Project 365: #074 Christening

Another family event today with Danny's cousin's son's christening (is that Danny's second cousin?  Or first cousin once removed?  I get confused!)  The other side of the family this time and a nice excuse to all get together since it's been a while.  I however, was slightly preoccupied about worrying about the results of my finals.....more on that tomorrow!

Project 365: #073 Wedding reception

How cute are these cupcakes?  Steve and Naomi had a wedding cake when we were in Mexico so they decided to have a cupcake tower for their reception.  I always think cupcakes are a great alternative to a wedding cake - I've been to a few weddings that have had them instead and they've always gone down exceptionally well with all the guests.  These were no exception - they were polished off very quickly!

Project 365: #072 Stir fry and Inbetweeners

My friend Ali makes the most amazing stir-fry, making up the recipe each time and over the years, I've managed to pick up roughly what ingredients she puts in.  It always tastes absolutely delicious, so I thought I'd share it with you all....

2 teaspoons redcurrant jelly

1 garlic clove

a dash of soy sauce

½ teaspoon Chinese five spice

Simple yet effective!  Obviously you can mix up the quantities slightly depending on your personal preference but the quantities above are a rough guide.  It works equally well with vegetable stir fry or chicken.....I'm actually getting quite hungry now!

I'd been dying to see The Inbetweeners Movie, so we booked tickets for later on in the evening and went to see it.  I was not disappointed!  If you haven't seen it yet, I thoroughly recommend it - it's absolutely hilarious!  The whole cinema was laughing out loud the entire way through the movie, and there was one part in particular that made me cry I was laughing so much!  I'll definitely be buying it as soon as it's released on DVD, that's for sure!

Project 365: #071 Eeeek.......floods!

It's a little bit disconcerting when you go out at lunchtime and then can barely get back to the office for all the flood water!  It rained literally all day today so I suppose a flood wasn't exactly surprising really, but I didn't enjoy having to drive through it!  Thankfully though, I didn't get stranded, unlike the driver of a BMW which was abandoned in this later this evening!

Project 365: #070 Chocolate brownies

My mum has been off work for the last couple of weeks with a bad back (so bad in fact that it's making her leg go numb!) and has been confined to the house for most of the time.  To keep the boredom at bay, she's been baking quite a bit, which the rest of us are loving!  Today I had these little beauties waiting for me when I got home from work!  Thanks Mum :)

Weekly top 5

I PASSED MY EXAMS!!!!  After four years of studying, I'm finally a qualified accountant!  It's such a good feeling to know that I'm now finished for good, although I don't think it will really sink in until December when the others at work will be doing exams and I won't!  I'm already looking forward to being able to enjoy the build up to Christmas, rather than suddenly having to get in the festive spirit after exams in the middle of December and frantically running around trying to buy presents at the last minute!  Qualifying also means that I get a rather nice pay rise, so except to see more haul posts in the coming months (see below for starters!)

I love bank holiday weekends.  It's such a good feeling knowing that you manage to avoid the worst day of the week and get to avoid Sunday evening blues too!  It's Danny's dad's birthday on Sunday so we're having a barbecue - the bank holiday means we won't have to worry about getting up for work in the morning!  I'm planning to make the most of having Monday off by paying a visit to Bicester - I've never been before but I've heard really good things about the outlet there and I've been meaning to go for ages.  I'd always said that when I passed my exams, I'd reward myself with a Mulberry handbag - they have a Mulberry store at Bicester so hopefully I can get one a bit cheaper as well!

We've had a couple of busy weekends recently, what with christenings, weddings and birthdays so having a free evening tonight is a bit of a rarity at the moment!  It's been quite a few weeks (actually, since we went out to celebrate being together for six months) since we had an evening completely to ourselves, so we're going out for dinner and then to the cinema tonight (to see Horrible Bosses - have any of you seen it?)  I'm really looking forward to it - I love date night!  Danny's surprising me with where we're going for dinner tonight too!

I'm planning a redesign for my blog this week.  I'm getting a bit fed up with having to have photos smaller than I'd like, so I need to change the column width and think I might have a bit of a fiddle with other bits too.  That said, this is limited somewhat by my html skills, so we'll see how much I actually manage to change!  Anyway, watch this space....

All images from weheartit.com

My mum's been off work sick for the last two weeks (which obviously isn't good - I'm not loving that!) - she's got a bad back so has to spend most of the time either walking around to try and loosen it up or lying down to rest it.  Anyway, she's clearly been getting a bit bored being stuck at home all the time, cos she's been baking lots!  Chocolate brownies, banoffee pie and today we've got scones!  Thanks Mum :)

Five to follow:

From Gem With Love

Mariannan

She Cooks, She Eats

Buy Now, Blog Later

Bikinis & Passports

Project 365: #069 ♫ ♪ Let the sunshine, let the sunshine baby ♫ ♪

I was driving home from work this evening and noticed that the clouds appeared to have a bit of a rainbow effect so I pulled over to try and capture it on camera.  You can kind of see what I mean from this photo - it was literally the best I could get - unfortunately the best view of it was in the fast lane on the motorway and I didn't really think that pulling over on the hard shoulder or trying to take a photo whilst driving would go down too well with the police, so I had to wait until I turned off the motorway!  I don't think I've ever seen the clouds looking quite like this - I'm sure I would have remembered if I did - it looked really pretty :)

Project 365: #068 First it was poorly Max, now it's poorly car....

