Short Stay in London

Hello Everyone!

I hope your weekend was great!

So like I promised in my last post I am going to be sharing my trip to London with you. 

My mom had a business trip in London, so me and my dad decided to join her. We left for the airport on Saturday January 10th for our flight to Washington D.C. at around 11 am, which was then delayed until 4 pm due to mechanical issues. We got to D.C. with about an hour until we had to board for our flight to London, which it didn't look like we would get on (my mom works for an airline so we fly on standby). The flight to London turned out to be on the same plane we had just gotten off of and was having the same mechanical issue. Now our flight to London was delayed until 1:30 am, but around 12 am they announced the flight had been canceled. After the announcement all 200 and something people started sprinting to the customer service desk to be the first one in line to re-book there flight and get hotel vouchers. So we just sat in our seats and tried to find another flight back to Houston to try and get on the 3 pm flight that left out of Houston to London on Sunday. We ended up taking a van from Dulles to the Reagan Nation airport at 3 in the morning to get on a flight to Houston that left at 5am. Once there our flight became delayed once again, I do not know why because I had fallen asleep as soon as I got on the plane. Once we got back to Houston everything was smooth sailing from there. 

We arrived in London on Monday, a day behind schedule, which sucked for me since I was only staying in London until early Wednesday morning. 

My first day in London, sadly I didn't really leave the airport, my dad and I took a nap while my mom went to her meeting at the hotel which was connected to the airport. Then we went to dinner at a restaurant in the airport and then back to the hotel bar for drinks with my mom's co-workers. I wanted to go into town and go shopping (we were 40 ish minutes from the center of London) since we finished dinner at around 6, but I lost on the vote. 

So the second day my dad and I did every touristy thing you could possible do in London. 

First we took a walk through Green Park to get from the subway station to Buckingham Palace. I must say I did a great job at navigating throughout the whole day, including the subway. Green Park was nice, and well green for it being winter. It was typical weather for England that day, which is my favorite kind, but I could have lived without the wind. 

However, the pigeons in this park were a bit on the crazy side. They would fly inches away from you, and I personally don't like birds ever since one pooped on my head when I was younger. I will say that they do have some pretty feathers. 

 We then got to Buckingham Palace, which I thought it seemed a bit smaller in person. There was quite a lot of people visiting at the same time we were, so it was extremely difficult to get a picture of the whole building without getting shots of other people. 

 They also didn't have any of the "typical" guards, with the big fluffy hats and red suits. I am not sure if they even have them at Buckingham Palace or if they still dress like that, but it didn't really matter either way to me. I am not the kind of person to want to try to mess with them. 

This is one of my favorite pictures, I just really love how the gate looks with the building.

 Now, I know this is the back of the statue, but we didn't walk all the way around the square or whatever you would call it. I have no idea what this statue is called or what it is for. If you know please feel free to tell me because honestly I am to lazy to google it. 

We then moved on from Buckingham Palace, and took a nice walk to Big Ben and the Eye. 

 We walked by another park that I do not know the name of. We even got to see some of London's cute little taxies, which I never did get to ride in. 

 One reason why I love Europe more than America is there architecture. These were just some of the cute apartment building we saw through the day. 

 This picture is tied for my favorite along with the picture of the Eye, which is shown below. It was just about to start pouring rain when I took these last few picture. I just love how the grey sky makes the colors pop out. 

We didn't end up going on the Eye because they were doing maintenance on it. It then started raining so we took cover in a building next to the entrance of the Eye for about 20 minutes. After it stopped it was finally time to go shopping!!!

 I went to Primark along with a trip to SuperDrug. I might make a haul post on the things I got from Primark, since there is quite a few. I went a bit crazy . . . the store was one of the biggest I have even been in. There was 3 or 4 floors I can't really remember because I only went on two of them. It seemed like this store was half the size of my local mall. The only things I bought from SuperDrug was some of Zoella's (Zoe Sugg) bath products and Rimmel Wake Me Up foundation, since we don't have it in the US.  After all the crazy shopping we tried to find The Good Life to get a snack/small lunch, but this was the one time when I got lost so we head over to Nando's instead. I have heard many good things about Nando's and I will say they are true. The food was really good. I would love to go back and try other things on the menu. My dad even took the napkins we didn't use as a souvenir. 

This ended my day in London, and I loved it just as much as I thought I would. I will defiantly be going back to England as soon as I possible can. I would love to stay longer in London and get to see Brighten as well as other cities. 

On Wednesday I took a bus to Gatwick airport and flew to Stockholm. I then spent the next few days visiting my boyfriend and his family before leaving on Sunday to return home for school.  

Thus ending my trip, which was an amazing amount of fun even with the ruff beginning. 

I will talk to you guys later this week or next, depending on when I have time to post. 

I hope you all have a great week! 

xoxo Makenna

Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Hello everyone! I hope you are doing well! 

 It will soon be the season of baking, so I decided to share with you my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. 

Now this is not my own recipe, I found it online and wrote it down. I don't remeber where I got it from, but I did make a few slight changes to the recipe. I have been making these cookies a lot lately, as they are very popular with my family to the point where I had to double the recipe last time I made them. Alright let's get in to the recipe! 

Here is everything you will need:

• 2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour 

• 3/4 teaspoons baking soda- ( however I use baking powered because it makes the cookies a bit more cake like, but it is what ever you prefer)

• 1/2 teaspoon of salt 

• 1 stick or 8 tablespoons of butter 

• 1 cup of light brown sugar 

• 1/2 cup of granulated sugar 

• 2 large eggs ( or just normal size) 

• 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract 

• chocolate chips 

• two bowls, one large the other medium sized

The first thing you are going to do is set your oven to 375 F. I am sorry that I do not have metric conversions. 

