AnnaTheApple - The life of a girl who loves apples and running

February 19, 2015February 19, 2015

Running and my new Mizuno trainers

I like to think of Thursday as Friday eve, is that weird? To be honest, I don’t mind my working week. I enjoy my week, work and all (though sometimes my commute can push me beyond insanity – podcasts and audiobooks definitely help!). Though obviously weekends rock.

I thought I’d do a post of where my running’s at and also review a pair of Mizuno trainers that I was kindly sent by Millet Sports.

I actually had no idea Millets sold trainers – or anything running-specific. I thought Millets was purely a camping/back-packing company. I was chuffed they have a sub-section for other sports too (such as running, triathlons, racket sports, hockey and football).

I was allowed to select any pair of Mizuno running trainers so I went for what I know suits me best in terms of my gait (like many runners, I over-pronate): the Mizuno Wave Paradox. I’ve had a similar pair before and I ran the Paris marathon in them.

They’re a supportive trainer and have a high level of stability. From the website: “The Dynamotion Fit uses biomechanic and motion picture technology to design a blueprint and develop a shoe that works with your foot through the gait cycle. Smooth Ride engineering minimises the rapid rates of acceleration and deceleration of the foot during transition, creating as smooth a ride as possible.” [Source]

And as you can see it has more support on the inside of the shoe to help balance the rolling of your foot if you pronate inwards.

Still wearing my shorts!

I like Mizuno and found their trainers comfortable, well fitting and supportive. And I love the colour!

Yes I have been injured a lot and though it’s easy to blame it purely on whatever trainers I was wearing at the time, personally for me, it’s more likely to have stemmed from bad training mistakes (too fast, too much, too soon) and lack of adequate strength training to support my training. Running a lot on those weaknesses exploits them and then boom you’re injured. I started out in Mizunos when I first started running and it was only when I got too into heavy training that I fell into injury. So I’m not a big proponent of trainers causing injuries as an argument.

That being said, you do need to choose a trainer that suits your running gait and the terrain you’re on. I’ve always stuck with stability trainers and think that’s best for me as I have ridiculously flat feet. And let’s not get into the argument of over-cushioned trainers and barefoot running please…

Anyway, thumbs up for Millet Sports. They have a great range of trainers and other sport apparel and accessories. Another website for me to spend ridiculous amounts of time and money on – wahay!

How’s my running going then? Well I’m sad I couldn’t be involved in Jantastic this year (again) but it’s for the best. I’ve been running three times a week and keeping the mileage low and the pace at whatever I’m feeling – whether that’s 7.30 min/miles or 8.30 min/miles. Going forward my long runs will be more to the 8.30min/mile ranges and parkrun will probably be where I attempt any form of speed. I’m so relaxed about it it’s wonderful. My runs feel good – everything is working as it should, so far no issues and I feel like I’m running strong. I am back to loving running!

Box jumps are a killer

I also go to the gym three or four times a week as well. There I do an hour’s worth of full-body strength training and focused running-specific strength work, like single leg squats. I genuinely feel stronger and really enjoy these workouts, despite having to get up at 5am to do them!

Having the gym really helps because it takes the pressure off my running. I get a good sweat on and my heart rate is up and muscles that have been asleep for a while are now back in business. It’s obviously no shocker that I love to exercise, so fuelling this love in a different way has made running become a joy rather than my only form of ‘proper’ exercise.

Future goals? I deferred the London marathon as my training is just not good enough and I want my next marathon to actually have proper marathon training for once! I have Eastleigh 10K in March and Southampton half marathon in April so I feel good about those. I’ve also signed up to another marathon in June (the Liverpool Rock and Roll marathon). It’s about 17 weeks away and I feel like I can continue running nice and easy now, and then gradually creep the mileage up later and be sensible about my training.

But let’s be real here, this is me and injury is one of those things I think will happen regardless. I will continue with the gym though, continue being sensible with my training and pray I dodge the bullet. I also think my standing desk is a big help as well – I’m still going strong!

So that’s me currently. Loving the gym and loving running. How long may this last?? 😉

What trainers did you first start running in?

What brand are you most loyal to in running?

What is your running gait like?

***Full Disclosure: I was sent the Mizuno trainers for free to review. All opinions are my own as always.***

February 18, 2015February 18, 2015

Dallas Holiday Recap

I started my holiday (‘vacation’) recap with Orlando (find it HERE), the second half (or at least the last five days) we spent in Dallas. OK so Dallas was a very random choice, we are aware don’t worry.

