Every year my parents get us a family Christmas present, last year it was the Logo board game and this year it was tickets for us to go see Wicked at the Apollo theatre in London. I have wanted to see Wicked for about 2 years now and have asked my parents if we can go multiple times! So you can see I was pretty excited when I got told we were going.

I won’t give away any spoilers for those of you who want to see it. But I would say it is worth it! I am in love with musicals so it’s no surprise that I loved the show! The performers were all amazing and extremely talented. It’s at times like this when I wish I could sing and perform like that! I have to admit the storyline was a little slow at first and the hype of the entire production probably didn’t help. But I still loved it!

For those who don’t know, Wicked is the untold story of the witches of Oz. It’s basically a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. It focusses on the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba and how she becomes known as the Wicked Witch. But also on Glinda the Good Witch and their unlikely friendship. It is honestly a lovely plot and the songs are a-ma-zing!! They are so uplifting and empowering (especially defying gravity!!) I recommend this West End show, it is totally worth seeing and I would love to see it again.

Lots of Love Em x

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Can you believe it’s 2016?! I can’t, I feel so old just thinking about it. This year I spent my New Years Eve actually being sociable for the first time in like 4 years! Me and a group of friends spent the evening together partying pretty hard 😉 it was the best night and I am so glad I welcomed 2016 with some of the best people in my life.

As it is the New Year it is a social expectation to have New Years Resolutions. So I have compiled a list. However, in previous years none of my resolutions ever lasted longer than a week so fingers crossed this will be the year!!

• Carry on learning Spanish (I did it at GCSE last year)
• Have a healthier diet
• Start saving up money
• Be more organised and productive
• Complete more things on my bucket list
• Be more kind & loving

I have decided that this year (despite these resolutions) the main thing I want to focus on is being happy!! That is all I want from life right now. The rest will fall into place I’m sure.

I hope you guys had an amazing start to 2016 and will have your best year yet!!

Lots of Love Em x

This was our final destination!! Huntington Beach!!

We decided to finish our holiday with a relaxing location so we spent our last three days at our hotel and walking along the beach. We stayed at the Huntington Hilton which was by far the nicest hotel we stayed in.

I loved Huntington Beach and (alongside Laguna Beach) was my favourite spot throughout the holiday.

Lots of Love Em x

Yosemite is a national park in California. Basically there are a lot of trees, cliffs and heights! We spent two days in Yosemite and drove round the park to the various viewing points. There were some truly amazing sights and it was pretty cool to see something like this. We definitely do not get places like this in the UK. My family even saw a tiny bear in the wood as we were driving through but of course I missed it!!

Sequoia is pretty similar to Yosemite. It is the home of the world’s largest tree! Exciting stuff I know! We only drove through Sequoia for one day and didn’t stay over in the park. The only reason we went was to see the biggest tree, and it was massive! The pictures do not give it justice.

 

Both these places are incredibly beautiful! However, I have to admit I got bored fairly quickly. After a while every tree started to look the same and I did feel a little claustrophobic when we were leaving Sequoia which was very odd. But it was worth the trip, I enjoyed seeing a different part of nature which you wouldn’t see everyday where I live.

Lots of Love Em x

Next we stayed in Half Moon Bay which is pretty close to San Francisco. We didn’t really spend anytime in Half Moon Bay as we were only there for two nights and spent our one whole day in San Fran. However, the restaurants were really nice as was our Hotel.

In San Fran we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped at a view point. Then we drove into the centre where we walked round a little and found the cable cars. Despite an hour or two wait we rode all the way to the end and back again. That was the best bit about the day! San Fran is really hilly and I was standing on the edge of the car so the journey was soo fun.

   

       

I personally didn’t really like San Fran as much as when we were walking around there was quite a few odd people which kind of scared me :/ but I did enjoy the cable cars and the experience of San Fran.

Lots Of Love Em x

Our next destination on our little road trip was Monterey! This city is famous for their sea life and amazingly we got to go whale watching. The journey from Santa Monica to Monterey was literally the worst thing. It took us like 6 hours or something ridiculous as we decided to take the coastal route so we could see the scenery. For around 2 hours towards the end of the journey we were winding round mountainous roads which were so high up. It was not fun for someone who gets travel sickness! However, we did stop at some points and saw some incredible sights of the ocean including some whales down below us.

  

We didn’t have long in Monterey so we tried to do as much as possible! We visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium which was so cool. There were so many cute animals including my new favourite the sea otters. The aquarium there is so different from our ones here in the UK, this one literally backed onto the ocean. The view from the outside of the aquarium was beautiful especially as the weather was amazing!

As I said earlier we went whale watching! This was an incredible experience. We saw so many types of whales and dolphins out in the bay. It took us about an hour on the boat to get out to where most of them are found. It was so windy, my hair was a complete mess and surprisingly it was really cold despite the 30 degree temperatures and sunny day back on shore. Seeing these species up close was amazing and kind of unrealistic, like I couldn’t believe how big they are and it still feels weird to say I have been within like 5 metres of the biggest animal on Earth! At the time I wasn’t really into the whole whale watching thing as I did get a little sea sick but it was still a great experience. Also, a few days before we were there, the BBC were in the area filming a documentary from the aquarium. We actually saw Matt Baker on our way to dinner one night! So ironic that we meet a British TV presenter whilst in California. It was so hard to take good pictures of the whales as they don’t stay out of the water long enough, but here is one I got…

~On our last day we went to visit Pebble Beach which is a golf club near Monterey. My brother loves golf which is why we had to go. Apparently it’s a big deal in the golfing world. So we walked round the course a little and took a picture in front of a clock by the first tea which I may of photobombed. Also, Monterey is where John Steinbeck was born. Those of you who don’t recognise this name he wrote the book ‘Of Mice & Men’ which many British teens are forced to read as part of our English exams. It literally is so boring and analysing it to write essays is so awful! So when we spotted his statue in the centre of the harbour, my parents were like go take a picture with your favourite person! (sarcasm!)

