England in Photos

Swadlincote, the town where I grew up

Strawberry picking and pub dinner

Family BBQ

Warwick Castle

Catching up with my oldest friends

Family dinner at the carvery

Calke Abbey

York, one of the oldest cities in England

Briddlington, the English seaside

Dovedale, one of my favorite places in the Peak District

RAF Air Show with the Red Arrows

Our last family dinner

England Holiday 2011

Where do I even begin? From the minute we landed to our last second in England we packed in as much as time would allow and spent every second in between visiting with family and old friends.

June 22nd: Our first day was some what of a blur thanks to the lack of sleep the night before due to a night flight but we were so excited to finally be in England. James has been wting to see where I come from and it has been way overdue for me to go home. It was a great flight though, James did great on the plane, for those who dont know he does not like to fly in the slightest. After landing at Manchester airport we had an hour and a half drive back to my Mum's house. We couldn't stay awake for a minute longer once we reached home and so we took a long well needed nap. In the evening we took James to the 'chippy', or fish n chip shor for you non locals reading this. We ordered a ton of food (fish, battered sausage, pineapple fritter and of course chips) and enjoyed every bite of it.

June 23rd: Thursday was still a catching up day, the jet lag heading to England is just awful. James didn't feel his body corrected itself until about 2 days before we left to come back home. Mum took us to have a full English breakfast which was deslish, before we did a little shopping in Derby. That evening we went for a lovely pub dinner and James enjoyed trying all of the different beers available.

June 24th:Both Mum and Paul were working today so James and I had a lazy morning. We decide to take a walk around Swad and show James where I grew up. We headed down into town, which for those of you who live there, it doesn't take long to walk through the main street of town lol. We had a great evening with all of my family who came to my Mums house for a BBQ. Of course, this is England and so it had to rain while Paul was outside cooking the food.

June 25th: Saturday was quite possibly one of my favorite days out ofour whole vacation. My Mum, Paul, Grandma and Grandad and James and I headed down to Warwick to go to the castle. James LOVES history so I had been excited to take him to the castle since we booked our trip. We toured all the different rooms, caught a bird of prey show and climbed all 530 steps throughout the turrets to go to the top of the castle. The views of the river Avon and the town of Warwick were amazing. I think everyone really enjoyed themselves. That evening James and I met up with some of my oldest friends. We had all been in school together up until I moved together, a couple of us have even known each other since we were in daycare together. We sepnt 7 hours catching up and having a great time.

June 26th: Grandma Smith threw us a lovely afternoon party to meet some of her friends that all hear endless stories about. Her and my Mum had bought all different kinds of cakes and then we had wine and tea. It was so nice to see all the people that she spends her time with. Today was one of the hottest days of our time there, 86 degrees which I usually dont find hot, but when there is no air conditioning in the houses or restaurants you start to overheat rather quickly. At night all of the family headed to another pub for a carvery dinner, which consists of fresh roast meat, stuffing, roasted and mashed potatoes, all kinds of veggies and the best part...yorkshire pudding!!!! Afterwards we sat in the beer garden as it was such a nice night out.

June 27th: James, Paul and I headed to the National Brewery Centre in Burton. At one point in time Burton had 30 breweries there. Bass was one of the most popular breweries for the longest time but was recently taken over by Coors. The museum explains the brewing process as well as having vintage vehicles and shire horses to look at. Of course there is plenty of sampling the beer :) We spent the afternoon walking around Stauton Harold which is one of the big estates local to the area. Until recently it was open to the public but now the house is privately owned so only the grounds are now accessible. James and Paul had a big night ahead of them as they went to the Pink Floyd concert. Our entire vacation was actually planned around this concert. They both seemed to have a really good time, James says it is hands down the best concert he has ever been to. While the boys were out, Mum and I had a girls night at home. My friends Becky and Natalie came over and Mum had her friend Faye over. We munched on cheese, crackers and fruit and drank plenty of wine.

June 28th: Grandma Smith was our tour guide today and she took us to Calke Abbey which is a huge estate and grounds about 15 minutes from where we live. Unlike all of the other stately homes in the area, this house was left exactly how the last family to live in the house left it. No restoration has been done and all furniture and objects have been left in the exact same spot as the family left them. It is very interesting to see how they lived.

June 29th: Wednesday was the begining of our trip to York. Mum booked a B&B 10 mins from the town centre for all 8 of us that went. It was the quintessential bed and breakfast. James and I were the lucky ones to get a 4 poster bed! York itself is a very historic town, dating back to the Vikings. I knew James would love the town. It still has the old city walls surrounding the main part of town in some areas.We went to a couple of museums and walked through the 'Shambles' which is the area in which the buildings nearly touch each other. We had a delicious meal at one of the pubs there, yes another pub! The food is so good at the pubs that you have no desire to eat anywhere else.

June 30th: In the morning we went to the railway museum which was very impressive. Next we headed to the seaside at Briddlington, which is on the east coast of the country. It is your sterotypical English seaside town with the promenade, some arcades, a fishing harbor and a ton of fish n chip shops! It is wrong to come to the seaside and not eat fish n chips or a 99cone which is vanilla soft serve ice cream in a cone with a chocolate flake in it. Of course we had to make sure James had the complete experience by having both. And what would the English seaside be without some rain? As we were walking back to the car the heavens opened, it was lightening and there was hail!

