Back In Good Company

Well it has been a while since I have blogged - but dont have tooo much new to report.

Got back here and jumped right back into the swing of things. Ashleigh and Jan picked me up at the airport  after an awesome flight. I got to fly first class and I'm not sure I can ever go back haha . It was AMAZING - my chair turned into a bed and I slept for about five hours. Which ended up being awesome because I was not jet lagged at all.  I had a 4 hour lay over in Minneapolis- Saint Paul which was slightly boring but I got to call people and say goodbyes. When I got back I moved all of my stuff from my Bosses house to a new house. The new family is SO nice. I feel right at home and it took no time at all to get settled in.

First weekend back I had lacrosse practice on Saturday and then we headed into London for a night out. Practice went really well and it was nice to see all the girls again. We did some at night sightseeing in London and then went to a few pubs to drink. It was nice to be back and head out - no down time!

Lacrosse is keeping me very, very busy. My schedule has been very busy this term- which is so much nicer then having almost the whole day with nothing to do. I am working at a High School now two days a week which has been a lot of fun. The lacrosse coach is out from an injury and I am filling in for her until after Easter. Some of the girls are really good- I get to go down to one of their tournaments in a few weeks and I am really excited to see them play. Other then that - I am at a few new primary schools and then at some of the same from last term. The kids are really improving. We have two big tournaments coming up - one for POP and then another for Field. The pop tournament we are holding at a school near the club and will hopefully have 10-15 teams in attendance. The England women's team is also coming and will hold an exhibition match after the kids are done - and hopefully we will have a large attendance for that. The field tournament is a few weeks after the POP tournament and we are holding that at the club. Im hoping for 20 teams but I will have to wait and see what happens.

Kim is coming over next week! I am going to show her around England for a couple of days and then we are heading over to Ireland for a week of traveling- few days in Dublin ( and obviously a stop at the Guinness factory) and then a night in Galway. I am really, really excited!!!!

Then hopefully at some point I will get up to St Andrews to Visit Miss Meg! Im also looking to travel over the Easter Holidays with one of my college teammates. She is in Israel studying abroad and has the same holiday dates as I do. and thennn for Ashleigh's birthday we are going to the greek island Mykonos for 10 days! I cant wait to FINALLY be tan again. Living here my skin has become super white. Its sad really.


Other then that - not much is new. I have been really sick for the last week but am finally feeling myself today. Also definitely staying over here for the summer! I am going to work a few lacrosse camps and Au Pair for the family I am living with - which will be so nice because now I have a place to live for the summer AND a job!!

And I am also training for a 10K .. or at least am going to try. Keep your fingers crossed for me that my legs are willing to slowly go back to work


Miss you all lots and lots - I will update after Half Term adventures with Kim! xx

Thanksgiving and Holiday Break

Hi all!

Hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving and is ready for Christmas! ( I know I am!!)

Whiskey Sours

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. I went over to Ashleigh's flat for dinner with a bunch of her coworkers who also live at the school. Ash and I were the only Americans so it was fun to share our tradition and have friends to celebrate the holiday with. We made a chicken ( turkey would have taken wayy too long) Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans and then a Cranberry dish. and obviously it wouldnt be a holiday without Whiskey Sours!! They didnt have the right whiskey over here but I made do with what I could find and made some pretty good drinks if I do say so myself! Although nothing beats the ones at home with the family! After dinner I got to skype with my fam while they were at dinner. It was nice to sort-of be at dinner even though I couldnt be there in person. All in all a really fun day!

snow storm

Last week we had a "snow storm" here in England. Thats right folks we got a whole five inches! and I am not kidding when I say EVERYTHING shut down. I had six days off of work - tough life haha No one is prepared for the snow over here- they dont have road salt and no one plows. So instead of clearing the roads everything turns to sheer ice and the roads become impossible to drive on. I was beginning to go a little stir crazy after snow day number three. Allegheny didnt prepare me very well as we NEVER had a snow day.

Xmas Party

I finally got out of the house on saturday night when I went to an ugly jumper Christmas party held by three of the LDO's in Reading. It was soo much fun and so nice to see everyone. It had been a while. Ash was suppose to be in Scotland for a wedding, but since they actually got hit with a ton of snow she wasnt able to go and I dragged her to the party with me- and she drove which was SO nice since the trains were all screwy that weekend. needless to say  I didnt get home until 6am. top night.

