Boo to You!

Happy Halloween everyone! Keep Rikki in your thoughts, she's having a little pumpkin today! Yay for Halloween babies! His first words will be "trick or treat"!

My costume today was: a MORMON!! Cause I went to church. And I'm funny. And if Oscr can do it, I can too (if you haven't seen this week's office, do so. Eeeet's a good one).

We got phones yesterday! Finally! They're from O2 and they're cheapy pay-as-you-go, but they're cute and they're PHONES!!

I don't think any trick-or-treaters will come by. We don't have candy anyway. We could give them crumpets and Nutella I suppose. It's crazy around here though. I wouldn't take my kid out trick-or-treating around here. Friday night after work we went walking around with the Scotts. I didn't realize how many clubs there are around here! We just walked by club after club after bar after club filled with people drunk and in costume. It was entertaining for the most part, but not a place for kiddies and families.

I'm really enjoying work. It's more exhausting than I thought though. You're constantly on your feet clearing racks of clothes from the dressing rooms, picking up stuff from the floor, folding, working the fitting room, etc. I like all of the people I've worked with so far. They've been really helpful. And pne of them is Polish! Nathan talked to her on my lunch break yesterday and she was so impressed! There's a really big Polish population around here! Neither one of us expected that. Anyway, I've been learning a lot about who's popular around here. The show X Factor is really big and one of the judges, Cheryl, is really popular. I asked who she was and the reaction was like I had asked who Brad and Angelia was. It was funny though. There are a lot of magazines in the break room so they were explaining to me who was who and why I should know who they are. One of the managers, Steve, did his version of an American accent yesterday and it was SO funny. And another manager, Chris, is a dancer who's done Cats and back up dancing for pop groups and stuff! And one girl grew up in Florida. Lots of cool peeps at H&M!

Hahaha so apparently every year there's a "zombie walk" in Bristol. Steve grabbed me and took me to the front of the store to see the zombies walk by. There were hundreds of people dressed up and moaning and scaring people. It was freaky! Some people weren't into it, texting as they went along, but it was still an impressive sight. Some tried to terrorize the store, so Steve and I had to close the doors until they passed. Exciting! On my first official working day!

Now i'm just waiting for mommy and daddy to skype, and baby better be dressed as a pumpkin or there will be a very upset sister in England!

Are you Having a Laugh?

Quote of the day: bless his cotton socks! Haha the lady setting up our bank account was a nice girl, and a chatterbox. And this was one thing she said, it was so funny. Anyway so bank account= phones soon!
And I start at H&M tomorrow! I'll be training and watching work videos tomorrow. I'm nervous for the dumbest reason. I don't know what to wear. They said I could wear whatever I want, to quote: "Dress your personality." I'll probably be up for a while tonight deciding what to wear, then change my mind when I wake up.

It's a Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup kind of day

This is our squirrel friend Veruca :). So I had my interview at H&M today! Now I'm sitting at home waiting for a call. They said they'd call if it was positive OR negative, so at least they won't keep me waiting. I think it went really well, so we'll see! It's rainy and chilly, so I'm going to make Nathan grilled cheese and tomato soup when he comes home for lunch :)
I'm done (for now) with the apartment! So, as promised, I put up some pictures!

This is my favorite spot. It's been dubbed "the Harem" by Nathan and our friend Chris Scott. It's the most decorated spot and we never use it, but Nathan can study there if he wants to.

Our kitchen! Made home-y with fridge magnets and towels.

Hi Nathan!

This is our boiler, aka Mighty Mouse or the Juggernaut. Plenty of hot water fromt his sucker. And now we can write poems on him.

Our Doctor Who poster's new home :)

Where we spend most of our time. ^ If we've talked on skype you'll notice that's the window you always see in the background. And we've finally put up the artwork we got in Haiti on our honeymoon!!

The couch is still facing an empty wall. I'll fix that some day.

Pictures! I'm very glad we have these. They make me warm and fuzzy inside.

