Life and Sole of FHE.

So here are my new shoes: 

I love them, I had seen them a couple of weeks ago but they weren't in my size, I saw them in Cribbs in my size and I just had to get them. I love the material, and the straps, and the fact that they are really high. So I wore them to church and FHE this week and I have never had so many comments on a pair of shoes before. It was actually quite funny, loads of people were like "I love your shoes" It made me feel good . . . Is that weird?? lol.

In other news, French ATC are driving me crazy, they were on strike this week (when are they not??) and I was only meant to do ALC and back, a nice short easy day. . . It turned into the worst day of my job so far. We had delay after delay (like 3 hours on board with the passengers) and then we had no food left because we were so busy, so we had to hear so many complaints about that. And then we had a girl purposely trip like 3 of us Cabin Crew up and throw stuff at one of my colleagues. We gave her a warning and she was so mouthy back to us we decided to call the police on landing because she was affecting out safety. Well then we had to divert to BOH which was not cool. We had loads of complaints obviously because we were trying to get to BRS and we already had passengers that were trying to get to BHX and LGW (those flights were cancelled) so we had like 10 people get off, and the police arrested the girl, and then we had a smoker in the toilet who they had to arrest too. Me and one of the other cabin crew had to give police statements which took like an hour, and then we eventually got back to Bristol and had loads of people really nasty to me on disembarking. Urg . . . Worst day ever!!!

Money, Money, Money, Moving!!

So lately everything has been happening all at one time for me, isn't that always the case. My car failed it's MOT which was not fun but thank goodness it didn't cost as much as I feared in order to fix it enough to get it to pass. . . . phew!!

On the other hand, the dentist hasn't been as nice to me . . . Was due to have a couple of fillings, and now I need a root canal (ouch!!) It's also going to cost like double (double ouch!!).

Great news though is that I'm moving!! I am sooo excited, I'm moving in with Grace Finlay and it's going to be sooo great. We're moving to Bedminster which means that it'll be so much easier to have a church social life, and so much easier to have a work social life as most of the crew live in Bedminster. This is the apartment. . . http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-14242912.html I am hyped!!

In other news we moved into our chapel last week and it's so great. It feels so good to have a room and a whiteboard to interact with the YW more. I know it should be the same where ever you are, but I always feel there is such a great spirit in a chapel. I loved teaching last Sunday. I'm also really enjoying my calling right now, Emma and Gill are great sisters to serve with. I'm going to be kinda sad to be leaving Taunton Ward!!

Tonight me and Laura are going to go watch this movie. It looks really funny and it'll be great to spend some sister time. We're also going to eat out before the movie which should be great.

I also want to watch 'The back up plan" another movie that also looks funny!!

I love Abi, she picked me up a couple of LDS novels from the bookstore. One was called "Brianna, my brother, and the blog" was hilarious. As was the book titled "AltAered plans". I love books and these 2 I read in 1 day. It felt so great to read a couple of great new LDS books and I love Abi for getting them so I didn't have to pay postage. lol.

Anyway, until next time!!

x x x

The Lonely Hearts Club

This is a book that was recommended to me by Abi, Abi fell in love with it from one look at the cover, and I can't blame her, when she sent me the link, I decided that I couldn't wait for Abi to get home in a few weeks so I could borrow it, instead I ordered my own copy so I could read it sooner, I too, had fallen in love with the cover.

It has been longer than I could remember since I last bought a book for myself and I must say this was an excellent read. It only took a few hours to read and I found that I just couldn't put it down, it was so good that all thoughts of dinner, TV, facebook, and bed went completely out the window. So what made this book so great??? Well, the great thing about this book is the messages that are in it and it really was what I needed to hear/read right now.
1) You should not change yourself for any boy.
2) No matter how many times we think the world is full of boys who are jerks, there are actually some decent ones out there too.
3) You need to learn how to love yourself! Create, find & know your own identity. This is one that I really struggle with in my everyday life. There are times when it really hits me that I really do not know who I am.
4) There is nothing like a solid support group of friends. I am so grateful for all my amazing friends in my life. The ones that are there just to hear me rant, the ones that give me advice, the ones that are there for me no matter what, and the ones that are willing to eat a mountain of junk food and appreciate the greatness of Ben & Jerry's in the name of a girly night.