You will then mix the flour, baking powder or soda, and then salt in the medium bowl and set aside for later.

Next in the large bowl mix the butter( softened), brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, and eggs  
         
         

     

 

After you have mixed all the ingredients extremely well, you can now add in the flour. The best way to do this is add a little at a time and mix the small amount of flour with the rest of the mixture. Then continue adding flour and mixing until you have mixed in all the flour. 

After you add the flour make sure you mix the whole mixture extremely well, for about 2 minutes. 

After the mixture has been mixed well you can now add in the chocolate chips! After you pour them into the bowl you will want to fold them in. 

Next its time to bake your cookies! I like to make them pretty big so I put 6 on a pan but if you want smaller cookies just make them to the size of your choosing. With small cookies you can make around 2-2 1/2 dozen. With large cookies, depending on how big you make them, you will make around 12-15 cookies. You will want to cook the cookies for about 12 to 15 minutes or until they are golden brown. Make sure to use a tooth pick to check the middle of the cookie. If it comes out clean then they are done! If dough is stuck on the tooth pick then put them back in for a minute or two, until they are cooked to your liking.

After the cookies are done it is time to let them cool and then eat them! I hope you enjoyed this recipe!

NatureBox Unboxing/Review

Last week I ordered my first NatureBox, and if you don't know what NatureBox is, it is a monthly subscription box that contains five snacks which you can pick or have the company pick for you. I had heard a lot about this company and how great they were so I wanted to try it out for myself. I ordered my box early last week and it arrive this past Saturday.

The main purpose for ordering my box then was so it would arrive before I left for Sweden this coming Friday. I always like to carry different kinds of healthy snacks with me while traveling so I will spend less money on food and I will also be eating something healthier than McDonalds. Since I am quit picky about what I eat I decided to pick four out of the five snacks and leave one to be a surprise. 

The first snack that I chose was baked sweet potato fries. This was the snack that actually made me want to buy a box and try them out. It is also their most popular snack and I wasn't sure I would even be receiving it because there was only a few left. 

The nutrition facts are perfect for a snack. There is very little sugar which is a key factor for me. After tasting these I understand why it is there most popular snack. Not only do they taste exactly like sweet potato fries, but they also have a little bit of spice to them. They are also perfectly crunchy which makes them perfect for any kind of chip replacement. The only problem you will have with these are trying not to eat the whole bag in one sitting. 

 The second snack that I picked was southern BBQ sunflower kernels. I have not had sunflower seeds since I was a little kid and I wanted to to pick snacks that were going to have a good amount of them in a bag, and this was one of them. Being from Texas I do love BBQ and to find a healthy alternative to BBQ chips would be great.

 The nutrition facts are what you would expect for sunflower seeds covered in BBQ flavoring. There was actually more in a bag than I thought there was going to be. Now if something is going to have any kind of flavoring to it, it better have a lot of it. These received my stamp of approval. You still get the taste of sunflower seeds with a good amount of BBQ flavoring. I would defiantly recommend trying these is you are looking for a BBQ alternative.

 So my cat realized I was opening bags of food and started hovering, and hoping I would give him some. Once he realized he was not receiving anything from me he then decided to sit in the box, and yes he is wearing a t-shirt this is because he will chose to run around like a crazy wild cat if he is not wearing one. Don't worry we do let him run around like crazy for a few days while we wash his shirt and plus he looks adorable wearing them.

 Ok, enough about my cat, the next snack I picked was mexicana mango. They are dried mangos and come with about 7 hand size pieces in each bag.

 The amount of sugar in this snack is not what I would like it to be, but since it is fruit I knew there was going to be a good amount of it. This is actually my favorite snack out of all five of them. My favorite fruit is mangos and so it only made since that I tried these. I have never tried dried mangos before mostly because I don't really like dried fruit. Most of the time they are to dried out and taste more like a cracker than fruit. However, while these are dried they still have a lot of moisture still in them.

The size of each one was ruffly the size of my palm. These are full with flavor and taste nice and fresh. It is just like eating a mango with out all mess and because I don't know how to cut fruit properly there is always a mess.

 Then the last snack that I picked was teriyaki twists. After I ordered my box I received an email saying this snack has actually been discontinued and I was quit disappointed since I thought this was going to be my favorite snack.

 The amount that came in the bag was very surprising to me. The bag which was one of the bigger ones was full to the top. The bag contains 5 oz of this snack, so I was really excited to try them and hope I wasn't disappointed. Well, I ended up being disappointed. The amount of teriyaki flavoring was extremely lacking. I had very high hopes for this snack and was extremely let down, and I now understand why this snack was discontinued. It tasted like a plain rice cake with a drop of flavoring.

 The last snack I received was the surprise snack that was picked for me, pb&j granola. I will say I was disappointed that they picked a granola rather than any of their other snacks. I was actually trying to pick between getting a granola or having a surprise snack, and decide to let them pick for me.

 This not the type of granola I would have picked for myself, but I do have to say it was pretty good. I like to have plain flavored granola so I can mix it with yogurt or milk and have it for breakfast. This tasted exactly like an oat and peanut butter cookie with some bits of jelly mixed in.

I am really glade that this snack came in a smaller bag than all the other. Even though this did taste good I would have no use for it, so I will finish it and probably won't reorder this snack. If you do like peanut butter cookies I would recommend this for you, as it is sweet and would be a good fix for any sweat craving you might have.

I also filmed an unboxing video were you can see me taste the snacks and get my first reactions to them. If you would like you can watch the video down below. I also mention in the video when I will be posting a whats in my carryon bag video and my first travel blog video. If you would like you can subscribe to my channel if you are interested in watching any of those by clicking here.