Trip Back to U.S.A.

I realize I won't have time to write in so many details from our trip back home, so I'm going to let the photos do the talking and I'll add captions.



We had a lovely 12 hour layover in the Toronto airport on our flight over. So Kelly is trying to get some ZZZZs on the floor, while Brian is chilling out to some tunes.


The main reason for our trip home was for Brian's brother's wedding in Columbus, Ohio. We caught a ride with Brian's folks Al and Jackie to Ohio from Minnesota. Here we are the first night (Wednesday) in Ohio and having dinner at Champs with some of the early arriving wedding guests. Brian's bro Rick is on the far right and the other guys, Lyle and Nynas are really good buddies of Rick and Brian's from high school in Two Harbors, MN. Molly is Nynas's girlfriend.


Here's a cute pic at Champs with Brian's sister Dottie and her new fiance Andrew. They live in Denver and just got engaged a few months ago. This was the first time Brian and I, and Rick and Kate got to meet Dot's man!


Can you tell they're brothers?!! After dinner was a bonfire at Rick and Kate's house. The weather was hot and muggy for mid-September and Brian and I loved it! I had to go buy some capris as I'm used to bundling up for the English weather. We were celebrating one of the last nights hanging out in Rick and Kate's backyard, as they are currently in the process of moving to Seattle for a new job for Rick. Can you believe it's just after we left Eugene, Oregon?? We're so bummed! But super happy for R&K since we know they'll love the Northwest.

Bettina's Birthday

My good friend Bettina (in the pink shirt) just turned 30 this past weekend. She invited friends over for snacks and drinks from 5-7 on Sunday. Bettina just got engaged this summer in Paris (so romantic!) to her fiance Stefan and they are getting married in May in his hometown in Germany. So obviously Stefan was at the party along with another Newcomer friend we knew (Frewayni, on my left), along with a couple other Oxford lawerly types they are both friends with. Bettina just passed her exams to become an English solicitor (lawyer) as she was trained in Germany. Stefan lectures and researches in International Law at St. Anne's College at the University.

Here is a pic of some of the ladies at Bettina's party on her back garden patio.

Oxford Beer Festival

Okay, so I have a legit excuse why I'm still slow in updating. We were having some difficulties downloading photos to our iPhoto program since we had video clips on our camera as well. And some bug was preventing all the photos to download since there was a prob with the video part working with Quicktime Player. Anywho, I finally found a patch to fix it all up, so in the near future, I'll be able to include video clips on the blog as well!

In the meantime, here is what we were up to this past weekend in Oxford. Friday night was the 10th annual Oxford Beer Festival. It was held down in the city centre at the Town Hall. It was pretty much the same situation as the Eugene Beer Fest and I'm sure countless others. We paid 2 pounds to get in, 2 pounds for a 1/2 pint tasting glass (we could keep) and then another 5 pounds in tickets to purchase the different kinds of beer to try out. It was all still good 'ol warm flat English beer. But I do have to say that the smaller brewers in the area still brew very tasty warm flat beer with a strong flavor. So we did enjoy the tastings and it didn't take much to get a mean buzz going on!

We had met up with a number of Brian's colleagues from his office. There are a set of them who are the beer guzzlers of the group and of course they were mostly all there. Brian's advisor Ian was also along for a bit. I was the only WAG for most of the time, until Gemma arrived later on.

And as I usually close my posts by saying we ended up at the pub for a pint, I think we had enough pints at the Festival so we passed on the pub and stumbled home after getting some cheap chips (fries) to snack on the way!

Ghetto BBQ

The Sunday before we left for the States, we hosted what we termed a Ghetto BBQ in the gravel parking lot of our building. Since we don't have any nice patch of grass/garden/lawn to call our own, we just decided to plunk down our kitchen table and chairs in the middle of the parking lot, not far from the rubbish bin (garbage dumpster) and bike rack. Therefor it was pretty ghetto! But it was nice evening, and we had our American friends/neighbors, Matt and Donna, Matt's mom, and their two girls down for the BBQ. The girls Eva (5) and Ruby (3) along with their grandma made this cute homemade pinata which we strung up from our window and they took turns giving it a good whack. We grilled chicken (of course) and had nice potato salad and green salad to share. Much wine was going around and it was just nice to chill on a late Sunday afternoon with decent weather for once. Especially knowing it was going to turn fall and colder really quickly!

Kelly's Work and UK Friends

I don't think I've mentioned, but I'm keeping busy a few hours a week at a little home shop down the street. It's called Cargo, and it's a cross between a Crate & Barrel and Pier 1 store. The girls working there are all really great, and are the first true British gals I've met and socialized with. As I've mentioned before, most of my other girlfriends here are from everywhere else but the UK (Sweden, Germany, Canada, U.S., Czech Republic, etc.).

It's a good place to keep me busy in-between traveling and having visitors. I'm also volunteering for a dyslexia charity connected to the University. I'm helping plan a fundraising dinner and auction and working on the marketing and communications aspect of it.

We had a Cargo girls night out the same weekend Forest visited. Was funny how the girls picked the "American' themed restaurant/bar place to go to for the night. Have to admit, the food wasn't too bad. It had steaks, burgers, ribs, etc. After dinner, a couple of the girls wanted to go out for a bit longer, and honestly I haven't really been out on the town in Oxford. Was funny to realize that the three girls, Lucy, Anna and Amy, were all 10 years younger than me! They are 19, and it's legal to drink at 19 here in the U.K. Wow, for the first time I felt a bit old!!! But they were cute and fun and squirrely, and I was sort of mother hen and made sure they all caught their buses on time and such. The other two gals who were with us for dinner, but didn't go out were Andrea (in blue), who is the shop manager and roughly my age, and Leonore (in purple), who's a bit older and from Columbia, South America.

It was fun and a great experience!

Forest visited

I'm been trying to figure out where I want to start with all the posts I need to catch up on. I was behind even before we left to the U.S.! So I think I'll post a couple to catch up before I start on our U.S. trip. I need to tell you about our Wales trip too- but that might come later.

Anyway, let's start with our buddy Forest who visited us in September. The weekend before we left for the States, Forest was able to make a quick stopover in the UK and visit us in Oxford. Forest and his wife Nikki were good friends of ours in Eugene. Forest was also a Physics grad student at Oregon. He finished about one year before Brian, and they moved south to San Diego where he works for Hewlett-Packard. At HP, he does a lot of work with a branch in Israel, interesting enough. So about 3-4 times a year they send him over there to work for a few weeks. This trip, he was able to get a day and-a-half stopover and could pop over to Oxford.


Luckily, Brian was already in London for a conference on the Thursday Forest arrived. So Brian met him at the airport and they took the coach together into town. Friday the boys explored all day and I met up with them for some punting late afternoon/early evening. Then we embarked on a typical Oxford pub tour and met some interesting characters for the evening. Was fun to talk with some locals and do the typical pub thing.

Unfortunately that's all the time we had, as Forest had to catch the coach early in the a.m. the airport to fly back to the States. But it was awesome to see him even for a short trip. After all that time you spend together in grad school, it's fun to reconnect in your "new" lives too.

Brian Turns 3-0!

Today is Brian's 30th Bday!


Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate while we were back in the States. As we're still recovering from the long trip and jet lag, we don't have big plans for the day. But I made pancakes and sang him Happy Birthday this a.m. We'll grill out for dinner since it's his fave thing, and probably hit the pub for a quick pint.

If you have a chance, please email or call to wish him a Happy Birthday anytime this week!

P.S. I know I have TONS to catch up on the blog from our trip, so bear with me and I'll get it going again this week!