Home sweet home

We added to our list of firsts this year with 'first inter-continental trip home for Christmas'. The trip both ways was very long, but thanks to modern technology you can watch movies and drink wine the whole way. And we were sitting in economy! Christmas and New Year's at home was great (apologies to Pullman - we will post pictures once people email them to us!).

Our first stop was Marin for Christmas. We did a fair bit of hiking with the dogs (and the Mom) and managed to go for an overnight bender in the City with Cameron and Craig. We also did the traditional inappropriate x-mas cookie contest at Helen's and fondue at Katie's.

A few days after Christmas we flew into Seattle and tried to hit as many of our favorite restaurants as we could in a day and a half. We then packed Casie's grandmother Millie into the rented Jeep and (very slowly) crossed the Cascades to get to Pullman. It was a successful drive but not without quite a few white knuckles on my part! We saw quite a bit of the whole family in Pullman and even managed to go sledding in near gale force winds.

It was hard to say goodbye to everyone, but we hope to see everyone soon on this side of the pond.

Country Walk #3 - Wadhurst Station

You would think we would learn. Although we did not get lost this time, we did fail to plan for the 3" thick muddy trails and the sudden down pour of rain, let alone the pub that was supposed to be open but wasn't (typical). Despite our lack of planning, we still had a great time and once again experienced the beautiful English countryside that we can't seem to get enough of.



Chris and his first near-sheep experience.

Pembroke

The first trip I took for work was in November to this cute little seaside town in Wales, about a 5 hour journey due north west of London. I could have hired a car, but too fearful to drive on the wrong side of the road, I opted instead for a 10 minute tube ride followed by a 2 1/2 hour train ride, followed by a 1 1/2 hour taxi ride (with a conspiracy theorist cab driver that had lived in Africa for the past 20 some years until recently returning home).

I was only there for a few days, and this was the brightest it ever got while I was at the hotel, but you can still see the amazing views that were probably there during full daylight. Apparently, according to the conspiracy theorist, there is a 200 or so mile coastal walk that you can take all along the western coast of this country. He said that some people come to do about 10 miles a year, and it's quite popular. Perhaps we'll add that to our list of walks to do after the lake district is conquered in June/July of this summer.

Ice skating at the museum

Apologies for the (very) late posting, but in early December Casie and I joined a group of our fellow PwC US expats for ice skating next to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. It was Casie's first time ice skating and I hadn't been in years, so the first half hour was touch and go. Nobody fell but it was close! Once we got our ice legs, though, it was off to the races. After all the physical exertion was over we retired to a pub for some good food and beers.