August Adventures: Seven Year Anniversary and Turning 25...

Hi. I hope you are well and having a good day.

In today's post, I wanted to make this one about our seven year anniversary and my 25th Birthday celebrations. At this point every year but especially more recently, I am always shook by how quickly time goes! This year has been a great one and they always say time flies when you are having fun!

As an update on how I have been since having Covid, I am doing much better now and have had such an amazing few weekends after fully recovering. Covid knocked me out completely for around a week, which forced me to call in sick. I was still feeling the after effects a week after so I had a week of working and resting when I could. I was surprised by how much Covid affected me and the amount of sleep I had in the space of a week was insane! I spent a lot of quality time with the piggies and got them both more comfortable with being picked up.. They still hate it but they are getting more used to it!

The week after I had fully recovered from Covid, I partied hard and drank a lot on the Friday night where we got in at 4am, had a full day at the beach on the Saturday and another full day at the park, with going out for breakfast on the Sunday. I didn't really take any photos apart from this one of Jordan! It was a busy weekend, it was great to see friends and we really enjoyed it! We have also visited Jordan's Dad on a Saturday afternoon following his operation, I had a girls night in, we went to Arianna's 1st Birthday celebrations, I taught my parents how to look after the guinea pigs when we go away and we also went on a date day to acres of sunflower fields, which was an incredible experience. I have really enjoyed the times that I have had recently, it has been great. For that reason, I am going to start with a couple of diary style paragraphs about the weekend before my Birthday!

On Saturday 6th August, we went to the city early morning to get some suitable shoes for water parks from Primark, I cleared out all of my office drawers before the move and we got ourselves some food too. In the afternoon, we went to Jordan's sisters where she had organised a family get together for Arianna's first Birthday. Everything was decorated so lovely, and it was great seeing everyone as well. I mainly spent the time playing with Arianna's mini basketball hoop with Jordan and Zac, where we were trying to get the ball in the hoop from quite a distance away.. until I accidentally chucked the ball over the fence into the neighbours garden! We also played wiggly worm, where you have three hoops each and the aim of the game is to throw the hoops on a vertical stick which is rotating with a worm on top! We played these games for a good few hours, caught up with family members who we haven't seen in a while and sung Happy Birthday to Arianna. She absolutely loved her present from us which Jordan chose, a soft pink bunny which she kept cuddling. We also got her a canvas with a picture of the sunset on the day which she was born. I love taking photos of sunsets when I can, and on the day she was born the sky looked amazing so naturally I took a photo. At this point, I didn't know Arianna was going to be born on that day but when we heard later that evening she was born, I knew I wanted to do something special with the photo. Obviously Arianna now wouldn't appreciate the canvas, but everyone commented saying it was such a thoughtful gift and one to keep forever. After eating some cake and writing in the book of Birthday wishes for Arianna, we left and had a chill night in.

On Sunday 7th August, where we travelled to a small village around half an hour away to pick our own sunflowers. It was something I really wanted to do and we have both never done before. Entry was £5 each which also included the opportunity to pick five sunflowers each. I didn't really know what to expect but when we arrived, we were absolutely blown away by the size of the field and how many sunflowers there were! It was very quiet as we went Sunday morning, and it was absolutely beautiful. The sun was shining, blue skies and the view of hundreds of sunflowers was an incredible experience... It was definitely worth it! Unfortunately the sunflowers didn't keep for too long afterwards as it was so hot but it was the last day the sunflowers were there and it was definitely worth the trip!

Friday 12th August was our seven year anniversary... Where we spent the day working. How romantic! For every other year we have taken the day off and done something special however we knew we couldn't realistically take the day off and we were ok with that considering our circumstances! In the evening, we had a cute date night at Ask Italian where I had a fettuccine Bolognese, Jordan had a grande lasagne.. Despite never having a lasagne before in his life. Luckily he loved it and it was such a great date. We used our Tesco Clubcard points to pay for it and the overall meal cost was £6.30, as the vouchers didn't include drinks. 

I can't believe it has been seven years, which is the equivalent of starting high school for the first time and leaving sixth form / college years. I am so happy being with Jordan and our relationship, he brightens every day, there is never a dull moment being with him and it has been an incredible seven years. I am very lucky to have met him so early on in my life. It was such a lovely evening just the two of us talking, laughing and enjoying quality time together at a fantastic restaurant.. We have been really strict with going out for meals over the past few months so whenever we do go out, it feels that bit more special!

