Happy New Year's Eve!

Hi everyone,

Just sending a quick Happy New Year's Eve wish! We're heading over to our friend's Matt & Donna's for a dinner party and imbibing too much I'm sure. We thought about a night in London again, but were too slow on the plans, and everything (hotels, restaurants, shows) booked up already. Oh well, next year!

Have a great evening and have one for us!

K&B

Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing Day

This was the first year Brian and I have been away from home for Christmas. Well, actually that is not true. Brian spent his first year away from home last year while writing his dissertation. I was still able to be back in Minnesota/Iowa. It doesn't seem that long ago! So this was officially my first Christmas away from family. I'll admit, it was a bit tough on Christmas Eve not able to attend church and have dinner with everyone like I've done for 29 years! But if we had to spend Christmas abroad, Oxford was a pretty okay place to be!

Christmas Eve we kept busy enough. I actually had to work all day at my little shop, and Brian worked too. I was a bit sad all day, but we did all wear Santa hats, had treats in the shop and Christmas music on, so by the end of the day I was feeling more in the spirit. After we locked up, a few of the girls shared bottle of bubbly before we headed our separate ways. I came home to a nice vegetarian dinner made by my hubby, and we relaxed a bit before heading off to the midnight church service. We chose to go to Christ Church Cathedral again, since we enjoyed their Easter service, and because it's an amazing Cathedral and has a wonderful choir. We decided to walk into town, about a 30 minute walk. Mainly so we would stay awake and wanted to get there ahead of time. The service was very nice, but not as Christmasy as I was hoping. We only sang one Christmas song at the very end and only one of the lessons told the story of Jesus' birth. The rest of the service just seemed like a regular traditional service. But I suppose we're not familiar with the Church of England's annual service plans (or however I would call that) so it's always an experience if nothing else. Also, the Brits seem to really be into organized carol services held at churches and community centers leading up to Christmas. Usually they are free, but you have to get a ticket ahead of time for a seat. We didn't know this until after the fact, so next year we'll check it out. But sounds like at these services they sings lots of Christmas carols and alternate with Christmas readings and such. Our service also included communion, which I partaked in. Although I was surprised to see only about 50% of the attendees also did. It seemed all the same as we're used to, except that everyone drinks wine from the same goblet, and they just wipe it off. Kinda gave me the creeps and really wonder how that doesn't spread sick germs around. Oh, and the wine tasted much different than the Lutheran wine. We walked home and it was really amazing to be walking the streets of Oxford on Christmas Eve at 1 a.m.!


On Christmas morning, we opened a couple of Christmas crackers, and Brian donned on the paper hat from his cracker, and we played out the charades included. A cracker is a decorated paper tube with twisted ends, which you pull apart. When the cracker breaks, it "pops" and out tumbles a little hat, joke and trinket of some type. They are extremely popular here, and usually are pulled once you sit down for a proper Christmas meal. We had some great presents shipped to us from my family in the States. It was so great to have presents to open on Christmas morning! Also our good friends in Eugene, Jeannette and hubby Dave sent us some fun American treats as well. Thanks guys! Had a quick breakfast cause then we had to make an apple crumble for bringing to our Christmas dinner at Brian's advisor's house.

