Amy Comes to Visit!

Last week my dear friend and co-favorite college roommate, Amy, came to visit.  And we had some much needed girl time. Truth be told I'm still lacking in the girl friend department in England so I am pretty sure I talked Amy's ears off.  Yes both of them.  But luckily, seeing as she is our 12th visitor to England, I'm getting pretty damn good at this tour guiding thing.  If only the British weather would cooperate a little better.  

Here's a rundown of our week in pictures....

The first night we went for a sundown walk in the Peak District.

Picturesque, No?

Then we went to Chatsworth.  Again.  

I love Chatsworth though so thats OK.  Especially the gardens.  

They don't get old.

The of course we had to go to London.  

We stayed in a very cheap girls only hostel which I can highly recommend

 for poor female travelers called Piccadilly Guest House.

 The plan was to see the major tourist spots, but England had other ideas.  

So shortly after this was taken we headed off to Harrods where they were having a sale!  

Hurrah!

We had dinner at my favorite restaurant in all of England, Bumpkin, then we went off to the West End to see Dirty Dancing. Ohhh Johnny!  No one puts baby in the corner!

When we came back to Sheffield I took Amy for a little more English countryside action.  

I love the Peak District.  

It's God's country (according to the locals anyways.)  

I must say I agree... at least when the sun is shining.  

I made a lil picnic.

 But then we had to go home because my hair was just not cooperating.  

Forrealz.

But not before Heidi pissed off a herd of sheep.  Eeeeeeeeeek!  

Sheep are creepy sometimes.

But then we saw these cute little baby horses on the way home.  

Awwwwww.  I love country life.

And then Amy and I passed out.

Note:  While we were curled up uncomfortably on the couch Heidi was in my bed.  

Typical.  

I take this to mean I was a successful tour guide.  

ps.  I didn't include pictures of our spa day at Harrogate Turkish Baths .  (this is due to the fact that there were looooooooooads of naked ladies wandering around and taking photos would have been totally inappropriate... fyi the English are so much more comfortable than Americans with nudity.)  But besides the fact that Amy and I were somewhat uncomfortable with nudies, and we creepily checked out the more ample hair styles sported by the very self assured British ladies, we had a wonderful time at the beautiful spa and this is certainly going on the guest list itinerary.  

Miss you already, Amy!

And thanks to Mr. and Mrs. N for buying her plane tickets!  What would we do without our parents?!

How To Make Your Family Happy

As hard as I tried to please everyone last week, 

it was inevitable that at some point I would fail.

And fail I did, majorly.

I knew Lizzie would love Topshop, and I knew my mom and dad wouldn't like it...

 but since we had already spent a lot of time doing museums and art galleries, 

I thought it was fair to take her on a little shopping trip.

Oh boy did I think wrong.

Enter major family meltdown.  

While I'll spare you of the finer details, 

I will say that I was super pleased that the next activity on our itinerary was 

Borough Market....

If my family can agree on anything, its food.

Actually thats a lie, sometimes we can't agree on food.

But we can agree on eating.

And what's better than a food market for that - everyone can pick what they want!

My mom and Lizzie split a curry...

And my dad got his double burger fix.

I of course opted for a more veggie friendly option...

And Nick got a hotdog

(no homo)

On top of that we inhaled the stinky smell of raclette cheese melting away...

We also purchased lemon polenta cake (oh my gosh yum!)

truffle oil and truffle paste among loads of tasty free samples.   

All I can say is...

Thank God my family likes food as much as they do...

Otherwise the meltdown in Top Shop could have escalated to something like this....

Yes those are riot police and that is paint splattered on the front of Top Shop.  

Don't worry it wasn't our fault.

Lot's of protesters took London by storm on Sunday.  

Eeeeeeeeeeeeek.

But let's not talk politics here.

In other news, to recover from last weeks eating spree

I am currently on my first day of a 3 day juice only detox.

I feel pretty bitchy, so wish me luck.

Then on Monday the husband and I are starting Crazy Sexy Diet.  

21 days of no gluten, animal, sugar, alcohol or caffeine!

Operation get healthy is on!

Who's with me?

Bread Dumplings with Mushroom Cream Sauce

For my family's first day in Sheffield we decided to keep things low key and we had dinner at our house. 

