The Snows

What Time is it?

2012-02-15T12:44:00.000-08:00

I have a cute husband. He's my best friend. He grew a beard just for me. We laugh at people together. He sings Adele in the shower. He watches movies for his career. He thinks I'm funny. He can't do math, but he can tell you about any war ever and knows all the US Presidents. He hates shorts and sandals. He takes me on adventures. He smells nice. He's very protective of his technology. He's my sweetie. And I love him.

He brought home a rose for me, then we revived our date tradition from Provo: a movie and Five Guys. We were excited to see that one of the movie theaters around here was showing a bunch of Oscar-nominated films, including "The Artist". We both had really wanted to see it, but thought we'd missed our chance! We were SO thrilled that we got to see it. It. Was. Amazing. By far the best movie I've seen in a while. It's silent (except for music of course) and it's in black and white, but that shouldn't be a deterrent. If anything, it should intrigue you. Nathan' is the critic, but I can hold my own in a film discussion and I know when things are excellent. I won't give a full synopsis, but I will say that the story is beautiful, the shots are beautiful, the acting is beautiful, and Jean Dujardin is be-yoo-ta-ful. He has the unique gift of drawing you into his story with just a smile or an eyebrow. And his smile.... *needs a second* Nathan and I agreed that Jean could be my Valentine too. Ooo Ooo! I just put this together! Jean's character in the movie was George Valentin! Snap. Happy Valentine's Day. I hope they win every Oscar. Even the one's they weren't nominated for.

Here's some more pictures from Christmas.

Me at the International Wildlife Museum in Tucson,

next to a big ol' cactus,

and shooting a cute little gun.

Yeehaw. I think living in England made me a mega-American.

Oh and YAY HOORAY! It's my 100th post! Not that anyone really reads this here blog, but I've decided it's for posterity and I'll keep updating for them.

New Obsessions

2012-02-07T20:51:00.000-08:00

ZUMBA!!

I've finally found someone who'll go with me to a class! It's cheap and the instructor is a BEAST! I love feeling sore the next day. And from what? Shaking my booty. Best. Excercise. Ever. The first class I went to I had not taken my inhaler and I had a full belly of jumbalaya. Dur. I felt like I was at the Biggest Loser ranch on the first week. I thought... am I really this out of shape??? But then I went this week and kicked butt. Tips to noobs: pace yourself, bring water, don't fill up before hand, and don't watch the other people in the class (especially the gals in the front row... you know, the ones who bought the Zumba merchandise or are wearing their dance leotards and tights... just focus on the teacher). I found this funny picture on Pinterest:

So true... Zumba reminds me of my old stake dance days... I've re-connected with my inner funk.

This was 5 years ago... wuuuut?? I'm trying to get that bod back. I'd say I'm not too too far, 15 or 20 lbs-ish. Just a layer of padding I'd like to see disappear.

Anyway, next obsession:

Pink Ladies!!

No no no. The apple. The Pink Lady apple. We've been getting them from CostCo by the pallet and I can't get enough. We also just bought new floss, which comes in handy.

Oh and I also had another weird dream. Nathan and I were staying at my grandparents house when a little wooden baby came into our bedroom when we were trying to sleep. He told us to follow him into the laundry room. Once we got there he turned into Mr. Clean magic eraser sponges. I was happy because I love cleaning with them!

Weird.

Till next time!

For Weeks Like This One

2012-02-06T13:14:00.002-08:00

Dream a Little Dream With Me

2012-02-03T12:25:00.000-08:00

I've been having really vivid dreams lately... which is weird because the last time I had this many long, memorable dreams I was on pain meds. I can assure you that I am not currently on any kind of medication, so that's why this is odd.

We begin with a love story from a few nights ago. Once upon a time there was a man who had a skin disease and needed a skin transplant for his entire body. This took place in the future where there was a brand new procedure that could replace a person's skin with a man-made substance that still had reacting nerves acted like real skin (like what the Borg give Data in The Star Trek movie "First Contact"). The problem is that the "skin" is clear for the first few years while it's adapting to the body. The hero of our story is the first to ever try this transplant, so he's under the watchful eye of several doctors that are there to help him recover from this transplant. Enter the physical therapist. She helps him adapt to his new skin by teaching him to roller skate. He falls in love with her, but is too shy to say anything because he sees himself as a monster (remember, his skin is still see-through). She sees past this, falls in love with his personality, yadda yadda yadda, they get married and then when his skin is opaque again he's super handsome and they live happily ever after. Oh, and they also hung out with David and Victoria Beckham at one point.

Kooky huh?

Next, we have the tale of Ellie. Nathan and I have a baby: a little girl with flaming red hair. Several mambers of both sides of the family are there to greet her. Everyone starts telling us what to name her, but we hate everyone's ideas ( I wish I could remember some of the ideas... I just remember them being ridiculous). Nathan and I finally discuss it alone and think she should have the only logical name for a red-head: Ariel! We end up naming her Ariel Lee, then start calling her Ellie (Ariel+Lee-Ari= El Lee). Then we take her to the mall and she's three already and does a cute little dance while we walk hand-in-hand. She looks kind of like the Princess from the new Pixar movie "Brave".

Nathan thinks the name is inspired and we HAVE to name our first girl Ellie. I agree, so...... dibs.

Last, we have a Disney Dream. And Disney dreams are supposed to come true.... right? If so, that'd be super random.

So we (Nathan, and the Brady family) are enjoying a day at Walt Disney World when we bump into, who else, but Ellen Degeneres! Lucky for us, my sister Elizabeth used to work for her! (Not really, but in Dreamland she did). Elizabeth goes up to Ellen and says, "Hey boss! Care to join us for lunch?" Ellen then says that she has a table at The Brown Derby already, and that we should come and join her! On our way to the restaurant we see Princess Tiana singing a song nearby, so Nathan and I stop to watch. We fall behind from the group, and in attempts to catch up, encounter Buzz Lightyear on horseback. We spook the horse and Buzz falls off! I tell Nathan to go get help while I help "Buzz" out of his jet pack. It turns out not to be Buzz at all, but someone I used to work with at Disney World (not even a friend of mine, just a random dude I worked with once, maybe twice... I can't even remember his name...). He's in a lot of pain, so I tell him to go on ahead to the doctor and I'll take care of his Buzz suit. I start to take the costume back where only employees can go, but then I remember that I'm not an employee anymore! I gather my confidence and go behind the scenes anyway. I walk down a long paved road and pass several of my old friends from the Disney days. One of them doesn't recognize me, which makes me sad, but everyone else is surprised to see me and gives me a warm reception. I drop off the suit, the whole time pretending it's mine and that I actually still work there, and make my way back to the restaurant.... only to find out that I'd missed our special lunch. No good deed goes unpunished I suppose.

That concludes the telling of the most recent and most vivid of the dreams I've been having. I wonder what Joseph and his technicolor coat would say....?

Ru Paul's Drag Race

2012-01-31T11:32:00.000-08:00

Here we have Ms. Dida Ritz wearing a shirt that I also own. I got pretty excited. I am apparently way more fabulous than I was originally aware.

My Holiday in Pictures

2012-01-30T11:41:00.000-08:00

Hm.... almost two minths since I've posted? Sounds like it's time for a super-long post.

Or...

Or......

I'll just add a bunch of pictures of Christmas gifts and other fun things with brief captions. Sounds good to me!

Nathan got me a guitar! As of now I can play our song ("Swans" by the Format), "Firework" by Katy Perry, and some Ingrid Michaelson. And by "play" I mean very mediocre-ly. But I like to sing and strum, so I'm glad I finally have my own guitar to play around with!

This is the "Christmas taco". Our air mattress sprung a leak. See that little head? That's Nathan poking up out of the taco. Searching for his shadow, mayhaps....?

New KitchenAid!!! Courtesy of Mama and Papa Snow. Thanks to them for that! They gave us lots of nice gifts this year. There's also some new additions to the tea collection shelves from a mixture of giftcards and an antiqueing trip with Nana. I researched some of the pieces when I got home and one of the tea cups is from around 1813! And one of the pots is worth $100 (I got it for $2, holla!)

Ahh, the traditional Los Jarritos/Estrella Bakery trip. Every Christmastime we take a trip to South Tucson (which is essentially Mexico) and get baked goods and breakfast burritos. Afterwards we went to the International Wildlife Museum right in the midst of the Saguarro National park. I'm usually quite the shutterbug, but this time I took almost all of my pictures on Nathan's new iPhone. So I may/definitely will be posting again with his picture from the trip.

The two new frames on either side of the wall were purchased with a giftcard from Nana and Popi. Thanks!

I've discovered a new world of decorating: vinyl wall art. I love it. And my niece loves it! She'll sit and (kind of) count the circles over and over. These were bought with a giftcard from Mama and Daddy! Thanks! Our house is getting more and more home-y.

Another giftcard purchase! I love this mirror!

Antiqueing find.

Antique candlesticks.

Gift card purchase.

Gift card

These are so special! Nana got them from her Aunt to spruce up one of her first homes with Popi, and I'm doing the same with them now! I love the Dickensian look to them. I wonder how old they are...

I'm on a puzzle spree! When Nathan gets home from work and plays his video games, I sit and watch while putting a puzzle together. We attained a bunch from the Snow household in Tucson and I've been going to town on them. I may or may not have finished 4 1/2 already.

This was a fun moment. One of my besties from growing up has a little boy about the same age as my brother, so we met up at the mall during my trip back to the motherland and they played together. That was cool to see.

And finally..... I'm the Queen of Mars!

In conclusion: I had a terrific holiday. Tucson was fun as usual. It was really cool to have EVERYONE from the Snow clan there. The gifts were also particularly special this year (the ones given and recieved). We had an amazing time with the whole family and we look forward to being all together again! It's getting tougher and tougher as time goes on and families grow up, so it's great to take the time now to spend as much time with them as possible before we're all over the place (Nathan's oldest sister and her family will be moving to New Hampshire soon!).
Same goes for my family. One of the biggest surprises I got for Christmas was a trip back to Maryland! Since they've been gypped on holidays pretty much since Nathan and I got married, they decided to snag me for a week! It was a perfect trip and just what I needed for a morale boost. Who doesn't need one this time of year to beat the wontery blues? Especially now that the job hunt has started again and I'll soon be facing rejection and lots and lots of stressful waiting. Anyway, the trip was amazing and I loved hanging with all of my siblings! It's so funny how my family does EVERYTHING together. Everywhere we went it was a party of 8 (parents, siblings, and grandparents). Even when Elizabeth bought a new car, there were 7 of us piling around the car dealer's desk. We're such weirdos. But we're happy weirdos.

P.S.- Please send prayers/good vibrations my way for a job at the nearby summer theater Tuahcan (Any job really... but this one especially). When I first moved here I knew they started hiring around now, so I KNEW I'd have a job by now. But, long story short, I am still job hunting (AND IT'S ALL MARRIOTT'S FAULT... they strung me along like an ugly girl waiting for a date to the prom... "oh yeah we'll totally call, except we won't then we'll hire someone without telling you, even though we lead you to believe you were perfect and we loved you). Where was I....? Oh yeah, Tuahcan. It's the perfect job for me and it will actually let me use the skills my tuition payed for. And it would just make me super happy. Which is important, right?

Smiling's My Favorite

2011-12-06T12:00:00.001-08:00

Christmas time is heeeeeeeeere! I love Christmas. You know when they start playing Christmas music in the middle of November? Yeah, I LOVE that. It makes the season last so much longer! I don't forget about Thanksgiving, I just consider all of November + December as one big happy holly jolly holiday full of food, family, and glitter. And now that I'm actually eating chocolate out of my advent calander, I couldn't be more holly or jolly.

Christmas craft time! Since I've discovered Pinterest.com, I've gotten into a crafting craze. Whenever I make something, I'll pop in a movie and forever when I look at that item it immediately reminds me of that movie. Anyone else do that? Anyway, this wreath will always remind me of Die Hard ("Now I have a machine gun. Ho Ho Ho"). All it is is a hanger and dollar store ornaments (btw if you want to try it, get twice as many ornaments as you think you'll need, the hanger fills up quickly!). It's my pride and joy at the moment.

The rest of my "crafting" isn't really crafting. It's just stuff we had + stuff from the yard + gold spray paint. Nathan's Grampa made some grape juice from his own grapes (So good!) and once the mason jars were empty, I used them for decorating! Thanks Grampa Taylor! And Nathan's brother Adam and his wife Joanna's yard provided us with perfect pinecones and twigs. Thanks family!

I wonder if my old roommate Rikki will recognize the red wooden beaded string in the mason jar... :) The gold vase was a fun project. I just wrapped rubber bands around a plain glass vase and sprayed gold paint on it. Rubber bands come off and voila! Easy peasy. Thanks again Pinterest!

Our Christmas tree! We still don't have a topper for her. We've just been using a pretty clip on bird I got from my lovely friend Sarah Bock. I've had plans to make a tree skirt that I've never gotten around to.... I'm tempted to just buy one... but that's no fun! The dolly at the bottom is from Nathan's aunt. She had a doll collection and after she passed, we aquired this one. I think she's gorgeous! I named her Giselle, since I thought she looked like the Disney Princess from 'Enchanted', but most people (Taylor, I'm looking at you) think she's creepy. I think she makes the tree look old fashioned, in a good way... like when girls asked for dollies and ballet slippers and boys wanted firetrucks and sleds. I want to do more decorating, it looks so bare! If I had the materials I'd deck our house out like Buddy does to Gimballs in 'Elf".

One more thing (sorry, instead of short blogs every day, I seem to just be doing long ones every weeks or so...) We're making friends!!! This may not be a big deal for most people, but for us it's huge. We've moved around so much it gets annoying to make new friends. We get to a new place and just wish we had our old friends and didn't have to make the effort. The first few months in our new homes have consisted of me missing my old friends (Salisbury, Provo, Florida, England, or wherever they've all moved to) and Nathan just feeling sorry for me. Waah. And I'm a very "come to me and I'll love you forever" person, not a "hi, will you be my friend?" person. Sad, but true. Anyway, we hung out with some couples from the ward last night and it was a blast. So that plus Adam and Joanna equals happy Kelsey. Now all I need is a job!

