Merry Christmas!

Amazing Ashley Allen...

Our good friend Ashley visited us last week. We had a blast visiting and hanging out. Visitors always force us to actually go sightseeing, so we also squeezed a bit of that in. More on her visit on the next post, but we had a blast. As it always is, her amazing talent is demonstrated here. For my Texas friends, look her up (http://www.ashleyallenphoto.net)! As I said last year, and the year before that, anyone who can clean up this rough crew is pretty special...

Houston is done

Well, we closed out the Houston trip successfully. Sunday was a great time. It started early with Berryhill's meeting up with Gina and drinking a cold beer. For the record 9:30am Houston time is 3:30pm London time, so it was clearly beer-thirty. After a great visit with G-money, we went to the Texans game. Without question, it was one of the best games we have been to. Down to the wire, we stayed until the end, on feet, yelling and cheering. SO FUN!


Capitol Grill was the perfect ending. I do miss a good Texas steak!

Monday we were able to get our fangs cleaned at the (greatest ever) dentist. Then we tested our newly cleaned teeth on sushi at Fish. Of course overeating was in order since it would be our last meal in Houston. Again, Scott's frequent travels paid off and we flew back to London in first class - truly the best way to fly internationally.

A huge shout out to John Kim for his generosity in letting us camp at his house. We are so lucky to have such great friends and we miss them dearly. As great as London is, it is without our friends...


Honorable mention:
Scott's godson Braden who is now over 6 feet tall!


Braden's daddy Paul

We ran into the Barrow family leaving the game - such cute kids!

Houston for the weekend

Scott and I returned to Houston this weekend for a work function for his job. We are only in day 2 of 3, but so far we have had a very busy, fun time. Our friend John Kim has graciously provided the comfort of his (beautifully redecorated) home as our base.


Last night we went to the Firm's Christmas party. It was so fun seeing so many friends, most of whom I hadn't seen in over a year. Especially fun was seeing JP Smith, who is recovering from a burn. While the injury was a serious one and has caused a great deal of pain and even a week in the hospital, the fact that a grown man was cleaning a grill with gasoline provides me a little giggle. Boys. Young or old, they see no danger...

Some of the things I have realized being back:
Houston is hot even in December and even a couple of weeks prior to Christmas. Yesterday was 75 degrees. The air conditioner needs to be on in the house to sleep comfortably. Imagine what August will be like!

There are restaurants everywhere here. All guarantee to expand your waistline so that you fit in nicely with the rest of the Americans.

It is a strange sensation after living overseas for over a year to be able to hop into the car and actually know where you are going without turning on the GPS sat nav.

We have only lived in London for 6 months, but already, Scott and I found ourselves going to the wrong side of the car and even driving on the wrong side of the road.

It is simply amazing how cheap things are here. From real estate to meals to clothing, cheap cheap cheap! I... must... not... shop... anymore...

I didn't realize how much I missed college football until we watched a few minutes of it yesterday. It is intriguing how something so simple can be so entertaining.

And unfortunately three days is not long enough to see enough of our friends. But we have still a day and a half left so we will busily cram in as many visits as we can (between the Texans football game, miscellaneous health check ups, and a few cocktails).

I miss the kids (who are in London), but I cannot imagine dragging them on the 10.5 hour flight and adding their jet lag to mine. Without question, they will only make that trip when we move back.

Now, off to play with our dear friend G-money!

Another staycation near London

Scott surprised us with another mini-vacation. This time, instead of going towards London central, we went away. We drove south of London to Leeds Castle. What an amazing place to see! It was such a beautiful place. The kids enjoyed the footpath through the woods to get up the the castle. The inside was interesting and antique and fun to walk through. Perhaps the neatest part of the day was the English maze we made our way through. Finally making it to the middle allowed us to go up a small hill to see where we had painstakingly made our way through. After the hill, we went down some steps to an underground cavern which was appropriately dark and spooky and fun to walk through. I of course appreciated that this was the easy exit since we were able to walk right out of the maze this way.



The kids' favorite part of the castle trip was the incredible playground. I can't describe it adequately, but suffice it to say that it was by far the most fun playground I had ever seen.

The highlight of the very cool day was going down the street to the hotel where there was an indoor heated swimming pool. The kids wore themselves out and then we had a quick in-room dinner. They passed out. Beautiful sleeping kids. (Perhaps the most beautiful when they are sleeping!)

A nice escape to our hectic high-energy life we live. Bring on Friday for our trip back to the US for 3 days!




The video highlights:

Turkey day 2011 in London

Thanksgiving in England worked out quite nicely. Scott of course made a giant Thanksgiving feast and we all ate too much. Our gathering was atypical in the normal American-kind-of-Thanksgiving way. It was only our family and Marisa, and then we had our two Italian friends who own the restaurant next door come by to sample pumpkin pie.







Of course we are thankful for everything: our health, our family and friends (who we can't wait to see next week), our jobs (for both of us the most demanding, frustrating and overall satisfying of any before), our homes and our overall ability to travel and see this side of the world. Indeed a successful Thanksgiving. We can't wait on the adventures between now and next year's turkey day...

So close, yet so far away...

Before Scott left for trial, I arranged a little stay-cation for the kids and me. The requirements were easy. First, it had to be close. Second, it had to have an indoor pool for easy entertainment. Third, it had to have breathing room for me once the kids were asleep. Mark one up for the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge. It had it all. Bonus was that it was across the street from Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey.




As it turns out, Scott ended up coming home due to a continuance, so the whole family went. We swam, we ate, we drank, and we generally felt pampered for about 24 hours. The room service sushi of course helped the cause.



Of course the kids thought the actual travel to and from on the underground was as much fun as the stay-cation.



The only way it could have been better was if the break had been longer... We hope to do another one soon. Perhaps we'll venture outside of London for the next one. I always did think it would be great to stay in a castle!