Happy June!

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!