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!

Heidi Meets Her Extended Family

Since we've already established that I am a crazy dog lady and Heidi is our "dog-ter" it should come as no surprise to you that introducing our furbaby to her grandparents and Aunt Lizzie was a highlight for us....

Everyone tired after hiking in the Peak District.

Disapproving looks from Grandpa Gregor as she is in such an un-ladylike position.

Never too big for cuddles from your Grandma.

Countryside walks.

This is Lizzie and Heidi doing their best E.T. impression.

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. 

Warrior Princesses Bike to Work

You know when you see an amazing dress on the rack and you go to try it on and it just doesn't look that good on you?  ...But you like the thought of it so much you buy it any ways.  That's what biking feels like to me.  It's a forced friendship and it's not coming naturally.  But I really want to love it.  I have been wanting to ride my bike to work for ages now, but fear was totally holding me back.  I was scared I would get hit by a car, that I would get lost, and that my ass was just too fat to be pedaling up that massive hill on my way home.  But last week my cycling Aunt accused me of making too many excuses, so I did what anyone would do -I proved her wrong. (which was probably her intention all along.)


I left the house at 7:30 this morning and it was a nice sunny day, but the air was crisp.  I didn't realize how crisp until I was cruising down some big hills and my poor little fingers were absolutely frozen.  I literally had no idea how cold biking makes your fingers.  It was painful.  By the time I finally got to work I was sucking my thumb like an awkward adult just trying to warm it up before frost bite set in (dramatic, yes)


My journey to work was not uneventful.  The part of the trip that I thought would be relatively stress free was not at all.  Tram lines dissecting the road were a perfect wheel sized trench for my tires to get stuck in.  However, I only let it happen once, and then I was tackling all tram lines with aggression.  I proceeded to get lost in the city center while trying to avoid some bigger, unnecessary hills but made it to work with time to spare.  


The ride home was more stressful because it was rush hour, and I'm sure drivers were cursing me and the Duchess as we plodded along.  I felt like such an amateur when Lycra clad bikers were tackling major traffic and zipping by me.  I nearly got hit by a car as I wrangled those damn tram lines again.  But I made it to safely to my last major hurdle, Loxley Road.  Here the traffic slows from city to country, shops fronts are replaced with fields of horses, and the incline gets steadily more intense.   In the beginning I told myself, "I'm alright, it's not as bad as it looks."  But as it soon got to be as bad as it looked, I had to drop a few F bombs in my head and remind myself that I was in fact, "a mother fucking warrior princess." And warrior princesses do not give up and they have super strong, (sexy and toned) thighs and they're fit and bad ass (and have nice asses too).


So did I make it to the top?  You betcha.  By the time I finished I looked more like a purple people eater than a fit and fabulous warrior princess, but what an enlightening feeling reaching the peak was!  I conquered my fears, I cheated death, and the only thing that seemed to be injured besides my ego was my badly bruised beaver (if ya know what I mean).  Not bad for a Monday.


And so I will keep trying to learn to love my two wheeled vehicle.  I will burn calories instead of gas, and feel empowered by the strength of my body and my independence from unreliable transportation.  But honestly, I probably won't do it everyday.