the whole thing.  I tried to play it cool but really I was as excited as some of the screaming children who were there. When you arrived there was a cute little display that had giant story books telling you the story of two of the polar bears. They were rescued as cubs and brought to the zoo so there was an amazing sculpture of the two of them. Now don't be deceived I was not as calm as I appear in this photo!

Once we'd walked round the corner the pure excitement could not be contained. He was there! A real life polar bear and he was amazing! 

He was so hilarious. We sat there for ages just watching him sleep and stretch out. He went forging for carrots and started munching on them. I was just loving it. He seemed so adorable and to be honest would fit in so well with Macintosh as they are both as lazy as each other! So of course if I ever find an orphaned cub its coming home with me!

After being there for a while just endlessly watching Andrew did convince me to see some other animals and then return. I reluctantly agreed but upon me return he was swimming!!

He just casually walked into the water, stretched himself out and then set about trying to scratch an itch using the rocks underwater. It was so funny. Hard to photograph due to the glass, which was more than a little smeared due to small children. Yuck! But you could see him so clearly. 

He then decided to swim straight past me!

Andrew managed to snap a picture of me once he'd finished swimming past me. I look semi normal as a result. Whilst he was swimming past Andrew said my face looked hilarious as I was literally like a child on Christmas morning!

Mr Polar Bear then decided to just casually sit in the water for a bit so he was cooled off before he waded straight out in search of more food. Amazingly he didn't shake himself off when he got out of the water. I don't know why but I always imagined he was shake like a dog. Apparently not, its best just to let everything drip off you. 

So there we go, me and the polar bear. I'm already looking at ways to see one in the wild. Antartica anyone?! 

H