I saw this recipe for bread dumplings in mushroom cream sauce

 on Design*Sponge and I needed an excuse to make them.

See I usually try to avoid eating bread and cream for dinner,

 but my parents arrival was just the justification I needed...

I followed this recipe pretty well...

 except I doubled it and fried the dumplings in butter.

Judge me, whatever.

I'm starting a juice detox on Wednesday if you must know.

Anyways, then we smothered them in this white wine mushroom cream sauce...

Now thats what I call a double whammy!

If you're trying to serve a meat and potatoes kind of guy (my dad) vegetarian food, 

I would recommend this stodgy deliciousness.

Cheers to that!

Then Nick and I took Lizzie out on the town to "analyze European culture."

Somehow we ended up buying her a lot of drinks. 

(In typical youngest child fashion, everything gets handed to her.) 

This college girl can definitely drink me under the table.  

I'm such a lightweight now that I'm an old married woman.

Eeeeeek!

Hope you had a good Monday!

Griswold's European Vacation

Hello Friends,


I've been having a fabulous time this week.  My family FINALLY arrived last Saturday for their very first England vacation, and I was given the task of tour guiding.  I have a lot of blog posts to round up for you, but meanwhile I thought I'd do a few bullet points for those of you who are dying to hear how the "Griswold European Vacation"  went.


Highlights, Lowlights, and Random Thoughts

• Home cooking is good.  
• Rental car with my dad and Nick being the drivers.  There was screaming, nausea, nail biting, curb hitting and general stress with my dad driving on the wrong side of the road and Nick driving for the first time since 2007.
• We discovered beautiful countryside a 10 minute drive from our house that we would never have seen without a car.
• Nick has finally realized what a difference having a car would make to our lives here, and even better, he feels capable to drive one.
• Ransacking the Chatsworth farm shop and buying all the fresh British goods we could get our grubby American hands on including; cheese, sausages, and baked goods.  
• Introducing my family to scones with jam and clotted cream.  
• Tea time and fish and chips
• Fact: Americans hate walking.  They might run for exercise, or hike for relaxation, but they HATE walking for transportation.  Don't deny it.  And if you can convince them (us) to walk, their pace is a leisurely one about half of that of your average British person.  
• Electric fences for your dog are frowned upon in England.  We don't have one, which meant when my mom decided to get a picture of our house with Heidi popping her head out the front door... Heidi bolted and took herself for a walk/run/expedition around the neighborhood.  She pulled the same stunt when my dad left the front door open to take our suitcases to the waiting taxi driver.  
• I think my family was pleasantly surprised by how pretty it is here.
• The weather was so good we sounded like a broken record saying "I can't believe how good the weather is" approximately 1 million times.  It returned to it's usual grey, rainy, cold miserable self as soon as they left on Saturday.
• I worked really hard on the perfect itinerary for my family, but I'm pretty sure my mom has more faith in her friend Kevin Bevin (whose name we shorted to K-Bev) for planning London itineraries.  Luckily most of the things I planned K-Bev had recommended as well.  
• Although I tried to make everyone happy, I did not anticipate my family's major meltdown would occur in Top Shop.  Although Lizzie loved it, my mom can be quoted as saying, "This is the worst experience of my life."  (You're right if you think we lead a relatively privileged life)
• I was reminded of the fact that American toilets have A LOT more water in them than English ones.  
• Also, Americans use wayyyyyyyy too much toilet paper.  
• We saw Thriller, a Michael Jackson tribute/musical in the West End.  What can I say - I am and always will be an MJ fan.  
• Had the best Indian of my life, and another to die for meal at Bumpkin.  Making my family confused about the whole "British food sucks" myth.  However, their last night we had the worst meal I can remember in some Italian place off Charlotte Street, so I think they might believe me again on the food issue.  Though my dad did make friends with the Brazilian waiter, Carlos, who creepily told me my little sister was "fantastic" looking.
• I still don't comprehend how my dad got kicked out of his bed in the hotel and made to sleep on the floor.  
• I've never really got the American obsession with ice, but lots of it was requested.
• They ate all the sour patch kids and Swedish fish I made them bring for me, and my dad broke into the Tootsie rolls I had my mom pack for my American friend.  But I still have Reese's cups!
• We missed my other sister, Dani, and can't wait for her to visit soon!!!
• Nick and I joke that we rank our guests according to how good at being a guest they are, so my family was striving to be number one.  Competitive much?  (interest in a blog post on guest ranking criteria?)  Note: They ranked highly.
• American speaking volume is so much louder than British.  
• (This made me feel really embarrassed on the tube.)
• American Transportation preferences... walking< tube < double decker bus < taxi 
• My mom came with a bad cough and left it with me.... ugh.
• I liked taking Lizzie out on the town to meet the "blokes" even if her US seduction techniques didn't quite work.  
• Overall I loved showing my family where I have been making my home for the past year and a half. 