We didn’t want to spend the entire holiday in Orlando (far too intense and crazy) and wanted to see another part of America. The flights from Orlando were fairly limited. We did ‘um’ and ‘ar’ about going to New York again (good job we didn’t – those flights got cancelled!) or going to LA. But LA meant a five hour plane journey, giving us a whopping flight time back to the UK at the end and an even worse time difference.

We enjoy having our own little adventures; walking, exploring, shopping and just generally chilling and Dallas fitted that criteria. Yeeehaaa! (OK I promise that will be the only ‘yeeehaaa’ I do).

Our hotel (Hotel Indigo) was lovely but very different from the Orlando resort. Far smaller as it was a city hotel, but it was very comfortable, had a gym and was ideally located. The bed…omg was so comfy too.

For our first day we’d planned to do lots of walking from our hotel to explore the area. I’d done a lot of research on good restaurants nearby and things to do so we were set. We stepped outside and good lord it was cold. We knew it wouldn’t be warm so we had packed accordingly but this was an unseasonably cold day for Dallas and our light jackets weren’t cutting it. After walking around for a bit it quickly became apparent we needed to be indoors.

In the end we got in the car and did some exploring that way and decided to spend the morning doing some serious shopping. We went to the Dallas Galleria shopping centre and it was brilliant. The first thing I bought was a warm long winter coat from Hollister in the sale – half price!

The best photo I could find of me wearing the new coat

Being warm is an essential Anna requirement so this instantly made me happy. As did shops with whole work out clothing sections!

Old Navy shop

You don’t really get this in the UK (that I’m aware). You just get sport focused shops instead. I had a field day I can tell you! Ben…not so much 😉

After shopping to our heart’s content we grabbed some lunch and then headed to the Dallas Aquarium.

Now normally this is not something I’d be a huge fan of doing at home. Sounds a bit dull to me…However we really enjoyed it!

There weren’t just fish, but monkeys, alligators, penguins, birds, insects and a leopard. The leopard was quite scary as it was stalking up and down its enclosure staring at a young child. The young child walked around the enclosure and the leopard followed it, menacingly. It looked like it was hunting the child!

Leopard selfie

Unfortunately the next day I woke up at 4am in the morning feeling incredibly sick. I had planned to go to the gym that morning but I wisely decided not to. I didn’t feel any better later and so Ben and I stayed in bed until 10am. Ben loved this as normally we never lie in, especially on holiday.

We ventured out for breakfast but I couldn’t eat anything but porridge. We’d planned a long walk in a beautiful scenic park outside the city but after 10 minutes of walking I told Ben I needed to go back to the hotel as I felt so ill. I wasn’t actually sick or anything thankfully though. On getting back I literally fell asleep straight away while Ben watched some TV. I felt so sorry for him, what a rubbish day! When it got to about 4pm and it was clear I wasn’t feeling better, Ben went to a local sports bar to enjoy some ‘man time’ with a few beers and sustenance. He said he really enjoyed it as he had wifi, sports on TV, beer and was just chilling (though obviously missing me and feeling worried…).

The next day I woke up and literally felt like another person. The sickness had fully gone. I was so relieved. The weather was beautiful as well – like a spring day in Britain. We decided to walk around Dallas that morning and see some sights.

I’d describe Dallas like a very small New York. It’s very cosmopolitan and has huge high rise buildings. But it’s a lot smaller and the accents are crazy. The funny thing is, people didn’t seem to understand us either. They also seemed genuinely shocked we were from the UK.

We saw the JFK memorial monument, the Texas School Book Depository (where Lee Harvey Oswald apparently shot the president – I say apparently as I know there are a lot of conspiracy theories out there!) Though JFK’s assassination isn’t an integral part of our British history, it’s still something we were interested in. I know how much he was loved as a president and how shocking his death was.

In the afternoon we went for a lovely run together in the park that we’d attempted to walk round before I got sick.

Post run selfie – looking fairly done in!

For once we actually ran together as well and it was a nice romantic way to spend the afternoon – sweating, panting and grimacing 😉

We did some other random bits and bobs in Dallas, like going to a butterfly house (they did this in the movie Boyhood that I saw on the plane and I was very pleased we could do it in Dallas!). It was very cool seeing all these butterflies flying around the place and, with butterfly chart, we tried to work out which were which (yes we’re geeks).