Thanksgiving

2011-11-28T20:38:00.001-08:00

Taylor came to visit for Thanksgiving! I love when people come to visit me, since I seem to be somewhere different every year. We went to my new favorite place, Zions National Park. And she taught me a teeny bit of guitar. I miss her and our jam sessions.

Oh deer!

Walnut Canyon

2011-11-09T12:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Nathan and I drove down to Flagstaff. As the crow flies it should be about 3 hours to get there, but there's this pesky thing called the Grand Canyon in the way, so it ended up being a 5 1/2 hour drive. Just one way. Reason? Enrolling in a masters program in the UK allowed Nathan to avoid taking the GRE test, but now that we're back in the states applying for a PhD program, the GRE crept back into our lives. He could have talken it right here in St. George, but they didn't have a testing date until later, and he needed to take it sooner. Thus: Flagstaff, AZ. Luckily that 5 hour drive looked like this:

I did some research before we went so I'd have something to do while poor Nathan took his 3 hour test and I came across Walnut Canyon. It was a beautiful spot off of Route 66 20 miles away from the testing center. It was a short hike into the canyon to see cave dwellings where Native Americans used to live. Cool huh? And only 5 bucks.

I was absessed with the tree above. I took a million pictures... it was just so cool and knobbly.

My first snow (and maybe/probably last) of this fall/winter!

I propped the camera up on a rock and set up the self-timer. Hiking alone isn't as lame as I thought it would be. It's pretty zen. And I'd pass other people every 2 minutes or so. And I heard an animal sniffing around. Hopefuly it wasn't a cougar... but I guess it was full because it didn't bother me.

Can you see the dwellings in the cliffside above? It's identical to the illustration below.

I'm in a cliff dwelling!!!

I got my kicks.... you know the rest. :)

Lady Blazer

2011-11-01T19:32:00.000-07:00

Liz Lemon

My cute niece Lydia really enjoyed her first real trick-or-treating experience! What a cute little Lady Bug :) I especially love her shoes!

My sister-in-law Joanna and her little Bug :)

Anglophile

2011-10-30T11:30:00.000-07:00

So I'm really excited about yestersay's purchase :) I've been waiting to get this vinyl wall art for weeks now. I came upon a 50% off coupon at Robert's craft store and got it for 7 bucks! Thriftiness teaches patience, methinks.

The London Eye (the ferris wheel thing on the left) and the tower bridge are in the wrong spots... but oh well. We only noticed because we've been to London a bazillion times (braggy braggy). Anyway it turned out better than I'd hoped with the size and everything. Yay!

St. George

2011-10-27T17:04:00.000-07:00

St. George is the guy killing the dragon in the painting (we saw this in London in the National Gallery). I think St. George, Utah is named after George Washington. But why add the Saint? Who knows.
So we live here now. It's beautiful! I love the red rock and LDS church history here. I especially love that I feel like royalty here just by sharing a last name with one of the city's founders. We never expected that we'd be back in Utah so soon after leaving Provo a year ago, but St. George is different enough to feel like a new adventure.
We've been so blessed these past few months. Nathan's parents got a new car and were kind enough to pass on to us their no-longer-needed Saab! Their kindness also extended to letting us stay in the house they bought for their retirement. Since Dr. Snow isn't retired yet, we get to occupy the basement of said home. Upstairs still resides the original owner of the home, a nice old lady named Laverne that's renting the space from the Snows for the moment. She's such a sweet lady with much lighter feet than our old neighbors... Nathan has found a job! A good one too! He'll be the technology teacher at Springdale Elementary. It's just been one blessing after another since we've arrived.
Since I haven't found employment yet, I've been in a craft craze. We've never had this much space to fill, so it's been fun thinking of ways to fill it! I'll now give you a tour of our new home :) Starting with the view!!!!

When you first walk in, there's a big empty space to your left, then our living room! Hanging from the ceiling is a cute oragami mobile Nathan made for me (with assistance from his sister)! There's a fireplace (gas) and an area rug (it really pulls the room together... movie anyone?) Again, it looks pretty bare now because we have next to no furniture. Our attempts at decorating look more pathetic in the pictures than they do in real life :)

Find the hidden Mickey! :)

This was a fun project. It's just fabric hot glued to cardboard mixed in with our Primark London pictures. About $9 to do!

This is our media hallway. The Movies are on the left an the posters are on the right and around the corner is the comic book display. This was the most fun to arrange/alphabatize.
I have high hopes for the kitchen in the future. Right now it's pretty bare. I'm wating for my teacups and teapots to come in the mail to kick off the kitchen decor.

One thing I'm pretty proud of is my frame/mirror art. I got the idea from the $698 Anthropologie piece. I saw it and thought... I bet I can so that for less than 700 bucks. So I drug Nathan to DI and got 4 frames and a mirror for about 7 bucks. Booyah! I picked up some scrapbooking paper, some of which was on sale (yeah 50% off 99 cents), cement to glue them together, and oven cleaner to remove the silvering from the mirror. Less than $20! And the dried flowers were already in the little frame, I just gave them a different background. Between the oven cleaner, cement, and smoke from burning the scrapbooking paper, I inhaled lots of chemicals I'm sure. Worth it? Yes! (Not to worry, I was in a well-ventilated space Mama).

I especially love to frame with the roses on it!

I also beaded the little chandelier thingy. That was mind-numbing...

Nathan gave it a story about a Victorian ship's captain.

Welsome to our bedroom! Above the headboard are wodden letters that spell our "Snow". Below is another cheap project :) I just covered two cork boards with fabric I already had and stuck all of my jewelry on it. Bada bing bada boom. Practical art!

This is our "poop art". It's made from toilet paper tubes squished and cut into circles. I've been adding to it every time we go through a roll.

Last but not least, the view from our bedroom! When the Snows move in I'm sure they'll make it a really sweet patio/garden thing. Currently it's the awkward area where every morning we hear men speaking Spanish and re-doing the stucco on the exterior. Every night we have to make sure the blinds are shut or else it'll be muy embarrassing.

So that's our home! We love it and we love that Nathan's brother, wife, and baby live about 10 minutes away. Too bad mia familia is still muy far.

Nathan's calling me. He just got a magical package in the mail. He's being cute and waiting for me and I'm being cruel and writing a long blog post :)

Ze City of Love

2011-10-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

We went to Paris. Ahhh, l'amore :) It was our last Europe hurrah before coming back to the states. Looking back at my last few posts made me a little weepy. We've been back in Les Etas Unis for almost two months now, and my heart aches for friends and our Haunted Maison. Le sigh. In the next post, though, I'll catch y'all up on our new little home sweet home a la St. George, Utah! Until then, Au Revoir! (Our cute taxi driver that took us to our hotel in Paris was trying to teach us French and he gave us a mini lesson about "au revoir" and how hard it is to have a drivers license en France.)

Our "Pets"

2011-07-14T06:40:00.001-07:00

All squirrels have gotten the name Veruca, just like all the Jay birds that we see are named Jay.The Mysterious Aesop. He's our fox :)
The newest member of our family: Feival! He has since taken that hunk of cheese into his little home.

Happy Saturday!

2011-07-02T15:16:00.000-07:00

The word of the day today was "jerk". Chicken that is. Today was the St. Paul's Carnival in good old Bristol. It's in the part of town that people have told us not to venture into, but today it was full of all kinds of people celebrating the Afro-Caribbean culture. There were rides, food stands, and a parade that had huge mardi-gras style costumes mixed with energetic dancing. I forgot my camera (not true, I didn't bring it because I didn't want it to get stolen haha) but this should give you an idea:
The highlight was the food. It was also the reason we ventured to the festival. We got jerk chicken, hot wings, rice and peas (aka rice and beans) and cole slaw and it was DELICIOUS. The food tent was a family operation, and you could tell it was really authentic. And the home made hot sauce was perfect and H-O-T! We weren't quite brave enough to try the curried goat... maybe next time :) We enjoyed it so much, we went to the store and got some jerk sauce to put on chicken for tonight's dinner. It wasn't as good as the real deal, but it was still pretty darn good.
Here's a funny picture of Adam and his new friend, the fan:

I work all night I work all day...

2011-07-01T12:39:00.000-07:00

To pay the bills I have to paaaaaaaay...
Work is starting to get reaaaaaaly monotonous now, especially since i've given them a definite end date (August 20th). All I can seem to think about is coming home. *sings* Coming home, I'm coming home, tell the world that I'm coming home.... :) After Nana and Popi left here, I really got homesick again. I wish I could go back after Elizabeth's visit (three days from now!!!!) but Nathan has this silly little paper to write. Who cares about a thesis anyway? ;)
So, yeah, next step in our little adventure is getting closer! And it may start off with sky diving. WHAT???? I haven't said yes yet... we shall see. Hoo boy. I wonder if peopl have actually barfed whilst falling. It'd be like spitting out of the window of a moving car. And your poor tandem guy... Nathan's mom and I talked about it (she's going... I can't be outdone by my Mother-in-law, now can I?) and we decided we really want handsome instructors. So, you know, if we die it'll be in the arms of a cute guy. Yeehaw.
I've decided I'm going to try to blog more. Even if they're not long. I've just become a lazy blogger after getting more hours at work.
Oh, and BTW we're going to Paris before we come home. Just fyi :)

They Shoot TV Shows, Don't They?

2011-06-11T07:57:00.001-07:00

After work today we came across the shooting of a TV show in Cabot Circus. It's hosted by one of the biggest celbrities in England. I'd read about her in the gossip magazines we have in the break room, o I thought I'd take a peek. Her name is Katie Price and she used to be a nudey model, but now she's one of those celebrities who's famous because of her relationships and her issues. She's a big ol' mess, but a rich big ol' mess. Nathan and I were more interested in what was going on backstage than the actual show, so we stood where there was less of a crowd and watched the director and crew do their thang. She walked out, we saw her, then left. Excitement of the day!

Birthday Post!

2011-06-05T09:09:00.000-07:00

This was my birthday present from Nathan! It's a Cath Kidston bag, which is big around here! It's the Vera Bradley of England. I'd seen them around the city (and there's a shop near our house) and I thought they were they cutest thing! And Nathan secretly got me one! With a matching wallet! I feel so chic now. My work friends were impressed :) And now when I go back to America I can say, "Well they're ALL the rage in the UK."

Nathan found the coolest cake for me! It was/still is very tasty.
Since I had to work all day, I told Nathan that I just wanted to order a pizza and chill out. So we did! We ate pizza, Doritos, and cake and watched "The Emperor's New Groove". Perfect! We're going out on Wednesday with some friends for more celbrations at our favorite restaurant, Cosmo!

I was off work on Saturday, so we spent all day out in the beautiful sun! I wanted to take advantage of the sunny skies (it's a good thing we did, it's raining again) and I'm so glad we did. We brought reading material, but we really didn't need it. We spent three hours in two different parks just talking about everything from the future to the history of cartoons. And we have a nice glow to show for it (I was hoping to get a little bit of a tan, and I did!). If it stops raining, I want to do the same thing tomorrow! After we see X-men: First class with my movie gift cardfrom chris and Yuki, that is... :)

Oh and we saw Kung Fu Panda 2! It ws good! We both agreed it wsn't as good as the first one, but it wasn't bad at all. I think we just liked the first one better because it had more funny one-liners. This one was more touching and sentimental than the first. It was still very funny! Favorite line: "Why didn't I like pants?" :)
Here are some songs from a band I've come to love: The Fleet Foxes. They're very folksy. I love when their songs come on at work, it's the highlight of my day :)

Pirates and Models and Idols, Oh My!

2011-05-19T14:50:00.000-07:00

First of all, yay Brittani! I was pretty much just happy it wasn't Alexandria. What am I talking about? America's Next Top Model cycle 16.

NEXT

American Idol. Who I want to win. Who I think will win. Who I think will be the most successful. Who I really miss.

And lastly, Pirates numero quatro. I was really excited to see it today and it did not disappoint! If I were to give a hoity toity filmy analysis, I'd give it a 3/5. But I'm a Disney girl who needed some Jack Sparrow in my life. So I give it a billion out of 5. It had all of the elements from the first movie, just maybe not quite as well executed. I still recommend that everyone go see it! It was full of Captain Jack one-liners and was really entertaining. It's not getting stellar reviews, but I will defend it just like I'll defend Indy and his crystal skull. There WAS an unresolved plotline that left me a little unfulfilled. Hopefully that just means there's another movie! I read somewhere that there are two more lined up. And I will absolutely be there with my cursed gold necklace on! (And make sure you stay for the little clip after the credits!) Hey, remember when I was Captain Jack Sparrow? Yeah that was *ahem* 6 years ago. I'll be 23 soon. Blerg.

Unbirfday

2011-05-11T14:50:00.000-07:00

I got a birthday present in the mail today! It's from Mommy and Daddy. I mean, I assume it's for me. Look at who it's addressed to:

Don't worry, I won't open it until June first. Now here's a funny video.

High five!

2011-05-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

Another cute couple whose first kiss was caught on camera :)

April 29, Two Thousand Awesome

2011-04-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

Best. Day. Ever! (As Rapunzel would say). Yesterday was truely epic. It begun with a wedding! Nathan and I ventured about 10 minutes from our house to join our fellow Bristolians in celebration as William and Kate were wed. We were in Millenium square, which is kind of like the inner harbour in Baltimore. It's right next to the Aquarium and Kids' Science museum and the water. There's a big screen there, where they showed the coverage of the wedding, and lots of people showed up with blankets, chairs, picnics, and flags.