On Saturday 13th August, Jordan was working in the morning and I got a few bits done around the house, spent time with the piggies as well as get myself ready for the afternoon. In the afternoon, we went to a local beach with friends which was an amazing day. It didn't start off in the best way when Dean's car went wrong, meaning he couldn't make it as he needed to get the car to a garage before next week! I drove Jordan and Abbie there and we had Heart radio on there and back, singing along to the songs! We quickly stopped off to get bottles of water for hydration and Jordan thought it would be a good idea to get some cupcakes as well.. where it didn't take long for the icing to melt on the beach.. making them look so unappetising but I still attempted to try and make people eat some.. they were just a bit warm but still tasted good! It was such a warm day, the sun was shining but luckily it was pretty breezy on the beach compared to being inland. We stayed on the beach for a few hours, had a proper catch up with everyone, paddled and went in the sea. It was cold at first but it was absolutely lovely after ten minutes of getting used to temperatures!

As we started to make our way off the beach, there was a massive DJ set playing summery songs near the entrance of the beach.. It was such an awesome idea for a beach party. Emma thought she had heard an announcement that a foam party was about to start in 10 minutes. We weren't convinced by it as no one else heard the announcement, but we stuck around as people wanted to get changed anyway. Emma was right though... Sure enough, ten minutes later there was a big countdown to something (the foam party!) where I ran over to the DJ set playing loud music, including George Ezra and there was a massive cannon which started spurting out the most insane amount of foam I had ever seen! Through the foam, Elli managed to find me and Emma also popped up through the foam as well... it was absolute madness but such a fun experience!

After the beach and foam party, we were all getting pretty hungry so we went to drop a few things off in cars and went in search of food. I was originally thinking of going to a Hollywood diner place which I had been to quite a few years ago but after Elli was telling me it had gone downhill after a change in ownership, I thought the best decision was to let everyone get food where they wanted to and we would meet up at the picnic bench which we managed to claim. Which I think worked really well, as everyone got what they wanted and we all sat together whilst eating. Emma and I went for chips and they took quite a bit of time to make them, so by the time everyone was pretty much done, we had only really just started! They were good chips though so thank goodness it was worth the wait! We then spent the evening on the arcades, where we went on the 2p machines, Elli won some Only Fools and Horses bobbleheads for her dad, I was emptying out my machine for voodoo dolls, Abbie won her mini Stitch and Emma spent quite a bit of money getting Sven and Olaf! We then went over to Oasis, where Jordan was playing on the machines to win tickets for a mug he really wanted and we also found Paige and Josh where I became their bad luck charm for playing Deal Or No Deal! At this point it was getting later so Paige and Josh left, Jordan went to collect all the prizes he had won, including a couple of things he knew I had my eye on which was sweet of him, and as additional Birthday presents! To finish off the day, Elli was very keen to go on the waltzers and I said I would so long as it was only once as I am not the best on spinning rides.. I enjoy them but at the same time I don't feel well afterwards! Sure enough, we went on the waltzers and it was absolutely terrifying, we were spinning so fast... there were flashing lights and smoke and it was incredible. I screamed all the way round but my voice kept going so it wasn't one continuous scream... it was a lot of small screams and it sounded terrible but I couldn't control it as I was so terrified! I think Elli spent most of her time laughing at me! After that, it was around 9pm and we knew the day had come to an end, so we travelled back home after a fun-filled day!

Sunday 14th August was my 25th Birthday. I didn't really have a plan for my actual Birthday, I wanted it to be a pretty chilled out day in consideration of how busy things have been recently, plus it was a Sunday.. and Sunday is the day of rest! The week before my Birthday, Jordan came to me with a dilemma, the date for his bowls semi-finals and finals were announced to be played on my Birthday and he wasn't sure what to do in the situation as he didn't want to miss my Birthday but at the same time, this was a bowls game he needed to play. Considering everything we have done the previous couple of days and everything we had to look forward to, I was insistent that he needed to play, especially considering I knew how much of an important game it was for him. If it was a normal game, he would have skipped it but these were the games he had been working towards all season. We had Birthday celebrations in the morning where he gave me my presents, one of them made me cry but I loved them so much! I dropped him off at 10am and went to see my family for the main part of the morning, where we went to Asda to get a Birthday cake. Well... cakes as I wanted to get the guinea pig cake but it was quite small and I have family who also want bigger slices of cake... so it made sense to get two! Unfortunately my nan was suffering from Covid so we went to go and see my grandparents from a distance as we got them some food shopping as well. My grandad who was testing negative at the time was peering behind the door (all we could see was a pair of eyes!) and my nan was upstairs and shouting down from the window.. it was a bit mad! 