Ignore my face.. Check out the jumper!

Tomorrow is my last day of lacrosse before I get to come home on sunday!!! It is obviously an ugly jumper christmas practice - and I will be sporting my kitty jumper. Complete style. I will take pictures for sure. Best ugly jumper wins a prize!! I am SOOO beyond excited to come home and see everyone! If you are around- make sure I get to see you!!



                       See you all SOON!!! xx

WAR EAGLE!!

What a game!! wish I could have watched more then live stats but a BIG thank you to my dad for giving me play by plays!!! ... sorry doug and dad looks like you are going to be wearing a nice shade of orange for a while :)

A Long Overdue Update

Hello Hello to all,

Sorry I have been bad at updating my blog recently I have just been very busy - as this term is slowly starting to end and there are lots of things to be done before I leave!

London from the Waterloo Bridge

So about two weeks ago Miss Nell came down to London for a night and stayed with me in Oxshott before heading off on her worldly adventures during Half Term. Miss Laura met both Nell and I in Waterloo station and we walked across the waterloo bridge to try and find a close restaurant to eat at and grab a few drinks. Miss Nell had her huge suitcase with her though so we wanted to find a place to put it while we went out. We ended up going to the Savoy and Miss Nell worked her magic- as the man working at the door took her suitcase for safe keeping until our return. The catch was that we had to go into the bar for a least one drink .. well apparently you can not wear UGG like boots in the savoy because I was turned away. (which ended up being the running joke of the evening) .. its ok I didnt want to drink with those people anyway. So we snuck out of the Savoy and headed to this little Italian restaurant where I had fish and chips ( so Italian haha)  and then we went to this pub that was in a cellar under a different restaurant. It was a lot of fun and great to see them both!

The next morning I dropped miss nell off at the train station and lucky she left when she did! A few hours after her train a laury fell off of the bridge over the train station and hit a train, which ended up closing down our station and roads for the evening. It was really annoying because Oxshott is not very big - and to get in there is basically one major road. well the bridge is on this road and traffic was AWEFUL for at least a  week after the accident.

Little Venice

The next weekend was Guy Fawkes day! - Guy Fawkes was the man who tried to burn down parliament so in his honor they burn his effigy over big bonfires and set off fireworks, etc. It is definitely a fun weekend to be in the country. I went to my the school my friend works at for a big firework display and then we headed into london to see a friend from college! She is currently living up in Birmingham but her cousin was recently married so she invited us to a pub for part of the celebration. It was a fun night.

This past weekend I stayed in Little Venice in London with Miss Laura at her flat. We went out for drinks on saturday night and then had a pretty low key night with champagne left over from my birthday and sheldon/ the big bang theory. Then on sunday we explored Little Venice in the morning - complete with a walk along the canal and a photo shoot on the bridge over the canal haha. We then grabbed some food from the local market and had a picnic inside- since the weather was kind of gross. After lunch we headed to the British Museum where Miss Laura works and I had my own personal tour of the museum. SOO cool. If you ever have the chance to go there I highly recommend it!!

This week for Thanksgiving it will be pretty low key- especially since its not celebrated over here. I think I am going to go over to Ashleighs for dinner on Thursday and then on Saturday break out the Whiskey Sours and celebrate.  I have to say its very weird for me not being home for Thanksgiving- its my first major holiday away from home! but Ill be home soon enough so Im not too worried about it.

Not much else is going on. Lacrosse is still going really well. I have the occasional boy that causes me hell when I am coaching but besides that they are a really great group of kids. Im trying to figure out what I am going to do over the summer/ the end of spring .. looking into working a couple of camps over here that pay well. Hoping that I will have lots of Visitors soon :)

Wellll not quite sure how I missed this gem of a story- So about two weeks ago I noticed that all the lights on one side of my car would not turn off. Then the indicator lights wouldnt turn on and my hazards went soon after that. After much dismay and hitting all the buttons on the dash and turning my car on and off about 50 times I realized that we had a problem. So I called up the garage and brought the car in - turns out the motherboard gave up. Which was GREAT for me since I drive just about everywhere. I had to take cabs everywhere and that was a great big pain. At one point I was on the phone with the cab company and he was telling me I was in the wrong place looking for him- we went back and forth for about 10 minutes on where I was to meet him and ended up he was at a different school ... 20 minutes away. SO just as I hung up it began to rain and I had to wait out in the rain for quite a bit of time before I was rescued. It was probably one of the most stressful weeks since I have been here. The garage kept telling us that I would have my car back the next day and they next day .. well a week later - I finally got it back.  