After the wedding, there were festivities around town, but it was chilly and we were tired, so we stopped in to Jamie's Italian for lunch! It's Jamie Oliver's reataurant that's literally two seconds from our flat. We always thought it'd be way too fancy for our budget, but it really wasn't that expensive! Nathan had a rabbit pasta and I had a risotto with bone marrow (YUM) and cruncy squid on the side. Yummo.
Then we went home and rested up before getting ready for Hairspray! Mind you, I'd been waiting for this since before Christmas, so I didn't nap with Nathan. The show was great! We were impressed with all the accents (they were all Brits) except sometimes Corny Collins was a little too corny and hard to understand. It was funny because when we met the actors outside the stage door, almost all of them asked us how their accents were. We had a hard time recognizing the acters, since most of them had crazy wigs on for the whole show. I recognized Amber Von Tussle, so Nathan stopped her and asked for her autograph and she said,"Would you like Tracy's too?" I was like... YEAH! She was standing right next to 'Amber', but she looked totally different! I recognized 'Link', so after we got his autograph and picture I asked him to point out 'Penny'. When Mickey Dolenz came out (he played Wilbur Turblad) of course the ladies started singing "Hey hey we're the Monkees..." He actually didn't seem that friendly. I think he knew we were all there for Michael Ball and he was a perk.

Tracy and Amber
Link
Seaweed, so dreamy
Little Inez. She's actually 23!
Penny
Mickey Dolenz

And then. The moment I've waited for since I was 6 or seven. The Marius to my Eponine. The curly haired, dimpled, blue-eyed dreamboat from my worn-out VHS tapes. The one. The only. The slightly older than me. MICHAEL BALL! This may not mean much to a lot of people, especially the ones my age, but this man has influenced my life! He's the reason I love music and musical theater as much as I do! I put a few other people on that list, like Lea Salonga and Bernadette Peters, but this definately checks off one of my bucket list items: meet Marius. It was funny because I know him as the young, dashing love interest in Les Miz, Aspects of Love, Phantom of the Opera, etc, but now that he's older he gets older roles. Like Edna Turnblad. A woman. He made a good woman though, if I do say so. And he had the best voice of any Edna I've seen (Harvey Firestein anyone?). He kind of out-shone the rest of the cast (except maybe Tracy), but... I mean... he's Michael Ball. So anyway, I got his autograph and then people started asking for pictures, so I thought I'd squeeze my way back for a photo. I told him he's the reason I love music and he said "Oh, what a kind thing to say." Sigh. I was glad I didn't make too big a fool of myself like..."Uh dur I love you uh you sing good". Although I look a little derpy in the picture because I was talking while Nathan was snapping. Haha oh well. (When the video cuts, Nathan was taking a picture. Cool thing my camera can do, video and pictures at the same time!)
Walking home I was on cloud nine. I cried a little and Nathan thought I was adorable. We talked about our heros (he said his equivalent would be Steven Speilberg) and reminiced about our wonderful day.
Here's some Michael :)

Thor!

2011-04-28T15:50:00.000-07:00

We saw Thor yesterday on my day off (I'm working 30 hours at H&M now. I think I forgot to tell people. It's a big deal! No more once a week!) and it was a-ma-zing. Seriously, even if you're not a comic book movie person, you'll still like it. It was more like "Lord of the Rings"/"Hercules"/"Superman", not so much "Batman"/"Transformers"/fighting and blowing up stuff. The Scotts came with us and Yuki was the only one out of us that I was worried about liking it. The only thing she said against it was that she wished his weapon wasn't a hammer. Which I can agree with, it can seem kind of silly. But who's to change Norse mythology? Anyway, the home of the Gods, Asgard, was so gorgeous. Like, rivals Avatar's Pandora as a fictional place I'd want to live. Go see it. When it comes out in America, that is :P
Oh yeah, and Royal Wedding tomorrow! But even more importantly, HAIRSPRAY TOMORROW! Michael Ball/Marius/Raul here I come! <3

Mind Blown

2011-04-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

Some of my peers are on their second baby. SECOND. Everyone else is pregnant/raising their first. (Not literally everyone... but like 98.7% of my married friends). My turn soon? Maybe. But for the moment, I'll just have a food baby made of chocolate and deviled eggs. Happy Easter! (BTW the eggs here are all brown, so no dying pretty colors... boo. I had to describe dying eggs and deviled eggs to my co-workers today. I felt so foreign.)

As we go on , we remember...

2011-04-22T02:46:00.000-07:00

To be honest, it breaks my heart a little to see all my frends' graduation pictures, knowing that I would have been part of them this year. But, we all make big tough decisions. And I decided to have an adventure instead. So there. :)

Hope for Society

2011-04-20T13:23:00.000-07:00

Working in the customer-service industry, we are always met with that customer that ruins our day. You know the one. "I'm going to make a big deal because you made a mistake." I, myself, try hard NOT to be that person. People make mistakes, so I like to give my waitress/sales clerk/fitting room attendant the benefit of the doubt because chances are, they already feel bad enough.
So this girl brings nearly 20 things to the fitting room while I'm letting people in and out. You can only take in 10, so I let her know that she can take in ten, then switch out for the rest. This was our busiest time of the day and we had a line of people waiting to get in. She came out and gave me the stuff she had tried on (not specifying that she wanted to actually purchase the stuff) and got the rest of her clothes to try on. Since we were so busy, there was another girl with me helping to traffic the clothes coming back from customers. Since the customer didn't tell me she wanted to keep the stuff she handed back to me, it got lost in the shuffle and ended up back out on the racks. When the girl came out again and asked for her stuff I obviously had let it get put away. She was not happy and proceeded to ramble on in another language as I apologized. I eventually just had to move on and help the hoards of other customers, but thought "Oh great. There goes my day." Once something like that happens to me, my day is thrown, confidence shattered, and mood shot.
Then, a miracle happened. She came back! Mind you, she was only about 15-16, so this really threw me. She apologized for saying anything that had offended me. I proceeded to tell her that I would have been upset too and I again apologized for the mix-up. That really meant a lot to me. I don't know if her mom made her do it, but I like to think that she did it because she felt bad for being rude. If only everyone was like that, the world would be a nicer place. I mean, we all fly off the handle and say things we don't mean, but to have the guts to apologize and make things right says a lot about a person's character.
And the quote of the day comes from my manager Chris. We were sorting out some new bikinis somone had tried on and he didn't like the color of one (and you have to imagine a tall gay stylish black man with a "Puck-from-Glee" mowhawk from London saying this or it's not as funny) "I hate yellow, even on bananas." Made me LOL

Sew Sew

2011-03-30T11:58:00.000-07:00

LOOK! Look at all the Vintage Vogue patterns for $3.88! If I was home with my sewing machine I'd totally buy a few. We were watching "North By Northwest" today and I fell in LOVE with this dress.
And here's a pattern that looks just like it!!
I also heart these.

P.S. Taylor's on her way!!

I'm Banksy

2011-03-25T13:49:00.000-07:00

Today I had to get out of the house, pretty much like every day, but today was a beautiful day and Nathan was done with classes at noon. When I need to get out of the house, Nathan likes to have a destination (he hates walking aimlessly). I, however, don't like having a destination. That just means that once you get there, you start to go back. Today's aimless walking lead us to some neato places! 10 points to Kelsey.
We walk by this church all the time, but it's easy to miss. It's tucked in next to a Tesco and a video store. Inside there's a tomb/memorial that has graffiti carved into the marble and I was like... who would do that? Then I looked closer and one dated from the 1600's. I just pictured in my head a 17th century hooligan tagging a statue "Finnigan loves Marian spring break 1664"! Then we decided to finally go inside the Bristol Cathedral! These are the things I'm gonna show Taylor when she comes to visit. Just a nice little walk around Bristol and for free you can see churches that are hundreds of years old. No big deal. Then we can go to Cabot Circus and walk around Top Shop and H&M. Word.

Harbor walk is a fun time too. Especially with this beautiful weather, it's really nice to walk down to the water and see all the different boats/ships/yachts/ferrys. One of the ships we've walked by was in Pirates of the Caribbean! Neat.

Taylor will be here soooooooon!

And the Daffodils Look Lovely Today

2011-03-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

HORROR, I found my first grey hair the other day. Yikes. I dread the day when my hair turns coarse and old-lady-ish. This hair felt like it was from a horse's bum bum. Sigh Bristol is in bloom!! England has been loverly this past week! Ovrnight it's gone from winter coat to removing my light jacket due to warmth. And the Daffodils remind me of Maryland home :)

American Idol this week/ Mormon joke

2011-03-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

Who else thought Pia looked like she was going to do baptisms? (I give Yuki credit for pointing this out)

P.S. Naima should have gone home.

Zaz jazz

2011-03-14T13:01:00.000-07:00

I can't get enough of this song.

I want to do all of this when I have some sort of permanent residence.

This will be funny for hours.

This is Englishy.

I didn't spend all day on the internat today. It was a beautiful day..... so I decided to do some Spring cleaning... what is wrong with me?? I think the sun inspired me to get up and go, so I hoovered every last inch of the flat and Nathan helped clean the bathroom since one of his classes was cancelled today. Then we did a small shopping trip and took a lovely walk. I wish I had my camera! Daffodils and Crocuses are in full bloom and you can just start to smell spring coming. Maybe I'll take pictures tomorrow and post them.

Doctor Who Day Trip

2011-03-10T14:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Nathan and I had a fun day trip to Wales! It was really needed for me because I've been feeling really trapped in our flat. I have no reason to go out and the weather's not good enought o just walk around. Anyway, we took an hour train ride to Cardiff, Wales (or Caerdydd, Cymru in Welsh:) ) where they shoot a lot of Doctor Who and Torchwood (a Doctor Who off-shoot). They had a "Doctor WHo Experience" with some props and costumes from the show. These are some of the things I was most excited to see. All the pictures from the trip are here .

Martha's signature red jacket, displayed two below on the right.
He's fighting in his pajamas, diplayed in the middle below.

For dinner we had burgers and curly fries (so good!) at this cute 50's style diner because we were told they filmed an episode of Torchwood there for this upcoming season. Yay!

My Little Monsters

2011-03-07T16:47:00.000-08:00

I found a doodling program randomly online. These be my favorite monstrosities.

This one is called "My Ball!"
Paws up monsters!

I Love

2011-03-03T10:23:00.001-08:00

Sunday Roasts.... mmm, so simple and so traditional. and so good (when done right). I hope to bring this home with me.

I get my 2 quid lunch here every Saturday. It's not our regular supermarket, but we do come here a lot for some things.

This is our main grocery store. They have this neato system called "Nectar points". I have a card I swipe every time I check out and after I buy a billion things I get a pound off. It takes a while to add up points to make it matter, but it's nice to knock a couple pounds off a purchase here and there.

Forbidden Planet, our geek store.

This is our monthly double date spot with the Scotts. Hmmm... it's a new month... I think it's time to go again! It's a Pan-Asian buffet restaurant with a cheap lunch price. And it's yummy.

I've never really had a sweet tooth, but I've had more chocolate cravings here than ever. I'm really going to miss good chocolate.

Although I do miss having a car, public transportation has left a surprisingly good impression on me.

Hot water never runs out. Never. Unlike our 7 minute rush at the barn.

We're definitely bringing some of this back with us in case we can't find it anywahere.

I Miss...

2011-03-02T14:30:00.000-08:00

Although it may SEEM to be one of those blogs where I moan about stuff, it's not. Well, it is... but not really. (P.S. they say "moan" a lot here instead of "complain". I tried to use it now like I use it all the time, but I really don't.) Consider this more: What I look forward to when we come back to the states.

MY SEWING MACHINE! I've made a lot of paper crafts due to the lack of sewing machine, which has been a fun experience. But. Want. Machine.

Hulu doesn't work here. Boo. And along the same lines:

No Netflix either.

Dryers are a rare animal here. Seriously, no one I know has one! I thought that was so weird! I miss the days when I could do all my laundry in a day, but now I can only do one load at a time because I run out of drying-rack space. And if the clothes don't dry fast enough, they get that funny smell to them. Bleh. So 80% of the time I have drying stuff strewn around draped over doors and chairs.

I miss having a temple so close. Even though we didn't go as much as we should have, it was nice to have it right next door. Now we can never go on ward temple trips since I always work on Saturdays and we don't have a car... so yeah it's nearly impossible to go.

This represents Thundercloud, our beloved car. He will unfortunately not be waiting for us when we get back, but hopefully we'll find another worthy four wheeled friend to take us where we need to go WHENEVER WE WANT.

I had a major craving the other day and asked a co-worker if they had Taco Bell here, and he laughed at me.

Today was a lovely day with some nice sunshine, but living in a city makes it hard to get direct sunlight and living in England makes it hard to get ANY sunlight.

Another craving that won't get atisfied for a while, although I looked online and they DO exist here. Just not close-by.

We are lacking in kitchen gadgets, and I missed our blender in particular today while making salsa. I used to love the salsa I made before, but today I guess I couldn't chop it enough to my liking. It got a B-.

Thank you Mommy for sending some in a care package. Of course, they're long gone. Time for more!! :)

Best burger and fries... nothing here comes close.

I really miss our big shopping trips where we didn't have to pick up stuff for a month.

Corn bread doesn't exist. Sigh.

To be fair to my current home, I will make a list of things I'll miss when we leave next time. I'm going to bed now to dream sweet dreams of soft shell tacos... yo qiero...