About 2 p.m. Brian's advisor Ian, picked us up as well as our other American neighbors Matt and Donna and their girls. I just realized this now, but I had wanted to watch the Queen's Christmas speech at 3 p.m. on the tellie, and I totally forgot to watch! Although now I guess she's technologically advance, and they are showing it on YouTube for the first year ever. So I'll look that in when I'm done blogging! Ian and his wife Katie, and their three kids, Alex, Nathaniel and Clair were the lovely hosts. As you've read before, we've actually been to their house now for three holidays. Easter, 4th of July and Christmas. It was so nice for us to have a place to go and relax and be merry for the day. We visited for a bit with drinks, and then sat for dinner about 4:30. And boy did we have a proper Christmas meal! We weren't officially done until about 8:30! We had about 5 courses and it was all wonderful. Especially since the main course was a huge roast beef from Scotland! I was in heaven.
Good thing there was a veggie option for Brian. :) But we had a starter of broccoli soup. Then the main including; roast beef, green salad, bread, green beans, roasted potatoes (they roast them instead of mashed, and properly cooked in goose fat) and a squash gratin. The next 2-3 courses we get confused about. Because there is pudding and there is dessert. Over here, they often call desserts - puddings. But we had sort of both, and don't know which was first. Let's just say the pudding was first. This was then the crumble I made and a trifle Donna made. Then we had tea and coffee after that. Then we had another very Christmasy treat over here called a Christmas Pudding. Think of sort of a really heavy fruit cake, that doesn't really taste all that great, but you have it anyway since it's traditional. And it's served with brandy butter. Major calories! Oh, and you pour brandy on the cake and light it on fire first. So fun for tradition. After that, we had dessert, which is a cheese platter, fruit and port. Lastly, we had more port and chocolates. Whew! We had to be rolled home. Good thing the kids there had a Wii, so we could play some video games and burn off a few of the calories! Not long after dinner it was time to head home so we could call our families back in the US.

Now I see the enjoyment of Boxing Day, so you can walk off the calories from Christmas! Like I said before, everything is still closed on Boxing Day since it's a national holiday. So Brian and I slept in after a late night on the phone. Once we were up, Brian had made a yummy veggie egg tart for breakfast for something special and fun. Then we took a really nice long walk around North Oxford and along the canal. We baked some sugar cookies with a recipe from Grandma Anderson in Two Harbors and they were yummy! Then watched the classic American Christmas movie - A Christmas Story. Pretty good Boxing Day!

Christmas in London

Happy Christmas and New Year's everyone! It's December 27 now, so a couple days past the big day. But I wanted to tell you about what it's like celebrating Christmas over here in England and what we were up to.

Overall, Christmas in the UK is just like Christmas in the US. Everyone puts up Christmas trees, shops like crazy, and has a big turkey or goose dinner with their families and friends. The main difference I've noticed though, is that Christmas Eve isn't that big of a deal. Everyone still works and shops that day. But it's because they celebrate Boxing Day here on the 26th. I also know Canadians celebrate Boxing Day as well, and everything is closed and quiet on Boxing Day (and Christmas Day of course). Supposedly, Boxing Day was established a long time ago, for the servants of the house. Since they served their masters all day on Christmas Day, Boxing Day was the day for the servants to have a day off of work and celebrate with their families. Boxing Day is now also similar to the American "Black Friday" (the day after Thanksgiving). It's when the popular UK stores slash prices and the Brits get in long queues for stores to open at 5 a.m.

Last Friday we went to London for the day to check out the lights and see how Londoners celebrate. It was a bit cold, but definitely nice and brisk (and not raining)! We took the train in and headed to Hyde Park first where we heard there was a Winter Wonderland festival going on. We just strolled through, checking out the German Market and the big ice skating rink. Seems like Londoners love to go ice skating for Christmas, so there were like 8 different huge rinks set up around the city. Sounded fun to do, but realized it was just packed with people and little kids who couldn't really skate. So not sure that it would have really been worth the money. :)

Next we walked down to Trafalgar Square where the Norwegian Spruce Christmas tree is up and decorated. I have to admit, I was expecting it to be larger and more impressive, but at night when all lit up it was prettier. The tree is a gift from Oslo, Norway ever year since the Second World War when the British supported the Norwegian resistance.


Then we went to Covent Garden to see their shops and decorations. Covent Garden always has some interesting street performers - and this time they had these "angels" flying around!


The main event of the late afternoon was to walk along the infamous Oxford Street in London. It's probably a mile or two long of high street retail stores and department stores. It was absolutely packed with Christmas shoppers, but also small groups playing music, loads of street lights and just festive cheer. Was fun to see the department store window displays and join in the crowds.

We hadn't really taken time for any proper food, so we just stopped in a Italian restaurant by Leicester Square for dinner. And after that, we roamed around a bit more, stopped for hot chocolate, and then headed home. No pub this time!!

