So much!

Lots to report here, folks. We've traveled to Oxford and had a great weekend staying on campus in a converted dorm room. The town was really fun to walk around and had a bunch of really cool old pubs where famous people like Tolkien once drank. So we visited all those and then headed back to our dorm for a night on twin dorm beds that are just as uncomfortable as you are thinking they might be. Oh my yes. The breakfast was great, though - in a dining hall much like Pierce was at Kenyon for me. Not as pretty but just as tasty. Here are my favorite pics from that trip.

Dining Hall at Lady Margaret Hall

Coolest old crooked building - which is now a Pret!

We also celebrated our anniversary one weekend - seven years already! Gah! Time flies. We didn't get a chance to head to Frankfurt yet to visit the only other European Chipotle, but it's on the list to do this year. Instead we went to a different Chipoodles location in London that we hadn't been before and had some delicious ice cream afterwards. NOM.

Seven years and still awesome together.

Our next visitors were my brother, Richard and sister-in-law, Cynthia - traveling to Europe for the first time. They stayed with is for a few nights, went to Paris for a whirlwind day trip, traveled to Ireland for the weekend, then came back and hung out with us for a bit. We walked EVERYWHERE - including walking along the entire old Roman Wall. You can follow the ruins of it through the city but some of the markers are hard to find and some even say "this is where it used to be" - with nothing but a plaque to show for it. Still a cool walk, though.

While they were here we tried our hand at Pub Trivia night - and sadly, we were in last place AGAIN. Guys, I'm trying. It's harder here. Lots of British trivia that I just don't know (like about the old TV show East Enders). Sadly the team that made second-to-last place won a bottle of wine and we only lost that by ONE point. D'oh. Next time - victory will be ours!

The three of us took a day trip to Bath - and what a pretty town that was. Jefferson and I will have to go back to explore more, but the Roman Baths that Richard, Cynthia and I visited were pretty cool.

Serious pose - but Cynthia is still smiling!

We've had quite a few visitors this last month! My cousin Travis came into town and we took him out for a traditional pub meal. Also our friend Jasmine from Bern, Switzerland - who was also Jefferson's German TA in college - came into town to visit one weekend and we wandered all over Greenwich and the Docklands with her. It was so great to see her again - it's been about 7 years since we last hung out!

Jasmin!

Travis!

Then Jefferson and I headed to Denmark for a weekend of amusement parks. First we hit up Legoland once again - but only for about two hours before heading to Copenhagen for the rest of the weekend. At Legoland we got two awesome new Legos:

Chicago!

Corn man!

In Copenhagen we stayed in what I do believe is the Red Light district and had trouble finding our AirBnB at first. We were looking around and saw a sign that said, "Erotic Corner" and I said, "Oh man, I hope that's ours." And it was. Turns out, it was a really cool apartment and super close to everything great in the city.

Asleep on the train

Erotic corner...

We went to Tivoli Gardens - an amusement park smack in the middle of the city. It was my first time and probably my last because I do not do well with rides that drop really fast. It makes me scream a bit more than I'd like and laugh a lot. Plus, sadly, I tend to get motion sickness on some of the rides and since nobody wants me puking on them, our friend Britta had to go on some of them with Jefferson.

Obviously a "before" pic since I'm smiling

Britta and Jefferson

Now we're back in London and this weekend we had a hilarious party at our apartment. It was a Girl Scout Cookie Wine Pairing party - and it was amazing. Thanks to my sister, Stacey, I was able to make green sashes for everyone to wear and provide a badge to put on their sashes for each pairing people tried. We had a whopping 18 people in our apartment and it probably won't surprise you but the Thin Mints were the most popular pairing. Here are some highlights:

Delicious cookie pairings!

It was a good crowd of honorary Girl Scouts.

Oh and...turns out I have no shame...

India + Scotland

Jefferson and I traveled to India again - this time for a wedding and this time in the winter months, thank goodness. Last time we were there it was so very hot and I didn't always have the best time (see?). This time, though, was great! Awesome even!

The bride and groom in the middle!

The wedding was beautiful and as always the family was so kind and welcoming.

I particularly liked having to shop for Jefferson and Danny's wedding outfits - they modeled different outfits like champs and I very much approve of what they chose. Per usual, I borrowed sari's from Auntie and one from the Wild's - which is a great way to go since I only get to wear them every 5-7 years or so. Putting on a sari is not easy but after someone helped me the first day, Jefferson was able to recreate the look every other time and the ladies were quite impressed with his sari wrapping skillz.

The brother of the groom is a family friend of ours that lives not too far outside of London and the last time we saw him (and his wife) was in 2014 when their baby was first born. This time, that same baby was a hilarious and adorable two year old who took a real liking to me, Jefferson and Danny.

Danny and I were eyeing the big throne like chairs that the bride and groom got to sit in at the ceremony and kept daring each other to sit in them. On the last night we saw other people posing for pictures on them so we went for it...

