Happy Birthday to Me! (And Mum)

I'm 23 now and I feel so much wiser than I did two days ago. But seriously, birthdays are really just normal days, except I get to make all of the decisions. So basically, they're just normal days. With cake.

Thursday I celebrated my awesomeness with Patrick at the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens. This place is absolutely massive and beautiful. It's full of plants from all around the world, including home sweet home, the Sonoran Desert. We spent several hours of the most perfect summer afternoon walking around enjoying nature in the heart of this city. My favourite part was the trees. And the wild chickens. That's right, wild chickens wandering around the Kew Garden grounds, just pecking and digging and chasing small children. It was awesome. I think I spent half a roll of film on the chickens alone. I also think that this may be the first time in my life that I've seen a living chicken in real life. These hens, and one rooster, were surprisingly large and fluffy and they reminded me a lot of Babs.

Friday I slept in until 12:30. It was my real birthday, after all, and I felt entitled to a guilt-free morning of sleep. I relaxed the afternoon away, watching some movies and making a new batch of homemade popsicles and rolling up some spicy tuna sushi. The girls and Sam came over to celebrate and surprised me with a  delicious cake and Mr. Men themed decorations. I loved it! Jess made a delicious chocolate cake, and Anne bought the most delicious organic ice-cream ever! We ate half the cake and ice-cream before presents. Then we broke through the plastic of my brand new Twister game, and got friendly with each other on the living room floor before settling in to watch the Olympic Opening Ceremony on TV. It was impressive to say the least. After the ceremony was over, we took some group photos, relaxed a bit, and then everyone settled into their sleeping places for a bedtime story. It was the first sleep over I've had in years and how fun it was to have everyone scattered around the living room.

Morning came and we got up kind of early. I made pancakes, bacon, and eggs for those who wanted some and then we headed out to the Olympics! More on that, however, to come.

23 will be the best year yet, I can just feel it! Happy birthday to Mum, too, who turned a ripe old 50 on Thursday!

Home, Where the Sunshine Is

A recent, rather unexpected visit home left me jet lagged and sweaty for a week. But, it was worth it. After several weeks of nothing but cloudy/rainy skies here in London, I have to admit that I was looking forward to going home to the sunshiniest state of them all (not Florida--AZ of course! Floridians know nothing about sunshine).

The flight to AZ was by far the worst flying experience I have ever had, but I don't want to dwell on it. Let's just say, I'm flying direct to AZ from now on.

I spent a lot of time with my Mom in the new house and her crazy, slightly evil new puppy named Mousse. Saw BigBrother, Eric too. It'd been too long, and it's nice when siblings actually get along together. It was nice to be back in AZ where things are familiar. Although, I did find myself feeling a bit out of place and things were not really as familiar as I thought they would be. I guess I'm adapting to life in London better than I expected. I spent some time with my bestest friends and even had time to spend the evening with my favourite double-trouble-brothers, Lucas and Oscar.

I topped up my belly and my suitcase with all of my favourite American foods that can't be found in England (at least, not at an affordable price), which doubled the weight of my bags for the trip home. I feasted on greasy Mexican food and deli-fresh sandwiches that I've yet to be able to match here in the UK. Baked cookies with Mum, played fetch, tug-o-war, and bubbles with the puppy (in between daily abuse sessions wherein I was treated as his new favourite chew toy), but didn't find any time to lay out in the sun and work on my tan. Alas, it is probably for the best as even mildly tanned skin would make me stick out like a thumb in England.

It was a short trip, but a good one. Long enough for me to catch up with those most important to me and, more importantly, to spend some quality time with the family. I'm looking forward to another visit come Christmas time when the skies are just as sunny but the temperature is much more tolerable. If you didn't get a chance to see me - mark your calendar cuz I'll be back in December!

Latitude Festival 2012

Friday, July 13 was the last Adventure Friday of 2012. 2012 has had 3 Adventure Fridays, and we have done something adventurous on all of them. The Latitude Festival, a big music, comedy, arts, etc. fair held in Henham Park in Southwold, just a few hours to the north east of London, was the perfect way to spend an Adventure Friday.

We woke up early on Friday and caught a train towards the festival. By 10:30 we had arrived at the "day park camp ground" and we started pitching our tent. It was a brand new tent, so we weren't really sure how to put it all together, but we did a masterful job in such a short amount of time. I guess this tent-pitching stuff is easier than I remember it being. After securing our tent space, we headed into the venue to begin the fun. We grabbed some food, wandered around looking at all of the various stages, tents, and colourful sheep. We spent a lot of time in the Comedy Tent, laughing to the comedy of Tim Minchin and Russel Kane, before heading out to the main stage. Bon Iver was headlining, and they were the only thing I wanted to accomplish that day. Their 1.5 hour set was incredible and everything I wanted it to be. It's great when you see an artist who is just as good on stage, if not better, as they are on the CD.

After the main act of Bon Iver, we headed back to the tent to pass out. The next morning, we packed everything up and walked up the road to the shuttle bus that would take us back to the train.

Next year, maybe we will do a whole weekend to be sure to have more time to enjoy the vendors and the different music. Regardless, it was a good Adventure Friday. Looking forward to the next one in September 2013!