Visit to Cambridge

We visited Cambridge at the end of October (yikes!). It was a beautiful sunny day and Cambridge looked golden and glowing on the old college buildings. We tagged along with our neighbors Magnus, Elin and Rebecka. They hadn't visited there yet either, and Magnus knew a past colleague living there and so wanted to visit.

We arrived just in time for lunch, so found a popular UK lunch eatery called Cornwall Pasties. (Pasties is pronounced like you would start to say pasta, but with an "e" sound at the end.) I was the only one who had eaten there before, and they are really tasty. Basically they are shaped like a calzone, but with a thick pastry surrounding some sort of meat filling. Typically it consists of pieces of beef, carrots, onions and potatoes. Yum for me! Brian tried the chicken one of course. Also, Brian and I had brought along a couple of PB&J sandwiches in case we needed as a snack. We also knew that Elin and Magnus had never had PB&J! (Not very common in the UK or Europe at all! One of those things you think every kid grows up on, but we've learned it's VERY American!) So we shared our PB&J with them and Rebecka so they could give it a good taste. It went over okay, but they said they wouldn't make it for themselves! A required taste for sure!

After lunch, we visited the main Cambridge sites, starting with King's College, founded by King Henry VI in 1441. King's Chapel has impressive gothic architecture with the largest fan vaulted ceiling in the UK. It's huge and was built in 3 stages over 100 years. It's known at the symbol of Cambridge, and probably the most photographed building in town. Alongside the backside of the College is a huge green grass area and then leads to the River Cam. Punting is a huge pastime in Cambridge (even more so that in Oxford) and many punters were out. It's also because the boats glide along the "Backs" as it's known, which is not only the backside to King's College, but about 4-5 other colleges as well. It's an easy way to see right into the college grounds.


After King's, we walked up the road to see other colleges. In front of Trinity College is a true descent of Isaac Newton's apple tree from which he sat beneath and formulated the laws of gravity! So of course we had to get a photo of physicist Dr. Brian in front of that one!







And at St. John's College, we found the Bridge of Sighs, named after the Venice, Italy one, but not the same architecturally. It's a covered bridge over the River Cam and in the middle of the college grounds.











In the evening, E, M & R went to have dinner with their friends, and Bri and I went off in search of "the" Cambridge pub. Supposedly we found it just around the corner, called The Eagle. Seemed pretty much like a popular and old school University pub! Also then went to find the infamous Cambridge physics building, the Cavendish Laboratory, where in 1953 the first accurate model of DNA was developed. Over 29 Nobel Prize winners had come from the Cavendish lab - so obviously it's pretty amazing in the physical science world.

I have to say, our planned dinner options of finding the best Indian restaurant in town didn't work out, so we settled for mediocre chinese. But we had an amazing day, so can't complain too much!

November Recap

YIKES! I'm so lame and very far behind on the blog! My excuse is that we've been so busy doing things in November to tell you about, that I didn't have time to tell you about them! But our December is much more chill, so hopefully I can catch up for you.

I think I'm going to give an overview of events here and then try to pick a few for their own postings and give details there.

I'll start end of October/early November and go from there. I have to go grab my calendar to look back!

Okay, well I did blog about Halloween, as you've all seen probably way more times than you'd like. But about a week before that, we had visited Cambridge University with Magnus, Elin and Rebecka. It's about a 2.5 hour drive from Oxford (but like 5 hours on the bus!) so again, we were so blessed to have great neighbors willing to take us with them in the car. It was beautiful and sunny for our day trip. Very different looking University town than Oxford (and I hate to admit it, but a bit nicer looking too) but very similar in how the University works there. Supposedly, Cambridge is an old spin-off from Oxford (although they don't like that bit of history to come up).