Well what an exciting photo this is!  Unfortunately, my evening this evening was spent wandering around Halfords looking for motor oil and trying to fill my car's oil tank.  My car has been displaying a warning message if I go round a corner a bit too quickly which says that the oil pressure is insufficient.  I figured that this was only happening because the oil must have slopped away from the sensor as I went round the corner so I didn't think it was anything to worry about.  Being a typical girl when it comes to my car, I didn't even know how to check the oil so I asked my dad to have a look.  Apparently not only was the oil level below the minimum line on the dipstick, but it hadn't even reached the bottom of the dipstick.  I might not know how to check it but I know that that is bad!  5 litres of oil later (I had to buy another bottle in addition to this one!) and the level seems ok - hopefully my lack of competence won't have caused any damage to the car!

Project 365: #067 Baby Annabelle

You may remember me mentioning that my friend Vicky was expecting a baby.  Well she gave birth almost as soon as I got to Mexico (the birth was pretty hard going actually and resulted in an emergency caesarean in the end - thankfully both Mum and baby are perfectly fine!)  I headed over to visit them today and I can confirm that baby Annabelle (I love her name) is absolutely gorgeous!  I had a couple of snuggles, although I quickly handed her back when she started crying!  I'll definitely be making sure I fit in as many visits as possible while she's so little :)

Project 365: #066 Vicky's birthday

We had a bit of an impromptu night at the Indian tonight - Danny's brother proposed to his girlfriend of 9 years but, since it was her birthday, she'd already arranged for them to go out for dinner with her twin sister and their friends.  We decided that we should celebrate anyway so Danny, me and his parents went to the Indian around the corner (the Indian I've mentioned before)  I didn't actually remember to take a photo of dinner (apologies!) but I did manage to get a photo of the card we got for Vicky before we gave it to her, since I thought it was quite amusing! (Sorry about the dodgy quality - I didn't have my camera on me so had to use my phone)

Weekly top 5

Danny's brother got engaged this week (he has three brothers - one has been married for a couple of years, one got married in Mexico two weeks ago and now the other is engaged!)  So happy for him and his fiancée - they've been together for 9 years so it's about time really!  He did a really good job with the ring too - he chose it completely himself and it's absolutely gorgeous!

This one is a bit sad........X Factor's back!  Now usually I don't get into it until much further into the series but since Gary Barlow is a judge this year, I had to watch it!  I wasn't really that fussed about him until I went to see them in concert in June - then I realised he's actually quite hot!  I think I'm hooked to X Factor already - oh dear!

I went to see The Inbetweeners Movie on Friday night - it's absolutely hilarious!  There's one scene which is especially hilarious - if you've seen it, you'll know which one I mean!  Danny didn't really seem that fussed about going so I went with my friend Ali instead and we had a girly night.  Danny's now decided that he does quite want to see it - hopefully I'll get two trips to see it now!

I have to put this as a love this week, simply because it's doing a great job at distracting me from my results for my finals which are due out tomorrow (and, as usual the night before results, I feel really sick!) - Twitter currently has a trending topic of #replacesongnameswithcurry.  One of my friends from work is really getting into it (he's also trying to distract himself from results day!) - so far he's come up with (amongst many others!) "Ooh Naan Naan, What's My Name?" and, my absolute favourite - "Saaaaaaag Aaaa-loo loo loo (Push Pineapple Shake The Tree)"  Thanks Jack :)

Despite deciding that I was going to have a week off from the gym after I got back from holiday to recover from jet lag, I hit the gym this week with two of my girl friends.  We had a great night actually - Ali decided to take on the role of personal trainer (as did Steph at times!) and really push us hard - I definitely felt it the next day but I also appreciated how good it was to be back in the gym.  Zumba this week!

Project 365: #065 Poorly Max

Poor Max.  First we all went away for two weeks and packed him off to Danny's auntie's and now we've come back and put a cone round his head!  While we were away, he got an ingrowing hair in his paw so had to have (very minor) surgery to remove it.  Apparently ingrowing hairs are a lot worse for dogs than they are for humans - who knew!  Anyway, he's now feeling very sorry for himself as a result - especially as he keeps catching the cone on doors and steps and making us all laugh!  Ooops - sorry Max!

Project 365: #049 - #064 Wedding bells

Actually, this title is a little misleading I suppose, as there definitely weren't any bells at Steve and Naomi's wedding!  The day before we were a little worried that it might rain, hampering their chances of getting married on the beach, but thankfully we woke up to the sun once again and the beach wedding was on!  Even though it was 5pm, it was absolutely scorching and we all struggled with the heat a bit in our wedding outfits.  A brilliant evening though, and congratulations again to Steve and Naomi!

Project 365: #049 - #064 Turtles

One thing I was desperate to do while we were in Mexico was swim with turtles.  We booked a boat trip to Akumal (just down the coast from our hotel) for the last day of our holiday - primarily because that gave me maximum possible time to recover from my ear infection.  I bought some earplugs from the hotel lobby shop (really uncomfortable but they did do the trick!)  and off we went.

I'm so pleased that we got to do it - they're such amazing creatures and it's quite surprising how big they actually are.  They really don't pay any attention to all the people swimming around above them and just carry on eating sea grass.  Unfortunately Danny didn't deal too well with all the bobbing around in the sea and had to go back to the boat, so I made sure I took plenty of photos to show him and thankfully he felt much better when we got back to dry land!

Project 365: #049 - #064 Mexican sunrise

As I mentioned in my post about the raccoons we saw in Mexico, me and Danny got up early one morning to watch the sunrise since I'd heard it was pretty spectacular.  Well the posts on Trip Advisor weren't wrong!  I spent a good 15-20 minutes snapping away with my camera and am pretty pleased with the results :)