It's our last night. The last night on Walney Island in Barrow. Not sure if I shared a funny quote with you before: "Barrow isn't the end of the world, but you can see it from there". When that was said to us we laughed, thinking, ha! maybe it is? After 11 months of living on Walney Island and traveling Europe, I can say that I would come back in a heartbeat and hope friends and family can one day experience the things we have. There are definitely more places we'd love to see and things we'd still love to do, but all in all I wouldn't have changed a thing. Cheers Walney Island, cheers Barrow and cheers to all the wonderful places and people we've met along the way. Continue living our experiences with us as we flip to the next chapter in our lives on Hawks Nest

The English Expereince

I walk to work just about every day. I often end up walking amongst the same people and see the same cars drive past - it's a nice routine. Believe it or not, it rains a lot here, so Erin drives me into work and strangely enough, the same people and the same cars keep up their routine while I seem to be the lone black sheep, scared of a little rain. As we drive by, we wonder if those rain walkers don't have cars or spouses that love them or if they just plain don't notice it's raining. Towards the end of my work day Erin will send me an email with a weather update and lets me know if she should pick me up or if I'm okay to walk home. The best days are those that she meets me and makes the walk home with me : ) Today I got an email saying she would do just that. A few sprinkles had turned into a steady rain by the time we got within a mile of the house. As we walked, drenched from head to toe, we found ourselves amongst the rain walkers and the people driving wondering if we didn't have a car or didn't realize it was raining.

Remember, Remember the 5th of November....

Kevin told me to give my ''watching fireworks face''...obviously we were watching different firework shows

If any of you have seen V for Vendetta then the above phrase might sound familiar. (and if you haven't you should...it's a really good movie!)

Turns out part of the movie was truth. The 5th of November marks the downfall of the gunpowder plot, in which conspirators attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliment in 1605. Ever since the UK celebrates what they have called Guy Fawkes night or Bon Fire night to celebrate people light bon fires and set off fireworks.

It was a regular ole 4th of July around these parts...there were fireworks going off all night & there are firework shows scheduled all weekend. We stepped out into the rain to watch some of the celebrations - but this was the best picture we could grab. I swear there is a firework going off in the distance in the one picture.

Yucky

Another rainy day in Enlgand - boo.

T minus 30 days

till we're back - stateside :)

We're both totally ready. We desperately miss Dylan.

The countdown begins....

Au Revoir Paris

Paris ate us up & spit us out! This was one of quicker trips so in order to take full advantage of the time we had we made each day a full day of touring. And although there was metro & bus services we believe in soaking up more of the atmosphere by getting everywhere on foot. Needless to say almost 3 six hour days of nonstop walking makes the legs ache. We both feel a little broken.

Us & the Eiffel Tower

Original Mona Lisa painting

All in all we hit up every major site in Paris - our favorites were The Eiffel tower, the Notre Dame Cathedral & the Louvre Museum. The Eiffel Tower was pretty amazing & we were able to take the cheap route up by climbing the stairs to the second level. I can't imagine the kind of views you might get from the tippy top because the views from the 2nd level were incredible. The Notre Dame Cathedral was just so grand and being Sunday when we visited we were able to catch part of a service. And I'm not a huge fan of Museums but the Louvre definitely gave the British Museum in London some competition. It was HUGE! Not to mention we were able to see some original art work including the ever so famous Mona Lisa.

Anniversary Night

Aside from the major sites the atmosphere and culture were just as we imagined they might be in Paris. Tons of cafes with coffee & wine drinkers just watching the day go by. We had a mix bag of weather and it was definitely a lot cooler than we anticipated - but staying on the sunny side of the sidewalk, sipping coffee and holding hands helped. The language barrier was the most difficult thus far that we have encountered...but we managed to get there, get around & get home just fine :)

Despite a few unfortunate occurances on our actual anniversary night we had a terrific evening and weekend in Paris. Au Revoir Paris. Lots more pictures in our album (link to the right)

1st Anniversary!

October 18th

We'll be in Paris this weekend doing what we do best & celebrating us :) It's been a year of blissful marriage but really it's been a road of happy since the day we locked eyes in Silverado 8 years ago.

Cheers to us & love -the perfect combination.

Day-o-Fun!!!

October 6, 2007

October 6, 2009

Two years ago today marked on our calendar was ''Day-o-Fun'' little did I know what that entailed. But a gorgeous day & a bushell of crabs later Kevin popped the big question!!! Can hardly believe it's been two years already. Not too much longer till the big one year anniversary & our trip to Paris!!!

love 'em

Whenever Kevin & I go for walks after dinner we have a specific route that takes us past this house that has 2 white boxers cause we looooooveee them!! On our most recent walk we were brave enough to take a picture :o The owners must think we're crazys because sometimes we'll walk past the front of the house and see the doggies in the front window and then immediately go to the back of their house where they usually run after someone passes. They are sooo cute. If/when we get more puppies I want two just like them.