Kelsey's Oscar Picks

2011-02-24T13:06:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year. The time when people gather to talk about movies they didn't get a chance to see, but "heard they were pretty good. I saw 'Dinner for Schmucks' instead." In this family (the Kelsey and Nathan family) we try to see it all. I'm basing my opinions on what I've actually seen. Like for instance, I never really had an interest to see 'Black Swan', though everyone seems to have gone Lady Gaga over it. I will not be voting for it nor it's lead actress, although they may have been spiffy. I just didn't see it. I'd love to hear other people's opinions on stuff I haven't seen or if you just disagree with me. Not a lot of people comment on here, so hopefully this will make you. :)

FILM & Supporting Actress: True Grit & Hailee Steinfeld
I was actually really surprised how obsessed I am with this movie. I wasn't familiar with the original, so I went into this movie with no nostalgia or comparison to cloud my view. It was so well acted, so beautiful, and the script was so interesting. The speech was almost Shakespearian with how elevated it was. It didn't feel out of place though, I'm not sure how else to describe it. And the girl that played Maddie Ross just blew me away. What exactly are the requirements of being a lead actress? She had just as much screen time as Rooster. Hailee should win for leading. And supporting. She was just that good. This has been the only time Nathan and I looked at each other and said "wow" during a film. Anyway, I'm not sure it'll win because The Social Network and Black Swan seem to be the ones everyone is talking about, but True Grit as a whole movie was incredible. Did I mention how amazing the cowboy costumes were? So detailed. Anyway, loved it.

ACTOR: Colin Firth
I have been in love with Colin Firth as an actor for a long time. He's so versatile, and it really shows in "The King's Speech". He plays such a complicated character. He, as a royal (and an English royal, no less) has this pressure to have this Pricely persona and can't show any flaws, which is unfortunate because of his stuttering problem. Colin does a great job of showing his inner frustration under his stiff upper lip. You really feel for him and want him to succeed so badly. It's also so amazing to me how subtly funny he is. Oh yeah, and he did really well at the accent (super posh) and the stuttering. No big deal. If you didn't see the movie because you thought it'd be boring, give it a shot and I think it'll suprise you. I wouldn't be surprised if it got art direction as well.

ANIMATED MOVIE: Toy Story 3
Dur. I did love "How to Train Your Dragon" and I think everyone should give it the time of day it deserves, but TS3 is just above and beyond (should I say to infinity and beyond?) any animated movie. Ever. I'm not just being biased because of my close relationship with Buzz. Any child and adult that's seen the movie was touched by it (anyone who says otherwise is lying).

COSTUME DESIGN: Alice and Wonderland
This is why. (Although I did love the costumes in "True Grit", I figured they couldn't win it all in my book.)

MAKE-UP DESIGN: The Way Back
Bravo to "Barney's Version" for age make-up. They did do a really good job, but "The Way Back" did such an amazing job with sunburns, tattoos, cuts and scars, and other wounds and weathered effects. And to be honest, I was really disappointed with "The Wolfman"'s effects. The CGI effects were cool, buuuuut we're talking about mak-up here. When it was CGI-free, I wasn't convinced it was a wolf-man. Maybe my classes have jaded me, but I knew I was looking at an actor in lots of crepe/real hair and padded shoulders.

SONG: I See the Light
I REALLY want this song to win. You. Have. No. Idea.

SHORT FILM (ANIMATED): Day and Night
This was the one in front of "Toy Story 3". Pixar has this magical gift of storytelling. I always wonder how they come up with such brilliant ideas. However they do it, I'm glad I'm able to enjoy it. A+ Pixar.

I have no opinion on actresses and if you want to talk about directing and editing, talk to Nathan. I mean, you can talk to me and I might have interesting things to say... but really... talk to Nathan. Hopefully we'll actually get to watch it, what with not having TV and all...

My Cool Friends

2011-02-23T09:13:00.000-08:00

I have cool friends. I happen to really like this song from my buddy Adam's band Rodeo Church. Not just because we're friends. Judge for yourself.

I know Courtney from BYU theater classes and such. She's the beatboxer with the short hair. It's funny because we used to sing Sara Bareilles's "Many the Miles" backstage before a show we worked on together. Now she's singing WITH her.

I also wasw in a show (Parade) with a guy that had a small part on Law & Order SVU. We're not really friends, per se, but we're Facebook friends. It's still cool. Except one of his few lines was "she voted me biggest penis!", which is pretty funny.

Sorry if I'm posting too many videos. I'm finding it more interesting to blog about other people than myself. I wish I had a baby or pet to write about. I guess Nathan counts as both (jokes!) He's the only thing keeping me from bouncing off the walls and out the door. Dramatic much? I think I am.

Nappies

2011-02-22T14:51:00.000-08:00

Adam got the cute hat I sent! :) Some English baby terms: diapers are nappies and pacifiers are dummies.

It's still pretty boring for me around here. My manager asked me if I'd be interested in working more hours a week starting in April (which I answered with a big old YES) since there are a few full-timers leaving then to go travelling. Apparently British kids do that a lot; they work and save up money then travel around Europe or Asia. Pretty sweet. Anyway, so until then I sit around the house all day. It's not that I'm lazy, there's just NOTHING TO DO. Like today I did laundry, washed the dishes, tidied up here and there, re-decorated the living room, and still spent 80% of the day on my butt. It's too gloomy outside to go for a walk, so if I leave the apartment it's usually to spend some sort of money. Which we don't like to do. I kind of wish I'd held out for a better job like Yuki's (front desk at the Mariott). Oh well, discounts on H&M clothes is good, right? (Except for the fact that I never buy clothes).

This is turning out to be one of those "sad blogs" as Nathan calls them. I'm not sad. I'm just bored. So here are some of the bazillion videos I found on stumbleupon.com.

This one is neato:

These will make you laugh:

This one will make you lol, but has some language. Just a warning for sensitive ears.

This will make you cry:

And this is where I live:

Cool Beans, c-cool beans

2011-02-16T13:08:00.000-08:00

So has anyone seen the tv show "Skins"? I probably shouldn't suggest it because it's about a group of really bad kids, but whatevs. For some reason it doesn't look as bad when they're British. Anyway, it's filmed here in Jolly ol' Bristol. I just started watching the first season (they're filming the... 8th season now? Something like that). One of my managers actually babysat one of the girls from the first two seasons, Jal. She's the black girl in the picture wearing orange. Cool beans. It's cool to see them hanging out at places I go to all the time. That's mainly why I watch it. Nathan and I are always like, hey we were there today! Or hey we can see that from our flat! Anyway, if you want to see where I live, watch the show. But remember, not all Bristolians are like that. If they are, God help the UK. Oh and the kid from About a Boy and Dev Patel from Slumdog Milionaire are in the first two seasons.

sorry I haven't really been keeping up with the blog, but honestly... there's really been not much to write about. I'm back to working once a week. The other days of the week are pretty boring. Valentine's day was a good time. Nathan had the sweetest card and present for me: Matt Smith's sonic screwdriver! For those of you not familiar with Doctor Who, it's a nerdy toy that I just love. The sonic screwdriver is to Doctor Who toys as the lightsaber is to Star Wars toys. Don't say it's not romantic, because it totally is! It means that my hubby knows me and knows how to make me smile. He had class most of the day, so I spent that time cooking a nice dinner: stroganoff. Mmm. We actually just had leftovers and it was better the second time. We were going to see True Grit, but I wasn't feeling 100%, so we decided to go on Thursday (tomorrow) when we both had time and the cinemas weren't quite so busy. Valentine's day will reconvene tomorrow around noon.

I actually got Nathan to watch Glee with me today (it's usually impossible) and we both enjoyed a little Beiber fever. Nathan says he only watches because he loves Sue, which is fine with me. We love watching other things together: Community, Modern Family, Raising Hope, Big Bang Theory (which has yet to make me lol this season), and Wipeout, so I guess it's ok that I can't get him to Gleek out with me.

So, pre-natal vitamins make your hair grow, right? My hair's been pretty much the same since high school. Every once in a while I'd chop it, but then it just goes back to being long with fringe (they don't say bangs here, it's fringe, I think bangs means something bad... or it's sausage). I figure if I just get it to grow all out quickly, I can decide to cut it some new way. I'm just super bored mith my hair as of now. And we're thinking baby thoughts soon anyway, so pre-natal vitamins would be good anyway.

Custard in the Sky

2011-02-09T10:28:00.000-08:00

So I forgot I took these pictures from the plane when we flew out of Rome. The sky looked super cool (as you can see). We flew over Elba too! But of course, my camera pooped out before I could get the picture.

We made our first custard today! So. Good. I want it every day now, but my belly is saying no. I try to tell myself I'm not lactose intolerant. My tummy says otherwise. So anyway, we ate it with kiwi because they were buy one bunch get one bunch free at Sainsbury's. Buy one kiwi, get one free-wee! Heh.

Final Chapter

2011-02-08T13:44:00.000-08:00

Day four of our trip, I think we all agree, was the best and longest day of our trip. It started early on Sunday. It was free Sunday at the Vatican (that last Sunday of ever month you can get in free) and we wanted to be there when the museum opened. Little did we know, so did everyone in Rome. At 8 0'clock in the morning there was a line a mile long to get in. Since they closed the doors at 12:20, we were worried we'd even get in. There were guys walking up and down the line advertising an English speaking tour for 25 Euros a pop. We dind't really want to spend the money, especially if it was some sort of scam, like if it was a terrible guide or if they just took the money and ran. After some group deliberation, we decided to go for it. The best part, we found out, was that the guide didn't make us pay until after the tour was over. So we only ended up waiting about 20 minutes to get in with our group.

Mike, our guide, was an American smart-alec that had been doing this for a long time and you could tell he's probably secretly sick of it. He was, however, really funny and really knowledgable about the art and the history. We all got our cool little radios and headphones so we could hear him even from far away. I'm really glad we sprung for the tour. Not only did we get in faster, but I learned a lot of random things I wouldn't have without our guide. He was an art history major (if I remember correctly) and he showed us things that he said most guides skip over. Like in the hall of tapestries, he pointed out these really cool optical illusions/perspective effects on some of the tapestries. And he pointed out a statue that looked just like Bill Clinton. We got to see some Raphael paintings, something I wasn't expecting. The most exciting of which was School of Athens. It's always fun to see something you recognize from art books. The best part of the tour was the end when you walk into the Sistine Chapel. Before we went in, Mike pointed out some things to look out for. Most people focus on the ceiling and front wall, but there's really interesting stuff going on on all the other walls, like scenes from the lives of Moses and Jesus. I may or may not have taken a video of the ceiling (you're not supposed to take any photos or videos)... heh heh. I told myself not to, but... I mean come on, can you really blame me?

Anyway, so our tour guide took us out a special way after the tour so that we can go right into St. Peter's Basilica without waiting in another line. Then he says, oh I think you guys will get to see the Pope! And I'm like what?? We pay him and I run off out into the square to go see the Pope. There were THOUSANDS of people there waiting to see him. There was even a stage with a Christian band playing and getting the crowd pumped (which I thought was kind of funny). So right at noon he popped out of hi window and said a bunch of stuff in Italian. It wasn't a while Mass, but he said the Ave Maria and there was some call and response. My favorite part was after all that (since I had no idea what he was saying) when he gave a nice little message in Italian, English, German, French, Polish, and Spanish. His English wasn't too good, but we could make out that he wished us blessing of peace and joy. What a sweetie. Even though I'm not Catholic, I think he's a good role model for people. Like Ghandi or Mother Teresa. Or Pooh Bear.

So because of my over-eagerness to see his Holiness, we had to wait in a long line to see St. Peter's Basilica (I was upset for a little bit because I thought it closed at 12:20 like the Vatican Museum and I had messed up our chances to see it, but we found out that wasn't the case). We saw the tombs of the Popes first, which was actually really interesting. Pope John Paul's grave was there and it was sweet because there was a roped off area where people were kneeling and praying for him. He was a cool dude. And there was an area where St. Peter was (part of him anyway). Peter. Like friends-with-Jesus Peter. Walked-on-water Peter. PE-TER. I was almost more star struck by that than seeing the Pope. Then we went into The Basilica which. was. huge. I've been inside impressive old churches before, but this one beats them all. And Michealanglo designed it when he was 80 and blind. Genius. The Pieta was there, which brought me to tears. It wasn't just from being in awe of the beauty or the craftsmanship. It was the message conveyed by the sculpture. Mary was Jesus's mother. Not just BABY Jesus's mother. She raised him and loved him like all good mothers do. The Pieta shows her cradling her dead son, and the look on her face is what touched me. Love, grief, hope, etc. Yeah, cool stuff.

After we left the Vatican, we took a short walk to check out a castle nearby. It's in the movie Roman Holiday and on top is a statue that was important in "Angles and Demons" (which I want to read/see after this trip). We also accidently found the most confusing labrynth park encircling the castle. We were afraid we'd run into a minotaur or something. Our next plan was to head back to the forum, since our colosseum tickets were good for two days and included the forum and palatine hill. Unfortunately, when we got there it was already closed, but I wasn't too disappointed. We'd already seen a lot of amazing things and our feet were starting to be angry with us.

The last thing on our big list of things to do was to see the Pantheon! We found it pretty easily (we were experts of the city by then!) but I had to pee sooooooo bad. I hopped into a nearby cafe to use the loo. They seemed a little annoyed that people kept using the bagno, so I bought some gelato. Any excuse, right? :) Pistachio this time. There was an amazing opera singer performing right outside the Pantheon, so we sat and shared the gelato while listening to the music. He was great, but I'm scared that he's going to blow out his poor voice. It was cold and he was singing non-stop in full voice. Anyway, the Pantheon was cool because it was originally used as a temple for the gods, but was later turned into a Catholic church. The middle of the domed ceiling was a cut-out circle! And it had rained earlier that day, so the floor was wet, but there were little drains for the water to go down. Raphael was buried there, so we stopped by to tell him how much we enjoyed his work earlier :). I'm not sure why he was buried in a church though, apparently he died from being "over amorous". Woohoo.

Our last stop on our long journey was not on our list of things to do originally, but was suggested by our tour guide. It was, what we lovingly call "The Bone Church". For one Euro each, you can see 6 rooms of human bones arranged decoratively. Yeah. They were bones of Capuchin Monks and other parishoners of the church. The nice thought they left you with was "What you are now, we once were. Wht we are now, you will be." Happy thought. Despite being creepy, I thought it was kind of cool. I think I was the only one in the group, though. With that happy thought on our minds, we made our way back to the hotel for the last time.