We Love Guests

On Sunday I cleaned our little house up and down in anticipation of 

a very special guest's arrival...

And I made these delicious Lemon Curd Muffins because I am the perfect hostess.

(They were pretty much excellence in muffin form -

slightly sweet, oozing lemony goodness, and just tart enough)

Anyways, as I was taking these little beauties out of the oven we received...

 a knock upon the door.  

And this razzle dazzle sparkly Australian girl showed up and graced me with her effervescent presence.

She brought her boy friend too.

And we went to a little British pub for dinner.

They were only meant to stay the night, and leave in the morning 

for a quick stop over in York before heading up to Edinburgh, Scotland.

But I hadn't seen her face in 3 years and one night was not enough for me.

So I invited myself to York with them for the day.

I hope they didn't mind.

I cherished every minute of my 3rd wheeling!!

In case you're counting, these were our fabulous 3rd and 4th Aussie guests since October.

And no, we're not running an Australian only hotel.

Yes, I would like some red, white, and blue (of the USA variety) in our house.  

But OH how much do I L.O.V.E. all of our guests?!?

Thanks for visiting Temae and Jack!  

The Big Freeze

I've totally been slacking on my blogging, but last week we had the most fabulous weather.  

It snowed like crazy!!

The first day Nick and I had a bit of a spat because when we woke up the roads were covered in snow and he wanted me to iron him a shirt for work... I, of course, am more experienced in snow and knew this would be unnecessary because there was no way he was getting to work... an hour later his work called to tell him they were shutting it down for the day!  How good is being right?  I think I like it more everyday.  He had to tell me "touche" and it was the best touche ever!

Sorry Neener.... you win some you lose some!

But even better than getting to say "I told you so..." 

was we got to have a snow day together!  

It was so fun!

Heidi had a really fantastic time with her dog friends too.

And then my friend Stuart came, from Australia.  I was pretty worried he wouldn't make it because lots of trains and buses were canceled, 

but he did and I don't think he's ever seen this much snow in his entire life.

We ate snow, and made snow angels, and tarnished untouched snow.  

I passed down my Grandma's favorite piece of snow day advice to him 

"Don't eat yellow snow"

 And then we did it again.

The day was even prettier because the skies cleared and it was nothing but blue for miles.  

We walked around the reservoirs and we hiked up a massive hill and went into this really old stone church that had tombstones from the 1700s.  But of course I forgot to put my memory card in my camera so there are no pictures of that.

The snow isn't so pretty anymore.  It's mostly just a lot of ice.

Oh well, Nothing gold can stay - right Pony Boy?

An Australian in London

Hello Friends,

So sorry for my long blogging absence! 

I've been getting too busy to blog! 

 ...and then my computer broke (the horror)

The day after we moved in I headed straight to London to pick up my good friend,

Ebony, an ex housemate from Australia, who is on her way to Germany for study abroad.

I was so happy she made the pit stop in England to visit me!

Have I ever mentioned I LOVE guests?

Sorry we look a little rough (homeless?).

It was my first true hostel experience.

And I definitely did not come prepared.

Towel - I forgot.

Hair dryer - I forgot.

Showers - I didn't take many.

probably shouldn't be admitting this publicly.  

But had I known better,

The Walrus Waterloo Hostel treated us pretty good.

Below is the view at sunrise from the top bunk of our room.

I showed Eb all the sights. 

And I hope by the end of it she hearts London too.

Living in the country for the past six months, 

I kind of forgot how the city has a real buzz and energy to it.

I definitely needed the change of pace!

I have lots more of our London adventures to share with you,

but I'll save them for next time.

Just wondering, are you city people or country folk?