I've created a monster

I can't be stopped!! I've just added Seville in June to my below itinerary!! The whole Hernandez family, minus Geri, is doing a Tour de Espana in June so I just booked my ticket to go meet up with them in Seville!  Geri...you should come too! 

Seville here I come!

Expedia Member of the Month

I should get this award, if they don't have it, they should make it and give it to me! I would wear SJP's dress to accept my award. In the past month I have booked a trip for 2 to Paris, a trip for 3 to Prague, a trip for 3 to Portugal AND a trip for 2 to Istanbul! I LOVE researching trips on the internet, so when I find them I usually end up booking them and just having people pay me back...so not only should I get the Expedia Member of the Month award, but Mastercard should also dole out some sort of award for me as well. Needless to say I am super excited about the next 3 months! ahhhhhh, Mastercard: Priceless....

Paris with Lindsey next week!

Prague with Kelly and Desi end of March

Beach in Portugal with Melissa and Courtney in April!

Istanbul with Annie in May!

red carpet restlessness

Why am I still awake...I wish the red carpet would end so I can go to sleep!!  Doesn't it feel a bit like the red carpet is a runway for a bride show this year, everyone is in creme dresses...miley, biel, sjp, evan rachel "i wish i was dita von tes", marisa tomei, hathaway, penelope....

but seriously anne hathaway or marisa tomei can feel free to send me their dresses after tonight and i can save them for my wedding day.  i'd have at least ten years to lose the 50 pounds i'd have to lose to fit into one of them.

thank goodness....the madness is over, i'm off to bed! i can see who wins tomorrow morning, who really cares about that anyways.

Somebody call the Guiness Book of World Records

I have made the worlds largest meatloaf. seriously, it is huge. i may have had a few conversion issues with the US recipe to UK measurments.

I'm no Angelina Jolie

But I am super excited because I am now the super proud sponsor of Lister! Lister is a 17 year old girl living in Zambia and she is a part of the Father's Heart program which I found out about through Mindy's blog. Most of you know how much I loved my trip to Africa last November and how touched I was by all of the people I met while I was there. Ever since I got back from the trip they people there have been in my heart, my mind and my prayers. I wanted to find a way to help in whatever way I could, as my family found out this Christmas when they opened their donation card to Heifer International instead of gifts! I loved the idea of sponsoring a child, but was always a little weary of those commercials you see on TV. So when I saw Mindy's blog yesterday, I knew this was the answer to my prayers! I can't wait to begin writing to Lister and getting to know her. Mindy sent me a few pictures of her from when she was there this past summer, and she really exemplifies the joy I saw in everyone I met while in Africa! So please pray for Lister, and especially for our future relationship!

25 things...

I just got tagged to do this in Facebook, so I thought I'd bring it to my blog too...

1. i'm a laid back, go with the flow kind of person.
2. both my mom and my dad had to jump in the pool on seperate occasions to pull me out when i was a baby. per my mom, i was a easy, go with the flow baby too but I couldn't be left alone for a minute.
3. i have a serious weakness for shoes, but not all shoes..i have very specific taste when it comes to shoes...comfort is never a factor.
4. i also have a weakness for clothes on sale, i'll buy them just b.c they are on sale and then never wear them. I always have at least a few items in my closet with the tags till on...
5. i have an irrational fear of lizards, not big lizards...just any 'ol lizard will do. especially the geckos, they smell the fear and follow me around.
6. i don't like to be the center of attention, it makes me uncomfortable.
7. i'm a horrible story teller, i always leave out details and never get the point of the story out in an eloquent fashion, i'm much better at telling stories on paper, when i have a little time to think about what i should say
8. love the beach, hate the ocean. I'll only go in up to my knees, I seriously hypervenhilate when I try to snorkel. I'd rather cut off my arm off than jump off a boat into the middle of the ocean.
9. oddly, Shark Week on the Discovery Channel is like one of my favorite things ever!
10. I love my life and am happy in all that I have done and accomplished, but for some reason I am always thinking about my next move...sometimes I wonder if I'll ever feel happy with things just the way they are.
11. i'm very indecisive...i'd rather someone just tell me where we are going to eat rather than ask me where i want to go...that could take like half and hour and usually ends up with me drawing a name out of hat!
12. i am very good with directions, i'll go somewhere once i know how to get there forever. although in london google maps on my blackberry is my best friend ever
13. i'm a beer girl, although if i get a cocktail it almost always involves bourbon with a little water and a lime
14. i don't think i'll ever be done travelling, my list keeps getting longer the more places i go
15. even though i have begun to embrace it, if i could change anything about myself physically, it would be the ability to tan (pathetic, i know!)
16. if i found a genie in a bottle one of my three wishes would be to be able to eat whatever i wanted and not gain a pound (or die of a heart attack), i swear it would be, i love food...and not the healthy kind!
17. In college i had a group of 13 girlfriends and all of our parents were happily married, still are!
18. My older sister is adopted, but she is my best friend and has never felt like anything other than just what she is, my sister.
19. my mom is the most honest, fair woman you'll ever meet. she still makes sure our christmas presents are equal, right down to the penny
20. I am an equal mix of my dad's sensibility and my mom's spirit
21. I wouldn't call myself a girly girl, but my favorite colors are purple, hot pink and turquoise...but you would never find one of those colors in my house or my wardrobe!
22. I can easily be sucked into any type of tv marathon on the weekends, and not move from the couch all day.
23. I am the biggest scaredy cat ever! Vampires, ghosts, etc...I will not watch scary movies unless forced against my will and even then I sit in the fetal position with my thumbs in my ears(for maximum coverage) and my fingers over my eyes...sometimes even in this position with my back to the tv. I slept with a nightlight for far too long and i still have to turn on the hall light and crack the door from time to time.
24. I hate rainy days and cannot sleep in thunderstorms.
25. I will have an English bulldog and his name will be Winston