Although we weren't really that hungry (we stopped for McDonalds before going to the forum, mmmm), we decided to eat one last Italian meal while we still could. The hotel had a restaurant, so Nathan and I went to try it out. It was pretty good! Not as good as the restaurant before and a bit pricier, but good. I had spaghetti ala carbonara (aka with white sauce and BACON) and Nathan had fettucini alfredo. I couldn't finish mine, since I wasn't that hungry to begin with, but I got to take it back to the room wiht me. BUT, duh, I forgot a fork. The saddest thing I ever did was leave the left overs behind the next morning... wah.

And thus ended our Roman Holiday. Everything went perfectly on our way back to Bristol. Nothing exciting.

I should mention, though, that I am very up-to-date with the goings-on in Egypt. The bruhaha started when we were in Italia and the only English channel in our hotel was CNN. I 'm glad of that, actually. I need to be more aware of world news. Mubarek needs to retire and go far far away.

THE END

Day 3 Gladiators!

2011-02-05T13:08:00.000-08:00

We met up with the Scotts in the morning and showed them the way to the hotel before making our way to the, dum dum dum, COLOSSEUM! My mother-in-law, Shirla, made a good point while talking to her the other day. It's right there next to a big road. I always expected it to be surrounded by lots of space, but nope. It's all in the middle of the hustle and bustle. Doesn't make it any less cool, just not where I expected it. So we waited in a relatively short line (like Space Mountain Fast Pass) and Nathan and I shared an audio guide. It was like meeting a celebrity. It's probably better than meeting a celebrity, since I'm pretty sure more people in the world know what the colosseum is than care about Justin Beiber. (Why is he the first celebrity that came to mind?...) It was cool to imagine the extravagant events went on there, beyond just grizzly fights of death. There was a cool story about like 50 bears coming out of a whale's mouth... I'm telling it wrong, but something cool like that happened there (I don't pretend to be an expert after a day haha). Oh and the people important enough to have their own seat (senators, etc) hadd their names carved into their spots. I could just imagine:

"Excuse me sir, but you're in my seat"

"Does it have your NAME on it?"

"Why yes. Yes it does."

"Oh... So sorry."

So after the colosseum we were hungry, so we ventured off to find food. We found a cute little place with Mel Gibson's picture on the outside. I mean, if Mel likes it, it MUST be good, right? But seriously, it was really good! I had spaghetti bolognese and Nathan had Ravioli. There's a distinct difference between what I'm used to and what Italian food is SUPPOSED to taste like. This is what it's SUPPOSED to taste like. Hand-made pasta, fresh cheese (in the ravioli), sauce that' not from a can, molto buono. I wish I knew how to make my spaghetti that good.

After the meal we decided to hunt down the Trevi Fountain again (The Scotts hadn't been yet). We stumbled upon teh Spanish steps on accident! It was a beautiful view of the city from the top (we found the steps from the top, so we didn't have to climb the stairs, luckily) and around the obelisk there were artists selling their wares. It seemed very French. In Italy, the Spanish steps looked French. Anyway, we popped into the church and it was another wonder. You can just walk by all these churches in Rome and never know the beauty in the inside. There are so many, you stop noticing them, but once you go inside, you think... why is this not being advertised?? No one told me this was here!! So yeah, another gorgeous church, no big deal :)

So we walked down the steps and tried to orient ourselves to try to find the Fontana di Trevi from there. Be careful standing still for too long on the streets of Rome. People start trying to sell you stuff. They're like flies. You shoo them away, but stop for a second and they land on your food again. So this guy comes up to Yuki and I and physically PUTS roses in mine and Yuki's hands. He then proceeded to tell us how they're good luck blah blah blah. Now, normally, one would see this as a kind gesture. A GIFT, if you will. One shouldn't be so naiive. He just stood there until we coughed up some dough. Oy. I wasn't that upset because what girl doesn't want a purty flower.

So we finally found the Trevi Fountain, and it was just as magical as the first time. This time Nathan and I did the actual "toss the coin over your shoulder" thing.
I actually forgot to make a wish. I was too caught up in the moment. It's probably a good thing I didn't make a wish, because it could have been stolen and I would wake up one day void of hope and dreams. Let me 'splain. As we were marvelling at the fountain's beauty, we noticed a less than inconspicuous shady guy looming over the water. Mr. Shifty Eyes then proceeded to extract a long metal magnet grabby thing and go for the coins in the fountain. Not cool. So Chris casually goes up next to our friend and joins him in peering into the water. Yuki and I just watch and laugh while Chris talks to him. Chris, in Italian, had just asked him what was in the water and he had replied, "Little things. Coins. Wishes." And thus the Wish Theif was born. This character gave us many a laugh for the rest of the trip.

So we then got gelato (finally!) at a place right next to the fountain. Nathan got limone and I got straciatella (vanilla with little bitsies of chocolate). Mmmmmm. We strolled back to the closest metro and made our way back to the hotel. No real dinner again, but we were pretty stuffed from lunch still.

Day 2 in Naples

2011-02-04T10:12:00.001-08:00

Nathan and I started our day early on Friday with a train ride: my first! I was expecting a little more "Hogwarts Express", but since we got cheap tickets it was more like a really long subway ride outside. The views from the train were beatiful though! Lots of mountains, fields, vineyards, and olive trees. We could even see the sea for a bit! We knew we were getting close to Napoli when we could see *dun dun duuuuun* VESUVIUS!

We met up with the Scotts at the train station and roamed around the cool galleria while Chris and Yuki took off briefly to give some gifts they had brought for family members. I drug Nathan into Sephora to look at the make-up (I left my purse at home, but one of the cards I DID bring was my Sephora beauty card lol). I didn't get anything more than a sample of perfume, but it's cool to see stores I love from America are the same everywhere. And it's cool when the sales staff recognizes that you don't speak their language because they don't bother you. Anyway, so we bought some Baci candy (chocolates with hazelnuts in them that I got all the time in EPCOT), which was one of the things I was MOST looking forward to on this trip, believe it or not!

We met up with the Scotts again and Chris took us to this pizza place recommened to him by his uncle. I wish I'd met his uncle so I could've given him a BIG FAT KISS. The pizza was AAAAmazing! Naples is the capitol of pizza. It was invented there, so they know how to do it right. Perfect crust, perfect sauce, big slabs of fresh mozzerella, basil, and olive oil. So good. I mean, I still love me some Papa John's, but the pizza I had in Naples doesn't even belong in the same category. So yeah, good pizza.

We then took a walk down to the water (it smelled like home! Mix the pine-y smell of the Salisbury park with the salty Ocean City air... I closed my eyes and pretended I was home for a couple of seconds). The view of the Mediterranian Sea and Mount Vesuvius was beautiful! And we walked around the sea-side castle. I don't know anything about the castle, but it did have a cool blast mark from a cannon still visible on the side.

We caught a bus back to the train terminal so we could catch a metro to Pompei. Yuki can attest to this: the bus experience in Naples is not fun. Luckily, we were the first ones on the bus the first time we used it, so we got seats. Actually, the first time was pretty cool because this old guy had an equally old Scottish Terrier with him that sat at my feet and poked his head up between my knees so I could pet him. The second time, however, we were not the first ones, so we were jammed in like sardines. You can only say "Mi scusi" so many times before you just give up and accept the fact that you WILL be touching strangers for long periods of time. I think personal space is a very American thing. Just look at those videos of Japanese trains where they shove people in. Yuki hates them, so I think she was really meant to be American :) Oh! And I had my first Gypsy experience! While buying the metro ticket, this old lady straight out of a fairy tale (think of the beginning of Beauty and the Beast, BEFORE the witch turned beautiful) had a cup she was shoving in our faces for coins. I reached into my pocket and dropped in 20 cents, then she moved on to Chris. Chris gave her something too, then she said to him some thing about "tredici", which is 13 in Italian. She told him to remember the number 13. Spooooky.

So we got off the metro and followed our short and hairy tour guide to Pompei. No, not Danny DeVito, a cute little puppy. One of the many dogs just roaming around the ancient city. Pompei was cool because it's very immersive. You can walk down the ancient streets, into peoples' homes, touch their walls, and almost see what it was like over a thousand years ago. I could see why they'd want to live there. The views of the volcano and sea were great (maybe a little too great). Seeing the bodies was really sad. Since it was so long ago, the tragedy seems more like just a story. To the Italians back then, it was like Katrina or the tsunami or Haiti's earthquake. To be honest, though, it was kind of cool how they were able to pour the plaster into ash and fill the negative space where there bodies had decomposed so we could see the position they were in when they died. Anyway, sad/morbid things aside, this random group of workers wanted to take their pictures with Yuki and me. At first we thought they wanted us to take a picture OF them, but then they had us hop in the picture WITH them. Yuki, if you're reading this, did they ever e-mail you the picture? Haha, random.

So we split from the Scotts because we were heading back to Rome and they were staying in Naples another night. Our train ride back was less than pleasant. We could have spent the extra 30 Euros to get a faster, better train, but I was still sour about the 70 we had lost to the cab driver the night before so I got the 10 Euro-a-piece tickets. It was the same exact train, but for some reason it was an hour longer (more stops I guess). It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't FREEZING. We slept a little at first, but then it was just too cold so we cuddled up and played 20 questions. 3 hours later, we got McDonalds dollar menu dinners (Euro menu, I guess) and scurried back to the hotel to our nice warm beds.

Veni Vidi Vici!

2011-02-02T14:32:00.000-08:00

So Nathan and I took a holiday to Italy this past week with our friends, the Scotts! And I took a million pictures that you can see here , here , here , and here , since I can't be bothered to upload them all onto the blog. and it'd be way too long anyway.
So travel day was Wednesday and everything went off without a hitch... until we got to Italy that is. We got off the plane and hopped on a bus to take the metro to our hotel. It was at this point that we separated from the Scotts temporarily, since they were going to Naples to see Chris's family, so we were sans an Italian speaker. Once we got to the metro, it was eeriliy empty. We (the five of us that got off the bus) were stopped at the entrance by Italian army dudes that told the Italian chick with us that the drivers were on strike. She scurried off, but we were left with two British girls without a clue what to do between us. We ended up waiting an hour in the rain for the bus to come back from the airport to take us BACK to the airport. Thank you Stacy and Claire from East London for making the best out of a crappy situation with us. Anyway, so once we got backt o the airport, there was really nothing we could do but get a taxi. Luckily for us (sarcasm) the hotel was SUPER far away and we had only 5 or so Euros on us. The taxi driver stopped by an ATM before dropping us off, so that was ok, but since I don't know how to say "No, I want change, I'm not giving you an 8 Euro tip" in Italian, we gave him 70 Euros that evening. Thanks Italy for the good first impression.

It was almost a perfect trip after that, thank goodness! We laughed it off (what else can you do?) and I just said to myself that if that's the worst thing to happen the whole trip, then I'm ok with it. Our hotel offers free breakfast, and it was SO GOOD every morning! I'm really gonna miss that bacon... I'm a crispy bacon girl, but this bacon was more like hot prosciutto than typical American bacon. So. Good. And they had little squares of what I call pizza without cheese. Whatever it was, I was excited to have pizza for breakfast! Nathan couldn't get enough of the blood orange juice. Seriously. If he could had hooked himself up to an IV and replaced his blood with blood orange juice, I think he would have.

I just wrote a whole paragraph on the breakfast. Yep.

Thursday, Nathan and I had the day to ROAM around ROME (yuk yuk). The metros were up and running (thank goodness, apparently that kind of thing happens all the time) and we just picked a spot to get off. "Barbarini - Fontana di Trevi looks good!" "Sure, we'll start there!" So the fountain isn't right there in front of you when you come out of the station. There's A fountain, but there's a fountain on every street. So we looked at a map, Nathan pointed us in the right direction, but I insisted he was wrong and we went the opposite way. I was wrong. But since we were on no kind of schedule, it was ok and we came accross a beautiful Basilica that we wouldn't have even known it existed otherwise! So yay for mistakes :) We did some more wandering and found the Piazza Venezia, which had the monument Il Vittoriano. GIANT BUILDING! It's a monument for who knows what (that's the thing about going to museums in another country, if you can't speak the language, it's harder to know what they're showing you. Not everything is in English too) and it served as the returning point whenever we didn't know quite where we were going. It has the best view of Rome after you climb A BILLION STAIRS. Seriously. So we finally found the Trevi fountain after that. It took my breath away! It's exciting to see things that are so famous and understand why. The way Nathan put it, it's cool when it's not just hype. It was more beautiful than any picture could make it look!

And it was at this point where I started getting annoyed with all the people trying to separate me from my money. There were guys EVERYWHERE selling scarves, camera tripods, squishy splatty toys, and other doo dads constantly trying to stop you and sell you things. At the Trevi Fountain, there are people trying to take your picture for money. You'll be sitting there trying to take in the beauty and someone just gets in your face and tries to seduce you with how you NEED for them to take your picture. We talked about this with the Scotts. We think these people have a warehouse somewhere full of crappy trinkets that they return to every night. I personally think they have toy/scarf pimps that they have to report back to. And wait til you hear about the Wish Thief. He comes later.

Breakfast got it's own paragraph, lunch should too. We saw people around the fountain with yummy sandwiches, so Nathan went up to someone and asked where they got it. We then proceeded to this little pizza place that had these DELICIOUS sandwich thingies! The bread was more like pizza crust and the insides were pepperoni, basil, and mozzerella. So. Good.

We found a museum behind the Piazza di Venezia (we were looking for something else, but we were having trouble finding it, so why not?). Nathan was drawn in by a giant statue we could see peeking at us from the exit door. Inside, there was a Leonardo Da Vinci painting! No pictures allowed, but it was incredible to see up close! We had a lot of fun seeing all the statues and artwork. It was funny because we'd be in awe by whatever was on the walls, then I'd say "Sweetie, look up" and there would be something more amazing on the ceiling.

We made our way back to the hotel (And I got hit on by an African guy who liked my hair, haha) and were too tired to go back out and get dinner. The hotel had vending machines, so we supped on Cipsters and Fonzies. Dinner of champions.

