Routines & Glorious Things

Just booked tickets for Barcelona, Spain!! YAY :) April 24th - 26th. The tickets were free- whoopwhoop. Again, the taxes & fees brought it up to just over £100. But still - not too shabby.

Staying in town again this weekend. Kevin will need to go in to work on Saturday...something about flipping a submarine?! But perhaps we'll do another hike Saturday afternoon or Sunday. I can't believe it's almost March. And even tho we've been here almost 2 months it still hasn't really sunk in that this is home. Mainly because if this were home we'd have our things around, pictures, furniture, Dylan - all things that make a place seem more like home. I have framed a few pictures and I made a collage of pictures thats hanging in our entrance way so we can see all your beautiful faces as we walk in. But - It has been nice to finally get into a little bit of a routine which we've always wanted to do but before now we were both working (Kevin working a TON), we had Dylan to take care of and we had our wedding to plan so both our schedules were a bit hectic. Now we both get up at 6am - have coffee together & watch the news for 45 mins before he leaves for work :) After he leaves for work I proceed to watch my new 3 favorite shows - Out of the Blue, Neighbors and Home & Away. Neighbors is a little retarded but it's smack in the middle of the other two good shows (nice planning on their part). At some point I make it to the gym (on a good day), and most every day I go to the store to get dinner for that night. I usually fit in a walk around town and an hour or so of internet searching for cheap travels. Then my love comes home - my favorite part of the day. We eat, watch some tv, maybe play a game or go for a walk & relax for the rest of the night.

But tonight folks - we go for Curry night at the railway :)

Ewe makin me crazy

After an uneventful Saturday we took off with some gusto on Sunday to the Lakes District - Ambleside to be exact. It hit 10 degrees Celsius so it was warm enough for a no coat hike. We grabbed some fish & chips at a pub and then hit the hills. There were some pretty incredible views along the way (you can see them in our photo album the link on the right). Other than that it was a fairly easy 2hr hike passing sheep, waterfalls and crossing bridges. A nice way to end the weekend :)

Hangover Saturday

bed made out of dunas on the floor, silky, 2 liter of soda, random food & movies = hangover cure all. Seeya Sunday.

Two drivers in the fam!

Thats right! While Kevin has perfected the left sided drive I went for my first spin in this beaut just yesterday. I picked Kevin up from work so we could go pick up our new computer (the things I'll do for technology) it wasn't so bad. I had visualized the drive prior to getting in the car and felt confident in being able to conquer the roundabouts. Today I went for my 2nd drive - I keep wanting to pull from the left to the right for the seat belt and getting back into the car after the grocery store I opened the passenger side door first. Oopsy Poopsy.
On a side note, many of you will be happy to know that being in England has helped me with my left and rights!! It is helpful that at most of the crosswalks painted just past the curb are the words 'LOOK RIGHT' or 'LOOK LEFT' - 90% of the time I look the correct way first without thinking about it :) YESSSSS.

We're baaaaacck!!

We bought a new computer :) It's a mini laptop - but it does the job & it will be perfect for travel. Definitely excited to be connected again...I was getting tired of dropping money at the library for each half hour I was there.

On Monday we found some pretty amazing deals to Dublin, March 6th-8th. Each flight was less than a pound!! It was the taxes and fees that brought the cost back up to just a little over 100 pounds for both our roundtrip tickets.

Staying put this weekend -

A year older & a little tired but...

...we made it back from London! Our hotel room left a little to be desired - tiny, warm, with creaky floors and a bed on wheels but it worked. You pay for what you get...we had a great location & two nights for £174. Not too shabby besides,we spent more time out and about than we did in our room. Our dinner cruise was amazing and I think I might be the first bridesmaid to actually wear a bridesmaid dress more than once. I ended up wearing the bridesmaids dress I wore for Mary's wedding for the dinner and Kevin was looking more than sharp in his new tan suit :) We didn't make it anywhere else after the cruise - I think the bottle of champange while getting ready combined with the two bottles of wine at dinner did us in. Feeling a little sluggish the next morning we still managed to be out wondering the streets of London a little before 10am. We toured around seeing Buckingham Palace, The National Portrait Gallery, Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden Markets, and the Science Museum and decided on some quality mexican food for dinner. We waited in line 20mins to put our name on the hour long wait (stupid Valentines Day) to eat fajitas but it was totally worth it and we will definitely be taking Andrea, Tim & Olivia there when they come. Sunday we spent a little over an hour in the British Musuem - but we could have spent the entire day - the place was HUGE. We decided that we could come back to it when Andrea & Tim came in May so we left to go back to the Covent Garden Markets for some shopping and lunch before we left. We had a bottle of wine outside while people watching and observing several of the street performers. We took a ton of pictures but I'm unable to upload them at the library using their computers so until we figure out computer situation out :/

We had an awesome time in London and can't wait to go back when Andrea, Tim & Olivia come! Booking our flights right now for our next adventure: Dublin, March 6th.

