fun with fur

last night we went to a house warming party at Catherine's new house. she moved into a new area of the city for us to explore, just north of the City of London. although last night we basically went directly to and from her house without doing much exploring we look forward to taking advantage of her new location in the near future.
she cooked us a fabulous M&S sponsored dinner and good times were had by all!

March Madness

Note the basketball game on the TV :)

It's hard to find a place that shows basketball on TV over here. On Saturday Katherine and I headed down to an American-style sports bar to watch some basketball (it's cleverly called The Sports Cafe). It was definitly an American crowd, and a little frat boy for our tastes overall, but it was a great time. We got to see a little March Madness (linking for Rich, who will have no idea what that means). The highlights were watching Duke go down, and seeing Wazzu take care of Notre Dame - there were a ton of Fightin' Irish there so was very satisfying.

As great as it is to be here, it's nice to get a little touch of home.

Why so happy? Pitchers! First time I've seen'em in UK

The cute couple

Time to go home...

snow!

Here in the UK we are in the middle of a 4 day weekend, yes that's right they give us Friday and Monday off for Easter! It's great, especially since Andy and I only had to work 2 days after getting home from SF before having a nice long weekend to fully recover from our holiday.

Everyone at work was complaining that the weather report for the weekend wasn't looking so good...not what you want when you have a long week-end here, unless you're going away. They said it might snow! Now, anyone who knows me, knows I don't particuarly enjoy the snow, but every now and then it's exciting. Today was/is one of those days! It has snowed off and on all day, not really sticking, but coming down nonetheless. Never really thought I'd see snow in the city - fun stuff when you aren't forced to spend lots of time outside.

Free Shoes!

My new shoes

While we've talked about how great it was to see family and friends (and it was, truly!) it is also great to go shopping in the US. With the pound so strong right now it's like a 50% off sale everywhere we go.

In Seattle, we went to one of my favorite stores, Mario's, to see a friend of ours and maybe just see if they had anything interesting. As it turns out they were celebrating Mario's Days (Mar-10) and by spending a certain amount you got a chance to spin the wheel - everyone a winner. I happned to find some jeans, added a pair of boxers and hit the magical threshold.

Spin 1: I won a polo shirt. Huh, okay, better than socks but...Turns out, they had none in my size, so I got a respin.

Spin 2: Any pair of Hugo Boss shoes in the store. Now that's more like it. And I selected the fine pair of shoes you see above - $300! Very exciting.

A close-up

seattle/san francisco

andy and i are back in london, as of a few hours ago. we both had a great time visiting with friends and family over the past few weeks, but it does feel nice to be back in our flat, and of course with middy.

i didn't take as many pictures as i would have liked, especially of the wedding and reception, but here are the highlights......

beth, dean and beorn at the G&D

shannon and stephanie at happy t

andy, angela, me, beth, tim, beorn, emily and michele

tim, andy, beorn, me, beth and andy

michele and tim

cojk ladies: stephanie, erin, kelli and me

andy and dean

stephanie and me

breakfast at top pot

michele and me

and on to san francisco.......

christina and peter's first dance

kathleen, dad and me in wine country

me and andy

me and maile

bay bridge

sparkling wine in napa

Heading Home - to London

Quick post with much more to follow, pictures, adventures, and such. Right now sitting in the airport in Seattle waiting for my flight, Katherine already on her flight from San Francisco. We had an excellent trip home, connecting with family and friends all over the west coast - from Bellingham, WA to Walnut Creek, CA, with a wonderful wedding wrapping things up (Congratulations Peter and Christina!).

It was great to see everyone - and now I am excited to get home, make a home cooked meal, and hang out with Katherine and Midnight :)

made it to seattle.....

and now i can't sleep. jet lag and time change are such strange things. i woke up this morning at 530am after going to bed after midnight - wide awake. sitting in bed, in what must come close to the worlds smallest hotel room, playing on andy's computer while he attempts - not to sure how successfully - to sleep a little longer. it's great to be here, in seattle, not the hotel room, saw some friends last night seeing more today and tomorrow and monday and tuesday, you get the picture....will post pictures of the weekend when i am able to use the computer with the lights on so i can see what i'm doing.

mac n' cheese

I hold a special place in my heart, and stomach, for macaroni and cheese. When I was young it was the only thing I would eat. Now that I cook my own food, it's something I eat just a few times a year. Tonight I went to eat at Bumpkin with my friend Alison and just had to get the macaroni cheese (and yes, it was macaroni cheese, not macaroni & cheese) on the menu - and it didn't disappoint. Yummy, gooey goodness, with just the right amount of crust on the top.

I've come a long way with food. When I was growing up for as long as I can remember there was a note on the fridge in my handwriting with my signature on it, before I had an actual signature that stated:

I promise not to complain about what we have for dinner as long as we have macaroni and cheese at least once a week.

This was something that amazing both my parents and myself completely honored (at least as far as I recollect). My parents were very understanding people and it's amazing that I've developed the palate that I have and am not more spoiled than I am.....

jalapeño

this post was inspired by an 'old el paso' tv commercial: something very sad about living in London, probably the UK in general, is the lack of good, or really any, Mexican food. i have had this conversation with every American I've met living here. in the grocery store they have these kits you can buy from old el paso for making nachos and enchiladas. basically they have sauce mix and tortillas/chips (crisps) and you buy the meat and veggies to go with. its tough to find salsa, tortillas not part of the kit, guacamole, black beans etc. - it's all tough to find. the worst part of it all isn't the lack of Mexican restaurants, or the lack of ingredients at the grocery store, it's the way they pronounce jalapeño here. they say hal-a-pino, as i type it out i'm surprised they don't say jal-a-pino, at least they get the j is an h thing ;) so for everyone who doesn't get how the ñ sounds i have put below the pronunciation guide: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

jalapeño SYLLABICATION:ja·la·pe·ño PRONUNCIATION: hä'lə-pān'yō NOUN:Inflected forms: pl. ja·la·pe·ños 1. A cultivar of the tropical pepper Capsicum annuum having a very pungent green or red fruit. 2. The fruit of this plant.

slow week

After Andy's birthday on Tuesday we haven't been up to much. Wednesday we met up with a few friends for dinner, but other than that stayed in. Last night was pretty much dedicated to Andy packing his suitcase for his trip today. He left about 1/2 hour ago for Seattle - for work. I'll be joining on Friday. It's been 6 months since I've been back to Seattle at this point - and I'm not sure when the next trip will be. I'm looking forward to seeing family and friends and just to be home. It's getting better and better being in London, on all fronts, but there is still something nice about being home and being in such an overly familiar place (hopefully it still feels that way). And of course, the reason that we're actually coming home is to go to SF for my brother and Christina's wedding. Always good to have a nice reason to come home. At this point I'm still trying to work out whether I'll be able to smuggle Midnight into the country in my suitcase.....will they be able to see her on the scanner at security, will she stay quiet and still in the bag?? I have a week for some heavy duty training ;)