So into November. November 5th every year is Guy Fawkes Day. The British usually celebrate it on the weekend before (this year was on Saturday, November 3rd). Guy Fawkes was a British revolutionary who basically tried to blow up the Parliament building back in 1605. He was unsuccessful, caught and burned at the stake. And even asking a number of locals why they celebrate his attempt to blow up Parliament, we don't get a straight answer. We can't tell if they now celebrate his attempt to blow it up, or his failure at blowing it up. Either way, it's cause for a large celebration of fireworks and bonfires here. So similar atmosphere to our July 4th, just much colder outside! Brian and I went to the large South Park in Oxford to see the fireworks, try some food (I had a pork roll which includes a large bun (bap they call it), thick slices of pork, and a smear of stuffing - actually really tasty!), see the carny rides and the big bon fire at the end. Actually, the bon fire was enormous, and once lit, was a towering inferno and really cool. But the morbid thing about celebrating Guy Fawkes, is that the bon fire represents burning him at the stake, and so the bon fire we saw had a scarecrow person at the top to burn up! Many other North American's we talked to about this thought it was a pretty old school, morbid thing to still be doing. But it's just what they do and have done for so long!

The following week, Brian and I spent a day on the Southern coast of England in Southampton. Actually, Brian had work to do there at the University, so I had time to explore. When we visited the UK (in 2004?) we spent the first 5 days in Southampton. So it wasn't too new to either of us, but fun to return to. We took the train down, had a quick lunch together and then off he went to work. Southampton has a great big shopping mall area (much better shopping that in Oxford) so of course I hit that up. But not until after I did some touristy things - like visit the maritime museum, dockyards, old city walls and art museum.
Southampton is quite a historical port and especially for America. The Mayflower (our founding pilgrims) sailed to America from Southampton. Also the fateful Titanic cruise ship also left from Southampton. And, Southampton was a huge port for the British and American troops during WWII and shipped many soldiers and supplies to the northern coasts of France (across the England Channel) for D-Day invasion. And so far, the best pub we've found in England (and nothing else has come even close) is in Southampton called the Cow Herds. Yep, gotta love the English pub names. But it's got excellent food (definitely a big step up from standard fish and chips), warm and cozy atmosphere and great service. So instead of trying a new place, we just went back to our favorite! Was a great way to end the day.


Not long after Southampton, Brian and I took off for a 4-day weekend trip to Athens, Greece. We LOVED it! We had talked about getting away, just the two of us, and somewhere new. Looking back on all the traveling we've done, it was always with some friends or family, or going to meet them. Which we've loved of course, but realized we hadn't just taken a trip on our own yet. The weather was great (but not swimsuit weather) and definitely nicer than England weather in November! I'll definitely have to blog on this separately, so more to come on the trip. But let's just say, even Brian liked the food, and you know how picky he is!


After Athens, we had two of the busiest weeks coming up. We decided we would host Thanksgiving dinner at our flat - and what was started out with just the next door neighbors, became an 18 adult and 5 kids event! It was stressful enough just finding a turkey or two in town (obviously since they don't celebrate Thanksgiving), finding turkeys we could afford to buy (could have specially ordered from the butcher for a year's salary) and making sure the turkey would fit into our small British ovens! Luckily, the British Christmas dinner is very similar to American Thanksgiving (turkey will all the fixings) so just right before, some frozen turkeys arrived at our local Summertown Co-op supermarket and I sent Brian down a.s.a.p! We had to borrow Magnus & Elin's oven to cook a second turkey, but all worked out well. And everyone even fit in out flat (after we completely rearranged furniture and borrowed bunch of tables/chairs from more neighbors)!

In the middle of all of this, I was still working at the shop, attending Newcomer's coffee mornings and two different village trips with the club to see museums and do some shopping in the Cotswolds, and volunteering for a charity event I got involved with. So wasn't much time in between to do much else!

We had two black tie events during the same week at the end of November. Monday night was Brian's office/lab's Christmas party at Christ Church College. Christ Church dining hall is the famous Harry Potter Hall, but we couldn't have dinner there since it was still term time, so we were in a nice room next door. There is about 25 students/grad students/postdocs/visiting academics, etc., in his group. Plus significant others, so it was a nice group of around 50.