From this point onwards we were out of the typical L.A sights and were viewing another incredible part of California. Monterey is such a beautiful area in its own way and features so much history. It was so different to the places we have already been but it is just as good in its own way!

Lots of Love Em x

After our three days in the lovely Laguna Beach, we moved on to Santa Monica which is about 45 minutes away from Los Angeles or something. We stayed in a hotel in Santa Monica but we spent the day in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles was somewhere I really wanted to go to whilst in California. It was definitely an interesting experience and I would recommend going there to see it for yourself. However, it is not a place where I would like to live (unless I was a millionaire!)

We started off on the Hollywood Boulevard where we walked along the Hollywood Walk of Fame and saw different celebrities names on a star on the pavement. Bit of a weird concept thinking about it, but when in Hollywood you have to! Along the Boulevard there is also the Chinese Theatre which is a cinema which has held some famous movie premiers. I then has a Starbucks!! That was totally the best part of that day 😉

   

We went on one of those tour guide bus things where they drive you around Hollywood and show you all the sights. We were shown things like the Hollywood Sign, random celebrities houses, famous filming locations etc. It was so interesting just seeing things which you would not know existed such as the church from Sister Act which is literally two minutes off of the Boulevard. We also saw Katy Perry’s house up in the Hollywood Hills and we drove through Beverly Hills. I was hoping to spot a Kardashian or something but no luck. Although I think I saw Vin Diesel driving past us, but I wasn’t sure. It could of been any bald man to be fair.

   

Thanks to this little excursion I can tick a few things off my bucket list!

After our LA tour, we went back to Santa Monica where we met up with some family friends who live in Phoenix, Arizona. It was lovely to see them again after like 8 years or something. We had a lovely meal at a seafood restaurant which overlooked the ocean. I don’t really like seafood so I had a burger instead!!

Then the next day we went back into LA where my dad had booked us a studio tour at Warner Bros! This was like the best bit of the entire holiday! I love everything to do with like TV/Films and their production, I am considering it as a future uni course and possible career path. It was so cool to see all the lots where they film loads of big shows like Pretty Little Liars, The Big Bang Theory and Friends (when it was on air that is). I loved it though, it was an amazing experience. Oh and I also got sorted into Gryffindor by the sorting hat and got to hold a real Oscar!!

   

   

That evening, after the studio tour, we walked round Santa Monica and had dinner at Johnny Rockets! I wish we had walked down the pier now but at the time I was so tired we didn’t bother. We actually got the bus from our hotel down to the pier where all the restaurants were and that was such a weird experience. We were those confused tourists amongst all the Americans, and some of them were quite weird. It was a little unnerving!

    

That was it for Santa Monica and LA. It was so cool to see another part of Cali. Despite some of the areas being a little rough and I guess you could say scary, it was another experience of American life from another angle.

Lots of Love Em x

Our first destination was Laguna Beach which I think is around an hour away from LA and is an hour from San Diego or something. We stayed in Laguna for three nights and spent the days mostly relaxing by our hotel pool! The hotel was so lovely and was a five minute walk down to the beach.

After our flight we arrived in Laguna at around 2pm on Tuesday, we went straight to our hotel and sat by the pool for a few hours. The rest of that day was pretty boring as we were so tired after our flight.

The weather was so hot and sunny that on Wednesday we went to the Irvine Spectrum Shopping Mall! There were so many American shops which we don’t have in the UK like Aeropostale and Target. It was so cool, I love shopping and they had so many good shops and food places. We had a really nice lunch at P.F Changs, a Chinese restaurant. Whilst there I bought a new pair of Vans and also a bag from Forever 21.

 Our last day in Laguna, Thursday, was a very relaxed day. However, at 5am that morning my GCSE results were emailed through so I woke up early and checked my email every five minutes or something! Luckily my results were good so we went out for a celebratory breakfast overlooking the ocean! The rest of that day was very relaxed and I continued to read Paper Towns which I started when we arrived in Laguna. For our last evening we went to an open roof bar which again had a lovely view of the ocean! I loved Laguna, looking back I think it was one of my favourite places.

It turns out a lot of my photos are scenic pictures and do feature many palm trees!!

Lots of Love Em x

Today was the flight! 11 hours on a plane! We left home at 5am which was just too early for me. It was a long journey, boring at times and got kind of uncomfortable too. But overall it wasn’t too bad. Fortunately we had been upgraded to what they call Club Class where you have like your own seat where you can lay flat and better food etc. My dad was pretty excited when he got the email!

On the flight, I watched an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, 2 episodes of the Great British Bake Off, Kingsman and Alvin and the Chipmunks 2!! That was the best part of the flight.

 

 

By the end of the flight I started to feel a bit claustrophobic and I hadn’t slept much either which didn’t really help! But I know that it was would be worth it, we got off the plane and the weather here is so lovely! It’s going to be a good two weeks.

Lots of Love Em x

I am currently on holiday with my family in California, USA! We are here for 2 weeks and are spending a few days in different places around the state. We are starting with Laguna Beach then going on to Santa Monica (LA), Monterey, Half Moon Bay (San Fran), Yosemite, Seqoia and finishing with Huntingdon Beach (LA). I have always wanted to visit California and go to all the tourist spots in LA which we will be doing!!

At every location I will be buying some type of souvenir to remind me of each area but I am also going to write a blog post with loads of pictures!!!

I’m so excited for this holiday and all what we are going to do while we’re out here!!

Lots Of Love Em x