We also saw some more beautiful and interesting sights and went on lots of lovely walks. Ben and me are big fans of walking on holiday (especially if we have Vivofits… ;-)).

The cattle sculptures were amazing – it was literally a herd of life-size cattle running down a hill

I think it’s safe to assume we had a quieter and more chilled time (albeit with lots of walking) in Dallas. It complimented well with the craziness of Orlando! It was definitely a cultural change as well. It felt very small-town America but in a city, which I know sounds odd. We definitely got our fill of cowboy-ness as well!

We visited Forth Worth and the Fort Worth Stockyards (which is basically just cowboy central!). It was so much fun. I’m not sure I’d want to live in Texas though – it seemed very ‘out there’. I’m sure this is just my tourist superficial impression though.

And as a final note…we dropped by to both Hooters and Twin Peaks (Ben explains Hooters as a good spot for “butt men” and Twin Peaks for “boob men” – a fair assessment). We just don’t have this in the UK! As you can imagine Ben loved it but he was too embarrassed to get a selfie with a waitress haha.

“Enjoy the scenery”

And dinner there rocked my world. It’s something I’d never normally eat – just a load of fried goodness and dips (chicken, mozzarella, pickles…).

You can’t beat a good load of dirty fried food sometimes

Well, if you can’t splurge on holiday when can you!

Have you ever been to Texas?

Have you ever been ill on holiday?

Do you enjoy visiting aquariums or zoos?

February 16, 2015

A good normal weekend

Hello Monday! Hope you all had a lovely weekend, ours felt like old times again. The holiday is a distant memory sadly (one week of work pretty much wipes away all that joy away…).

This weekend started with a delicious meal of ribs. I’d love to say I marinated them myself but I didn’t. I just saw them in Tesco and spontaneously bought them. Though I have ribs on my recipe to do list for definite.

Both Ben and I agreed that though it said it was for two, you could have easily eaten one pack on your own. The portion size was a bit measly (though I might still be distorted by my holiday…). With the sweet potato fries though it worked OK, it was just slightly disappointing.

Saturday morning both Ben and I got ready for parkrun. I’ll do a post on my running (and Ben’s injury update) soon I promise (if you’re even interested!). As a cliff notes version, my running is going very well. I’m running three times a week while also going to the gym three times a week doing lots of bootcamp/strength and conditioning style routines. I feel less pressure and more love for running than I have in ages. It helps that I’m loving the gym and get a real sweat on there that I don’t feel the need to run as often as I used to as I know I’m getting stronger in other areas that will help my running. I’m still happy with my decision of deferring London as it would immediately panic me and pressure me to hit certain mileage as it’s so soon…but I do have races in the future lined up.

So parkrun. We helped set-up and there was much love for Ben returning which is always nice. I decided to push it as all my other runs have been easy. The course is the hardest one (the winter course) where, because it’s three laps, there are a total of six hills you need to get through (over?). I’m not really in a good running shape but felt like it was a sustained effort and a great workout to help get back to where I used to be. Third lady and 22:35 which I was over the moon with.

I also got my hair cut. This is monumental news as the last time I got it cut was April 2013 (THIS post). I tend to notice when it needs a cut because my arms start severely aching when I’m blow-drying. I was rather apologetic to the hairdresser but she said it actually didn’t look that bad for the length of time I’ve left it. I suppose there’s a compliment there? Anyway instead of being a cheapskate I actually paid for a quality cut rather than the cheaper place I usually go for…hairdressers were called technicians and the power doesn’t cut half way through a blow-dry!!

That being said, it still looks pretty much the same just a bit shorter! At least my arms will be happy…

Ah yes it was Valentine’s Day as well wasn’t it? Ben and me aren’t romantic and lovey-dovey so this passed us by. It’s also my dad’s birthday so we popped over to see my parent’s and treat them to a nice coffee in a lovely little tea room in Lee-on-Solent called The Tea Party.

We decided to forgo afternoon tea as we’ve all got back from a holiday and Ben and me have said February is a more ‘sensible’ (read: boring) month. I can assure you though, I found it hard to stop staring at the BEAUTIFUL cakes and it’s definitely an afternoon tea location to be trialled soon!

They serve alcohol as well so my mum had a lovely little glass of Prosecco in a baby sham glass as well as her tea, as you do. I stuck with a latte.

It was a lovely catch up and mourning of our respective holidays!

