Christmas 2016 already seems like a lifetime ago.

It was a Chrismas full of new adventures and a few challenges thrown at us. Most importantly It was a great day, we got to spend and enjoy it with loved ones.

The day started off pretty much normal: the kids woke up, we opened presents and my parents popped round to give out more presents.

Again, this year we were excited to have my mother in law and step-daughter and her partner round for dinner. But, first, we'd organized to meet up with my sister-in-law and her family and to take the dogs for a walk. 2016 we started to meet up and go on many Sunday afternoon walks together, and every time we venture out, we've thoroughly enjoyed it, so a few months ago we agreed to do a Christmas day walk. (it will also knacker the dogs out). We tend to choose places where we can wonder off, let the dogs run free and where the kids can enjoy the outdoors (and get muddy). Christmas day we went to Loud Lakes, which takes us through a mosaic of habitats, including woodland, grassland, open water, pasture and fen meadows.

It's the first time we've ventured out on a Christmas day and everyone was looking forward to it. My brother in law made us all each a Bacon roll each and he packed some mulled wine -  half way through our walk we made a little camp, used some tree trunks to make benchs. We sat, ate, drank and laughed - I think we also challenged ourselves to do a 24 hour wild camping trip (watch this space).

We pre-heated the oven and put the Turkey in before we left for our walk and when we arrived home after our 2.5 hour walk, the first thing hubby went to do was to baste the Turkey, but then he called out to me "Tan, the oven is cold", after a quick frantic 10-minutes of trying to get the oven to work, we quickly realized it was broken! Of all the days for it to conk out! It was definitely working before we left, as we put the turkey into a hot oven, but we came home to a cold oven. 

Quick thinking I rang my parents "have you eaten your dinner yet" I exclaimed, to which my mum said "just getting the Turkey out of the oven, why" - I replied "Please leave your oven on. Can I pop round and put my turkey in".

Our top oven was still working, so I cooked the roasties etc. in our top oven and chucked the pigs in blankets in the acti-fry. I popped the Turkey around my parents and hubby picked it up a couple of hours later - it was cooked perfectly and was very yummy. We did sit down and have dinner a lot later than planned, but it turned out lovely.

We ate dessert (bought the desserts from M&S again this year - yummy) and then played Speak Out - and my gosh we laughed.

Christmas 2016 didn't quite go to plan, however, we still had a lovely day.