Dottie's Wedding Review

We're back in Oxford after a fab time in Denver at Brian's sister Dottie's wedding last weekend. Luckily, we hadn't been gone long enough for the jet lag to really set in, so we've been able to get back on our schedule here pretty easy. Although, we've definitely taken it easy this weekend too!




Brian went to Denver two days before I did (he left on 16 Sept, yes our anniversary, and I left on the 18th). Brian was able to help out with some wedding prep and attend the rehearsal on Wednesday night. I arrived on schedule Thursday night, and was ready to go for all the wedding activities on Friday!

The girls got their hair done Friday morning while Brian and his bro Rick were in charge of picking up the wedding cake. Brian's folks were really busy with lots of the wedding prep too, and did a great job making everything look fantastic!

We were all ready to go for the 3 pm wedding at the Ellis Ranch in Loveland, Colorado. It's a dude ranch in the Rocky Mountain foothills, next to some bright orange red rock formations. It was a beautiful location and a beautiful sunny day. The wedding was outside in front of the gazebo, and Dottie and her dad Al made a grand entrance in a white horse drawn carriage with a cowboy driving! It was very cool! The ceremony was great, with Dottie and her now new hubby Andrew reading their own vows to one another. After the ceremony, we went inside to the event center, which was huge nice barn-like place for the dinner and dancing.
Everyone's fave part was the Wedding March dance that we all participated in, led by some of Andrew's family members. We partied not too late at the reception, but then all packed up and went back to the hotel for some more celebrating into the late night! Cousin's Gina and Jimmy kept us all very entertained into the wee hours . . . :)

Saturday we were able to spend time with the immediate family and so some low key hanging out and shopping. Rick, Kate, their little baby Abby and Bri and I did some shopping at the Outlet center and then grabbed lunch at Old Chicago. I sure enjoyed some typically American shopping and eating - it's just not the same over here! Then we met back up with Dot, Andrew, Al & Jackie and all drove through the gorge to the mountain town of Estes, in Estes Park. It was a really cool drive (saw fly fisherman, mountain goats and cool mountain cabins) through the gorge, and then had fun strolling through the Estes. The rain finally caught up to us, and we got a bit caught in a big downpour, but we were on our way out of town anyway. We were all really tired, so just ordered some pizzas for dinner and packed our stuff. We were all heading home the next morning - B&K back on the plane to the UK, R&K&A on the plane to Seattle, and A&J in the car back to southern MN. A good time was had by all.

Congrats to the newlyweds!

BBC article: US vs UK teeth

Ha! We all know Kelly definitely sides with her Americans on this one!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7633254.stm

Brian's Big Physics Day

I almost forgot, I wanted to mention that there was a big day for physics last week - and of course, Brian was enjoying it all. You've heard in the news of the LHC, Large Hadron Collider http://www.lhc.ac.uk/the-big-questions.html that ran a test run last week. It's all the buzz (as you can imagine) here in Oxford amongst the nerds, oops, I mean physicists. It's pretty cool though, and don't believe what the media is telling you about the earth turning into a black hole or whatever. Bunch of bollocks!

Oh, and Brian was in Cambridge on that same day, and guess who he ran into in person and got to meet? It might be the one and only physicist everyone knows by name (well besides Brian of course :) ) - Stephen Hawking! http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/stephen_hawking_asks_big_questions_about_the_universe.html

Dottie's Wedding in Denver

Hi all,

I'm heading to Denver this morning (13 hours on a plane!) for sister-in-law Dottie's wedding! Brian left on Tuesday, and I'm leaving today. We are excited to see his sis get hitched and be with all the family. We're also excited to see 80 degree weather and the sun! We'll only be in the US for a couple of days, so I'm sorry if we don't get a chance to connect while we're there. But hopefully next time!

Visit from MN crew and trip to Scotland

Was great having the MN ladies to visit and tour around. They enjoyed exploring on their own while Bri and I worked, and then doing some fun things together on the weekends and week nights. Meg's mom Karen was around the first week, and then she flew home, and Meg's friend Kelly come over and met up for the second week. Megs, Kel, Brian and I went to Scotland all together for a long weekend. Was a great time (although another rainy weekend) to be in Edinburgh, as it was during the annual Fringe Festival. Was great seeing tons of live snippets of comedy, musicals, plays, theatre, bagpipe playing, you name it, it was there to entertain you.
We luckily snagged the last 4 tickets to the world renown Edinburgh Tattoo - an outdoor music concert/parade/band show at the Castle. It was absolutely fab and as Scottish as you could get. However, those young Norwegian soldiers in uniform were mighty fine to watch . . . :)





We also hired a car for two days to drive up further north through the Scottish highlands. I wasn't sure what to expect, as I knew they weren't "mountains" as Americans know them, but it's a beautiful area of huge hills (which I know it's the proper word either). They were covered in purple heather for August, and were so colorful. Looks like a painter had painted stripes of green and purple all over the landscape. The photos don't do the color justice at all. We stayed at a lovely B&B in Inverness. Of course, we were that close to Loch Ness, so took a fantastic drive around the entire lake (which is huge) and thought we spotted the Loch Ness monster! We'll never know for sure . . .

My biggest impression of Scotland is on how friendly the Scots are. Maybe it was since it was the Festival and they try extra hard, or if it's just in comparison with snobby Oxford, but I really liked the Scots and their friendly, laid back attitude. It was quite refreshing!

Summer 08 Recap

Wait, what summer??!! Somehow summer skipped England once again. They claim two years ago it was sunny and hot here. Although I'm learning that anything above 75 degrees with some humidity is about the tropics for the Brits, and they complain about how HOT it is at that temp. They really have no idea. It's interesting how it's their fave topic to discuss in length, even though they don't really experience any real drastic changes in the climate/weather here. Just grey and rain. All the time. Every season. Ugh!

Well I've been lame again keeping up with the blog. But my excuse is still the same, we are busy living out the travels and hosting guests, so no time to talk about it all - we're living it! Actually, we're back to normal now for a bit anyway. So spending the weekend catching up on emails, Facebook, photos, etc. Anything to do with the computer while it pours outside.

In a nutshell, here are the places we visited and family and friends that visited us since March:

Traveled to: Stuttgart, Germany; Brussels, Belgium; Australia (Brian for a conference); Normandy & Paris, France; Edinburgh, Scotland; and Stockholm & Gothenburg, Sweden.

March - the Batz family visited for their spring break
April - Steffan Freeman, Bri's GAC roomie, visited
May - John & Marcy visited - their #4 visit?
June - Bestie Sonja and her fiance Sanjay visited
July - the Grannies - Brian's Grandma Dorothy and her cousin Jan
August - Meghan K, her mum Karen and friend Kelly (Biggie) from MN

We've been busy busy - but have had an absolute blast with everyone visiting and traveling ourselves. We still hope to fit more in before our time is up here. We don't know yet what our plans will bring next year, but working on some options. Anyone interested in visiting us in Singapore?! :)