West Midland Safari Park

For our latest adventure Hubby and I went to the West Midlands Safari Park. The first part of the day consisted of us driving through habitats of animals, Jurassic Park style.

Some parts of it, it just felt like driving through fields….we got to feed some deer and other harmless creatures.

Then other parts were on total LOCK DOWN, for the dangerous animals. We had to wait for electrified gates to open, drive through, get locked in, then wait for a second electrified gate to open for us to drive through to where the dangerous animals were kept.

It was cool to drive around and see most of the animals up close. Here’s what we saw on our drive through the Safari:

And my favorite part….the white Lions. They were so CUTE! They kept jumping up and down from their little perch/landing:

And my favorite park was feeding the Giraffes and having it stick its head through our sunroof:

After the drive through safari, there was a little Theme park to go in to….kind of like a Zoo with more carnival type rides and such.

We saw a Sea Lion training show, walked through a dark room where bats flew free around us, went through the reptile house where we saw some hostile Gaters and Crocks, saw some escapee baby Goats, mingled with some meerkats, and walked through Lemur Woods where Lemurs wandered freely around us.

Aberdovey

Blogger has been weird for me lately; I’ve tried posting this blog a few times before, but FINALLY it’s letting me post.

Quite a few weeks back(‘bout mid September) the Hubby and I took 3 days off and went to Aberdovey, Wales for the weekend to hang out with "the group". The group consists of his old High School/College Friends.....Ben(Russ), Chris, Louise, and Emily. Sometimes there's others, but in this instance it was just the 6 of us.

Aberdovey is lovey but about a 3 and a half hour drive for us. We started out relatively early(5pm roughly, when hubby got off work Saturday night), and drove until we reached Aderdovey when it got dark.

The last hour of our journey was the scariest because it was getting dark, we had never driven this route before and the roads were up, down, winding, and taking us through NOWHERESVILLE....population: sheep (and maybe the odd farmer).


It look beautiful in the picture, but at night it’s SUPER scary to drive through. It felt like, if we broke down....we’d get raped/murdered in the middle of nowhere where our screams couldn’t be heard. The kicker was...one of the towns in this nowhereland was called “Dylife”...die life. Oh...that makes us feel alot better.
   

In the daytime however, it was a beautiful, quite little seaside town.

A family friend of Louise’s owns a flat in the town that she doesn’t use anymore, so we stayed there for free. To say thank you for having the gang over, I made cupcakes!

Mostly the entire weekend we drank, ate junk food, and just hung out.

First night we were there we went down to the pier, which was cool, and hung out on a little wooden deck underneath the pier until about 2am.

The second night we went crab fishing. I’d been before in California, but that was in a bay, and no where near as rough waters as where we were fishing this time. Needless to say....I didn’t catch any, but other people did! Here’s Emily with the crab that Rob caught:

We played games, and I taught the gang how to play Hand and Foot.

We hung out at the beach and chilled on the sand dunes. Some of us were even brave enough to jump off the Dunes.

One morning I cooked breakfast for 5 of us(this was before Emily got there, she was coming late). Breakfast consisted of 10 pieces of THICK palm-width bacon, 10 pieces of Cumberland size sausages, and about 18 pancakes....all of which was gone in a matter of minutes.

One of the nights we were there someone decided(beforehand) that it’s be a fun idea to go to the pub in suits and cocktail dresses. It was fun to dress up...I needed that. Here’s a picture of the girls....I was too mad that the boys went to the pub before us that I forgot to take a picture of them:



After the 3 day weekend was over, hubby and I drove back to Ross, with enough time to eat and get ready to go out with father in law. He was taking us and harry to a comedy show.

The show itself was great (The comedian, Michael McIntyre is hysterical!), but after continuous nights of no sleep, followed by this comedy show which put us getting home at 1 in the morning and me having to get up and go to work at 9am-6pm the rest of the week, I have been absolutely KNACKERED!

But there we go....it pays to have that much fun. The bonus stuff the week after were:

1. Signed up to and went to my first and second of 10 acting classes at the adult learning centre. I can tell I’m the only one with experience in my class, but it’s still nice to get around people and play theatre games again....I really do miss that.

2. I picked up a cupcake gig via my father in law for October 26th, so that’s coming up.

3. I got a fat paycheck this month(800 pounds) because I’ve been working LOADS of hours and I get 12 hrs holiday pay for my weekend away.

4. Hubby and I went to the safari Park, but I’ll put that on a separate blog. .....

Housewives....not just for indoor housework

This past weekend was a bank holiday weekend.....basically an excuse to close most places down and have a family day out. Saturday night, our friend Lyndsy invited us out to her sister's HUGE empty house(she was house sitting/dog sitting while her sister and family were away).

We took a tour of the house(basement, 2 floors, about 5 bedrooms--2 of which are en-suite, and then several other rooms for office, living rooms, etc). and then we chilled out in their really expensive high tech hot tub. A great start to a really great night.

While we were there, it really put into perspective the type of country house Rob and I want when we can afford it. One of the main bits of the house that i LOVED was the arggie in the kitchen:

Very expensive to run, but if you spend most of your time in the kitchen where things are cooked on and off all day it's convient. It's a oven/stove that stays on ALL the time(24/7). Even though I know it'll cost alot, it's one of the main 'must haves' when ROb and I have a family because I know that it will be put to good use.

After chillin' out at the house, we(Lyndsy, GReg, Rob, myself, and another friend from Kings Head, Becky) went out for a couple drinks out in town.

On another note, today I decided to do a little weeding. The space next to our house is basically the abandoned bit that is really no one's property, but I'm tired of it looking like an infestation of weeds. So...I bought myself some gloves, gardening tools, and weed killer and took care of it.

BEFORE

AFTER

My collected pile of weeds.

Just one section that I was nice enough to clean up.

I ended up filling 3 trash bags full of the weeds I took down.

Overall it was a productive day. Who said housewives ONLY had to do things like dishes, making the bed, doing the shopping?(which I also did today BTW). :) I'm a multitasker.

LEGOLAND

On wednesday Rob and I went to Legoland with Tony, his friend TOBY, and Dad for Tony's belated birthday outting. ony wanted to go to go to legoland for his birthday with a friend, but Dad couldn't get away til now and needed Rob and I to drive(bigger car than dad's little 2 seater Porche) and help chaperone.

As far as theme parks go, legoland Windsor isn't all that impressive and I don't have any other Legoland park to compare it to because I never went to the one in Cali.

It's decorative and there's loads of 'themed' areas....but not so much as Disneyland.

Viking territory.

Tigers in Adventureland

Scuba Man in Adventureland too.

Pharoah in Egypt territory.

Lego builders in LEGO CITY.

More Eygptian stuff...this I thought was interesting: on the walls were mounted these HUGE (like tapistry size) pictures that were about 5-6 lego units deep. These are fully detailed and probably weighted A LOT.

There was also lego torches for lighting in dark indoor areas. Pretty cool how it actually glows bright enough through the opaque lego pieces at the top.

Tony and Toby next to a lego treasure chest.

Laser Raiders...the indiana Jones themed laser shooter game(WAY less impressive than the Toy Story ones at Disneyland).

I always get top score!

One of the Water Rides(Short, log jammer at Six Flags is better) in Pirate Land.

This I thought was cool and unique. Never mind that this is LEGOland, not everything cool about it had to be made of lego. They had a gold pan handling area. These troughs filled with water and sand and kids get to pan for gold (probably fools gold) for 3 pounds each. And if you find gold, you get a 'gold medal' to wear.

The boys under a crawl space in an aquarium....after a submarine ride.

The Boys on the Dragon rollarcoaster in Knights Land.