And I thought this week was going to be a good week...

Our laptop (Andrea & Tim's laptop) is fried :( While setting the board for our new game last night a glass of wine was spilt and the majority of the wine landed on the laptop and the iPod. The iPod seems fine & we let the laptop dry out and recover all night but when I plugged it in and tried powering it up it shut down within 2 seconds. I'm mad & sad :( The computer/internet has been really been the only form of communication we've had with a lot of people & now we don't have it :/ We can't upload and post our pictures, we can't check the weather, we can't search online at home for train tickets, hotels and flights. It's really going to rock our world. We'll probably try to take it into PC World, a computer store here, and see if they can do anything about it. We've obviously lost everything on the computer which includes an excel sheet of all our expenditures while in England - as requested by Kevin's company for tax purposes...we can figure it out by back tracking thru our bank statements - but it's going to be a pain. I'm using the library's computer right now (costs £1 for every half hour) - so we'll still have that and Kevin has limited access to the internet at work. Point is it sucks. It's not our laptop and we fried it and I can't even call anyone to complain to because no one is awake!!! grrrrrr rufff.

My old and crappy laptop is at my parents house which we will have to figure a way to get to where Kevin is going to be when he goes back to the states in March.

blahhhh.

Where the wild things are

This is a picture of a toy we bought for Dylan :) I think he'll love it...has all of his favorite qualities: tennis ball insides, multiple limbs and big eyeballs to grab onto & a delicious green fuzzy exterior. Can't wait to ship it off to him!

I need to do laundry. I dread doing it because we don't have a dryer (apparently the washing machine is also supposed to be a dryer but I can't figure how it works) Anywhooo, so we have to hang our clothes on this contraption that comes down from the ceiling in the guest room and the clothes take 2 days to dry and then when you go to put them on they're all sorts of crunchy. I'm used to needing jeans that are dirty and on the bottom of the hamper & having them cleaned, dried & ready to wear that night.

Good thing is we do have what appears to be an unlimited supply of hot water :) Compared to the barn hot water - this is GLORIOUS!!! However, I would go so far to say that I would sacrifice our endless hot water for a dryer. GASP!!!

Favorite Things

We're all set for London - or at least we have our rail tickets purchased & last night Kevin booked us a dinner cruise for my birthday!!! We'll be on board crusin away in London eating good food and drinking delicious drinks in 2 days. But of course I have nothing to wear :) Which means I already booked a rail ticket to travel into Manchester solo to do some dress shopping for our dinner date.

2 days straight going to the gym - yay for me! Amazes me how long it takes to get in shape but how quickly it all goes away. Starting from scratch, good a place as any to start I suppose. 9 short months till the Marathon......yikes

I've added a link to the left - Beans, Wine & Chocolate. I figured since Andrea is a stay at home mom now and well I'm a stay at home wife?! that we could exchange recipes and food ideas. Maybe after Kevin & I make a meal I'll even take a picture of it so I can post it with the recipe?!!!

Ticket to Ride

Came back to England to the following good things:

1. An email from Andrea, Tim & Olivia with their flight itinerary into London in May to visit us!!!!
2. 2 pieces of mail: a birthday card from Joanne with pictures of Dylan enclosed & a card with ewes on the front from Erin McGinnis - YAY, loved them both.
3. Email notification that the new game I purchased, Ticket to Ride Europe, has been shipped!!
4. 4 days till Friday, February 13th - which means 4 days till my love & I begin the celebration of my 27th birthday in London!! WhoopWhoop :)

Gonna be a good week - I just know it.

Great Scotts!