Our front door. The phone-looking thing is for when people buzz and we can push a button and let them in! Haha it makes me feel like I'm really in the city :)

When you forst come in our front door, there's immediately another door to our bedroom. And this is that door. And a calendar. Yay. :)

Bathroom! And our teeny shower.

And here we have the bedroom with very high, very bare walls. I love how big it is, though. In our old room we would bump our shins on stuff all the time.

The silver curtain are ours that we brought. They're kinda see-through, so we put the dressers in front of the windows, just in case.

Happy love chest of drawers.

Once again, the fron door area looking into the living room.

The ceiling in our bedroom.

Proof that we have friends!! :) These are the great people of the Bristol 2nd Ward. From left to right: Bishop Sam Crew and his wife Ceriss, Jordan and Emily, Dane and Laura Gardner, Yuki and Chris Scott, and of course Nathan. We had a lot of fun with the group. We didn't have enough pumpkins (we realized we couldn't carry them all up the hill ourselves before everyone arrived). We could have gotten more when more people arrived, but Bishop suggested carving alternate produce. So he carved a potato and his wife and I carved apples :). Nathan and I didn't get as fancy as we have in the past with our pumpkins, but I like the Green Lantern power battery he did.

Kel-

-sey

A tree!

I'm doing the Twilight pose... because I'm just that cool.

Time for lunch!

Weekend Update

We went for a walk with our new friends from the ward Chris and Yuki. We came across this cool church. I forgot the name, but there are so many old churches around, it's hard to remember them all! :) This one was built in the 12th century!

We really like our new friends! And we're having a few couples over for FHE tomorrow! I'm so excited! Our first house guests!!!! I don't know if you could tell, but I'm excited. :) And we talked to the missionaries today about Thanksgiving, and they were really happy! All I need is job now and everything will be perfect.

Nathan got a calling today! They didn't waste any time with him. :) It's THE perfect calling for him: primary teacher for the 9-11 year olds! SO perfect, since he's a 10 year old at heart. They can talk about video games and comics and stuff! Nothing fo rme yet, though there's an opening in the nursery!! :)

And Happy Birthday Taylor!

Hooray

I have an interview at H&M on Tuesday!!! Hopefully I didn't just jinx it.... :)

Things Are Looking Up

We'll begin with our shopping trip. We went to TESCO just for toilet paper, but got joy as well! DIGESTIVES, be jealous.

BIGOS, we'll probably have some for din din tonight :)

DORITOS, 3 for 3 pounds.

A POLISH CANDY BAR! It's pronounced gzhesh-key, but the "g" is really brief and almost non-existant, but I keep bugging Nathan by calling it grrrrrrrzhesh-key. Ain't I a stinker? :)

So I have sewn the seeds... or sewn the CVs to be exact. (CV is what they say instead of Resume. They also say recruit instead of hire. Now you speak British. Knowledge is power!) I went around the mall today in Broadmead and asked about jobs. Everyone said they were looking for Christmas help, which is fine. If I need to go hunting again in January, I will. It'll just suck all over again. So I filled out an application at T.K. Maxx (same thing as T.J. Maxx), and everywhere else just wanted my CV. This Christmas store said they wouldn't be hiring until Novemer, but I gave them my CV anyway. Then I stopped by Claire's, Build a Bear, and H&M. H&M was only looking for a Saturday worker with 8 hours a week, but as of now, I'll take whatever I can get. And H&M would be saweet! Hopefully SOMEONE calls or e-mails. So, fingers crossed!

Short

I didn't get the job. They didn't call. Sad. So to make myself feel useful I totally cleaned up the apartment and unpacked the decorative stuff we got in the mail. I also made dinner. Yay for being productive! I'm really kind of sad though, I felt really confidant. It's ok though, I wasn't really excited about the job, just the idea of getting a job.
Anyway. That's all :)