We are suppose to get six inches of snow tomorrow.. oh GOODY. I though that moving to England meant that I was going to escape the snow and just have to deal with the rain. well that thought was completely false. I feel betrayed by the weather of my new country.  All I have to say is it better hold off until December 12th at 10 am or else. 

Miss you all xx

Out in Guilford before Half Term

Ashleigh 

At my Birthday

Just some more pictures from the Term!

Spain and Birthday!

Back from a really good half term - although it has been confirmed that my life is murphys law. all things that could go wrong - did haha. We left for Linares on sunday to stay with Megan for the week - we flew into Madrid and then took a 3 hour train to her town where she picked us up. That night we went out for Tapas and drinks - which is the greatest idea ever invented. You pay 1.30 Euros for a glass of wine and then you pick off of a menu what kind of food you want and it is included free. Brilliant if you ask me. Then tuesday morning we got up before the sun and headed into Jaen (pronounced hi-en) megan had some stuff to do for work so we joined her. The city was pretty cool- except on mondays all the museums and historical sites are closed because apparently people dont work then. So we just walked around and I cant complain- the views were amazinggg. however - the whole city is built on a hill so that made for quite the walk around town.

Then we went to Granada - we got up real early again and caught the bus first to Jaen and then to Granada. When we got there we headed right to the Alhambra to buy tickets but typical to my life they were all sold out at 10 am. So to make up for it we headed to what megan likes to call "arab land" and did some serious shopping.  I bought a  bunch of things for my family and then we went and had lunch in the big plaza. We saw a few cathedrals and just walked around and enjoyed the sun for the day. Then we headed back to Linares for more tapas with megan and some of her flat mates and some friends from her program. - its crazy to me how late they stay out and how smokey everything is. They are allowed to smoke where ever and my clothes REEK ... my bedroom smells like smoke after unpacking my bags. The tapas were SO good though.

Then we stayed in Linares on Wednesday and walked around Megans town. We went up to the bull ring where Manolete fought and died , which was pretty cool. We looked around in a bunch of the different shops and then met megan for lunch at a local restaurant. after that we went back and packed and got ready to head to madrid. Our last night in Linares we went out for tapas and drinks with megan and all of her friends- where we ate bull testicles. We went to this bar that was dedicated to bull fighting and they had bull heads on the walls and some of the outfits that have been worn- it was really cool. Then we went to this "american" bar and there were big Indian statues and what I would imagine they think are american things. It was really funny- but it was fun.

We stayed in Madrid on the last night of spain - we took the train in and then had to take the underground and a cab to find our hotel. once we found our hotel and got checked in we headed into madrid to see the royal palace, cathedral and the plaza del sol. I wish we could have spent more time there but it was good to just go in for a few hours and look around.

We got home on Friday and met Brittany at the airport and came back to the house. we ran out to the store and picked up mexican food for dinner and some cider. we hung out for the night and just played some drinking games and relaxed after a

 long week of traveling.  On saturday I had to coach but had fancy dress practice! It was a lot of fun and then after practice we ran to sainsburys to pick up halloween costumes ( I was an Indian ) and then headed to a lacrosse club for a party. It was alot of fun and nice to hang out with people that I havnt seen in a while

Today I am just resting and trying to catch up on sleep .. which may take a week or two haha. but luckly the clocks change tonight in the UK!!! so I will be getting an extra hour of sleep tonight :) Thats all for now!




all my love xx

Half Term

Hi all-

Headed off to Espana for a much needed break! SOO excited to go explore, shop and catch up with miss megan! I promise when I return there will be a lengthy blog with lots of pictures!

Miss you all! xx