november 2010

November was a good month cause we felt a little more settled. We took a little trip to Paris cause Zack was representing his former employer and scoping out some galleries for him. So naturally I tagged along.

We also got our little car and had to get used to driving here. It's a white Nissan Micra- 1993 car of the year, and is about the size of a 4 door mini. We're pretty proud of it, though some people judge us for it. Whatever, it does the job. I was pretty nervous driving at first though. Luckily it's an automatic.

Over Thanksgiving my sister Trish came to visit, which was so nice. We saw Tintern Abbey, spent some time in Cardiff, and London. And of course we had a nice little Thanksgiving dinner. I slaved over the turkey pringles all day. Yum!

october 2010

October 2 we arrived in London on a redeye. We had not slept and rented a car straight away with no sat-nav. We drove straight to a realtor (or estate agent) in Newport, Wales- having not lined up a hotel or an apartment beforehand, just hoping something would work out. We were both sleep deprived and stressed to the max. Poor Zack had to hop in thatdriver's seat on the wrong side of the road. A near miss here and there, but nothing went wrong thankfully. We met with a realtor called Matt- our "first friend in the UK" we called him because he came into work on a Saturday for us and walked us straight to the flat we ended up signing on that day. It was fully furnished and was a block away from an ASDA superstore. We were all set!

In the following few weeks we had many more stresses- setting up a bank account, getting used to a tiny fridge, learning the bus system, getting Zack into school and started on projects. We took a trip to Abergavenny, tasted Welsh cakes (yummy) and Welsh faggots (truly disgusting with a bit of bone in the meaty wad- just douse it with gravy, it will be fine), mushy peas, chips and crisps, and found our tiny ward of about 50 people, mostly old.

My favorite memory from October, though, was riding the bus on a rainy evening to Llandaff, near Cardiff for a walking ghost tour. It was cold and rainy and a little creepy. Halloween isn't as big here as in the states, so that was our little celebration. Zack took this photo hoping to catch a ghost or two. I tried to look scared just in case anything showed up, and I was a little spooked, but not too bad.

oh how long it's been

so here we are, months and months since i've posted on this blog. and then today i just decided to. we've had a busy time, lonely time, good time, hard time, everything and anything time since we've lived in the uk. our time is winding down to a close in a few months time and i thought i'd kind of catch up on some things i remember from each month of living here so far. i will post once for each of the months up til now. see how that goes. sorry for the lack of posts.

check out my other blog

i post more often here these days:

brendabarrettphoto.blogspot.com

we made it!

after a long journey, we have moved to wales! it seems like we've been stressed consistantly for about 2 months now. every day. but we're here. the stress hasn't ended yet, and we still have a lot of settling in to do, but we have an apartment and we have each other. plus we even have one friend. ok, most people wouldn't consider their estate agent their friend, but we can't really be picky. anyway, we'll have internet in a few days hopefully and will start getting some pictures up. for now, just know we're still alive. we love and miss you all.

peanut butter and memories

i was shooting a product at work that required me to make a pb & j sandwich today. as i opened the fresh jar of peanut butter i got really excited. my grandma used to let us draw a design in the unmarked peanut butter, if we were the first to use it (and believe me there was definitely some argument over it with my siblings whenever that opportunity presented itself). so, having no competition, i lifted the seal and got right down to business. i drew what i always drew- a heart. i love my grandma and miss being able to spend time with her. that's definitely a priority when we go back to utah.

lillian crowe jewelry

while at the brooklyn flea, i fell in love with lillian crowe's jewelry. i couldn't pass up buying one of her necklaces, although it was tough to choose which one. i ended up getting the small whistle.

but it was a tough choice between that, the ball locket,

and the silhouette.

all so cool. check out her website here.