Best Day(s) EVER

WE FOUND IT! This is the building for Bristol 2nd ward :) We apparently don't have to buy a week pass for the bus. We just get on and say where we're going and they give us a ticket (it's cool, the bus driver looks like he's sitting in a little toll booth) and it's only about 11 pounds a week for the both of us, which isn't so bad. Doi.
Anyway so we got off the bus and saw the steeple in the distance and it was like the clouds parted and the angels sang: aaaah! We made it! And it's actually in a chapel! What I found on google maps lied to me, cause it made it look like it was on someone's house. Not so! The ward is super friendly. It consists of several younger couples about our age, some with kids, a few odler couples, a decent sized primary, and a handful of young men and women. There was another couple there for the first time, just like us, from America, just like us, the husband is going to Bristol University, just like us, and the wife is looking for a job, JUST LIKE US! Their names are Chris and Yuki Scott, most recently from Southern California (Yuki is from Japan and spent a year at BYU studying English) and they wen't to Disneyland all the time! Kindred spirits :) And I had the idea to have Thanksgiving at our apartment! The missionaries are both American and there are a few other Yanks in the ward and we finally have enough room to have guests! I'm really getting pumped!
We also got to know the Bishop and his wife, Sam and Cerriss Crew. They're our age and are super cool! They invited us over for dinner and she made yummy chili! It tasted just like the kind I make (minus the corn) and we felt right at home. We talked about movies and stuff and they let us borrow some that we hadn't seen. There's one with Emily Blunt and Rupert Grint (you might know him better as Ron Weasley) that I'm looking forward to. It may or may not be because I have a crush on Ron. But anyway, these people are really awesome. They gave us some dishes and bowls they didn't use when we mentioned that we were lacking. So generous!
Oh and I asked Bishop Crew (it's weird calling him that since he's 26... but is it ok to call him Sam? Who knows...) if he liked Dr. Who and he told me to talk to the primary kids about it lol! It's funny because almost everyone that I know that watches Dr. Who back home is an attractive girl in her 20's. Apparently only kids watch it here. Oh well, I'm not ashamed. :)
So after dinner the Crews took us to the Clifton Suspension bridge (Clifton is where we live, think of it like Manhatten, NY, NY... we live in Clifton, Bristol, England). We saw the bridge driving in on the bus from the airport and you'll see it on a lot of touristy Bristol websites as a recognizable feature of Bristol.

Voila!

See the sheer rock face underneath the bridge? Yeah, Cerriss (pronounced Care-iss, by the way, such a pretty name!) climbed up there! She does some rock climbing and she was showing us how she climbed up right beneath the bridge. She had ropes and equiptment and stuff, but that's so terrifying! I had a hard enough time walking across the safe bridge! You go girl.

I thought Daddy might be interested in the archetecture. Cool huh?

And funny/not so funny story. When you first walk onto the bridge there's a sign with a number to call a group called the "samaritans." Apparently they get a lot of jumpers on the bridge, so they want you to call that number so they can talk you out of it. They've even built a tunnel to go over the road that runs beneath the bridge because they had so many people landing on the street. Ew.

This is a professional picture from the day time.

This is the building where Nathan has all of his classes! Notice it says "Department of Drama" on it. It's like the HFAC of Bristol Uni. (I need to start calling it Uni, that's what everyone else says, whereas if it were in the states everyone would call it Bristol U, which is what I always want to say).

These are the Christmas Steps! Bishop Crew told us him mom says it looks like Diagon alley. There's a fish and chips shop at the bottom, but it didn't look open around the time we were there, so we got some great Chinese at a place called the Rice Box. Yay! We have a place to get Chinese!

This is an old picture of the steps. You should google it, you'll find some cool stuff.

So I went to my interview at Dr. Spafish today. I was hoping I'd have a job before I posted, but they haven't called yet. It's only 7 ish so I haven't given up hope yet. They said they'd call tonight because the grand opening is tomorrow aka work starts tomorrow. I felt pretty good about the interview. They took us two at a time and just asked us a few questions about ourselves and about our availibility. I was one of the most professionally dressed of the people I saw. This one guy came in jeans! Hopefully wearing a skirt and heels made an impression. It better have! Walking downhill for 20 minutes in heels does NOT a fun time make. I actually baught a cute cheap pair of shoes from H&M to walk back in. It wasn't just because my feet hurt; my black flats are falling apart. Apparently Nathan hated my black flats anyway. Sheesh! :)

Sorry, that was a really long post... Thanks for sticking with it! You pass the test on loving me :) A lot has happened thes past two days! We went to church, made new friends, and had a job interview! Yay for Heavenly Father looking after us while were a billion miles away! He must love us or something :)

Star Wars Day!

