Thursday, October 31, 2013

Happy Halloween!

Contrary to what some people think the British do celebrate Halloween! So I have had a good amount of trick or treaters, enough that I realized I had to stop eating the candy or I might run out!


Besides stuffing my face with candy I spent my Halloween watching one of my favorite halloween movies (besides Hocus Pocus of course!) CASPER :)


I also enjoyed a mug of hot apple cider :) I love this time of year it has all my favorite things!

The other day Matt and I were getting ready to drive to dinner and we walked outside to this amazing rainbow!



It was seriously the best rainbow I have every seen and my iphone camera did not give it justice. If I had a better camera it would have shown how big and full the rainbow was and it actually had a double rainbow next to it. Sometimes the sky in England amazing me, it is so gorgeous and I have seen some of the best sunrises every here!

Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween :)

Friday, October 25, 2013

Ely Apple Festival

Last weekend Matt and I went to the Ely Apple Festival. I was craving some apple butter so I made it a priority to get our butts to the festival! I was sadly disappointed though because apparently apple butter is an "American thing" I found one jar that was kind of like apple butter but not what I am use to.

I really don't mind the weather here, especially now that Matt got me an awesome rain jacket. It started to drizzle at the festival but it added to the experience. I love when the leaves start to change and the festival was held in a park right next to a 1,000 year old cathedral, it was so gorgeous! We played a couple games, drank some yummy cider, and even got to hold a falcon!









I love all the fun things they have going on around us every weekend. And I am enjoying this amazing fall weather :)

Friday Favorites

Besides the obvious fact that Friday is the start to the weekend I have a couple other things I look forward to on Fridays here :)

1) At the commissary every Friday there is a tent set up outside that sells the BEST kettle corn I have every had! Today I got the chili flavored kind for Matt and it is so good. Little bit of sweet and spicy.

2) I get to watch all my favorite TV shows. All my shows are on Thursday nights in the US and so I have to wait till the next day to watch them online....making Friday my favorite tv show watching day.

3) Every Friday at the Shoppette they have wine and beer tastings. No need to say more :)

4) I finally get to see Matt! (Yea this should definitely be number 1 haha) but Matt and I don't get to see each other during the week because of our work schedules so as long as I can stay awake till about 1am I usually get to see his smiling face when he gets home from work :)

5) Sleeping in the next day....waking up at 5:30am makes me appreciate getting to sleep in till at least 8am

6) Weekend plans: Matt and I are always trying to find new things to explore every weekend so I am always excited for the things we have planned. Last weekend we went to the Apple festival and next weekend we are going to London to see the Beatles mania concert called "Let It Be" I cannot wait!

I only have 6....weird number to end on but thats all I got! Have a great weekend!

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

It's almost Halloween!

I love the holidays (mostly christmas) but I love to celebrate every holiday. This weekend was spent doing some fun halloween activities like carving pumpkins and decorating the house for halloween :)









My mom's friend Freddie sent Matt and I those awesome Halloween decorations! Thank you Freddie :) I love having the house all decorated for Halloween. I hope we get some trick-or-treaters. I heard the kids in Britain do trick or treat but I made sure to put my carved pumpkin outside to make sure they know to come here :) I have been munching on some of the halloween candy we bought already I may need to get some more before Halloween!

Matt and I went to an apple festival in the next town over this past weekend. I will post about that next but we got a lot of yummy apples and I made an apple crisp with them!

I have heard the fog in England is bad but I hadn't experienced it till the other day and man was it awful! I have never seen fog like that in my life and it took me forever to get to work, it was scary! But it would be cool if the fog did this on Halloween haha :)


Hope everyone is having a good week! Tomorrow is hump day wahoo!

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Scotland Adventures!

One of the best things about living in England is how close you are to other countries. Matt and I had a three day holiday weekend and we wanted to take advantage of it and go on an adventure to Scotland! After work Friday we packed the car up and hit the road :) We got to Glasgow Scotland around 11:00pm so there wasn't much to do the first night but go to bed and wake up early to start exploring.

When we work up we had a really good traditional scottish breakfast at the hotel. I tried blood sausage (apparently it is a traditional breakfast food they eat) and I was not really a fan haha but at least I tried something new! After breakfast we drove to Loch Lomond which was about an hour away. It was a gorgeous morning so we decided to take a hike up the hill and get a better view of the loch (which means lake I found out) The hike was about an hour to the top and along the way we ran into some wildlife!



The views from the top of the mountain were amazing! It was so windy and cold at the top but totally worth it :)


After the hike we headed to the town of Edinburgh but on the way we stopped to check out Stirling Castle. I always love seeing castle and this one was no exception. Stirling castle is the most historic castle in Scotland.

