We started off the month of June with a weeklong trip Stateside. We flew in on Friday and drove straight to Charleston for a beach weekend with Granny and Granddaddy, Coach and Bub, Charlie, Dave, and Kimmie. We had a beautiful weekend, lots of amazing food (thanks to Bub), soaked up some much needed sun, and hopefully made Bubba’s birthday weekend a little brighter! We spent the rest of the week in Charlotte visiting friends and family. Scott's highlight of the trip was eating at The Penguin (awesome greasy burger dive) with some friends and some old coaches. The highlight of the trip for me, hands down, was watching Lindsay’s (my niece) dance rehearsal! She was the most beautiful “bear” dressed in a bright pink tutu ever! Even funnier was watching Cara’s internal struggle as she followed Lindsay’s dance teacher’s instructions and jazzed Lindsay up even more with make-up and curled hair. Mike and Cara are such great parents and Lindsay is at such an adorable age right now. For more laughs, check out their blog at http://www.lindsaywolford.blogspot.com/
After getting back to London, we had one of my most favorite days in London yet. We spent the day at Royal Ascot, which is basically England’s version of the Kentucky Derby which is attended by the Royal Family. We went with our friends Matt, JoAnn, Ricky, and Sandy to “Ladies Day” which is supposed to be the most fashionable day to go. It was fantastic seeing all the gents in their top hats and tails (i.e. Morning suits) and all the ladies in their huge hats. And the best part of the day, I won!!! All the US horses were winning that day – so we ran to the betting booth, bet 10 pounds on a US horse called Fifteen Love and won 185 pounds (which is about $370). A pretty fabulous day all around.
And then I turned 29! We celebrated all day long at work. The British have a weird custom where you bring in your own cake/treats to work when it’s your birthday. Backwards, I know. But I have eaten lots of others’ cakes, so I figured I would go crazy and spoil myself (and others) with tons of cake and candy all day long. Needless to say, my birthday was a huge success at work! Then, Scott met me near Westminster Abbey with flowers in hand for a great dinner at the Cinnamon Club which is a fancy Indian restaurant set in the Old Westminster Library. The food was wonderful and the atmosphere was so cool – there were still all the old books on the 2nd floor of the restaurant. Then we came home and Bruno licked my arm for like 20 minutes. We assumed that was his way of saying “Happy Birthday.”
Our latest trip was a day trip with our friend, Sandy, to Brighton which is about an hour south of London on the coast. So we got to see the English Channel in person (rather than just from an airplane) and we got to walk in the rocks (that’s right, not sand, but full out rocks) which to be honest was a little painful but pretty nonetheless. Brighton is kind of like Myrtle Beach (rides on the pier, slightly trashy nightlife, etc) but we still had a fun day walking around and being touristy. It was (as is typical) too cold to sunbathe or swim in the ocean but at least we can check it off the list!
In other news, Wachovia has decided to call Scott back to the mother ship in Charlotte a little earlier than expected. So, it looks like we’ll be moving back home around Labor Day of this year. We’re really excited to go home to see all of our friends and family on a little more regular basis. Although we’re sad that we won’t get to see everything that we wanted to see prior to leaving London. But I think if we stayed here 10 years, we still wouldn’t get to it all! So, y’all make us some sweet tea and get ready to welcome us home!
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Sunday, June 1, 2008
When does winter end?
The subject of this post is a quote from one of Scott’s work colleagues, Eric, who recently got transferred to London. Eric's 4-year-old daughter, Georgia, asked, "Daddy, I know its summer back in Charlotte, but when does winter end and summer start here in England?" What a smart little American girl she is!
Despite London’s slow start to summer, it has been tolerable enough for Kimmie and 5 of her friends to tour around London without using their umbrellas (much). I don’t think they could say the same for trip to Paris where they got drenched on the top of an open-air bus tour. They got to see all the typical London sites (St. Paul’s Cathedral, Big Ben, London Eye, Parliament, etc) and even got to experience Thai and Indian food which were firsts for most of them. I don’t know if they’ll ever eat it again but they all cleaned their plates! Almost every night they were here, the rocked out on Guitar Hero reaching levels of the game we never knew existed. I was grateful to them for catching me up on the latest US celebrity gossip and TV show happenings. Scott was grateful to have them here because of the extra food we had for them – lasagna, crepes (which were a little suspect), scones, etc. It was great to have them here and we were sad for them to leave! Bruno was especially sad to see them go – he loved all the extra attention and walks throughout the day with 5 extra girls in the house.