This is getting really long, so I'll just make each day a different post. More to come!

Roman Holiday

2011-01-25T08:50:00.000-08:00

This will be Nathan and me this week!

Vampire Weekend

2011-01-23T09:37:00.000-08:00

It's been a gloomy day. I call it a Vampire day. You know that time of the day when you want to go out or go for a walk, but you look outside and you think, "Nah, it's getting dark soon"? It was like that all day today. No rain, just really overcast. I'm glad we had church today, or else it would have ended up being one of those stay-in-bed-all-day days. Tell me if you're like this too: when your alarm wakes you up for church/work/school, do you ever envision your future self that's already back in bed? Every cold morning I picture my future self home from work/church and cuddled up back under my covers. My favorite part of the day is when I actually DO end up back in my covers and the future becomes the present and no one has to make me get out of bed anymore. Ahhh. Simple joys.
Days like today make me REALLY EXCITED TO GO TO ITALY!
So I love making checklists!

Name this movie :) Anyway, I love writing down everything I need to do before we go somewhere. Since we're leaving on Wednesday for Italia, I've listed what I need to do from now to when we leave our house in three days. I think I get this kind of planning instinct from Dad (who asked me about my itinerary yesterday ^-^). So I'm doing a bunch of laundry now in preparation for our trip. I love doing laundry here because we don't have a dryer, so we hang our stuff on a drying rack and it makes the house smell fresh and clean! Our new Fabric Conditioner smells like strawberries.

I actually hung my underwear all over our bedroom to make it smell pretty.
Time to make dinner! I discovered a new recipe that Nathan and I really like! I came across it on accident when all we had in the fridge was broccoli and sausage (other that lunchmeat and hotdogs). I found a pasta recipe that included broccoli and sausage on Foodnetwork.com and it was delicious! I added milk to make the sauce creamier, but otherwise I stuck to the recipe. Oh and our sausage was pork and we didn't have red peppers, but I don't like them anyway...
Try it! Oh and add parmesan, I think it makes the dish!
Sorry the post had nothing to do with the band Vampire Weekend. Sorry for the deceptive title. Here's a video.

Skype All-Stars

2011-01-19T12:36:00.000-08:00

I have a tendency to take a lot of pictures while skyping. Here are my favorites as of late. Except the first one. That one's from someone's phone, but I love it so much! And I saw a kid the other day wearing the same hat!

^Same face lol^

Sour pusses

I call this one "I can't put my arms down!"

Oh and I finally got my banking stuff figured out! No more checks lying around waiting for a home! No more beureaucracy to hate!

Swami-Swans

2011-01-18T08:21:00.000-08:00

Ten bucks for whoever get the title. :) Not really since I'm pretty sure Elizabeth and Mom will get it.
Yuki and I went for a girls' day out while our hubbies were finishing up their papers due this week. We shopped around, fed the swans, and had a jolly good time :)
And Happy Birthday to Nathan (Sunday) and Nana (Monday)! Nathan got a double birthday. We opened presents and hung around the house with the Scotts on Sunday after church, then went to our favorite Asian buffet Cosmo with the Scotts and saw Tron Legacy in 3D on Monday for our celebration day. It was a great movie by the way. Really cool visually!
Anyway, here's our Swan pictures!

I caught them attacking each other lol

Insert Natalie Portman comment here

This is some grafitti on the ground at our bus stop when we cathc the bus to go to church. It says "Kelster" :) There's another one next to it that says "Slick Boy", so we decided that would be our super hero names. Kelsey "Kelster" Snow and her side kick Nathan "Slick Boy"!

This is a blurry picture of a fox that was chilling by our window while I was writing this blog entry. Of course, by the time I got my camera out, he decided to scamper off. He was so cute though!

A Place Where Dreams Are Born

2011-01-14T15:47:00.001-08:00

I found a magical place today. A beautiful place. It's called Poundland. Think Dollar Tree/Store/General. Only everything costs a pound instead of a dollar, obviously. Anyway, I was amazed at everything that was there! When you're on a student budget, this is the Mecca of all things cheap! And don't be snobby. Think of Mitchell from "Modern Family" when he discovered Costco: "Cam, what is this place??" I got carried away, but we thoroughly enjoyed our Oreos and Weight Watcher "cheetos" today, and they tasted so much better knowing they only cost a pound.

Blessings

2011-01-12T11:03:00.001-08:00

For some reason (let's blame it on it being Winter) I've been feeling a little blue. I can't even put into words what's bothering me because it's all selfish and doesn't make much sense. What I've been trying to do is count my blessings and think happy thoughts to get me through this WInter slump. Blessing numero uno: I'm happily married to a cute boy that I love and want to have babies with and read comic books and watch movies with forever and ever. Blessing number B: I have a family that I miss terribly, but technology allows me to talk with them pretty much whenever I want. Number 3: I'm living in ENGLAND with my cute boy and we have fun new experiences every day. Part of these experiences include taking advantage of the theater in the area (THANK YOU MOMMY DADDY NANA AND POPI FOR MY CHRISTMAS AND BIRTHDAY PRESENTS!!!! I CAN"T THANK YOU ENOUGH)

Happy Birthday to meeeeeeeeee!

Merry Christmas to meeeeeeeee!

Continuing with blessings: I was able to get a job at a super cool H&M with super cool people! Blessing number a million: I have a Heavenly Father that loves me and takes care of me! Blessing number a million part two: Going to church has helped Nathan and I make great friends that we'll keep forever! Blessing number 18273645: Even though I've been feeling sad that I've lost touch with a lot of my friends from Maryland, BYU, Florida, etc, I have my true blue bosom buddies and fambly for support and lovey dovies. Oh and a hubby too :)

Hopefully this isn't seen as me being a braggy pants. More so, I hope it gets you to think about all the cool stuff that you've got in your life to be thankful for. We shall overcome the Winter blues! Power to the people! Oh and go look on the H&M website and browse their Spring collection! it'll make you feel bright and springy. Maybe you'll absorb some Vitamin D in the process!

Things That Make Me Smile

2011-01-07T15:57:00.001-08:00

This is mostly for me to turn my frown upside down. Hopefully it works for you too.

Auld Lang Syne

2011-01-01T13:07:00.001-08:00

My blog has been doing this weird thing and I can't write when I u[load pictures to say what they're about... but my last post was pretty much self-explainitory, except the last picture. After the clock struck 12 on New Year's Eve, a bunch of Chinese people let go these mini hot air balloons into the sky. It's like making new years resolutions, with each balloon representing something they wish for new year. And since there's a bg Chinese population here, we saw so many as we walked home! We also saw several drunkies. One guy came up to us, arms outstretched and said "Why can't every ay be like this? Happy New Year!" It actually sounded more like, "Whycannevrydaybeliiithis? Habbynewyrrr!" Funny :) Haha "Habbynewyrrr" looks like a Welsh word.
So this has been the end of a big decade for me/us! 2000, I was in 6th grade, and since then I went to high school, got my driver's license, went to college, worked at Disney World, got married, gained a sibling, and moved to England! Thanks 2000's for being so good to me. Hopefully the 20-teens will be just as good! Babies, jobs, class reunions, kids going to school, and, most importantly, our first puppy! :) Jokes :) First item on the list: Go to Italy!

Happy 2011!

2011-01-01T11:36:00.000-08:00

Aaaaaaand a Partridge in a Pear Tree

2010-12-27T12:31:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! Here's some pictures from our Holiday :)

Gross morning face. We opened our stockings in bed, just like home!

Before the un-wrapping, still all nice and pretty

Nathan with his booty

Me and my booty

My cute little Adipose squicshy Doctor Who toy. I named him Puff Puff

The Christmas carnage

Little Hannah Camacho :) Our Christmas elf

Thomas beating up on Nathan haha

Joshua challenging Chris

Yuki and Hannah :)

Our Christmas feast!

Me and Thomas, I'm a good influence on him

The food was A-Maz-Ing

I was covered in stickers by the end of the meal (from our Christmas crackers, the thingies you pull and they pop and you get a treat inside and a crown).

Don't disturb him from eating his delicious meal

The boys fighting their tops against each other.

Love her <3

Chrimbo Bimbos (Chrimbo is a slang word for Christmas+Boxing Day, love!)

Boxing Day was fun too. Nathan and I gave our talks to a church attendance of about 30 people, then went to Isi's house for another lush meal! Isi is a super nice girl from Nigeria that's been studying in the UK. She met her fiancee, Nathaneal, here and now they're getting married (hence "fiancee"). Nathaneal's been taking us to church for the past couple of weeks, nice guy. He and Isi prepared the meal. It was a cool combination of Nigerian and British food. Nigerian food is SPICY! But perfect, I LOVED it. We learned a lot of cool stuff about her culture, like the marriage ceremony and stuff that's to come. This other Nigerian guy that joined us for dinner was surprised to hear that Nathan didn't have to pay anyone to marry me. I like the tradition and ceremony that goes along with it. Anyway, it's sad because she has to go back to Africa soon to get some legal stuff sorted out before they can get married. :( I'll miss her a lot! I wished I'd gotten to know her sooner. But at least Nathaneal will still be here. He and Nathan both read comics, so it's a match made in heaven.

Hope you had a proper Chrimbo!

7 Swans a Swimming

2010-12-23T14:50:00.001-08:00

We made Christmas cookies!!! Thanks to Nathan's sister Brittany, we were able to make Betty Crocker American sugar cookies :) Just like home. And I got sparkly icing!

Hard at work

Yuki wrote "Scott" and "Snow" in Japanese on the candy cane :)

Chris and Yuki Scott

I'm very proud of my little snow lady and her jaunty scarf :)

"S" for Sctoo, Snow, or Silver Bells!

Nathan's Liberty Bell

At the Scotts' apartment building, they have a cinema room full of bean bags and a projection screen where you can watch a movie/play video games/etc, however the tennents of the apartments have not taken very good care of the room. A PS3 has been stolen, all the wires are connected wrong, the controlers don't work, and so on and so forth. We spent hours in that room trying to rig it so we could watch Toy Story 3. At one point I was getting bored and frustrated, so I piled all of the bean bags and started to jump on them. Nathan joined me. And this happened.

I am King here...

8 Maids a-Milking

2010-12-20T11:11:00.001-08:00

I think I found a new blog layout that I'm happy with. Hooray.

Anyways, so it's FREEZING. Here's a picture of my chilly home. There's a rumor going around that a storm's a-brewin'over the British Isles. The worst storm they've had in 100 years. I'm SO glad we were here to experience it. To be honest, a horrific snow storm here is probably called "any given Wednesday from October to March" in Provo, so I'm not too scared. Just imagine what the East coast got last year. Everyone freaked out and called it "Snowmageddon" while we out west laughed at you and shoveled the 6 feet of snow from our walkway to get to school that was still in session.

Salvation Army band in Broadmead ^ I was so excited to see a brass band in the town square! I even tossed in a few coins for some extra Christmas blessings! Then they started to play the saddest, dirge-iest Christmas song I'd ever heard. Whatever happened to "Jingle Bells"? Or the classic "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"? Instead we got "Santa Died and his Funeral was on Boxing Day." I'm being harsh, the music was really lovely. Just not so upbeat. We also saw a girls' choir singing in Cabot Circus. Now THEY gave me a Christmas spirit boost. It was beautiful! I didn't recognize the carols, but they sounded old English-y. And where they were standing, it had the perfect accoustics that made them sound that much better. We gave them money too. After all the Christmas shopping we've done, the left over pennies, 5 p, and 10 p coins get heavy, so it's nice to dump them on the needy.

We ran into all the missionaries at Primark today. It was funny, we saw our buddy Elder Conover talking with the Sisters and an Elder from the other Bristol ward and we just kind of got closer and closer and waited for him to notice us. We were pretty much just standing there making the ones that didn't know who we were feel uncomfortable until Conover said "Sister Tonks!" (That's me by the way) They were out on their district P-Day doing Christmas-y things.

We saw David Archuleta with the Mo Tab for the Christmas thing. I don't care if he's a teeny bopper pop star. That kid is talented! I had to explain who he was to the Camachos, but they were impressed with him as well. Yay for talented mormons!

New Blog Layout/ 9 Ladies Dancing

2010-12-19T14:35:00.000-08:00

It'll probably change, it's been a big pain in my butt for the last hour or so. So enjoy it while it lasts :)

And Sorry I've been a lazy blogger. There's just not been a lot to say lately. Work and missing home. That's it.

We had lunch at the Camachos today! They've been another blessing in our lives since we've been here. We helped decorate their home and tree today! They've really made us feel like family :) Love 'em! And the food is always AMAZING. It's nice to have found a fellow foody friend (Anthony Camacho). We'll be back to invade their home for Christmas. I personally can't wait.

Oh and I HAVE to talk about the nativity play the primary put on today. It was, in a word, entertaining. And I was a part of it. Seriously though, it was really fun/funny. The kids didn't sing a peep in our rehearsal, but during the performance Chloe, our belter, let loose. And the shepherds used their canes like they were blind. And we only had two wise men because one chickened out. And one little angel, bless her, got stage fright and took off her halo and didn't join the other angels to say their lines. Anyway, it was cute and primary-y.

CHRISTMAS!

10 Lords a Leaping

2010-12-15T03:28:00.000-08:00

I live here

http://www.360cities.net/image/clifton-suspension-bridge-in-bristol#-3.70,-1.57,71.7

11 Pipers Piping

2010-12-14T06:54:00.000-08:00

After babysitting for the Oldhams (the American family that just moved :( ) Nathan and I decided we would go to lunch with my babysitting money, since we haven't been out to eat in ages. We went to this New York themed restaurant (it was called two New York names like "Frankie and Johnny's" or something like that) and I had an AMAZING cheeseburger and Nathan had cod and chips. The burger still wasn't your typical American burger, but it was really good. Nathan enjoyed his fish and chips as well, but I think he was most impressed that they had good ketchup :) Thanks Oldhams!

