Hello from the Batz Family!

Kelly thought it would be fun to have a different perspective of Oxford posted on her blog for a change, so this is Katie straight from her flat! It is now our fifth day in Oxford and everything is still new and exciting. Today, our overall most exciting we would all agree, was spend in Woodstock at Blenheim Palace. It was gorgeous, and the weather was fabulous! The girls did some shopping while the boys spent time in the pubs. We then came back to Oxford and spent some time at Christ Church College. Ben, Melinda, and Anna were all excited to see the Dining Hall where Harry Potter was filmed, and Dad was excited to hear the choir sing at the Evensong church service we attended. We finished the day with some wonderful Indian food, and of course, more beer. We have also visited Windsor castle while the queen was actually in residence! We also saw the changing of the guards and wandered through the enormous and stunning castle. In Oxford we have been visiting colleges and chapels, doing some shopping, drinking real English coffee and spending time in various pubs. Dad had a successful "pub crawl" for his birthday, and the fun definitely didn't stop there! Tomorrow we will be going to Bath and Salisbury to do some more sight seeing! In short, we have been having an amazing time! We are all excited to show everyone pictures when we get home!

Cheers!

Katie and the Batz Family

Happy Easter!

We have recently returned from another lovely meal at Brian's advisor's home here in Oxford (Ian and his wife Kate, and 3 kids). We were invited over for Easter dinner, along with Gina, and Ian's parents, their neighbor John and two of Kate's music students from the US, Chris and Ruth. It was a full table again, but so nice for us to have a warm and inviting home to go to for a holiday. We had a wonderful 4-course meal, which probably took 3-4 hours when all was said and done. Watercress soup with scallops for the first, lamb and roasted veg and potatoes for main, cheesecake for pudding, and cheese and fruit for dessert, with tea and coffee of course. There were chocolate bunnies and easter eggs of course, and even a bit of singing in Latin around the piano at the end of the evening. Oh, and our dinner prayer was said by Ian in Latin, but we're not really sure what we said. So hopefully it was appropriate!

Hope you're having a wonderful Easter Sunday and that your springtime is arriving shortly!

John & Marcy in Oxford to help celebrate . . .

My 3-0! Yikes! I'm definitely in denial and not wanting to leave my 20s! Although, many friends already past the threshold have assured me that it's not much different. :)

J&M arrived safely yesterday (Tuesday a.m. UK time) about 11:30. Dad took a nap and Ma was able to stay awake to meet me for our fave afternoon tea meeting at the Old Parsonage Hotel for tea and scones (the "o" pronounced like in "gone"). Once dad was up, we popped into the pub later on for a quick pint, some pizza for dinner at the flat, and then we put them to bed.

Today we shipped them off to Liverpool on their own so they can go live the life of their fave British Invasion band - the Beatles!

The past five weeks the weather has been pretty dry and in the 40s and 50s. Of course, now that they have arrived the monsoons are to open in the sky. Lovely.

For the Bday day, Ma and I have a big shopping day planned in London on Sat, and then the 4 of us are going to go out for an Indian meal and top it off by catching a show in the West End. I'm totally pumped. We're going to see Monty Python's Spamalot, one of the hottest tickets in town. With John Boy's disability, we can get the Handicap discount and also scored 2nd row seats - so should be fun!

They are here until next Tuesday, so a quick visit, but I'm so glad they made it over for support of the age transformation - ugh!

Girls trip to Cheltenham

Two Saturdays ago I went for a girls trip to a town in the center of the Cotswolds, about a two hour bus ride away from Oxford. It was the same trio of myself, Gina, who is a postdoc in Brian's lab, and Laura, another WAG, and significant other of Jeff, another postdoc in the lab.

We took the 9 a.m. coach to Cheltenham and had to head back on the 4 p.m. coach. In the morning, we went on a nice walking tour of the town to check it out. Then we found a local cafe and had lunch where all the 'ol bittys meet up for their lunch. :) The afternoon we spent shopping around, although we weren't quite so successful in our purchases this time. It was just fun to get out of town for a day and visit with girly friends!