Sunday I went for a really good six mile run. It was one of those runs that just felt good. I felt strong, in the zone and found myself going faster than I had intended. I let myself off for it as six miles isn’t that far, but for my future Sunday runs I will really ensure to run slow – probably a good 40-50 seconds slower than I ran. I will take no chances this time around! I’m trying not to make the same stupid mistakes I always seem to make. I’m always climbing the mileage v.e.r.y. slowly; next week is seven miles for my long run, for example, while keeping the other runs the same.

I got back, wolfed down breakfast, chilled for a bit and then met up with Nathan for a 17 mile bike ride.

Hideous selfie

Ay, ay, ay! When you haven’t ridden in so long it is tough. We did our usual route and we both slower (as you can expect) than previously. It was a tough ride but I really enjoyed it. I felt shattered when I got in. But a good NON-BROKEN shattered. I won’t be cycling every week but once in a while it’s nice to get out there.

Then obviously we all went to Nando’s…kind of standard I suppose. I forgot how filling a whole chicken is, but I was not defeated!

Then the afternoon involved ironing and watching Belle (very good film) and going to be stupidly early as I was pooped. Good weekend 🙂 All that was missing was cake…

How was your weekend?

Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day?

How do you celebrate family member’s birthdays?

February 12, 2015February 12, 2015

Rants and Raves #8

I’m pretty much back into the normal swing of things again. It’s scary (and sad) how quickly normality and reality submerges you when you get back from being away. It’s like you never went away…

The other parts of my holiday recaps are coming but for now I thought I’d rant and rave for a bit.

Rant: I was driving back from the gym and had BBC Radio 2 (this was about 6.40am) and Chris Evans was reading some texts out. He read one from someone who said “I’m training for London” and Chris Evans was like “what does that mean? Training for the entire of the city? Training to do what? You need to sort your texting out!”. As a runner and a marathon lover obviously I knew exactly what the texter meant. He was training for the London marathon. It just annoyed me that Chris Evans was so oblivious to is and assumed the texter had made a mistake. I suppose as a non-runner you wouldn’t automatically know I guess…but it still irked me.

Rave: I am missing American food big time. I think Ben and me both agreed that if there was a froyo place near to where we lived it would probably become a Friday night and weekend habit. Not good for our bank account, teeth or tummies! I also miss the BBQ food…

Walking past these at Tesco on my lunch break I couldn’t help but grab them and buy them quickly. BBQ ribs for Friday night! It softens the pain somewhat 😉

Rant: Speaking of American food…

Obviously we brought back some treats to enjoy at home. The birthday cake M&Ms are my favourite. I dislike plain chocolate M&Ms as I find them too chocolatey, if that makes sense, but I love these. Very moreish though! I don’t like the Harry Potter Bertie Botts Every Flavour Jelly Beans though. Ear wax and vomit flavours?? Noooo thank you!

Rave: New trainers!

I’m now a big believer in rotating trainers rather than just using one pair all the time. I still love my Brooks trainers but I think I’m always a Mizuno girl at heart. Sooo comfy and just seem to mould well to my feet. These were sent to by Millets to review so that’ll be up next week sometime.

Rant: So much washing. It’s unreal. I do tend to do some hand washing on holiday for my smalls and gym stuff (otherwise they’ll sit in my bag for ages all sweaty and gross) but still the amount of washing needed to be done was ridiculous. That coupled with going to the gym and running and Ben going to the gym and running now…ay ay ay!

Rave: OK strictly speaking this isn’t really a rave, it was just very funny. I’d planned to go to the gym on Wednesday so my alarm was set for 5am. It went off, I got up…and then Ben’s alarm started going off which hugely confused me. He shouldn’t be getting up until 6am. As Ben’s alarm takes a while to wake him up (we’re so different) I nudged him and said “Ben, your alarm is going off??”. He rolled over, turned it off and said “was going to go running…too tired…not a morning person…mrrfff” and went back to sleep.

I got back from the gym about 6.45am to a very quiet and very dark house. I ran upstairs and opened the bedroom to find Ben still asleep. He woke up to the noise, bolted upright in bed and proceeded to reel off a few choice phrases and words I shan’t write here and leapt to the bathroom…he hadn’t re-set his alarm from before! He was 45 minutes late. Yes I’m a bad wife for saying this, but him leaping out of bed half asleep in major panic semi-naked and dishevelled was fairly amusing. Major kudos to him: he got out of the house (with a shower) in under 15 minutes. Oh to be a man…

Rant: I’m really suffering from dry skin on my legs. It started on holiday and I wondered if I was allergic to the hotel linen or water or something, but it’s still bugging me now. We bought some really good moisturiser in the States which is helping to some degree.