The UNC women’s basketball team also made a stop through London on their European tour. Scott went to their game against the London Heathrow Acers Select (who we had no idea existed) and had a fantastic time watching the Heels win and getting to meet all the players. You can see photos at http://tarheelblue.cstv.com/view.gal?id=28691. There is even one of Scott with his arm around Sylvia! Watch it, Scotty boy; she’s married, you know!
One really cool thing about London is that they still use horse guards – some for police and some for protection of the Queen/ Royal Family. Kind of random, I know. But a few mornings a week, the horse guards come down our street on their morning exercise route. Bruno immediately goes crazy and barks like a wild animal and the horses just saunter along proudly through our street – so cool!
Another quintessential London thing we recently did was to see the Chelsea Flower Show. It is the largest flower show in the world. We weren’t really that excited to go at first. I mean, it’s just a bunch of flowers right? Wrong. This thing was incredible. They take the yard of the Chelsea Royal Hospital (a little bigger than a football field) and the exhibitors turn their allocated space (approx 20ft x 20ft) into a themed oasis. Some of them were dug deep and made into Japanese bonsai gardens, others were made into little ponds with palm trees all around, others were made into magical fairy woodlands – it was really very cool and super impressive. I can’t do it justice with the descriptions so you’ll just have to trust me and go if you ever have the chance. Granny and Granddaddy would have been in heaven!
On a more serious note, our good friend Bo is in the hospital at Duke after a double lung transplant. It’s definitely a reality check to hear what he is battling right now so please keep him, his beautiful daughter Addi, and awesome wife Christi (A.K.A. Beastie) in your thoughts and prayers. www.bovsbac.blogspot.com
Despite London’s slow start to summer, it has been tolerable enough for Kimmie and 5 of her friends to tour around London without using their umbrellas (much). I don’t think they could say the same for trip to Paris where they got drenched on the top of an open-air bus tour. They got to see all the typical London sites (St. Paul’s Cathedral, Big Ben, London Eye, Parliament, etc) and even got to experience Thai and Indian food which were firsts for most of them. I don’t know if they’ll ever eat it again but they all cleaned their plates! Almost every night they were here, the rocked out on Guitar Hero reaching levels of the game we never knew existed. I was grateful to them for catching me up on the latest US celebrity gossip and TV show happenings. Scott was grateful to have them here because of the extra food we had for them – lasagna, crepes (which were a little suspect), scones, etc. It was great to have them here and we were sad for them to leave! Bruno was especially sad to see them go – he loved all the extra attention and walks throughout the day with 5 extra girls in the house.
The UNC women’s basketball team also made a stop through London on their European tour. Scott went to their game against the London Heathrow Acers Select (who we had no idea existed) and had a fantastic time watching the Heels win and getting to meet all the players. You can see photos at http://tarheelblue.cstv.com/view.gal?id=28691. There is even one of Scott with his arm around Sylvia! Watch it, Scotty boy; she’s married, you know!
One really cool thing about London is that they still use horse guards – some for police and some for protection of the Queen/ Royal Family. Kind of random, I know. But a few mornings a week, the horse guards come down our street on their morning exercise route. Bruno immediately goes crazy and barks like a wild animal and the horses just saunter along proudly through our street – so cool!
Another quintessential London thing we recently did was to see the Chelsea Flower Show. It is the largest flower show in the world. We weren’t really that excited to go at first. I mean, it’s just a bunch of flowers right? Wrong. This thing was incredible. They take the yard of the Chelsea Royal Hospital (a little bigger than a football field) and the exhibitors turn their allocated space (approx 20ft x 20ft) into a themed oasis. Some of them were dug deep and made into Japanese bonsai gardens, others were made into little ponds with palm trees all around, others were made into magical fairy woodlands – it was really very cool and super impressive. I can’t do it justice with the descriptions so you’ll just have to trust me and go if you ever have the chance. Granny and Granddaddy would have been in heaven!
On a more serious note, our good friend Bo is in the hospital at Duke after a double lung transplant. It’s definitely a reality check to hear what he is battling right now so please keep him, his beautiful daughter Addi, and awesome wife Christi (A.K.A. Beastie) in your thoughts and prayers. www.bovsbac.blogspot.com
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