They liked my t-shirt :) and Darth smelled like B.O.

This is like a mini version of Sun-fest! Like super duper mini version, but it was all Christmas-y and it felt like Ocean City for a second. :)

Today was a fun Saturday! We went to Forbidden Planet for Star Wars day, but didn't stick around for too long since we weren't going to buy anything. We then went to the bus station to get tickets to get to church tomorrow. Tickets for both of us for just a week was 30-some pounds! Sheesh, we can't do that every week... It'd be cheaper to just get a whole year pass for both of us, but since we weren't sure if we could find a car pool or not we didn't want to waste too much money. Why are bus tickets so expensive? I think we should take total advantage of these passes and get our money's worth. Maybe we'll just ride them around all day when Nathan gets out of class. :)

We walked around a bit more and saw that they're opening one of those foot-nibbling fishy pedicure spas and they're hiring! I sent in my resume today, so cross your fingers. I've always wanted to try one of those fishy pedicures. They just eat off the dead skin, lol gross huh? But if it works, hey why not?? And I need a job. So cross your toes too. Check out the web-site!

http://www.drspafish.com/

I felt like I live in an actual city today! Walking to the shopping center we saw a spot where a group was doing a performance art thingy and not too far away was a woman shouting about Jesus. Then, standing in a tunnel, was a grungy old guy playing the guitar (terribly). Ah the sights and sounds of the city. There's a cute old man that sits on the street all the time and plays a tin whistle. I finally gave him change yesterday. It made my heart happy.

Church tomorrow! Yay! Wish us luck finding the place!

Yankee Doodle Dandy

This is the Wills Memorial building. I'm not sure what's inside, but it's part of campus. It chimes on the hour (but this one doesn't play Come Come Ye Saints lol). Before we bought a clock, this guy would chime and we would drop everything and listen to see what time it was.

Another view of the building. We sat and ate a light lunch here. There's lots of spots to just sit and relax.

The boulangerie is where we got our food, including a chocolate chip shortbread and a fruity flapjack (kind of an oatmeal raisin plus cranberries thingy).

Our teeny jar of salsa. I'm gonna need a lot more than this....

Yo Sushi! This is where we ate dinner today :) The sushi goes around on a conveyor belt and you pick what you want! It was really yummy, we'll definitely go back.

Dessert! We chatted with a guy from California at the Sushi place and right before he left he told us to go to the Krispy Kreme downstairs! So we got some yummy sugary American sweets for dessert. Mine was the pumpkin; Nathan got a lemon merangue donut. Yay!

So our first England experience at the movies was really funny, albeit annoying. We went to go see Grown Ups (Back to the Future wasn't there anymore). We sat through all 20 minutes of trailers and when the movie started, it was Buried! If you're not familiar with the movie, it's the one where Ryan Reynolds is buried alive. If you're not familiar with Nathan and myself, we are both claustrophobic. Nathan and some other guy got up to go talk to someone, meanwhile I'm stuck in this dark theater listening to Ryan Reynolds breathe. Holy crap, the first 10 minutes of the movie is so uncomfortable, I just sat curled in a ball covering my eyes waiting for it to stop. *shudder* Anyway, so the movie cut off and a guy came in and told us they were fixing things and we wait another 15 minutes ish for the real movie to start. Then the first couple seconds were upside down!!! Everyone started to laugh since at this point it was getting comical. Things ran smoothly the rest of the film. It's just funny that our very first movie overseas had disasterous beginnings. Maybe it's just a fluke, we'll see how other movie viewings go.

I saw a guy in a kilt today.

They have a Disney store here! We found it today! But sadly they're not hiring. :( Why can't the jobs I want just hire me and why can't some things just be easy. Wah.

Star Wars day tomorrow! Lets see how nerdy Bristol can be :)