A Little Hokie

The picture almost says it all. Erin and I wanted to watch the Virginia Tech/Miami game today, but we only had two options since the British aren't interested in watching "football" with pads and helmets. Our internet connection isn't all that great to begin with, but we thought if Andrea and Tim could position their webcam and turn up the volume just right we could watch the game over Skype. Foreseeing the difficulties that would cause we decided to buy a months subscription to ESPN360. Coverage of almost every sport and every game for a month!! Great, but then there was that crappy internet connection. We found a spot were we seemed to get the best signal and set up shop. We surrounded ourselves on the smallest couch with wings, pizza, celery & hummus and beer to watch VT on the smallest screen I've ever seen. Just hearing the roar of the crowd and the announcers makes it worth while even if we can't really see where the ball is. We loose connection every 10 minutes so Erin decided to start crocheting a blanket for baby while I continued fixing the laptop as quickly as possible. It's halftime and thus far an excellent game. We keep thinking of our friends Jon and Amy getting married in Southern Virginia today. The rain must have justified the backup plan. We miss being with them and all our VT friends, but this little screen on this little couch surrounded by Hokie wings and a crocheted baby bklanket (?) makes me feel like we're there. GO HOKIES!!

A taste of America

After a long journey home Kevin made it back to me late last night. And instead of clothes & toiletries inside his suitcase there were a ton of American goodies!!!! ahhhh delightful :) In addition to all this food there was yarn so I can attempt to make baby a blanket & sweater (the sweater might turn out a little off but I'll give it a go), magazines, scrap booking gear, jewels - yup thats right jewels!!! Kevin's mom gave me a couple beautiful Lia Sophia necklaces and earrings and then Kevin surprised me with a gorgeous necklace - just because :)

Sounds like Dylan enjoyed wrestling & snuggling with Kevin. Again pretty confused when Kevin left :/ poor guy. he's not gonna want us to leave to go to the store when we finally get back for fear we won't come back for a long, long time. We miss him.

BUT this was the last trip back before the final trip back in November. We both have our tickets - just 2 more months :)

Camping & Hiking

To take advantage of the last glimpses of summer we packed up the car & camped & hiked Saturday and Sunday. As predicted the weather was gorgeous!

No matter how many hikes we go on and how many views of the mountains & fields we see it still amazes us just how picturesque it is. We try to soak it in as much as possible - but I know the hikes, views and camping trips will probably end up being some of our best memories of living in England.

Being a little more pregnant now I think I managed pretty well on the hikes - might have been a little slower than usual & took a few more water breaks than usual but other than that I was a trooper. Speaking of troopers - Kevin took the plunge in some ice cold mountain water (pictured above) ...I was impressed. It did look very inviting but the goosebumps that remained on his body for quite a while later reassured me that being the paparazzi for the event was a better idea than being the star.

more pics in our album!

Indian Summer

They are calling it our Indian Summer - the sky is suppose to shed it's gray coat & the sun is going to creep out for the next 10 days or so. Totally siked for it!

Sometimes too much gray'ness gets into your bones & makes you dreary and thats no good.

Ciao Italy!

Definitely sad to see this trip come to an end :( It was so wonderful to be in the sunshine & warmth surrounded by water. We left Saturday and spent most of all the day traveling ...2hr car ride to the airport, 2hr plane ride to Italy, 1hr bus ride to Venice, 30min water taxi to Lido, 1hr of walking up and down Lido trying to locate our hotel...phew! Sunday we seized the day - getting up and out by 9am and jumping on the water taxi to the main island. We proceeded to walk until 9pm that night - no exaggeration. We conquered Venice. Lots of old buildings & tons of people. Monday we spent the entire day at the beach sunbathing and swimming in the Adriatic sea and just stayed on Lido for dinner that night. And our last day Tuesday we spent on the beach in the afternoon and then travelled into Venice for dinner before making the trip home.

All in all it was a great mix of touring and beaching :) we took a ton of pictures - lots more in our album.

Puzzling

Kevin & I recently invested in a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle London Looking North. Call us dorks, think it's lame - but we're having a pretty good time putting it together :) Perfect thing to do on a Saturday morning when the wind & rain is at hurricane force outside.

Hot Hot

This Saturday & Sunday was the Chilli Festival at Levens Hall...so OF COURSE we had to check it out. It paled in comparison to Connecticuts Chilli Fest but nonetheless we enjoyed a bite of chilli and some samples of beer, salsas, oils, jams and a pretty awesome raspberry frozen yogurt cone. They had some live entertainment in the form of a steel drum band and a fire thrower/juggler and they opened up their gardens for the public to explore. All and all for a rainy & windy Saturday it was a good time. Few more pics in our album to check out.