After such a success of buying and loving a book I decided to make use of Abi's closeness to the LDS bookstore to get me a few books, it was so hard to narrow the list down so that it didn't break the bank and it really made me miss the BYU library where I could go and read these books for free. However I managed to narrow down my list, and thanks to the first chapter that is posted on line, I've also got Abi hooked on some of them already. The 2 weeks she is going to be home is going to be filled with book exchanges, reading, and eating a mountain of junk food all in the name of a girly/Gilmore girls night.

My goal for the rest of the year is to try and get to know myself better, to try and get into some great habits, to try and see positives in myself instead of negatives, to try and develop a talent, to find a talent, and to enjoy the stage in my life.

Where has the summer gone??

After the gorgeous weather that we had in May and June you would think that the summer would of continued to be beautiful. . . . but then we remember that we live in England. I can't believe how miserable the weather has been the past couple of weeks, it feels more like October than August. If only there were a summer holiday to look forward to. :)

The volcano that caused me to get stuck in Amsterdam happened 4 months ago, well today I got a email from Delta saying that I could get reimbursed for my hotel, but since I made my own way home that will be it. It's a blessing really because it's like €95 Euro that I didn't have yesterday. But still, it's kinda frustrating that it happened at all. I wish I knew that airspace would of been closed for a week because then I could of enjoyed a week in Amsterdam, it would of been great to actually see a city I've never seen before lol. Maybe one day I'll go back and see it.

I also realized this week that I really am bad luck. Due to horrid thunderstorms in Rzeszow we had to divert to Katawice (These are in Poland by the way) lol. Anyway so we diverted and decided to drop our passengers off to endure a 3 hour bus journey back to Rzeszow. We decided that we would try and get into Rzeszow but if the thunderstorms were still there then we would go back to Bristol empty. however the thunderstorms had moved and we managed to get in, pick up the passengers, and made our way to Bristol all before our original passengers managed to get to Rzeszow. . . The poor passengers, I really did feel a bit sorry for them.

The D word started this week. Man is it hard to eat healthy. lol. Not only is it expensive but it's so hard to be munching on fruit and veg instead of chocolate and crisps. I've been doing really well this week though and have had great fun experimenting with different ways to eat my favorite meals. My aim is to lose 5lbs in 2 weeks. We'll see if I can make it huh.

Haagen-Dazs sure likes to jump.

Last week I endured Young Women's camp, I had been dreading camp since I had been called into Young Women's but actually I was pleasantly surprised. I went pretty much straight from work, so was pretty tired, but it was great. Emma, bless her heart, had already set up the tent and everything when I got there which was really nice since I was so tired. Camp was so much fun, it was so great spending time with Emma, and the YSA leaders that were there. We had a lot of fun. Here are some of my highlights from camp: 

1) When shopping for food in Asda with Emma, we happened to walk past the Haagen-Dazs which was on offer for £2. It just happened that a tub of the chocolate cookie dough jumped into our trolley. And since we were camping, we had no freezer, so oh what a shame, we just had to eat the ice-cream. lol. The next day after the service project I came back and Emma had been to Asda to pick something up, and another tub happened to drop into the trolley again . . . Oh what a shame!! lol. 

2) My double airbed. It was so great being able to roll and not fall off an airbed, and with my sleeping bag, duvet, and blankets, I stayed toasty warm. I dislike camping, but if you have to camp you should do it in comfort. 

3) Emma telling the YW lies. Lol. It was so funny, she told the YW that me and Joe were married (he was our priesthood leader and we're cousins by the way). Joe then made it worst by saying we weren't married, we were engaged. My gosh the girls pounced on this, but it really was quite funny how the girls were so excited, and how Joe really needs to learn when to stop talking when it comes to YW lol. 