The second black tie event was the charity dinner I volunteered with. It was for a Dyslexia charity and I thought helping with some event planning and marketing for the dinner would be fun. It was posh event at a 5-star hotel and restaurant in Kensington, London. We were on the 10th floor and could overlook the London skyline. That was totally incredible! And also it was probably the best meal I've had in my life. The event was a dinner and auction and we raised some good money for the charity. I was so exhausted the day after this event, because it meant our events were done and we could slow back down a bit again.

And sadly, after our two crazy busy weeks, the first week of December we had to say goodbye to our new best friends and neighbors in Oxford. Magnus, Elin and Rebecka were heading home to Sweden for good. So that week, we helped out as much as we could for them. Including a full 12-hour day babysitting gig for Brian and I! And happy to report we did okay, Rebecka still liked us the next day, so that's a good thing. And I think it gave us a good taste of having a little one and thinking we could probably do that someday! (Definitely helps when they are completely sweet and adorable like Rebecka!) Magnus was leaving on Wednesday with their car and taking it back via the ferries. Elin and Rebecka were flying out on Thursday, but they all had to be checked out of their flat on Wed. So the girls spent the night with us Wed, and then I went down to the bus station with them the next day to see them off. I tell you that was not fun at all! We could barely croak out goodbyes between the tears. But we definitely know we'll be going to Sweden next year for a visit!

Halloween at St. Hilda's College

In England they celebrate Halloween in a similar fashion as the U.S., but not to the extent. Mainly just the real young kids put on costumes, and they are pretty simple ones (nothing huge and elaborate). We didn't expect any trick-or-treaters except for our American neighbor's little girls. But unfortunately we weren't home when they stopped by. We were on our way to a formal dinner at one of the colleges - St. Hilda's.

St. Hilda's is the only remaining all-women's college in Oxford. In the past, there had been about 5-6 women-only colleges. But starting next fall, St. Hilda's will also begin admitting men. To attend dinner at a college, one must be invited as a guest. You can be a guest of a student or fellow of the college. We were invited by an honorary fellow of the college, Dr. Lorna Casselton. Dr. Casselton is also the Foreign Secretary and Vice President of the Royal Society. Her academic focus is sexual developement in fungai, or rather, sex organisms in mushroooms. Brian made a wonderful contact with her during the Royal Society Soiree, and they have had lunch at St. Cross college, where Dr. Cassleton also is past fellow. Oct. 31st was guest night at St. Hilda's, and Dr. Cassleton kindly invited Brian and I as her guests so we could experience dining at a college. In the colleges, there are typically two dinner seatings, the early one is for the students and is a regular dining service. At the later seating, it is more formal and there is typically a dress code. Brian had to wear a suit and I had to wear something smart (as they call it here). I wasn't sure what they really meant, so I just played it safe with a black skirt and jacket.

We arrived at the front gates by 7 to meet Dr. Cassleton. Then we headed into the Senior Common Room, for sparkling wine and meeting the other high table guests. We met the new female principal of the college and other Oxford-esque guests and fellows. When it was time to enter into the dining room, we followed the server to our designated places at the head table. Head table is where the senior fellows, principal and guests are allowed to dine. It's usually one very long table on a raised part of the dining hall. (Seriously just like in the Harry Potter films). Probably seats about 40 people. I was seated in between Dr. Cassleton and another guest of the music director. He is an Oxford author (there are many authors around here) and wrote a book on Sigmund Freud. I was worried about feeling intimidated amongst all of these big league academics and others, but luckily they were all very kind and easy enough to talk to. And when conversation turned into thoughts on the recent DNA nobel laureate scientist's comments about African's IQs, luckily I knew what they were talking about - thank goodness for Newsweek! So at least I could follow all conversations, but just didn't really have much to contribute!

The dinner was wonderful, and here's a list of the menu. As they were serving the main, I quickly told Brian across the table to ask for the vegetarian option - he likes chicken and turkey, but duck isn't on his list. I thought it was absolutely delicious. And the soup was very good too. I guess if you are served high quality British food, it does taste great, even if the ingredients sound really weird put together. And the wines are always specially chosen by the college sommelier to match the evening's dinner. So we had a white and red, I think both from France. Yum!

