March.

March began with a momentary panic.
This is the month I hand my dissertation in and the rest of my life is decided on this.
Okay so that's a little dramatic, but it's big. So how did I settle myself down for this? The answer is quite simple;
Alcohol.

(Be prepared, this one is going to make me look like a raging alcoholic)

Coincidentally, I had a works leaving do and my housemate's birthday night out on the same day. And it's fair to say, I completely overdid it. I'm not going into details, however i'm sure it's "one of those nights" my friends will be reminding me of for some time.

The Association where I teach dance had their annual 'Presidents Night', where we celebrate the change over from our previous President, to a new President for the year ahead. Some of the groups from Showgroup put on a little performance and Emma & I sang House of Gold by Twenty One Pilots. We then preceded to drink copious amounts of alcohol, after which I went shouting "after party at my house" and a few friends came over until the early hours.

Em & I dancing after many an alcohol.

For my Mum's birthday, we took her out a few times. The first was as a family to Tick Tock Unlock in town. It's one of those game things where they "lock" you in a room and you have to find clues and solve puzzles to get out. It was very stressful but we all enjoyed it. We also went to see the new live action Beauty and the Beast. It was honestly a great film. I hated the way they changed so many things when they re-did Cinderella, but this was more or less kept the same. The music was insane, I had goosebumps the whole way through. To be honest they did go a little crazy in Be Our Guest with the CGI but i'll let them off for now. My sister & I also took Mum to see Michael Flatey's Lord of the Dance at The Grand Theatre (not Dad's cup of tea). My sister and I didn't really know what to expect, let's just say we were sat the entire time with our mouths open in shock.
INCREDIBLE.

We escaped! Can't get rid of us Rileys that easily.

Me and the work pals went up to Manchester for a night to visit our friend, Mick. Despite Viv dropping both of our McDonalds milkshakes at the train station (Viv hurt her shin but my heart was broken more at the fact I was really looking forward to that milkshake). We had a really good night and all got a go on Dave's Nintendo Switch (I didn't have a clue what was going on, I was just winging it). After Mick told us a dramatic bedtime story at 4am we eventually drifted off.

Another weekend I had a family friend's 18th. There were a few people there that I hadn't seen in a while which was great. We played a few drinking games and my cousin managed to twist my arm and convince me to go to town with him and another of our friends despite only having £5 to my name, (shout out to Bank of Dad). From what I remember we danced to S Club 7 and Paramore, until we called it a night at 4am and went for a takeaway.

Em & I (again) managing to take a nice drunken picture.

Unfortunately we lost another LEGO soldier, Kelsea, so we went out for pizza and prosecco at Buca di Pizza - if you go, get the BBQ pulled pork. It's the most amazing thing i've ever had in my mouth. The bubbly was actually really nice too. Afterwards we wandered over to Roxy Ball Room for a couple games of beer pong, ping pong and pool, where I put my excellent beer pong skills to good use (I was a little rusty having not played since Australia). All in all it was a good night with great people.

So you know, life isn't all sunshine and rainbows, and as you are reading the Life of Riley, I always keep things as honest as I can. This month, my cousin, who's practically my twin, was diagnosed with cancer. Yeah, it's pretty damn shit. I have to say though, the way he's handled it just makes me admire him even more than I already do. He's an absolute trooper and isn't letting anything stop him from carrying on how he always has done, it's amazing. What's also amazing is how our family and friends (we're all pretty close knit anyway) have come together and we're doing Race For Life's 'Pretty Muddy' in Josh's name in June to raise money for Cancer Research UK. Within less than a day of our fundraising page getting set up, we'd raised over £300. Within 3 days we had over £800. And within 5 we reached 4 figures. We're now almost at £2k.
The kindness and generosity of others overwhelmed us all and I think it gave us all a well needed boost. If you're reading this and you've already sponsored us, or you're about to, or you've even just shared the link on Facebook, seriously thank you, from the entire Riley clan.

And to end the month on a positive note; my dissertation is finally handed in!!!

If you didn't take a photo handing in your dissertation, did you even hand it in?

My course celebrated by doing the Otley Run in fancy dress; Carnival theme. We just used it as an excuse to go absolutely nuts with chunky glitter and feathers.

Me and some girls from my course. On the top row from the right we have my housemates Sian, Ellie and Me.

Not gonna lie, I wanted to keep this on forever.

Slimming World update: Due to a lot of late night sessions in the library and dissertation stress, my weight hasn't been great this month and in total i've put on 5 pounds, which i'm completely okay with because I had a lot of celebrating to do after handing my dissertation in!

Annabel

November.

November had the perfect start - I went to see Bastille in Leeds First Direct Arena. Last time I saw them was when they supported Two Door Cinema Club in 2013 (and I bumped into Dan in Baa Bar next door, feeling pretty smug). The gig was awesome. For the encore, Dan miraculously appeared right next to us on the tier 2 balcony and sang Two Evils and we pretty much just died right then.

Dan & Will on the balcony during the encore.

The night after I went out with my housemates for a few drinks. As i'm sure a lot of students understand, a few drinks never usually stays "just a few drinks". I went into town around midnight to meet up with a few friends from school, and we went to Key Club for a few hours. I ended up bumping into my cousin who I spent the rest of the night with. We then wandered down to Stone Roses where we danced until around 6am (I was wearing heeled boots and my feet started to hurt so I took them off at this point. My feet were soaked with what I can only assume was a cocktail of drugs, alcohol and piss. Bit of advice: don't do that). Needless to say those socks went in the bin and it took me over a day to recover from that night.

Me and my cousin Harriet stumbling home at 6:30am, lipstick half gone.

I had also been editing the annual backstage video for Showgroup. I think it's a great way to showcase all of the hard work that goes into the shows and it's a nice way to thank all of the helpers for everything they do. If you want to give it a watch, here it is!

We also started rehearsals for our annual Christmas Show, in which i'm going to sing The Power Of Love (not technically a Christmas song but it was on a Christmas advert) and my sister is going to dance to it. I'm also choreographing a routine to 'Carol Of The Bells' by Metallica (bet you weren't expecting that), so i'm hoping it will be an excellent start to the holiday period.

Towards the end of November, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them was finally released, and of course, myself, Emma, Viv and Nathan went to see the midnight showing - we weren't going to wait any longer! The film was awesome and Eddie Redmayne was the perfect choice. 

Then on the Sunday, Emma finally got her 16th birthday present from me (11 months later), we went to the Harry Potter Warner Brothers Studio Tour in London. Although we had to get the Megabus at 6am, we had an amazing day and even got to squeeze in a quick visit to Madame Tussauds. I promised Emma i'd buy her a wand, so she chose Newt Scamander's from Fantastic Beasts, then we made the long journey back to Leeds.

Chilling on the Hogwarts bridge.

And of course, to finish the month off, there was lots of alcohol. I went out with my cousins for lots of shots and cocktails, then on the last night of November I went out for my housemates birthday, we had a great night but in true Annabel style I crashed and burned way too early.

Me and the cousins; Josh, Jordan, Sam, Chaz, Haz and Me.

Sian, Ellie and I in Canal Mills. I really need to get a longer lasting lipstick.

I wasn't going to write about this, but I always try to be honest when i'm writing my posts and one of the reasons I write this blog in the first place is for me to look back on everything in the years to come. Last week, I joined Slimming World, and to be honest, i've found it a lot easier than I thought it would be. it's a fantastic way to lose weight but still have little treats to enjoy! So after my first week weigh in, i've lost 4 and a half pounds and i'm on cloud 9 right now. Next month I may start a little weight loss counter on my round ups!

On a final note, it's Christmas in 24 days!

Annabel