Saturday night we found an awesome restaurant that served IPA beers. It is hard to find a good IPA beer in England. The restaurant also had great burgers.

Sunday morning we woke up and drove about an hour to the town St. Andrews where gold was invented. And in my opinion more importantly where the royals kate and will met :) There is a really old castle and cathedral there that we got to see. And of course we couldn't leave without checking out the university :) I am a nerd and love looking at other colleges and universities. Oh yea and Matt made is go see the historic golf course which was pretty cool too...I guess :)






That afternoon we made our way to a scottish whisky distillery. We took a tour to find out how the scotch is made and then we got to sample some at the end. :) I am not a fan of scotch and after the tour I still am not a fan haha but it was fun to see how it is made.


 After the distillery we looked up a good place to eat on lonely planet. Honestly this website never disappointed us with its suggestions. On sunday night we and one of the best dinners I have had in a long time! We both got a stew and dumplings with mash, Matt got the vince stew and I got the beef.

After dinner we headed to a bar called Frankenstein to get dessert and a drink :) It was such a cool bar! They had awesome halloween decorations and they had the movie frankenstein playing on  a big jumbo tv above the bar. I got a yummy chocolate brownie for dessert!

Monday morning we decided to check out the Edinburgh castle in town before we headed home. This was one of the best castles I have ever seen! If you are ever in scotland you have to go see this castle, it is so big and beautiful!

It was sad having to drive home after such an amazing vacation but luckily we had amazing views to look at on the way home! I love the country Scotland and definitely plan on going back multiple times while we live here. Before it started to rain we reached the border of England and Scotland and jumped out to get a picture! The border is at the top of this hill and had a great view, we didn't get to see the pretty drive on the way up because most of it was in the dark but driving home I realized how many sheep there are in the country. So many sheep! haha they are everywhere and I never thought I would see that many sheep in one car drive.



Matt and I love to travel together and see new things. This trip was just the start of our many adventures! I am hoping we can plan a trip to Ireland soon :)

Monday, October 14, 2013

Fall Festival & London Dungeon

The first couple of weeks in October Matt and I stayed busy with fun fall activities! First we went to a pumpkin fall festival with our friends the McDonald's. The festival theme was 50years of the Beatles and they had live music playing Beatles songs and lots of fun rides and games :) I love fall festivals and it is something I look forward to every year. Unfortuntaly we played so many games we ran out of money to buy a pumpkin at the end :( So we are going to have to get our pumpkin somewhere else.







The next weekend we went to London with another couple to see the London Dungeon. I had heard it is a must see around Halloween time and I would have to agree! It wasn't as scary as it was interesting and funny. It included a 90 minute walk through the dungeon and in each room there was actors that would provide a skit regarding what was happening back in the day. The scariest room was the Jack the ripper room because at one point all the lights went out and then a strobe light came on and there was a guy running around the room pretending to stab us. I may have screamed and hid behind Matt but in the end it was all good fun :) It was impressive in the dungeon they actually had some rides and one of them was a ride the dropped you straight down like the tower of terror and it was suppose to replicate you getting hung for your crimes.


After the dungeon we went to dinner right next to the London eye and then walked around to see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey lit up at night time. It is only a one hour train ride to Kings Cross station from the train station by our house. I love how close we are to the train station and how easy and fast it is to get to London. I know we are going to be making many more trips to London :)












I have been super busy lately with work but I will try and post this week about mine and Matt's trip last weekend to Scotland which was amazing! I am looking forward to this weekend because we have plans to carve pumpkins, go to an apple festival and try our first Sunday carvery roast! :) YUM!

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Starting to feel like home....

So it has been crazy here the past couple of weeks. We got all our stuff moved into the house and then I got a job offer as an HR assistant for a company on base called AAFES. This week is my first week and I am loving the job so far. I will post on that separately but the job is keeping me busy! Unfortunately my hours are different from Matt so i work 7:30am-4pm and he work 3pm-12:00am so we haven't seen each other all week! (he sleeps in the guest room so we aren't woken up at odd hours form each other alarms) But tomorrow is Friday and that means we finally get to see each other! (if i can manage to stay awake will midnight! )

Last weekend we went to a fall pumpkin festival and they were celebrating the Beatles 50th anniversary so they had music performances of all Beatles song and it was pretty awesome. This weekend we are going to London with some friends. They have these dungeons around here that are suppose to be super scary and they have performances in them. I am not exactly sure how it will all go but it's about a 90 minute show and we got ticket for it. I will let you know what it is after we get the full experience! We are taking the train into London, the train stop is within walking distance of our house and its about an hour and a half ride into the center of London which is so awesome!

Anyways...it is starting to feel like home finally and Matt and I are getting settled in :) Here is some pictures of our house (I only took pictures of the rooms that we have put together there are still two bedrooms that are a work in progress)