After seeing my grandparents, we went back to my parents and I had my Birthday celebrations, I opened presents, cards and ate an omelette for lunch! My aunt also came round with a card and present, and we spent a bit of time catching up with her. Jordans team was knocked out at the semi finals stage so he joined us for the cake singing. We got back to ours just after 3pm-ish, where I opened friends presents, started replying to Birthday wishes and messages from family and friends. After that... we both wanted a lie down as things had been pretty mad for us during the weekend... so much so, we both fell asleep until 6:25pm and our meal at Brewers Fayre was booked for 6:30pm! So after a quick rush, we were out of the door and got there very quickly.. We were still a bit drowsy from sleeping but we had starters of garlic bread and brie bites, Jordan had lasagne again and I had a chicken tikka curry. We also got one meal for free as it was a free birthday meal promotion... got to take advantage of the promotions! It was a lovely meal out again and we managed to get more awake throughout the meal as well!

It was a crazy weekend but it was absolutely amazing, to spend my Birthday with my family and friends and I couldn't have asked for a better 25th Birthday! I am very thankful to Jordan, my family and friends for making the weekend so special!

Thursday 18th August was a cute evening with friends. I saw an event advertised for an adults only painting evening and my friend Lace was really keen on going. Therefore we spontaneously booked tickets and as there were three of us going and who were willing to go, we formed The Finer Things Club! The evening was held from 6pm-9pm, cost was £20 each including the item you could paint and you could bring food and drink to the evening as well. We had no idea what to expect but we thought to just go for it and see what happens! When we arrived, the atmosphere was really friendly, we were shown to our workbench with lots of paint colours and we then had the task of choosing which ceramic object to paint. Lace pretty much chose a butter dish straight away, Liam was going back and forth between a latte mug and a gnome (he went for the latte mug in the end) and I decided to go for a shark spongeholder. Although we all really struggled to choose what to paint, I think we all knew in the back of our minds what we really wanted the paint!

The design was a different matter, we spent a bit of time coming up with our ideas. Lace wanted to go for a cow print on her butter dish, and she also decided to flick paint onto the dish to make a speckled effect. Liam went back and forth with ideas and decided to create clouds with rainbow rain have lots of rainbow dots at the bottom. I was going to do a blue shark with lots of cartoon sea creatures on the body, but when it actually came round to painting of the sea creatures, I went for more detail and kept it simple with a turtle on one side and a jellyfish on the other. I also gave my shark some eyeliner and impressive eye makeup. To finish, I put some gold detailing on the fins. It was such a cute evening of catching up and being creative, and I think our final designs came out really well! We couldn't take them home with us as our creations have to go in the kiln, meaning the colours will change compared to what they are on the photos but I am really looking forward to seeing how they come out overall when my friends collect them next week!

On Saturday 20th August, we travelled over 40 miles for a night in with friends. It was a boozy board game night, we had the offer of drinking and staying over for the night. However we knew we needed to be sensible and back home that night considering the Sunday was our final day off before we left the country for two weeks. Also it wasn't like this was round the corner, it was a bit of a journey! So we spent the morning getting things sorted for holiday, going to quite a few places to get the last bits and pieces and then we headed out for the evening. The actual evening was great, most of our friends were pretty tipsy, we had the most delicious handmade chicken burgers and played quite a few games, chatted and laughed. Singstar at the end of the night was probably the funniest way to end it! It was one of those evenings where we weren't on our phones for the entire evening and it was fantastic just being in the moment with everyone, although my friend took some videos of Singstar and I had to insert a screenshot only to remind myself that this video exists! We got back around 1:30am, admittedly I was really struggling to keep awake whilst driving back (I was on orange tango all night!) as I started my day at 6am but we made it back after a great evening, it was so good to see everyone!

This is my last post before we go away on a trip of a lifetime in a few days, which I still can't fully believe is happening. We booked this holiday well over a year ago, have been as strict as we could have been with our expenses and spent over a year paying off the various holiday balances and saving for our trip away. It is safe to say a lot of money has gone into this holiday already! We are very much looking forward to it, and I will be back blogging after the trip!

So yeah, it's all good...

Amy