Feeling Blessed!

It has been an exciting 2 weeks!!! I had the opportunity to see Seaside Brighton for training with work and Jeff was able to visit on the weekend. We couldn't have asked for better weather at the beach... it was sunshine and breezy the whole week :) 

I travelled down on Monday. They had a nice laid back day with update/conference planned and a fancy dinner to follow. It was great to meet more people from other areas of the firm and offices. I took classes during the day and relaxed in the evenings the rest of the week. Thursday they had events and activities planned for everyone. I had so much fun on the segway, archery station, clay disk shooting and golf! 

A view of my hotel at night! 

I was lucky enough to have a room looking over the water... 

 A few mates I am working with right now.. Maurice and Andy

A few wonderful ladies I had the pleasure of meeting last week! Mas and another manager from our group

Needless to say, it was a great week and it was topped off when Jeff came down Friday evening. We started out the weekend with some classic fish and chips by the sea side. Saturday we set out to explore the 'Pleasure Palace' of King George IV. The exterior exhibits Indian influences and the interior has Chinese influences.  The tour was pretty cool because you listened to an audio player and could go at your own pace. I found it very interesting that many of the original pieces are now in Buckingham Palace and/or Windsor Castle. Another fun fact I found out is that the King became so obese he built a covered walk way to visit his grand stables under the doom without anyone knowing and that his bedroom was moved from the 2nd floor to ground level. The 'pleasure palace' because of the exotically beautiful buildings... 

Here are two regular pictures and then one panoramic view

We then ventured over to the Brighton Pier for some fun and games! They have roller coasters at the end of the pier and then carnival type games inside. 

Brighton Pier during the day

Brighton Pier at Night

Afterwards we got to relax by the pebble beach with a few cocktails and live music. The scene during the day at Brighton is very laid back and relaxing, it reminded us a lot of Wilmington! 

Later in the evening, we ventured over to the local casino :) They had 2 quid blackjack tables.. so it was hard resist! 

Sunday we ventured back to London and had a relaxing afternoon. It was hard to go back to work after such a fantastic weekend. Nonetheless, the week flew by and the weekend quickly snuck up on us again. We had a great date night on Friday at an Italian restaurant in Covent Garden. I have to say, this may have been the best meal I have had since being in London. The fresh, homemade pasta was amazing! 

Saturday we went to the World Club 7's 2013 Rugby tournament. Each team had 7 players on the field and they played for 2 seven minute periods. There were 8 teams and it was played in a tournament style starting at 11:30 am. Not only were the games interesting... but it was great people watching too! We say several banana's, a superman, spiderman, batman, ghostbuster, Marvick and Goose air pilots, Mario supercart, and a man dressed up as Kate with Price George. 

Here is a cool statue outside the Twinkerman Studium..

A view from our seats!

During the week we made some progress on decorating the flat... 

And I knew it was only a matter of time before this arrived! haha We are now the proud owners of another flat screen tv :) We picked it up on Saturday after the rugby game and have been enjoying a relaxing weekend of movies.

Last but not least... big thank you to my Mum for my package!!!! It is the little things that seem to mean so much. I love being able to call you and you make me feel better almost instantly! Love you mum!

Overall it has been a truly amazing 2 weeks and it marks our 2 month anniversary in London! Jeffrey, I love you more and more everyday and I feel amazingly blessed to here with you! Next weekend it is off to Jersey, a Channel Island, and I couldn't be more excited.

Rockin' Camden Town!

I am starting to get into a good flow now with work and figuring out a schedule that will work for me. I am still not sure how I am going to fit my yoga in yet... but I am determined to make it happen one way or another :) Nothing to special about Monday this past week, but Tuesday I got to call my mom and wish her a very special birthday! I love being able to use Skype and talk to everyone, it makes me feel right there with her. Hope you had a great birthday Mum!

Wednesday, Jeff and I got to go out for a date night at the local restaurant/pub, Havelock Tavern. It is one of our favorite and the menu changes weekly, so it is always something new. I also got to call my Dad and wish him a very happy Birthday! It is always a good week when you get to talk to family back home :)

Thursday, we went out to celebrate one of my work mate's birthdays. We went to Sway Bar near my office. We had a blast! We started out with a few drinks, then dinner, then some dancing later on :) Here are a few pictures...

With the Birthday girl!

 Fun photo shoot with the girls! 

Later that night, we spotted a few new stops on the central line... Someone is very creative!!! They made stickers to put over the real stops.

 Headache? Casually Faint into a handsome man's arms

Step 1 and Step 2 are directions for making a cocktail. 

 And my favorite 'creative stop' is Sweating Profusely!

