Winter Wonderland - Hyde Park, London, UK

For those of you who, like us, LOVE Christmas it’s amazing just how many excuses you can find me do Christmassy things! Living in London we are lucky enough to enjoy Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park on a regular basis.

When we worked together last year we were able to walk the 10 minutes to Hyde Park almost every lunch time to indulge in the array of food – bratwursts, Angus burgers, turkey & stuffing sandwiches and profitijes (how did I wait 25 years to taste them!!!) – it’s a lunch only fit for Christmas time!

This year as we don’t work together we have had less chance to go and wander round but we thought we would get in early with Sarah and Lauren. So after our Thanksmas celebration we headed to Harrods and then on to Winter Wonderland. With Willow with us and dressed to combat the ever-so-cold weather we braced ourselves for the hoards of people. This place is BUSY!! Poor Willow (or maybe lucky Willow) ended up being carried round to save her from the buggies and feet. This place is not for the faint-hearted or those who hate crowds.

Once inside the parameter you have plenty of attractions to see. The area is divided into sections; The Fairground, Food Markets Stalls, Christmas gifts stalls and the Ice Rink, oh and the Zippo Circus area and an Observation Wheel. You can wander for free but it costs to go on anything or into any of the attractions.    

There are over 100 festive rides and attractions and even Santa Land, where Santa hangs out in is his famous grotto!

Having had the experience of Winter Wonderland at a weekend we would say DON’T DO IT! If you can head up during the week otherwise the atmosphere is lost trying not to get trodden on or crushed – festive if you love the Christmas shopping crush – but not fun if you are there to enjoy the day.

That’s not to say you can’t enjoy it and our tour with Sarah, Lauren and Willow was enjoyable, from the talking tree welcoming us to sitting in a very Bavarian style wooden terrace full of food stands and bars, to the delicious food to the Christmas tunes blasting over the tannoy we all felt the Christmas spirit.

You can easily spend a couple of hours wandering round the 100 or so stands, time it right and there are live bands playing and all kinds of random entertainment. It’s not the cheapest place to find a Christmas gift but there is definitely plenty of choice. We got a personalised tree decoration there last year:

As Sarah still works 10 minutes walk away she definitely has the best deal, even if her pre-Idaho diet has been destroyed, well it would be rude not to indulge in the delicious food – right?!

Open from late November to early January there are plenty of weekdays to head over and with Hyde Park Corner tube station right outside (although often closed as it gets overwhelmed) and Green Park or Victoria Station just 10 minutes walk away it’s definitely well-located.

If you are in London on a weekday make sure and pop in, it's well worth a look around!

An L&S Experiment: Love Languages

Earlier this week I was catching up on the blogs we follow, when I came across a very interesting post from Jena at Recently Roached about something I’d never heard of before – Love Languages.

Jena said in her post that it was something she was taught in her Christian sorority - that there are five different ways of showing love to your significant other, and each person values these ways differently. I had never come across it before, but I thought it was a great idea!

Sarah and I have been together (almost) 4 years now, and we think we know each other well, but I decided we were going to do an experiment. We took the five languages and ordered them according to what we thought the other valued most to least (so I did Sarah’s, and she did mine) – we recorded those findings.

Then, we each took the 30 question test (changing the word ‘husband’ to ‘girlfriend’, of course), and recorded our own results.

Comparing what our partner thought we found most important to what we actually found most important (and so on) was eye opening.

While we both got the two most valued languages to the other one correct, in the middle is where we could learn the most –

Sarah learned that while she thinks I value her ‘acts of service’ quite a bit, I’d much rather if she showed me she loved me by physically touching me or telling me. We can always do the acts of service together and turn them into quality time!

And I learned that though I would think acts of service was higher on Sarah’s list because she is always nagging me to do my part ;D in fact whats important to her is that we both do the work to get it done so we can spend more quality time together – and that I can never tell her that I love her too many times.

Finally, we both learned that we value similar things – is this how we've gotten on so well thus far, with a ‘treat others as you’d like them to treat you’ attitude? Well now we will continue to do the same, but with more awareness of what would make each other feel even better than they do now!

It’s only been four days, but the Love Languages test has already made a difference in our relationship - click HERE to try it out with your partner!

Oh and PS:

(EEEEEEE!!!!!!!)

Laura's Bad News

Hi everyone, hope you are having a better week than us!

There we were, minding our own Christmasy business, and the completely unexpected happened - Laura was made redundant.

It happened Monday morning, her entire department is getting cut, and it has nothing to do with her or her work, just unfortunately due to the economy - but we are still floored. It was a permanent job! She was really good at it and loved it! How did this happen? AND RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS??!

So now, with only 7 working days until our holiday, we're back on the job hunt. But this time, we are looking to improve our quality of life - no 8:30 - 18:00 jobs, only normal amounts of hours, and in Victoria or around, so we can still have lunch together every day.