It's been feeling a bit more wintery here the past couple of weeks. When I went out one day, I found everything frosted over! So that's not snow, it's really thick frost. Just the night before we'd been walking around at night and it was foggy, but the fog was frozen! It's hard to explain, but the air was sparkly! It almost looked like a really fine snow, but it wasn't falling, it was just twinkly bits floating in the air. Really magical :) Anyways, it's not quite as cold now, but apparently it's supposed to snow a lot this week, which should be pretty. I don't have as much of a resentment for snow as I did in Provo. It's more like it was growing up in Maryland, when snow was a rarer thing and everything shuts down and kids love it.

So I thought I'd share some new British terms with you! Working at a clothing store, I've become familiar with all the words people use referring to clothing and other store-related things.

sweater = jumper

pants = trousers

underwear = pants/underpants/underwear

registers = tills

rack (where you hang clothes) = rail

So if you really want to sound British in a clothing shop here's what you say:

"Hiya! You all right? (But run it together so it sounds like "y'awrigh'?") I loved that jumper, but they didn't have the right size on the rail. The only ones they had were proper big, so I went to the tills to see if they had an 8. They didn't and I was completely gutted. I guess I'll try Primark. Cheers luv!"

Haha doesn't get more British than that. Unless you throw in something about X Factor. You should check out the guy that won, Matt Cardle. He's amazing! I actually wanted him to win and he did, and that never happens! So apparently X Factor is coming to the states and Simon's going to be a judge (like he is here), but they're also bringing the judge Cheryl Cole to America. Now, you may ask "Cheryl who?" That's exactly what I said when I got here and people laughed at me. She's on every single magazine cover, so I felt the need to ask. Now that I've been here a while I can't believe how someone can be so huge here and I'd never heard of her. She's a singer in the girl group Girls Aloud (I know, "who?" again. They're like the Pussycat Dolls) and a judge on X Factor. Anyway, it's a really big deal here that she's going to America. Everybody is making such a fuss about whether or not she'll be as big in the states as she is here or if she'll come back with her tail between her legs. Simon's telling her to change her image so Americans will like her and people are saying she needs to fix her heavy Liverpuddlian accent. I think she's adorable and that people will love her and I LOVE her accent (and hey, we loved the Beatles, didn't we?). Anyway, keep an eye out for that.

Oh and I got my Christmas present box from home!! I may or may not have shed a tear or two. I miss my fambly. But we have our stockings hung with care on our wall, so it really feels like Christmas here. I was able to spread some Christmas cheer with a co-worker. I had Christmas Eve off, and she wanted to switch so she could meet her boyfriend's family for the first time. Of course I agreed to take her shift (I mean, we obviously don't have plans), and she was super grateful. It made me happy to help out :) So, let me know when your package arrives at the Brady house!

12 Drummers Drumming

2010-12-06T04:04:00.000-08:00

This has been an interesting week. Monday I was sick (nothing serious, just achey... achy... I had aches, and headaches, and a stuffy nose and sore throat, the usual wintery mix). Nathan took good care of me :) He brought medicine, OJ, soup, and a comic book to make me feel better while stuck in bed. Ironically enough, the one time I got up to get myself some food, I sprained my ankle. After the initial pain subsided, I actually started laughing while laying there on the floor. Poor Nathan must have thought I'd lost it. Anyway, it wasn't a bad sprain. Jut some swelling, but I never had trouble walking on it. And since I was lying around in bed anyway, I kept from walking on it for the first day. It's still a little sore when I move my foot around, but it's all good. So I missed my work party on Tuesday, boo.
Wednesday I still was in bed, but more so because it was FREEZING outside and I just didn't want to do anything. We got a little bit of snow, but it was nothing compared to Utah standards. Wednesday night I was sick of being cooped up and there was a Christmas Relief Society fireside, so I thought I'd venture out into the cold. The bus got me there a half hour early and I got to stand out in the cold for a good twenty minutes, but I walked to a nearby convenient store and got some candy, so it was worth it :) And I learned that pigs in a blanket here are little sausages wrapped in BACON, not pastry like it is for us. Delicious. Oh and I had some South African simosas too. Yay for being Mormon and eating after every activity!
So I was glad my foot was ok to walk on because the first thing that went through my head when I fell was, we're going to Bath on Friday!!!!!! Noooo!!!!! But I was ok, so yay. Bath has these super cool Christmas Markets that I've been looking forward to since Cerriss told me about them back when we first got here. The Camachos drove the Scotts and us to Bath and we had so much fun! It was beautiful and I picked up some Christmas gifts and had the BEST fudge I've ever had in my life... mmm... This is part of the Bath Abbey. I couldn't get it all on one shot from where we were standing, so I just got the sweet door.

It was so cool to be shopping outside and having this big beautiful old building towering over you. They were having a performance of Handel's Messiah inside and you could hear the big choir numbers ever oce in a while. I peeked my head in during a baritone solo right before we left. It was gorgeous! (It was no MoTab though :) )

I pretended like we were back in Dicken's era, picking up the Christmas goose for the family, splurging on special sweets for our children and maybe a watch chain for my husband.

Cute Joshua took our picture. He is so in love with Nathan, or "Mr. Snow" as he calls him.

Joshua and one of his many sweets. Those kids had so much candy haha. They kept saying, I'm never going to bed! They kept giving us stuff, which was great :) And they were dissappointed that we were able to handle the "toxic waste" (basically warheads, super sour stuff).

It was cool to be back where I was almost five years ago with our tour group. I'd like to come back (when it's warmer maybe) and see the baths again. AND see some Jane Austen-y stuff. I really like Bath and I'm glad it's so close. Jaime Oliver has a restaurant here too.... mmmm... maybe if we don't buy food for a couple of weeks we'll afford a night out there.

This is cute Thomas. He's my little love bug. He's in my primary class and gives me so many hugs (and candy) that I forgive him when he acts up haha. He's such a sweetie. After I took this picture he said it was to remember him forever in that hat.

The pump room, where you can pay to ronk icky water that's supposedly good for you our makes you young or something.

Needless to say, it started raining (welcome to England) but it was still fun. We found solace in a McDonalds for a while. I'm happy to say that MacDos tastes the same wherever you are. It was a little piece of home to help with my homesickness during the Holidays.

Pretty Bath Abbey :)

Cool tree crown carving thingy on the cathedral.

I saw this on the way to work yesterday. It was for some cancer charity thing. Cool dude.

And they did feast

2010-11-28T09:47:00.000-08:00

We got presents from Britany, Nathan's sister who had our names for Christmas this year. We haven't cheated and opened them yet, though it's tempting! I mean... who would know...? :) We do get to open one on the first of December though. That should hold us over for a while. Oh and the Mickey figurines were part of the package!

Yuki and my Thanksgiving feast! She came over at noon and we cooked til a little past seven. She was such a big help! I couldn't have done it without her. We had a really good time with our temporary family: Chris and Yuki and the Elders Conover and Roe. The missionaries came over again the next day for turkey sandwich lunches! Then the Scotts came over again for dinner on Saturday.... and we STILL have leftovers haha. Oh and you might be wondering where the turkey is on the table. It's by the red cranberry sauce (two turkey joints, not a whole bird). And the ham is what looks like two loaves of bread in front of the mustard. Anyway, Thanksgiving was officially a success! Yay! And look at our cute napkins :) :)

Today was fun. After church (which was EXHAUSTING.... I went from 2 good boys last week to 8 little kiddies who LOVE to talk, bless 'em) our new best friends came over for a few hours. Thomas and Joshua Camacho, 8 and 10, came and played PS3 and ate mac and cheese. They're sweet boys, though they do have their rowdy moments. But honestly, you'll be frustrated for about ten minutes, and then they're behaving and you completely forget they were ever hitting each other and fighting over what game to play. It's like in "Into the Woods", where the witch first sings about how "children won't listen", then at the end of the play she sings about how tehy really do listen. In primary Joshua will get in trouble for whatever reason, then two seconds later he's giving amazing answers about stories from the scriptures he remembers. Really good kids. And it showed me what a good daddy Nathan's going to be. He handled them really well! I think I'm better with babies, but he's definately better with older kids.

I won't make this another long post, so cheers!

Food Day!

2010-11-25T02:26:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited that it's Thanksgiving! It's 10:30 in the morning, and I'm waiting for Yuki to get here at noon so we can get a-cookin'! Ever since we had our big shopping day on Tuesday for all the food, I haven't been able to sleep. It's like it's Christmas! I'm not sure why I'm so excited... but I seem to be :) Now I'm just passing the time until I can start with the food. I'm afraid I'll get over excited and finish it all too early and it'll get cold... or I'll burn something. I just want it to be good!!!

So last night we went with the missionaries to teach this girl nearby. We'll call her Shaun (she's Chinese and her name's really Shaung or Sheng... I have the hardest time with Chinese names... so we're calling her Shaun, like the gymnast). She's super nice and is really open to listening to these new ideas. I'd never met anyone before that Christianity is a whole new concept. Last night we talked about who God is, how he's our Heavenly Father, and His Son Jesus Christ. She had some AMAZING questions and insights. Like, if we have a Heavenly Father, who's our Heavenly Mother? And, I don't think babies sin. The whole time we were like YES! You're so right!!! It's like she already believes the same things we do, she just has yet to put it all together in one big Gospel-y package. She's having trouble understanding exactly who and where God is, but I think we all take advantage of the fact that we grew up with the idea of God and Heaven. If it was totally new to me, it might sound a little like a fairy tale. The fact that she already has these beliefs instilled in her proves to me that the Holy Spirit exists and whispers to everyone all over the world: China, America, England etc. Anyway, she might be coming to church Sunday! Here's hoping!

On the menu tonight: Potato Salad, Cranberry Sauce (by Nathan), Sweet Potato Casserole, Mashed Potatoes (we are not lacking in carbs), Mac n Cheese, Green bean Casserole, Stuffing, Ham, Turkey Joint (not a whole Turkey, they're SUPER expensive and I don't think my oven could handle it anyway), chips and dip, and Cherry Pie and Apple Crisp for Dessert! The desserts I'm cheating on and just warming in the oven, but they look tasty!! I was going to make Mommy's Eastern Shore corn bread, but corn meal apparently doesn't exist here. I was sad about that, but honestly, we're only feeding 6 people, so we've got plenty of food without it. We're having rolls instead.

Oh my gosh, so here's how neurotic I am... I dreamt last night that I was so tired from cooking I fell asleep at dinner and woke up and everyone was gone! I'd slept through Thanksgiving! I was so upset... Oh and I dreamt I didn't have time to make the Mac n Cheese and that really made me mad. Oy vey... Maybe I shouldn't host Thanksgiving anymore lol.

Anyway, I reall miss my family and wish I could be in Maryland, making my Sweet Potato Casserole with too much cinnamon, scrambling for the last bit of Elizabeth's corn pudding, and eating all the pickles that were put out just for me. Happy Turkey Day!

Everyone minus Popi

Day Trips and Cornish Pasties

2010-11-21T11:56:00.000-08:00

A view from Cornwall. On Wednesday, Yuki and I joined Kimberly Oldham and her brood (three adorable kids, Rachel Andrew and Nathan) on a drive down to Cornwall. We started with Exetor Cathedral, which was BEAUTIFUL. I love cathedrals, and we had this one to ourselves mostly, so this sweet old lady that worked there kept popping up and giving us random neat information. Then we went to a seaside town called... something with a p... anyway it was so cute. It reminded me of Rehobeth plus really old buildings. We had lunch here and saw a rainbow! I ate a Cornish Pasty in Cornwall, so I can check that off of life's checklist. Next: a frankfurter in Frankfurt, then a hamburger in Hamburg.

This is Rachel! She's such a sweet little 3 year old, and so talkative! We talked for hours about octupuses, mermaid, and gum.

Exetor Cathedral

Kimberly's main objective of the trip was to see some cliffs, because when you think Cornwall you think beautiful cliffs. Anyway, so we asked around at one of our stops where we could see some cool views and we ended up in another town whose name I forgot. I took a video, so you can feel like you're there!

Today at church I had my first primary lesson :) It's a temporary calling, so I'll only be a teacher for 6 weeks, but this first week went really well! I had two year olds, Thomas and Charlie. Thomas is the son of the South African family that had us over for lunch last week. He's so funny, and he's taken quite a shine to Nathan and I. He even sat next to us during sacrament. He's such a cutie. He wanted to come home with us today, but he would have had to ride the bus with us and Nathan had homework to do. I want to have them all over next week though! I've caught an entertaining bug. I just wish we had more chairs! Anyway, the boys were really good in class. We played a board game that taught us different things we can do to prepare for the Savior when He comes again and they loved it so much we played three times hahaha. And I think I actually taught them something because Charlie was able to recap the parable of the Ten Virgins back to me when class was done. Success! Apparently I'm supposed to have more kids in class though (6 I think). So we'll see if they're that good net week. But I've got Charlie and Thomas on my side, so maybe they'll be good.

THANKSGIVING THIS WEEK. I. Am. Excited. Like I said, I love entertaining. So excited!

Christmas Tiiiiiime!

2010-11-13T13:21:00.000-08:00

There's a German Market set up in the middle of the Broadmead Shopping Center (where I work). After work today Nathan met me here and we got Bratwursts for dinner. The building pictured below had a giant grill in it covered wiht delicious sausages :) Mmmm... so yummy. There are several little kiosks set up with stuff like German sweets and crafts. Next time we stop by I want to get a pretzel and hot chocolate. Seeing this set up makes it feel more and more like Christmas time! Cabot Cirus is all lit up for the season as well. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Then I came home to a wonderful care package from Mommy! And it's like she read my mind. I was just thinking about how I didn't pack proper gloves and she sent some! And I've been having trouble not buying a new pair of cute tights from work and she sent two! And I've been having sweet cravings and she sent candy! And the yummy lip gloss and calander were a nice touch as well:) Skype is acting up again, so since I can't say thank you in person, THANKS MOMMY!