After dinner, we went back into the Senior Common Room for coffee, tea or after dinner drinks. We were so full, that we passed on consuming anything more. So we visited awhile longer and then realized it was half past 10 already. Nicely enough, the Oxford author gave us ride home since he lived not too far away. Although the walk could have done me well to burn off the calories!

The Last Hurrah

Starting on Monday, we only had about 2 1/2 days left of our US trip, and I'd say we did a pretty good job to fit it all in! Monday we drove over to Owatonna, my second hometown growing up, for a family BBQ. Owatonna, Minnesota is where my parents grew up and met, and we have spent numerous family holidays and celebrations in Owatonna with the entire fam of grandma and grandpa, aunts, uncles and cousins on both my mom and dad's side of the family.


The BBQ was at uncle Bob and aunt Diane's house (my mom's side of the family). We also celebrated Brian turning 30 so he received some great cards and a nice big cake! We had steak again (I was so spoiled!) and shrimp for Brian. Almost the whole fam was there: Grandpa Dick and Grandma Pat, Bob and Diane, Aunt Melinda, cousin Jen and husband Brian, their twin girls Ashley and Taylor, and cousin Lisa. Cousin Steve lives in Texas and Charlie wasn't home yet from Belgium. It was great to just hang out and eat and be merry like our usual family get-togethers. Living far away, we've been missing out on so many of them, and it's been hard. But when we can get a chance to be with family, it's wonderful. We also had the chance to visit with Grandma and Grandpa at their home before we all headed over for the BBQ. So that was nice to talk with them before it got crazy with everyone.

Tuesday I had a great surprise finding out that two of my best friends from high school were also home during that week. Sarah, with her new baby Kaitlyn and Sonja were both home visiting their families. So we met up for lunch at the Hungry Mind and then hung out at Southbridge Mall in Mason City. I tell you it was big excitement!!! Was sooo great to see the girls and especially when unexpected.

Tuesday night Charlie arrived home from 6 months in Belgium. It was late when he arrived, so the next morning we all got up to have a nice turkey lunch and then put up the Christmas tree!! Yes, you read correctly. Since we were all home at the same time, Mom wanted everyone to be together to put up the tree. . . in October! But it was fun and she's got it all ready to go now. We also had to celebrate Halloween too. :) We only had this afternoon to visit together, because Brian and I were flying back to the UK in the early evening. Dad drove us up to the cities with all of our luggage, and we flew home on Iceland Air. It was tough getting back into the swing of things here (mainly from jet lag) but we're doing great now and enjoying a beautiful fall. So more to tell you about in the next posts!

Hanging in the Cities & Mapleton

After chilling at John and Marcy's for the weekdays, and while Brian was in Canada, Mom and I drove up to the Cities on Friday morning. I wanted to fit in some fave mother/daughter bonding time shopping at the mall! We ended up shopping at Southdale in Edina and some of the surrounding stores. We were definitely successful in our efforts, and it sure was nice to be spending my British pounds, since it made everything seem like 1/2 price! By about 7, we met up with a number of my good friends from Gustavus at P.F. Changs in Edina.

Here's a good group pic of the Gustie girls.

As usual, we crashed at the Batz motel in Bloomington (I realize I don't have any pics from hanging with the Batz fam!). On Saturday, we finished running a few more errands and then took my cousin Anna with us to lunch at Wallys for a roast beef sandwich. Yum! Marcy had to head back to Mason City, and I went to my new cousin's 1-year old birthday party.

My cousin Patty and her husband Scott have two adorable girls, Ashley (about 3) and Hannah (just turned 1). Brian and I are Hannah's God Parents and it was so great to be able to be with her on her special birthday. She's grown so much since her baptism back in January.

Here's a cute pic of the Doyle family.

Saturday night I hung out with good friend Meghan for some drinks and good catching up on conversation. Sunday I went to church with cousin Katie and ran into an old high school friend Sarah Larson, who attends the same church as the Batzs. Brian also arrived back in the cities from his Canada trip mid-afternoon.