We made it back from Scotland! We had an awesome time sans a couple navigational problems (it helps if you bring a good map) We left Saturday morning and arrived in Edinburgh around noonish. We found a parking garage and set out on foot to find some grub. Most all the local pubs were slammed with men in jerseys watching the soccer match that was on making it impossible to get in to order food. We settled for a pretty Americanized pub - but it did the job. Next up, Edinburgh Castle. Getting to the Castle from the side of the city that we were on required hoofing it up the side of a giant hill - but we made it. The views of Edinburgh once up in the Castle were incredible...we tried taking pictures but, as always, the pictures barely do it justice. We toured the entire Castle over the next 2 hours and then did a pretty big loop of the rest of the city on foot while getting back to our car. Once in the car it took us an hour of driving to get to our hotel that turned out to be less than a mile away from where we parked (this is where a good map would have been handy). Throughout the afternoon we had peaked in different restaurants trying to figure a place for dinner. We changed and walked to Hadrins and proceeded to have the best dinner!! On the way home we stopped at a pub for a drink and then sat at our hotels' bar for a while afterwards. The next morning we were up and at 'em and headed for Arthurs Seat which is situated ontop a mountain. Neither of us had our hiking boots on but we were determined to get to the top. And we did! We thought the views from the castle were good - the views from Arthurs Seat were even more amazing. We made it down, stopping at a few other ruins - and then got in the car to head back to England. Getting out of Edinburgh we saw signs for Rosalyn Chapel another destination we had wanted to see. The cost to get in was pretty steep so we just walked around the outside - Scotlands most gothic Chapel and one of the sites for Dan Browns Da Vinci Code. Once back in the car and a couple wrong turns later with no map in hand we were on a tiny road that went between, up and down mountains. But! because my love is amazing we ended up right where we needed to be - home :) All in all Edinburgh was awesome. The architecture, views and men in kilts being the highlights. Take a look at our photo album for more pics. The one picture above is of a hair salon that offered a shot of vodka while getting your hair trimmed...NICE!!! The other picture is of us ontop of Edinburgh Castle.

Edinburgh done. Next up London this weekend. We've already booked our hotel...just need to our transportation.

Olivia Marie Genius Hertel

Our new little niece is a genius!!! Which might I add I predicted based on the intelligence level of both Andrea & Tim. She has rolled over on her own 3 times! Which for those of you not familiar with the progression of wee ones doesn't normally happen till at the earliest 8 weeks. This little lady is only 7 weeks old...actually she might have only been 6 weeks old when she first shocked the world with a roll over. Ohh and I forgot to mention that she is smiling as well...another milestone hit early :) Imagine if I was able to visit with her everyday - she would probably be walking by now...

Winter Weather

Today & yesterday dumped the most snow England has seen in 18 years. London has seen the worst of it - Heathrow airport canceled over 800 flights and all the train routes were severely impacted...causing chaos, as you might imagine. Fortunately/Unfortunately little ole' Walney Island barely even received a dusting - although the temps are hovering right around freezing.

We plan to go to Scotland this weekend for an overnighter :) There are quite a few castles in Edinburgh that we hope to make it to & we read about quite a few other notable sites as well. Its my task today to book us a place to stay. Ideally we're looking for a Bed & Breakfast but after looking online the availability might be an issue - most of them need a 2 night guarantee for weekends.

Yesterday I successfully joined the gym!!! We encountered a few issues when we originally tried to join (their systems weren't equipped to handle payment from a US bank account). But alas I'm a member. Kevin and I call it Globo Gym (in reference to the movie Dodge Ball) - and it's a very close comparison.

Check it out!! haha

click here!

a commercial that airs frequently here.

And they say everything is bigger in Texas...

We conquered Manchester! It was a shoppers paradise...I can only imagine the damage I could have done with my sister or Mary - or both?!! Kevin turned out to be quite the little shopper though and ended our day-o-shopping with a few more items than myself. I told Kevin at dinner that I don't think I have ever shopped from noon to six straight - no lunch stop, no water break, no nothin. Watch out Andrea & Mary your positions as my shopping mates might be in jeopardy.

Different fashions we observed in the hoards of people that were out:
skinny jeans....on guys?!
tights and/or leggings...every girl was in them
boots & uggs
it was similar to New York in that there were a fair share of people stretching the "fashion bar". Needless to say none of our purchases involved any of the above.

Not sure if you would go to Manchester for much more than good shopping. There were a ton of old buildings but not very many tourist attractions. We stayed for dinner and few drinks at a bar/restaurant KRO and then hopped on the 8pm train headed back to Barrow. We both agreed that we would want to go back & possibly next time stay over - there appeared to be a good night life & if we could find a reasonable hotel then why not.

Kevin is still sick :/ And the grocery stores hardly have any medicine - probably a quarter of the selection we have back home. But we did find and purchase the Mansize Tissues - which if you go to our photo album (one of the sidelinks) you can see just how much bigger they are then a regular tissue. If you're lucky some of you might find these bad boys under the Christmas Tree next year....

Good things about today:
Superbowl Sunday with loves wings!!
The start to my birthday month :)