Funny name hehe…yes I’m a child

I normally get dry hands during the winter but hand lotion helps…but dry legs? Bit random and very annoying. Finger’s crossed it’ll clear up soon.

Any tips for dry skin?

Do you bring back food from a holiday?

What’s your trainer brand of choice? I like Mizuno, Brooks and Adidas Boosts.

February 11, 2015February 11, 2015

Orlando Holiday Recap

So here’s the first part of my holiday review. I’m going to recap Orlando and Dallas separately as they were so different and also do a post on food (because it was amazing).

For the Orlando part of our holiday we were spending it with one of my university friends, Kate, and her husband, Jamie. Ben and I get on really well with them but we’ve never been on holiday with them before (I have with Kate but not Jamie as well). There was apprehension I think between both parties beforehand as to how it would go but honestly there were no issues. Jamie is very much like me (hello all the foods) and Kate is like Ben (food is fuel). But we all love roller coasters and have quite crazy senses of humour. We really gelled well and there wasn’t anytime I felt either party had to compromise for the other. In fact sometimes it was Ben and Kate compromising for Jamie and my food choices, or vice versa!

We met up at the airport and all agreed Jamie’s Oliver’s (Jamie’s Italian) restaurant would be perfect for breakfast.

We all had the mammoth full breakfast and it was deeeeelicious and oh so filling. I also made sure to buy myself some food from Prêt a Manger as well as I detest the microwave plane food so I was sorted.

We arrived in Orlando probably about 10-11pm British time but by the time we got out and got our cars it was very late. We grabbed some food from a brilliant little spot Jamie knew of (side note: Kate and Jamie are like the experts of Orlando having been there quite a few times and Jamie, like me, always does his research on good restaurants so we were set!) and then we crashed at the hotel.

Our hotel was a Universal hotel called Cabana Beach Bay Resort and it was huge. There were four different buildings, a Starbucks, a bowling alley, arcade, two large pool areas (regular pools, lazy river, water slide and hot tub), a diner, bars, gift shop, an amazing gym and regular shuttle buses to City Walk where Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure are located.

The first day started rather dismally it must be said. It was chilly and raining. We met up to go to IHOP for breakfast which was great but we realised that with the weather being pants it probably wasn’t a good idea to go to the parks. This made us all a bit grumpy.

In the end though Ben and I decided to be really exciting and go to the gym while Kate and Jamie went shopping. Judge away but we didn’t fancy shopping and had planned to go to the gym Sunday morning so just switched it up so we could sleep in the next day. It made sense to us!

Work out selfie – could we be having anymore fun??

I’ll post more on the fitness side of the holidays another day as we did do a lot of running and gym stuff on holiday. It might sound odd but to me it’s part of who I am and to not do it would be weird. Plus I hate coming back from holiday feeling unfit and struggling to get back into the swing of things.

Anyway while we were at the gym the sun came out! Jamie and Kate arrived back and we got ourselves showered and ready to FINALLY hit the parks.

That’s Jamie photo-bombing behind us – we didn’t even realise!

We went to Universal Studios and it was brilliant. The whole new Harry Potter area (Diagon Alley) was brilliant. It looked so realistic and the new ride was pretty good. The Harry Potter restaurants were hilarious with the American’s take on British food (jacket potato with broccoli and cheese anyone?).

MIB ride – Kate taught me the tricks of the trade to high score

We went on quite a few different rides and enjoyed ourselves immensely. The best part about our hotel is the location as we could dip into either of the Universal parks so easily (within 15 minutes) so we never felt we had to stay and do everything all at once. We went back to the parks quite a few times over the course of our eight days there.

Sunday we decided to do Sea World. Before the holiday I didn’t want to go. I’ve seen Black Fish and I’m not a fan of watching animals that should be in the wild amuse humans for the sake of making money. It’s not right. That said, we decided to go because Kate and Jamie said the park was great with the rides and our tickets were a combo anyway so the money was going there regardless of whether we actually went or not. Feeble excuse I know. In my defence though I didn’t watch the shows with the others. It’s not something I enjoy so I left them to it while I went on a few rides and wandered around the park (the shows were only 30 minutes). It’s very strange walking round a theme park on your own!

The rides were brilliant. There was one called Manta and it was basically like Air at Alton Towers but on steroids. So much fun! Because it was so close, like Universal Studios, we were able to pop back in to do the rides again another day.