We quickly hit the road to get down to Mapleton to help celebrate Jackie's birthday with her. Al BBQ'ed some awesome steaks and we brought a cake, and it was just really fun and relaxing.

On to Iowa

For the mid-part of the week, we planned on heading down to Mason City, Iowa where Kelly's folks live. On the way, we first had lunch in Shakopee with a good high school friend Rhea and her son Evan (who is a carbon copy of his dad BJ)! We also ran some errands with Aunt Melinda before we left the cities for Iowa. I realize I don't have much for pictures for the couple of days we relaxed in Mason City. But I know we tackled some of Kelly's fave things to do back home including; chicken salad on greek bagel at the Bagel Depot, shopping at Younkers for the deals, chippermint shake at Birdsalls ice cream, and walk/run around Eastbrooke, the subdivision where I grew up. I think we also did some laundry and Brian cleaned up John Boy's computer. It was pretty wild! :)

Actually by Thursday, Brian left to head up to Canada with dad Tom and Karen to their new cabin for some fishing. I stayed back to head up to the cities again for the weekend to see more family and friends.

Back to Minnesota

The next day, Sunday we said goodbye to Rick and Kate and headed back to Minnesota with Al and Jackie. We drove straight there and stopped for dinner at Olive Garden. Brian and I still had a busy week coming up, so they next day we planned on getting going to start visiting some friends and other family members while we were back in the U.S.

Our first stop on Monday was to see my college roommate Laura, her husband Jacob and their kids. Evy is two and Wilson was just born a few months ago. We hadn't met Wilson yet, so were excited to see him. And he has a cute Oxford onesie as well! We were also super glad to see Laura's sister (and also a past college roomie of mine) Sarah at their place too. She was helping watch the kids and really getting in practice since she was 9 months pregnant! (As of this blogging, Sarah's had her little boy Roman Scott Kreykes and mom and baby are doing great.) As usual, it felt like a short visit, but was great to see them all.


Next stop was Bloomington at the Batz hotel. The Batz hotel is the home of my aunt Melinda and uncle Paul and three cousins, Ben, Katie and Anna. Many of you might remember I would live with them during the summers in college while I had summer internships in Minneapolis. The Batz hotel is now where Brian and I love to crash when we're in town to hang with the fam. We were really on the way to the high school musical practice, Joseph and the Techicolor Dreamcoat. Ben had the lead part of Joseph for his final year in high school, and Katie, a junior was the lead dancer. Brian and I were going to miss the actual performance dates of the show, but luckily could sneak in and watch a good hour and a half of rehearsal. They practiced almost all of the first half and Kelly cried watching cousin Ben sing and perform. Ben was in 5th grade when Kelly moved to Oregon, and so much has changed since then! It was absolutely great, and we're looking forward to watching the full performance on DVD.


The last stop of the night was to visit Brian's good college friend Ben Threinen and his new girlfriend Meghan. We haven't seen Ben in quite some time (well actually we saw him briefly in January, but it had been years before that). We were looking forward to just having a nice dinner and visit with him and see what all is new. We went to his loft in Minneapolis and grilled out steaks, chicken and shrimp (all was so yummy!) and had a great time. We got to know Meghan a bit and the guys ended the night as they used to, playing guitar together. They are so good playing together and have a great time. Brian has missed his guitar these last 6 months, so we brought it to the UK on our trip back. Anyway, it was so great catch up with Ben and see that he's doing well.

Day After Part 2

After we loaded up on two breakfasts, we caught the shuttle bus taking a number of the wedding party and friends and family to The Ohio State University football game tailgating party. We didn't actually go to the the game, since tickets are extremely hard to come by and expensive. Especially since they are the #1 collegiate team in the nation. The day was extremely hot and there were lots of people wandering the area where you could get food, beer and watch the game on large TVs. It was a lot of fun, but honestly I wasn't used to the heat and thought I might not make it through the whole day. So a lot of water was consumed!

Rick and Kate had their red and white on and we learned all of the appropriate cheers and chants to show support.

The Smith clan having fun during the tailgating party.

More fun partying pics!