I also traveled to Scotland with Sarah Wild for a girl's weekend to go to a Rugby match. It was my first match ever and I must say, I'm really good luck. Scotland was playing Wales and beat them! My favorite part was getting my face painted and learning the rules of Rugby. There's something called a "scrum" which I call the big cuddle. There's something called the "lineout" which to me is straight up cheer leading.

It was also pretty nice and sunny weather during the match and the next morning... which made us think, hey - let's go visit those Kelpie statues in the middle of that park about 2 hours away. By the time we got there it was pouring rain - we're talking soaked to the bone rain coming down in buckets that I've been waiting over a year to see on this island - and I finally got it. When I wasn't even remotely dressed for it. It was still fun, though and the statues are pretty neat.

Serious rain - wrong gear.

Kelpies - Lego version

Real Kelpies

Bananarama!

Jefferson and I spent a quiet Christmas at home this year and had a wonderful time. We even got into the British ways of having Christmas pudding and it was disgusting but I'm glad we did it.  It's like a gelatin mass of fruit cake that sometimes has liquor and you sometimes light on fire. Which we didn't (maybe next year).

Our adorable tree.

Xmas "pudding"

Then Banana came to town - my roommate for all four years at Kenyon. Her name is Anna, but I call her Banana, and we had suuuuch a great time.

First we celebrated New Years together along with the Wild's and other awesome folks. We played a hilarious ring toss game involving blow up reindeer antlers, which I didn't want to take off for the rest of the night.

We went to afternoon tea twice - each one was awesome. The first was Science tea (SCIENCE!). It was near the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum so the theme was fitting and hilarious. The desserts were all shaped like dinosaurs or planets or astronauts, and the scones were delicious. We also went to the always amazing Fortnum & Mason tea in the Diamond Jubilee room - my personal favorite. So tasty, so pretty - and bottomless scones, desserts and mini sandwiches. NOM. Wait, we did it three times if I count the super cute tea room in Edinburgh that we went to. You can never have too much tea! Or scones. Or cake.

Scottish Tea!

SCIENCE! tea

We went to so very many museums. Banana went to even more without me, but together I'm pretty sure we saw every museum Edinburgh has to offer on our short trip to Scotland. Banana is not one to pass up anything at museums that say, "try this on to see how people dressed way back when...". 

We also did a bunch of things I've always wanted to do here but never got around to - like the Sky Gardens on top of the walkie-talkie building here, going to the Greenwich Observatory and Planetarium, or having a pint at the Plume of Feathers pub near Greenwich park (it was everything I wanted it to be - cozy, cute, good beers and chips). SO FUN.

We Moved! Then went to Sweden! Then the states!

We moved one whole building over. So same complex, but different apartment layout. It's awesome! If you need the address, just email us.  Big/good differences: our deck is now three times larger (awesome), our kitchen is open to the main living room (also awesome), and instead of a diagonal hallway and weirdly shaped rooms, everything is now nice and square and the use of the space is fantastic (awesome-est). Our view of the Thames is also a bit cooler because we can see all of Canary Wharf and we can see the curve in the river.

Foggy Morning

Not so foggy

  

We also traveled to Sweden with the Wild's at the beginning of December to check out some Christmas markets! It was very fun but VERY cold. One might say bitterly cold.

The main Christmas market we ventured to was a bit hard to find and was smack in the middle of one of those old towns where they recreate scenes from the past like, "check out what Christmas would have been like for this family in the 1920's!". Not an exciting kind of town, but the market was cute.

    

Vasa Museum!

Best cookies! NOM

Smallest Gluhwein

Then in mid-December we went to the states to see everyone for the pre-holidays. Chicago first, where it felt just as bitterly cold as Sweden, but it was a great trip. We had all the mac and cheese (all of it) with my volleyball team, Rocko surprised us again (awesome), AND we finally got to go to Helen and Paul's Champagne party extravaganza - here's my favorite pic of that.

Then we finally warmed up in Arizona and got to hang with family before heading back to ol'London town.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 2016 was a stone cold beast and I'm looking forward to what will hopefully be a much nicer 2017. WAHOO!

Belated Halloween

 

 
Since we have two friends in London with birthdays on the 29th of October we decided to have our Halloween party the weekend after instead - which also happened to be the 5th of November (Guy Fawkes day). They celebrate that here in London by setting off lots of fireworks and burning effigies of Guy Fawkes. Totally normal.

The other thing we learned when throwing a Halloween party here is that you have to have a theme. Just saying, "Halloween" won't do. So our theme was ANIMAL. I went as a mounted trophy of a lion's head and Jefferson went as the hunter that shot me. It was a fun but mellow night and next year we need to get the pub crawl part of the night going again. Feast your eyes on these lovely animal pics...

Yummy spread!

Decor

Decorations

Lots of poses with the wall trophy...

 
And probably my favorite pic of the night - it looks like our friend Matt is saying something just amazing and poetic about this dip he's eating - and we're all listening very intently.