Monday we went to Busch Gardens. This park is quite far away as it’s located in Tampa, which is about an hour and a half away. We decided to drive separately (most of the time we drove together) so if one couple fancied leaving early they could.

Busch Gardens is a fantastic park for adrenaline junkies. It’s literally all just big roller coasters, no messing around. And we loved it! It was very quiet and we went straight to the new ride, Falcon’s Fury, and got on it twice in quick succession.

I honestly haven’t been that scared on a ride for a long time. It takes you up so high. As we got near the top the bravado I had when I was safely on the ground had disappeared and I said to Ben I wanted to get off. Not much he could do there! The seats then tilt you so you look straight down. If the restraints failed you’re dead, 100%. Then it drops you and you fall straight down. It was AMAZING.

The rest of the day we ran round the park like little kids going from one ride to the next. It was awesome. Kate and Jamie fancied looking around the animal enclosures (of which there were loads: giraffes, cheetahs, hippos, etc.) while we decided to make our way back and get some froyo and then chill in the hot tub.

We also had a fun day of playing crazy golf and bowling which was just such good fun. The golf was brilliant; lots of banter and fighting talk. The good thing was that we could pay for two sessions discounted so we came back one evening for another round. I was appalling at bowling but it was still a good laugh (though I lost by stupid amounts every time).

The bowling was at the hotel and the crazy golf was on City Walk

One of the best evenings was seeing the ice hockey. At first I was like “pfft, I’m not that interested but it’ll be an experience”. But WOW it is intense.

The Amway Center

And there was a fight! Like a proper gloves-down-helmets-off-fists-out FIGHT. While Kate and I were shocked and morally outraged the boys were loving it! OK I know this is a regular thing for ice hockey but to us naive and gentle ‘soccer’ watching Brits (“oh no there’s a ball, I will fall down now”) it was shocking.

Obviously I tried to catch it on my phone

For me one of the best days by far was the last Saturday in Orlando. It started with Ben and me getting up stupidly early to drive to Clermont (30 minutes away) for the Orlando parkrun (insert stupidly excited dance here). I’ll talk more about this on another post but it was brilliant!

We then found breakfast in a rather dodgy IHOP afterwards (this is what happens when Ben and Anna venture off from their Orlando Experts and fend for themselves). After showering and meeting up with Kate and Jamie we then headed off to Pig Fest. What is Pig Fest I hear you ask? I apologise in advance now to any vegans or vegetarians, this will not be your thing at all.Pig Fest is basically a huge gathering of people who compete in BBQ cooking. BBQ’ing in the States is not as we Brits know it (sausages and burgers) but proper smoking ovens serving things like ribs, brisket, chicken wings and pulled pork. Literally heaven. Look how excited Jamie and me are?? This was an afternoon for Kate and Ben to take one for the team.

Jamie and me with our Pig Bucks

You bought ‘Pig Bucks’ at the entrance (1 dollar = 1 Pig Buck) and then use those bucks to buy from different vendors to eat to your heart’s content. There were also non-selling vendors who were just competing as well. I would say it was 95% American. It wasn’t really a tourist hot spot in the sense that the parks are. And this made it so much more fun!

It felt very ‘real’ America, you know? The food was awesome…Jamie and I were like children in a sweets shop. Oh the ribs!! Ben isn’t a huge BBQ fan but he fully enjoyed the deep fried sweet treats. But more on that in another post…

We also spent an evening in Downtown Disney and saw the new Hunger Games film. This is something Ben and I would never have thought to have done and when Jamie and Kate suggested it it sounded like a good way to chill out.

The film was pretty dull though…I fell asleep twice! But you have to see it to see the final one *grumble grumble*. I did enjoy the experience though (and naps in such comfy chairs are awesome).

Basically Orlando was a whirlwind of roller coasters, theme parks, all the food and just good fun. It was lovely to spend the time with Jamie and Kate and we just all got on so well and had a laugh together. I would say we definitely missed them in Dallas!

Just chilling with Decepticon (like I know who that is…)

Ben would kill me if I didn’t mention one final awesome thing about Orlando…the cars:

Both couples got Mustang convertibles…*sighs*. Having the roof down was cool but it did mess my hair up (I know, such a girl comment).

Have you been to Orlando before?

Do you enjoy roller coasters?

Do you ever watch live sports on holiday? We’ve never done so before but Ben is now addicted. We only saw a very minor league team but he wants to see the big guns now (NHL? Is that right??)