Laura definitely isn't as upset by this job loss as she was the last, probably partially because she's been through it before earlier in the year, and this time she isn't losing working with Sarah, and finally because she knows (unfortunately) others who are in the same position as her. It just seems so unfair, what a horrible time of the year for this to happen!

Luckily, we've got a secret weapon - Sarah has been sending through jobs for Laura to apply for from 1 hour after we found out. We're applying, hopefully getting some interviews before we go home, but while we are in Idaho/NYC we are NOT thinking about this. Only good and positive thoughts from 14th December!!

So if anyone in the West/SW London area knows of any roles going in Office Management, training, HR, admin, PA, etc areas, Laura's your girl!

We'll get through this together, it won't be as bad as last time, and we'll stay positive no matter what. Hopefully.

The one and only JASON MRAZ rocked our world!

Jason Mraz was AMAZING! If you read our last post you will know that Laura has had a long standing love affair with Jason after seeing him many a year ago back in Boise. However Sarah had never seen him live and only had his albums to go by.

Admittedly neither of us had really had the chance to listen to his new album too much but had listened through it a couple of times and from what we had heard it sounded just as good as his older songs! But we were worried if the show was all new songs we could have missed out with singing along.

However, we did not have to worry. From start to finish this show was crammed with tune after tune, song after song that got not only us, but the whole crowd on their feet singing every word! The atmosphere was incredible. It wasn't just us that thought so:

The O2 is a BIG arena and having seen the productions that Britney Spears and other artists had put on there made us a little apprehensive about how little Mr Mraz would fill the arena with just a guitar but with the help of his AMAZING band this was not a 'show' as such this was an education in how real music can still engage, inspire and entertain you. There were no half naked dancers, clever staging or pyrotechnics, there was just Jason, his band and a screen that had images or close-ups of the stage (you wouldn't have seen him from section 4 in the roof otherwise)!!

We were SO lucky to have seats 30 rows back on the floor though, so we could enjoy watching him up close and on the screen. We saw his band loving every minute, we saw Jason changing guitars and having fun! That may seen a random thing to say but as much as Britney (and after seeing her 5 times Sarah is a little knowledgeable on this) turns up and does her performance, you do feel a little like she just changes the 'city' in her speech. But with Mraz, it did not feel like that at all. From his anecdotes about his times in London before and from the way he took time to let the crowd cheer him, this was not an artist just 'doing a set'.

Strangely one of the stand out moments, that we both mentioned, was the fact that he came on stage at the exact time we were told he would - not half an hour late! And his first words were 'Thank you so much for coming' - what a gentleman! We also loved that fact that he acknowledged that his lack of 'self promotion' made him somewhat of a well-kept secret and he was glad the secret could fill the O2! That made the atmosphere all the better, everyone there was a real fan and you couldn't help noticing everyone singing (even if the guy behind us sang a little too flat & a little too loud for it to be pleasant ;D ).

We also loved his remixes - 'Lucky' with 'Fly Me To The Moon' was ingenious! He also did 'Three Little Birds' by Bob Marley - brilliant and 'Careless Whisper' by George Michael - smooth!

A lot of his old classics were featured too - 'I'm Yours', 'Plane', 'You & I Both', 'The Remedy', 'Butterfly' and 'Live High'. Although the crowd pleaser, and cleverly left to last, was his hit 'I Won't Give Up' - this had everyone's phones in the air and left everyone buzzing.

We couldn't fail to mention his percussionist either - she was SO talented, slightly insane if you go by the faces she was pulling, but so wonderful. In fact the band (all 8 of them) seemed to play every instrument available at one point of another. It made every song come to life in a completely different way.

Oh and there was a proposal too! Just before the song 'The Woman I Love' Jason gave a speech about how we should all appreciate the women we love and as it ended, the camera panned to the crowd and there was a man on one knee! Ahh love and Mr Mraz just seem to go hand in hand. Funnily he even mentioned us, his lesbians friends, in his speech :)

We're sure we aren't the only couple who relates to Jason Mraz - not only is he a talented musician, there is something more, his clever lyrics are so relatable and in the main, positive, that you can't help feeling loved up - we spent almost 90% of the concert embracing each other, kissing and saying 'I love you'.

No doubt Jason Mraz's songs will play more than a small part in any future moments of ours - after all, in the words of 'Living In the Moment':

I will not waste my days
Making up all kinds of ways
To worry about all the things
That will not happen to me

So I just let go of what I know I don't know
And I know I'll only do this by
Living in the moment
Living our life
Easy and breezy
With peace in my mind
With peace in my heart
Peace in my soul
Wherever I'm going, I'm already home
Living in the moment

I'm letting myself off the hook for things I've done
I let my past go past
And now I'm having more fun
I'm letting go of the thoughts
That do not make me strong
And I believe this way can be the same for everyone

We echo that, Mr Mraz! And if you ever do read this - THANK YOU for a night that will go down as a highlight in a year that has already been one of the best yet!