Happy Christmas Time!

Mostly for Nana and Popi

2010-11-08T04:26:00.000-08:00

My lunch today :) Polish noodles! See Nana, I just can't give up my noodles!

And our washing machine sounds like it's about to take off! Seriously, it's like a jet engine.

Remember Remember

2010-11-06T13:52:00.000-07:00

The Scotts and us... the Scotts and we.... we and the Scotts... we rented a car for a day trip around a lot of the south west of England. It was a beautiful trip! And it ended with a dinner at Ikea, which made it feel like home :)North of Bath there's an area of England called the Cotswolds. There's small preserved old-timey villages you can walk around. People still live there too, but there are shops and inns and stuff for touristy reasons. It was a beautiful day, despite the rain. The misty rain made the colors of the yellow and red leaves really stand out.

Don't judge, but yes we put up our baby tree already. Remember, there's no Thanksgiving here so it goes form Guy Fawkes day to Christmas. I love our Charlie Brown tree :)

Hey kids, quit Moosin' around!

2010-11-04T02:57:00.000-07:00

So last night (and continuing to this morning) Nathan and I dreamed up a beautiful world. A world where the Moose became tamed, instead of the Horse. Come, journey with us to this magical world:

"We've seen a fine display of moose-manship at the rodeo today..."

"Screw you and the moose you rode in on."

A sign by the pool: "No moose-play"

"That's a moose of a different color!"

A sea-horse would be a sea-moose

"I've been through the desert on a moose with no name."

"The Moose Whisperer"

The movie: "All the Pretty Mooses" or the beloved children's song: "All the Pretty Little Mooses"

Seabiscuit would be a lot funnier

Rocky and Bullwinkle would be less funny

If you wanted a nice car you'd buy a Moose-tang. It would have 400 moosepower.

"I've got the moose right here, his name is Paul Revere. Can do. Can do. This guy says the moose can do..."

"Love and marriage love and marriage, go together like a moose and carriage."

From Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: "He rides across the nation, the thourough-moose of sin. He got the application that you just sent in. It needs evaluation, so let the games begin. You're saddled up, don't be a recluse. It's High Ho Silver! Signed, Bad Moose."

"Aw, Moose-Pucky"

"Never look a gift-moose in the mouth."

"Get back on the moose."

"Knock him off his high-moose."

"Hearts, stars, moose-shoes, clovers and blue moons! Pots of gold and rainbows, and a red balloon! That's me lucky charms, they're magically delicious!"

Thank you for taking the journey with us. If you have anything to add, please feel free. It's been funny to us for over 12 hours now, so I doubt it'll ever cease to be funny.

Brobdignagian

2010-11-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

My new phone! O2! Yay!

So I went to see a nurse today to talk about my asthma. And she took my temperature. She looked at me and said, "Oh that's a bit high. 38!" And I told her I didn't know what that meant. I later found out it meant 100.4 to me. Huh. I feel fine. So I saw the doctor, she made me do the nebulizer thingy (where you breathe into a mask for a higher dose of meds). Then she said I had a lung infection, causing the fever and heightened asthma symptoms, and prescribed me antibiotics, steroids, and a new inhaler with a GIANT spacer. Haha it's like from a sci-fi movie.

WE got our new TV today!!! Yay! Except the plug adapter for the PS3 pooped out on us after a few hours. But what a beautiful few hours they were. It's a great little TV with a perfect picture (dare I say it... it rivals our other TV we left behind!). We're not sure why the adapter pooped out, but we've ordered a new one online (rushed, of course). It was kind of dissapointing, since we'd been waiting for the PS3, then waited for the TV, and it was all together finally!!.... Then sadness.

But Nathan's still in good spirits with his super shirt and super mug! What a cutie.

Oh and we saw the missionaries today at Sainsbury's! We were there to buy Halloween candy on sale when we ran into them at the tills. So we helped them carry their groceries back to their flats! It was funny, I fought them for otheir bags because I really wanted to carry them, but of course they refused at first. But I love missionaries! I love to help! :) They have nicknames for the two American couples. We're the AWESOMES! Yay!

Then I took a 3 hour nap. Woo!

Boo to You!

2010-10-31T11:09:00.000-07:00

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?

2010-10-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-26T03:27:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-24T12:42:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-21T12:29:00.001-07:00

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

Things Are Looking Up

2010-10-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-18T08:45:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-16T09:46:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

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 :)

A Whole New World

2010-10-13T09:10:00.000-07:00

Cabot Circus

It's funny how whenever we go oot and aboot we find new things around every corner! We thought we knew Broadmead inside and out, but today we decided to go left instead of right at one spot and we found Cabot Circus! It's a giant inside/outside shopping mall. This also lead to the discovery of the movie theater! Yay! It's super swanky with a restaurant inside. You can also buy all kinds of yummy foods like burgers and fries and Ben&Jerry's to take in. I can't wait for our first Euro movie day! In Provo we'd go to a matinee of a movie and then go to Fve Guys. There's no five guys here, but we can find a substitute. Actually, near the theater there's a sushi place where the food is on a conveyer belt and you just pick what you want and pay by the plate. It looks pretty cheap and yummy! Maybe that'll be our new Five Guys... we'll see. The problem is that the movies release later here than in the states. We saw a bus advertising Despicable Me's release on October 15 and Robin Hood is coming next March. So a lot of the movies that we'd want to see, we've already seen. They're showing Back to the Future though, as some sort of anniversary release. I vote for that, and I'd be surprised if Nathan said no to Marty and Doc :)

I saw the funniest comb-over today.

This girl (that I assume was on drugs) stopped us and asked for change today. She claimed to have been mugged the night before and had a black eye. I would have bet money that she'd done the black eye herself with make-up. I wonder if she knew she'd be running into someone who could tell it was fake-y. Sorry miss, I don't carry change (which was true). I wonder if Nathan and I just look friendly enough to stop because we also got stopped by a red-cross lady to tell us about blood or something, but we couldn't do it because we're American.

We got our first package today! I was excited and thought it was our decorate-y stuff, but it was just Nathan's stinky books. :(

I found a lucky penny! Maybe I'll get a job soon.

This is Why We're Hot

2010-10-11T15:22:00.000-07:00

That is all. Goodnight.

Just S'more Pics n' Stuff

2010-10-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

Proof that we're actually here. I realized we didn't have any pictures with US actually in them.

We wen't to the park again today. On the way we stopped by a bakery to see what they had. I got the caramel shortbread and Nathan got some sort of eclair-looking donut thing. Mine was delish! It was a bar of shortbread with caramel and chocolate on top, so a big less-crunchy Twix. Very yummy :) Nathan wasn't too terribly pleased with his choice. I agree, it looked better than it tasted. The cream (the most exciting looking part) tasted like nothing. Not sweet at all. I'm excited to try another bakery that we passed. It's like a delicious science experiment: to find the tastiest sweet in town!

So we took our tasty treats to the park and people watched a bit. We saw a crazy guy yelling at squirrels, that was funny. We also learned that Cabot Tower was being worked on, so we couldn't go up. Oooooh well. Nathan was tired of me dragging him all over creation because I'm getting a little stir crazy :P

We've been watching a lot of Smallville. We started from the beginning and we're working our way through all 10 seasons. This kind of thing reminds me of home: watching episode after episode of the TV show du jour.

Nathan went to his first class today! He said it looks like a piece of cake, but he's a genious so that's not saying much :) Apparently it's the general media-type class for all the media-type majors. The harder stuff comes tomorrow in his theory class.

What's for dinner tonight..... Spaghetti I think! The more spaghetti I make the less it smells like curry.

A Walk in the Park

2010-10-09T09:51:00.001-07:00

Below is Cabot Tower. Apparently you can climb a staircase to the top, but we were pretty worn out just walking to the park that we just wanted to sit and admire the view. It's very up and down here. There's hardly any even walking surfaces. No matter what path we take to get back to our apartment, we wil have to walk at tleast part of the way uphill. There's no avoiding it. I think I've lost a million pounds already.

This was the view from our park bench! It was a gorgeous day, but the weather here is wacky. Sometimes I'll wake up in the night and it'll be pouring, then I'll wake up and it'll be sunny and I think it's all been a dream. Then 20 minutes later it'll be raining again. Then sunny. Then windy. Layers is the solution to the weather enigma. Dress in layers and you'll always be prepared. I still need to find a cute little umbrella to carry around for rainy occasions.

So we are very annoyed by our upstairs neighbors. It's two girls form India (their names escape me, but I remember that they were pretty names) that seem really nice and friendly.... but holy crap. They must have brought their elephant friends with them from India because all we hear all day long is thumping up and down the stairs and above our heads. This morning I woke up to them nonstop on the stairs. It's comical how lead-footed they are!!! Well it would be comical if it weren't so dang annoying. Seriously, dainty steps please ladies!

Fashion faux pas from yesterday: Pumpkin pants.... PUMKIN PANTS! They didn't look good on Henry VIII and they didn't look good on this chick. Someone needs to tell her that it's a male garment meant for Ren Faires and Ren Faires only (it's a bit harsh, but she really did look silly).

We haven't been able to contact the Bishop yet for church, which makes me sad because I was really looking forward to going this week. According to the Google map it look like it's in someone's home, so I really want to contact someone bafore we go in case the website hasn't been updated recently and it's in someone else's home... anywya hopefully they call us back and we get to go!

Have it Your Way

2010-10-07T12:52:00.000-07:00

This is the front of our house! That's not our window, we're on the other side, but this is what you see from the street.

This is our walkway to get to our door. Yay! Now it's like you're here :)

We were getting a little homesick today, but we got Burger King and it felt like home. The ketchup is still too sweet for our taste, but I made some fry sauce (since they gave me mayo packets with my ketchup packets) and it wasn't half bad! I can't wait for the rest of our decoration stuff to arrive in the mail so we can make it a little more homey.

And I made delicious spaghetti!

Around Town

2010-10-06T08:31:00.001-07:00

This is Bristol Cathedral! We walked by it yesterday just walking around. It's so beautiful! And we think that this is where we heard church bells on Sunday.

Here's another view of the cathedral with a statue of an Indian guy... I can't remember his name... but it's a cool statue :)

This is for Elizabeth! That's right, it's a library. Cooler than Provo, n'est pas?

This is also for Elizabeth (Popi too). He was peeking at me while we were in the check-out line at Sainsbury's. Nathan rolled his eyes, but I had to get it :) Love me some David Tennant.

Teehee Nobbling Niggles. British words. What does it mean? Who knows.

This is the view from my family room window. There's a squirrel that frequents the grassy area. We've named her Veruca, after the Veruca Salt in the new Willy Wonka movie that wants a squirrel.

So today we registered for health care and we both got Meningitis C shots. I think I might have already had the shot, but I wasn't sure. Did it matter? NO. It was FREE. Why is this not something we do in America? I don't want to start a political discussion, but it's pretty freaking sweet here. Except my arm's a little sore from the pokey needle. The guy who gave us all the information we needed, we'll call him Portly Eric Idle, was really funny. It was my first taste of dry English humer ("Where were you living before here?" "Utah" "Oh, awful place. So dusty.")

I made chili! It tastes a little different, I'm going to try different beans next time, but it totally tasted like home :)

Oh and by the way I'm not going to ramble on about how England's so much better or how America's so much better blah blah blah. I hope it never somes off like that... cause that would get annoying. I just want you guys to get the idea of how it is to live here.

On that note: English fashion statement of the day... I saw a super tough guy today wearing man-pris. You know, man capris. It made me laugh. We also got our daily dose of leggings. I can't tell whether they're ahead of the times or behind.... weren't leggings starting to be a thing when I was ending high school? I remember at BYU my freshman year they put up signs specifically forbidding leggings with short skirts. So maybe the Brits took an old trend and made it more edgy by removing the skirt. Anyways... There's this store called Uncle Sam's down the road. It advertises itself as an American vintage clothing store, but we'll have to check it out to see if it's legit.

Skyping has been fun!

Cheers!

Jolly Old England

2010-10-05T04:43:00.000-07:00

We're here! Finally! It's been an interesting few days since we've arrived. Once we got off the plane there was a shuttle for Bristol University (Free!) that took us to our flat on 67 Woodland Road. It was previously owned by an Indian family and there's a lingering smell of curry, but it's not that bad. We just need to make some chili or tacos or spaghetti or something to make it smell more like home. :) We were so excited about how big it is!!!! Wymount was so teeny, our bedroom is a big as our old apartment! Here's some pics pre-decoration:

Dig the curtains? Yeah me neither... Needless to say they've already been replaced. I'm SO glad we decided to bring our own. Post-decoration pics will come later. Notice there is no picture of the bedroom... it was where we dropped all of our luggage and it was messy :)

So we've done some exploring around the city and the biggest thing we've noticed is that... girls don't really wear pants here! Every other girl is in leggings or even JUST tights where you can see the undies right through! Other than that, it's just like any college town with 85% of the people in their 20's. It's very diverse here too, so we don't feel too out of place not being British.

There's some cool stuff nearby. We'll probably do most of our grocery shopping at Sainsbury's. It's about a 5 minute walk and it's the store that's opened the latest, 10 o'clock, because EVERYTHING CLOSES AT FIVE!!! That's annoying. But the chain restaurants like Subway and Burger King are open later.

About 15 minutes away (walking) is Broadmead where the mall and lots of outdoor shops are located. So far it's my favorite spot to go so far, but we haven't located the park yet, and I'm expecting that to be my favorite :)

Mommy! We got Weetabix! Remember Weetabix?? I thought of you when we saw it at the store so we got some :)

Our pilot light is currently out in our confusing heating/hot water system, so neither of us has showered in a couple of days... since everyone has moved in this past weekend the housing office is super busy. It's annoying waiting though. And it's pretty chilly. But we finally have the internet, so no big complaints.

Next projects: getting mobile phones and bus passes.

LOVE YOU!!