I had to leave camp early because I had to go back to work, but I was actually sad to leave and wished that I could of stayed for the whole of it, which shocked me no end. Sleeping outside is not my cup of tea lol. And the best part is that despite burning just a tad, my tan lines have improved again. The weather was just perfect which made a change to the past few weeks. 

Continued . . .

May saw the start of Bristol Convention which was really good fun, it's always soo good to spend time with heaps of friends and TONS of YSA. It was a blast. However on the Saturday I was on my way to Laura's I was involved in  . . . 

A car accident: I was stuck on a roundabout and as I got going a

 car came zooming by cutting me up as he exited the roundabout from the middle lane and clipped my drivers side. It shook me right up and I couldn't really stop shaking for a few days after. Despite thinking that we were going to sort out our own damage he then a month later, decided to go through the insurance company as neither one of us are accepting liability. We're still waiting to hear the outcome. 

The dreaded roundabout. 

My Second overnight: The ash from the Volcanic Eruption caused some problems for a couple of weeks after canceling flights where the ash cloud was located. I didn't have any other problems as far as that was concerned. But one Sunday in May I had gotten called of standby to do Gdansk (GDN) Belfast (BHD). When we landed in BHD, the captain found ash in the Engine . . . Not much but still enough to ground  us until it could be checked by an engineer (who was in Dublin). A Stansted crew were also there and I happened to know the Supervisor from when I was based there which was good fun. We ended up overnighting because of how long it takes to clean a aircraft engine. Stansted got to stay in a 4* hotel in Belfast . . . and we got The Salty Dog in Bangor Bay. lol. We had a really good crew though and had a lot of fun before getting back to Bristol the next day. 

Playing in the Engine

In the flight deck

The Salty Dog

I just love all the gorgeous weather that we've had this summer, it's been so good to be able to wear shorts, flip flops and spend lots of time in the sun. Other than getting burnt it has really made the summer seem more summery, instead of cold, wet and miserable which is what we're used to in England. For Father's Day we went up to see Laura in Bristol and went to Blaise Castle. I've never been here before despite it being just up the road and was great to see another local attraction. It was another beautiful day and perfect for a picnic and walk through the woods to the castle. 

Josh, Dad, and Laura at Blaise Castle

Alton Towers: I love Alton Towers, it is by far my favorite theme park that I have ever been to. It has sooo many fab rides but I think my favorites are definitely Air, Oblivion, Nemises, Rita, then the new ride Th13teen. Although they all come quite close together. The whole theme park is amazing and this week a group of us decided to use our buy one get one free tickets to go to Alton Towers for the day. It was great, we drove up in the morning and used walky talky to communicate between the 2 cars which was really good fun. We didn't get to go on all the rides in the park as the lines were really long. We had to wait for over an hour to get onto Rita, and like 45 mins for Air and Nemises. We did get on all the big rides however and a few little ones before we drove home that night. It was so worth it though and thankfully it was warm but not baking, and we only had a few drops of rain. 

This is Amy in front of Nemises. 

That pretty much brings us  up to July lol. It's been great the last couple of months working a lot more now that we're in the summer season, and we are flying to a few new routes which is always exciting. We have also had a few new people arrive at Bristol base which has been fun, and a few fantastic people leave which is not so fun. I still love being based in Bristol though, it's just so friendly and you get to know everyone. I love it. There have been a couple of long-haul jobs available for Monarch and Air New Zealand and I printed out and filled out the application form, but I just don't know if it's the right thing to be doing right now. I feel really content where I am and whilst my dream is to do long-haul flights, there is  just something that keeps making me put off sending the form off and I don't know what it is. Maybe I'm meant to stay put for now :)

The problem with blinking!

So the problem with blinking I have found is that at one point it is January, and then you blink and it's July. I can't believe it has been that long since I last updated by blog, that's forever, so much has occurred since that to write it all would take the next year. lol. However here is a brief re-cap of all that has been happening. 