July 1st: A lie in was needed from all the walking we did in York! After a late breakfast Mum, Paul, James and I went to explore the Peak District. Dovedale is one of my favorite places in that area and I have a lot of fond memories going there as a child. The peak district is an area with huge hills and deep valleys with lots of walking trails running through them all. Dovedale has a river running through it and has stepping stones to cross one side of the river to the other. As a child this was my favorite part of Dovedale, and I have to say it still is today. On the way home we stopped in a quaint village called Ashbourne for a yummy cream cake.

July 2nd: Unfortunately it was our last day in England, its amazing how the time just flies by when you are on vacation! We headed to the RAF Air show which was worth the 4 hours of traffic we sat in to get into the place. It is held at an active air force base and they had shows by the Thunderbirds and the Red Arrows as well as flying WWII planes and the Vulcon. Our last meal had to be of course, a pub dinner. Grandma Smith joined us at the Ferrers and was def one of the top 5 meals we had during our time there.

I'm now back in the USA writing this and even though this is home now, England will always be my true home. I didn't even realize how much I missed certain things until I was back there. It was so nice being able to show James where I grew up, where I went to school, and the parks we played in. It goes without saying the best part of all was getting to see family and friends that we dont get to see on a regular basis. We never stopped laughing the entire time we were there, or drinking and eating:) Thats what a vacation is made of I believe.

Photos to follow!

Cisco Turns 1

Yes we know Cisco is a dog but he has bought us so much joy and love over the past year, not to mention many many laughs, that we had to celebrate him turning 1. Every birthday needs gifts so we treated him to a new bed as his current one isn't padded enough from him anymore as he folds it in half and sleeps on it like that. He now has a very soft bed that also has a very fluffy pillow in it. To keep him cool during the summer days we also picked up a little pool for him, which he did not seem too thrilled with today but hopefully it grows on him. Mom Mom and Pop Pop came over to help celebrate his big day and they gave him a new toy which he now carries everywhere with him; I have a feeling his 'girlfriend' is going to get replaced. To end the day we got him a dog cake, aka a peanut butter muffin. Considering he stuck his head right in it I would say he loved it. All in all I think Cisco enjoyed all of the attention and we all had a great time spoiling our little guy.

Honeymooning the St.Lucian Way

Three months after saying 'I Do' James and I left on our long awaited honeymoon to St.Lucia. It is the first vacation for the both of us in a long time, and the first time James has left the country. We had both been looking forward to this for quite some time as it meant 10 whole days of relaxation without the interruption of work, cell phones and laptops. We hit a little snag before we had even left, our flight from Miami to St. Lucia was cancelled due to hurricane Thomas, luckily we were able to leave just one day later and our stay was pushed back one day so we didn't lose any time. One nice thing out of this was the very kind person at American Airlines bumped us to first class! We drank champagne and ate like kings the entire flight:) We were so excited once we landed in St.Lucia, it was awesome to be back in the heat. We soon saw first hand the damage the hurricane had done. Some of the roads leading to the resort had been washed out so instead on taking a shuttle to the resort we had to take a boat. We got to see nearly the whole island, what a great surprise. The island is just beautiful!!! It is mountinous, so green, the waters are so blue, exactly what you see on International House Hunters lol. The people we so friendly and laid back, their motto, which I am going to adopt is; "no pressure, no problem". We stayed at Sandals Regency and the resort was more than we could have imagined. As soon as we walked in the lobby we were greeted with views of the Atlantic Ocean. Our room sat on the edge of a cliff with the ocean right beneath us, its was stunning and the best thing to wake up to every morning. Most days we ate the most amazing buffet breakfast with mimosas, which are my favorite. We would hangout with the pool until the sun would go down. Taking frequent dips in the pool, with many visits to the swim up pool bar, and walking over to Neptunes for lunch on the beach. After a long day by the pool:) we would eat dinner at one of the 9 restaurants on the resort and then have a drink overlooking the ocean, hangout in the English pub the Cricketer, or watch the entertainment in the pavillion. Armando's, the Italian restaurant was one of our favorites, they had the best ceasar salad! We ate at the Japanese steakhouse, Kimono's which was fabulous and very entertaining. James was in heaven as he got to eat calamari everyday. Needless to say we are now eating salads everyday until Christmas.

We did do a couple of excurions while we were there. With a little encouragement from James we decided to go ziplining in the rain forest. I was all for it until I heard the height of the tallest line; 280ft..hence the encouragement from James. Our tour guide, Simple was hilarious. We got to learn about the price of property on the island, $200,000 can buy you a very nice house. The average salary ins $25 per day, and even though they think Americans are spoiled they appreicate all the business we bring to their island. In exchange we taught Simple some American slang, baffled his mind when we explained that in America you can't drink and drive, and taught him about tailgating. Ziplining was a lot of fun and I'm glad we did it. On this excursion we also got to taste the local spiced rum, which in America costs $500 a bottle, which I'm not sure why because at 160 proof it was dsigusting.

The excursion I was most excited about was the ATV tour. We each took an ATV over the mountains down to a private beach where we really got to let go on the ATVs. We went over sand dunes, around sand banks and basically really fast. We also got to go in the ocean which felt great in the hot sun.

We also treated ourselves to an hour long couples massage overlooking the beach. I dont think either of us have felt that relaxed in years. We had the best 10 days together and can't wait until we can go on vacation again, and I think we can safely say we wont be waiting for more than a year until the next one.