Friday we met up with one of Jeff's old classmates from UNCW. Crazy how big the world is, yet so small at the same time! We met up for a pint at pub in Mayfair, Bonds Pints. It was great to catch up with Hannah and hopefully we get to hang out more soon!

Saturday we went to explore Camden Town. We had no idea it was going to be so big! Here are a few pictures of the market from the outside... 

They had cool designs off the front of the buildings along the high street.... 

This market is slightly different than the one's that we have been visiting. It mainly had really cheap clothing, tourist stuff, and all kinds of food stalls. We ended up walking away with an awesome painting for about 20 quid to hang up in our flat. 

We stopped to grab some food at this Mexican food stall. I have realized that after being here for a little while, the food standards are not the same as at home. Check out all the chicken and peppers just hanging out up against the glass. Keep in mind this is always where the money is taken too! It was still tasty either way haha

They had super cute seats to eat and watch the locks by...

The locks themselves were pretty cool. We got some snapshots of a long boat entering, the water filling up and then it leaving. 

Next we headed across the road to grab a pint... and we realized the market continues to these underground stables that now house more stalls. We saw everything under the sun, from cute baby clothes, interesting glass lamps, leather bags, pictures and paintings, london tourist stuff, and other nick naks. It was really cool how they used the underground stables for the market now. The stables were originally built to house the horses that helped move the boats along the canals back in 1854. 

After strolling around for awhile, we headed home to drop off our painting and continue the night on at the Casino! There are several 24 hour casino's here... so I am surprised this was our first visit, but at least it was a good one. We sat at the Blackjack table and had a nice little run! I was doing just okay, but Jeff was getting super lucky with these extra bets that you can place. For example, you can bet that you would get a flush with your first 2 cards and the dealer's first card. He seemed to hit it more than his fair share... but it helped us walk out with an extra 150 quid! 

We rounded the weekend out with the boring house keeping stuff on Sunday... washing clothes, bills, cleaning, and trying to get our cable set up. Getting more than basic cable seems to be an impossible task at this point. haha I have a feeling Jeff might be purchasing a new tv in the future to stream movies from. Next week I have training in Brighton and Jeff is joining me for the weekend. This will be our first trip outside the city and we are really excited about it! 

We love getting to skype and facetime everyone from home the past few weeks! You all mean the world to us and we feel incredibly blessed to have you in our lives. 

Open East End Festival at Queen Elizabeth Park

The weekend started out great with a nice relaxing barbecue at our friends house, Giorgio and Jeff. They have a BEAUTIFUL flat in Woolwich, with 3 bedrooms and a balcony that is almost as big as the inside! We couldn't have asked for a better way to start off the weekend. Here are a few pictures of the sunset and view from their flat...

A view over the river.... 

A view to the north... 

A view toward London and the center of the Arsenal 

(the gated community where their flat is located) 

The lovely fountain in the middle of their complex... it was very peaceful and calming :)

The barbecue set the perfect tune for the weekend... It ended up being very relaxing. Saturday we took it pretty easy and explored a new part of London that evening. We have heard great things about Chiswick, so we decided to check it out. Jeff's ride home from work goes through here too, so he had a good idea of the places we should check out. He did a great job at picking out some places for us to try. It was the first time it had really rained hard when we were out, but it didn't stop us much :) We hopped around to a few different pubs on the main high street and settled on this French restaurant for dinner. It was a little nicer than we had planned to have, but it was a good time to celebrate how far we had come and both of our new jobs. Needless to say, that has been one of our favorite meals here. Jeff got this steak that was out of this world and I had a seafood pasta that was amazing!

Sunday had a little more excitement with our visit to the Queen Elizabeth Park and Open East End Festival! The anniversary games were going on all weekend, but unfortunately we weren't able to get tickets. We were able to snag a deal on the Open East End Festival though. It was fabulous! There was a whole section devoted to food trucks, there were arts and crafts, a music hall, games set up for kids, bingo, and random shows throughout the fields.

I tried my first Scotch Egg! One of Jeff's work mates eats one fairly regularly, so I thought it was a perfect time to try it out. It is basically sausage meat around a boiled egg that is fried. Here is a picture of one from the internet. It was actually pretty tasty! We also tried some Moroccan chicken wrap and a ginger beer that were both delicious!

After grabbing some food, we went to explore the other areas of the festival... here are a few pictures of walking to the entrance of the park... 

One of our favorite things that we ran into was a BMX bike event. I was able to capture a few tricks in the photos... They were super impressive! There were 4 riders and they would do tricks one right after the other. 

Overall it was a great day out in the sun and living the dream in London!