West to East

Dippin my toes in the North Sea

Kevin preparing for battle at Alnwick Castle

Me battling off a dragon
Kevin & Bamburgh Castle

This past weekend we drove from the West coast to the East coast all in the matter of 3hrs! We drove to a little town called Alnwick home of several castles - one, Alnwick Castle, is still inhabited and was the castle they filmed several scenes from Harry Potter in! When we arrived on Saturday we went straight to the coast and dipped our toes in the North Sea then went to explore Alnwick Garden & Treehouse. We were lucky to have a gorgeous day which made the gardens seem even more beautiful. We stayed Saturday night in B&B and so woke up to have a made-to-order English Breakfast yummmm.... then we were off! Sunday we spent touring castles: Alnwick Castle & Bamburgh Castle. Both pretty amazing...we weren't allowed to take photographs of the insides of either castle but we got a ton of pictures of the views and the outsides of both - check out our album!

Lots-o-Waterfalls

We set off today for Ingleton, a small town about an hour away to do a Waterfall hike. A 5 mile hike and 16 pretty impressive waterfalls later - you could say we were pretty successful in doing just that. More pics in our album :)

One of the 16 waterfalls & me standing over one on a tiny, tiny bridge - yowzer!

Who says money doesn't grow on trees? This dead tree was covered in coins!!

Kite Surfing National Championship

It's held right here on little ole' Walney Island about 2 miles from our house on Earnse Beach. It was the perfect day for it...windy as heck. Here are a couple snippity snaps from it.

Movin up in the world!

Kevin got an email the other day saying the rental car company wanted our Volkswagen back & in return we would get a new vehicle. We were a bit worried that we would either get a manual - every car over here is manual - or we would get the exact same car. We would have been able to handle the manual transmission but we were itching to get a new car. I went to the trade off point this morning and up drives a cute little Mercedes!!! Wahooooo! Might be the only time in my life I'll be driving a Mercedes so I'm pretty pumped AND it's an automatic.

Drives like a breeze.

A Walney Channel Walk

Where to go today? The sun was out, the seagulls were singing their usual songs and the clouds were at bay. We are going to a friends house tonight for a barbeque so we didn't want to be gone all afternoon. We looked through the books and came across Red Man's Walk which started right at our doorstep. Perfect! 2.5 hours and some nice pics later we're back. Another reason to love good ole Walney 8 )

I think JEM left her bike outside our house...

GASP!

York

York Minster: Gothic Cathedral

Us on the castle wall

I told Kevin on Friday that I wanted to get out of the house on Saturday so we started to look through our books to see if there was somewhere local that we could go explore - the destination: York! A very historic/touristy town 3 hours east of us...because of the long trip, Kevin had the brilliant idea of leaving Friday night, staying in a hotel so we could get up and start exploring first thing Saturday. Done & Done. We spent all day Saturday wandering the streets of York seeing the old castle grounds, dungeons, museums & churches including York Minster, northern Europe's largest Gothic Cathedral. Despite seeing some awesome places I think Kevin & I would have to say one of our favorites of the day was going into York dungeon which has been set up to be an hour long hands on haunted house/horror show. Unsuitable for children under 16! Swwwweeet. And this warning was well advised...there was one little boy in our group with his parents and I think he spent the entire time crying.

We were definitely thankful for having spent the night in a hotel cause we used the whole day and were pretty exhausted on the trip back home...couldn't have imagined driving 3 hrs there that morning, touring around and then driving 3hrs back home.

More pics in our album.

Back with my love

All the family :)
Me, Uncle Kevin & Olivia

Mary, Me, Narce & Maura

Me & my Mare

Fatema & I

Got back yesterday from my longest stay in the states since we left in January. I miss America but I'm happy to be back with my love in England. I can't imagine if we had tried to live apart for this long! I spent a week with my parents with part of it being the 4th of July celebration with lots-o-family to visit and then the last part just being able to relax, catch some rays & hang out with just my parents. Mary came on Wednesday, stayed the night & we left for her and Jeremy's house on Thursday. In usual form, we had a blast and squeezed in everything on my list of 'things to do while with Mary'. We met up with Maura & Narce for dinner one night and met Fatema for dinner another night - so nice to see all my friends and have normal girl talk..definitely miss that :)

The trip back was uber long got to the airport in DC at 4:30pm Monday and wasn't back in our house in England till 1pm on Tuesday. The plane ride was uncomfortable...had to get up to pee like 5 times, my chair wouldn't stay reclined & they had a bad movie selection. boooooo. Can't imgaine how uncomfortable it will be when we come back for good in November.

Glad to be back.