If you want to participate consider yourself tagged!

I've been bad, very bad!

Ok, so I know I said last weekend was my favorite London weekend...but this one might have been better, but in a different way! Last weekend was a fun party weekend...fun to have one like that every once in a while. But this weekend was one I could love to have every weekend...with a few minor changes! Most of you know my affinity for museums and I went to three, count them, three...this weekend! Mostly this was due my extreme case of procrastination and that two of the exhibits I wanted to see were ending this Sunday, there by forcing me into fast action. So Saturday I went to the Tate Modern to see the Rothko exhibit. Rothko falls into the abstract expressionism category which I know many people just don't "get". Now I'm not saying I "get" it either, it's not like I see something that other people don't see. I just have always liked this type of art, it is about expressing an emotion and conveying a feeling. Rothko is pretty out there, none of his paintings have any figures, just colors...in foggy blocks. Some of his paintings are even the same color painted on top of each other, one matte and one glossy. All of this said, I have always loved Rothko. Maybe I just find his work aesthetically pleasing, but there is a part of me that is always in awe whenever I stand in front of one of his paintings to me it is pretty intense. The first Rothko I ever saw in person was at the MoMA in NYC and when I moved to London the Tate Modern has an entire room dedicated to a series of his paintings...the Seagram paintings. So of course I went straight away when I got here. I could have sat in that room for hours! So you can imagine my excitement at being at a whole Rothko exhibit...there were 9 rooms!

My favorite painting from the exhibit. I just think it's pretty:)

Sunday I started my day at the Natural History Museum to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibit. I was so excited to go see this with my new found photography hobby. It was amazing, there were so many great shots. I think alot of photographing wildlife is skill because you have to know exactly what to do in the split second you are given the perfect shot. But a lot of it is also luck, being in the right place at the right time. After that I headed over to the National Portrait Gallery to see the Annie Leibowitz exhibit. I'm not all that familiar with her work, but I heard it was in town (thanks to Andrea's blog!) and I figured it would be worth going seeing as she has been one of the most influential photographers of our time and my aforementioned recent photography hobby. The exhibit was great, well, what I could see of it. I made the mistake of going to the last entrance of the last day of the exhibit so to say it was crowded would be the understatement of the century! When I was leaving the portrait gallery it was snowing..there were flurries but none were sticking. I went to grab a hot tea before I headed over to Brick Lane to meet Annie for a yummy curry and by the time i got there the snow was really coming down. After dinner we walked out and everything was covered in snow! I then proceeded to trek all the way back to the opposite side of town to meet Erin and a bunch of her friends at the Chicago Rib Shack for some Superbowl festivities. Do to the lovely time difference over here the game didn't even start until 11 pm over here, so I knew going into this is was going to be a late night, especially for a Sunday. Well about 3rd quarter we started to worry a little bit about how we were going to get home since the tube closed at midnight and there would probably be few cabs on the streets due to the weather. So we called all of the cab companies we knew and they basically laughed at us. Ok, on to plan 2...we'll just take a wretched night bus home...but wait, i haven't seen a bus go by in hours! Well that is because they were all pulled off of the street at midnight due to the weather. So after the game we all started trekking down the road in the direction of Erin's flat (3 miles away) and hoping for the best. We didn't get too far luckily and a lone cab, sent from God (i'm convinced!) came and got us! It was the most beautiful thing to see all of London covered in snow. Now I'm not saying I was glad to be out in the snow at 4 am on a Sunday night, but I am glad that I got to see it that way, it was pristine and untouched! Sure enough the next morning when I woke up it was disgusting and dirty and sludgy from all of the people and the cars. Luckily my late night out on a school night also coincided with the most snow London has had in 18 years (correction to my blog below!) and I got to stay home from work, woohoo!


Oh...and you must be wondering what I did that was so naughty....

and so as not to be lonely in my closet......


oops, I guess I forgot to mention my little outing to Harvey Nichols on Saturday afternoon. A girls gotta spend some of her bonus on a little something nice! At least that is what I am telling myself :)

Snow Day!!

London is officially under snow, this is the most snow they've had in over a decade!  This city doesn't run with snow, so for today i'm a couch potato...maybe a little playdate in the park with Kelly later!