My first overnight: In February I had my first overnight in . . . Lanzarote!! First image that comes to mind is hot weather, bright blue skies, and beaches right?? We had grey sky and torrential rain. 

So the story . . . We were doing a Lanzarote flight (ACE) and the weather was sooo bad and we got hemmed in by thunderstorms (we could see the lightning outside the aircraft) so we couldn't land in ACE so we diverted to Gran Canaria (LPA) and re-fueled and waited a little while for the storm to pass. Well they decided that it wasn't moving but to give it a try anyway so off we went again warning the passengers that if we couldn't get in we were going to divert again and have to disembark. So off we went and you can guess we diverted to Feurteventura because ACE was still closed. We then got told that we were to disembark the passengers and leave them there (on the wrong island) and go back to Bristol empty. However, it took ages to disembark because the passengers were refusing to. We then went off again empty and were told to try ACE one last time since we were

going past it. As you could guess we got in this time but didn't have enough hours to go back toBristol because we would of been flying too long. So we had to overnight. However, it wasn't all as glamorous as you may think since we didn't get to our hotel til 00:30, we went to get something to eat then had be at leaving for the airport at 11:00. However it was a pretty cool experience and oddly enough we felt like real cabin crew lol. And we got to stay in a 5*hotel. :) 

Dublin: For my birthday, me, Laura, Mum, and Lucas went to Dublin for the day which was really good. After a meeting for work, we went to the Titanic expedition, and then (window) shopping on Grafton Street. It was really good spending the day looking round another city and fun that we could spend just a day in another country. I love the fact that this is possible in Europe because we're all so close geography wise. 

America: So work assigned me a week of Annual Leave for the first week in April which I was not allowed to change. As I didn't want to twiddle my thumbs at home for a week and there aren't many places I wanted to go to just for a week, on my own because all my mates were still in Uni, I decided to book a second week off and I booked my ticket to AMERICA. I literally booked the plane ticket 10 days before I went. I was sooo excited to be going back to America to spent time with all my Uni friends. I've been missing living in America since I left. I spent 10 days in Utah first, spending lots of time with Megan, Craig, Rob, Nadine, and seeing a lot of people from my BYU ward, my friend Katie from Teriyaki Stix and I met her baby Naomi. It was sooo good to have some closure on BYU and just bask in the Utahn-ness off it all, went to conference, temple square, shopping, and ate at lots of places I've been missing. 

After 10 days in Utah I spent 5 days in California with one of my old roommates Anna. It was so good and the weather was perfect temperature. We went to the beach, and Disneyland, and shopping in a huge mall. I also got to see Downtown LA which was awesome with the walk of fame and the Hollywood sign (which you could barely see because of all the fog) It was so fun to see another culture within the USA. 

Volcanic Eruption: On the way home from the States I flew LAX to Minneapolis, and then from there to Amsterdam and then I was meant to fly to Bristol from there. Everything was great and after hearing all about the fantastic weather England was happening I was shocked to fly over a black cloud when we went over England. After landing in Amsterdam I got told the flight to Bristol was cancelled. With no other information, and they weren't rebooking any

 flights. After finally finding out that they had closed

 UK air space I decided to try and drive home 

since I was meant to be at work and we wouldn't know when air space would open again, and I would need to be back in time for work. So I managed to rent a car and drove from

 Amsterdam to Rotterdam to Gent to Lille to Arras which is as far as I was allowed to take the car. Because I had gotten stuck in traffic and lost in Rotterdam I had missed the last train to Calais which is where I wanted to catch a ferry. So instead I stayed the night in Arras. At that point all the the ferries and trains were fully booked the next day but luckily Mum and Dad were in France as well and Dad and siblings came home early and picked me up on the way home, and Mum  had to come home on the Monday via hire car and ferry. In the end though air space was closed for 6 days . . . could of had a nice holiday in Amsterdam lol. 

To be continued . . .