Anxious Bunny part 2

This past week with the death of Robin Williams the word depression has been thrown around on the internet alot. The big emphasis being that people don't understand it. It's true people don't get. Perhaps one of the most ignorant things I heard someone say this week is that it's only a mind set. You can choose to let it control you or you can choose to get up and get on with life. Except you can't. You don't get out of bed and go you know what today I think I'll be sad and depressed, I have tomorrow to be happy. Depression is an illness the same as cancer and just as cancer affects your body in a negative fashion, depression affects your mind in a negative fashion.

Regarding all the blogs talking about Robin Williams this one is the best for me because it shows the greatest understanding of the illness I think. Clickie


Tonight I watched Good Will Hunting.  Great movie.  There was one line that stood out for me though, "You'll have bad times but they'll only wake you up to the good things you weren't paying attention to." It made me think. A few years ago I had music, I had dancing, I had martial arts, I knew I liked these things but when I started having anxiety attacks I walked away from all that. It's only in the last three years I started claiming those back and I realised that when I have these I smile, when I don't have them I get stressed easily and more upset easily. These were my good things. I took them for granted and didn't realise just what a high value they had in my life.

 Be kind to others, don't judge and never assume that everyone is ok. Be aware of those that seem alone a simple text inviting them out with you for the day could mean the world to them.

Robin Williams, Genie, you're free. Sleep well

Lappish fun, part 2

The next morning we set off early to another little fun area to meet the man in the red suit! We even had a few hours of daylight today. In winter in Lapland they only have between two and four hours of daylight each day:

Once we got to Santa’s hut they had some of the kids knock the door and sing Jingle bells really loudly to see if he would answer the door. He did! So all the kids were brought in to his cabin and they had a chance to tell him what they wanted for Christmas and they were all given a toy reindeer. We gave Santa my nephew’s letter and he gave us a reindeer for him as well.

After that we hung around that area fro a while trying out the different activities such as more reindeer rides:

Husky dog rides:

And then the story-teller was back this time teaching us the traditions of Lapland and all about the traditional costume of Lapland:

They told us these were igloos they were building I forget what they said they were for though.

We had dinner here before we moved on to our next destination.

Our next destination was Santa’s Village to cross the Arctic Circle line. The blue lights were to mark where the Arctic Circle line was.  

Once we did that we had time to explore:

Santa’s Post Office:

If you wanted you could visit the man himself again as he had followed us over but we just explored the shops and toy factory:

After that it was time to head back to the bunker to give back our snowsuits and boots and then to the airport. Check in was quick and soon we were back on the plane waving farewell to Lapland after a great two days in the snow:

Back in Ireland they had some more cute decorations in the baggage claim hall I couldn’t resist taking pictures of:

Lappish fun part 1

In 2009 we did a two day trip to Rovaniemi, Finland in other words Lapland in December! When I say we it was two adults no children but we had a very important Santa letter to deliver for my nephew.

The Flight was at 10am so we didn’t have to be in the airport until 8am. 

 I love how they had the airport decorated for Christmas as well:

Since everyone on the flight was going on the same tour there was much fun and frolicking on the flight. Everyone was given Santa hats and a sing song of Christmas songs lasted for the duration of the flight. Once we landed in Lapland we got our luggage and headed out to the buses waiting outside the airport:

They brought us all to a bunker to get our snowsuits and boots. They did have hats and gloves up we used our own.

Once we were all suited up we went to some area where there was tobogganing and games set up for the kids. This was the only part of the trip where I thought not having kids with us was a little boring because there was literally nothing for the adults to do except stand around and watch the children play with Santa’s helpers.

After that they took us to an ice restaurant where everything from the chairs to the building itself was made from ice. It was quite funny here because they were giving us soup but because the place was made of ice by the time they got the soup to us it was cold again!

After our food there was an option on whether you wanted to go on a snowmobile or reindeer ride through a forest. We chose the reindeer ride so we went out to a hut in a forest and this lady told us some stories about the reindeer first while she gave everyone hot berry juice:

Then we met the reindeer and went off on our sleigh ride through the forest. While we were on our sleigh ride it started snowing as well:

 

After that we headed back to the hotel. We were staying in the Santa Claus Hotel. They checked us all in and gave us a bag of food to snack on since we were supposed to have dinner in the hotel and we missed it. Outside on the street were huge snowmen and Christmas trees so I popped out for a few pics before heading to bed. 

Maleficent and Tinkerbell

Recently went to see the latest Disney movie Maleficent and well I loved it!

This movie is the retelling of the story of Sleeping Beauty from Maleficent’s point of view and shows the audience her history and back-story and the reasons why she cursed the baby Aurora.

The tale starts off with a young Maleficent befriending and falling in love with a human boy named Stefan. Stefan is enticed by power though and eventually betrays her in order to become King so in return Maleficent places a curse on his baby daughter Aurora. The king gives Aurora to three fairies to take care of until her 16^th birthday and they take the child to live in the woods in order to keep her safe.

Through-out her life Maleficent watches the child grow and finds herself falling in love with her so that by the time it comes to her 16^th birthday she tried to find a way to reverse the spell. After the true loves kiss the movie ends with a big battle and then everyone lives happily ever after.

While some of the movie is similar to the animated version the ending is very different and I thought it was interesting to know the back story of Maleficent and to know that she really isn’t all that evil! Overall I thought it was a great movie but perhaps again it’s one of those that if you aren’t really a big Disney fan you’re not going to love it!

Another movie I watched today was Tinkerbell and the Pirate fairy. This is about a dust fairy named Zarina who after being relieved of her duty as a dust fairy goes and joins a team of pirates as captain of their ship. After a year when Zarina returns and steals the blue pixie dust Tinkerbell and her closest fairy friends follow her to get the pixie dust back. Of course there are several battles with pirates, the fairies get captured, the fairies escape, they get captured again but in the end everyone lives happily ever after once they defeat the pirates and return to Pixie Hollow.

Again I thought the movie was good and particularly like the fact that half way through it dawned on me who the pirates and crocodile were and how they were linking the Peter Pan and Tinkerbell movies together!