Unprepared

This past Sunday Annie ran in her first half-marathon! I am so impressed, she finished all 13 miles in under 3 hours and get this, the most she has ever run is 6 miles and that was months ago! I am starting to worry about Kilimanjaro, if she can run 13 miles with little to no training, how am I going to keep up with her on this mountain!  I feel so unprepared!!  Speaking of unprepared...Jackie is arriving in the morning, I need to finish cleaning out her room!! Not sure if I've mentioned it on my blog yet, but I have a flatmate for the next 3 months! Jackie is Kelly's best friend from home and she is moving over to London for the next 3 months so she is going to live in my extra room.  I am SO excited to have a roommate again, I like living alone...but it gets kind of boring to be quite honest!

Annie about to cross the finish line! Gotta love that fanny pack!

Me and Annie after the race in front of the O2 Arena

Baby I Got Your Money

Last weekend I had the pleasure of hosting a baby shower with Kim and Christine for our friend Frances and Baby Money!! Yes, Frances' last name really is Money! She and Carl recently found out they are expecting a girl so her name has since been changed to Lady Money. We had so much fun planning this shower, this is my first baby to host! Frances, Kim and Christine are all Americans and Southern girls as well so we went all out for the baby shower...all of the British guests did not know what to think about all of this! (they don't do baby showers in Britian, it is actually considered bad luck to give the mother a gift before the baby has arrived)  Frances was nice enough to let us throw the shower at her flat, which is fantastically located right in the heart of London in Covent Garden/Leicester Square. Here are some pics from the day!!

Our drink station, complete with Mimosa's and Sweet Tea!

Our main table with all of the yummy food! We had breakfast casserole, pork tenderloin sandwiches, spinach artichoke dip, spinach and fruit salad, fruit kebabs, and spinach and feta tarts!! (Frances is a vegetarian, hence all of the spinach!)

Our clothesline of onsies!!! All off of Frances gift registry!

We also did some candy bowls with Pink candies

Our diaper cake!! We all met at Frances' the weekend before to embark on the new adventure of making a homemade diaper cake! It was a first for all of us, but I think it turned out pretty good!! Although here is London it is actually a "Nappy Cake"!  The cupcakes are from Primrose Bakery where Frances is actually a pastry chef!

Playing one of our games, Guess the Belly Size!  (which I won!) Our second game was name as many baby items as you can (which I also won, thanks to Lindsay, Hayden and Ainsley!) and the last game was Guess the Flavor in which we had to TASTE baby food and guess what flavor it was! I was so sicked out by this, I did NOT want to participate but they made me. I lost this one, but probably only because I took the most miniscule bite of each!!

Isn't Frances the cutest pregnant girl...she is 6 months along, believe it or not!

A few of us stuck around afterwards to continue drinking Champagne on Frances' balcony since it was such a nice day outside!

Life's a Beach

A couple of weeks ago I had to go to Bournemouth to visit a client for work. My meeting ended early and I had a couple of hours to kill before my train back to London, so I had the cab driver drop me off at the beach! He said I must be the luckiest girl because this was the first day of sunshine they had seen in weeks! I was so excited, I had no idea that beaches like this existed in Britian, oh how I wasted this summer! I had a great couple of hours hanging out on the beach and I even got some fish and chips right on the beach! I was in my suit, so I got a few strange looks, but I just took off my jacket and rolled up my pants an plopped myself down on a beach chair!

Never Have I Ever

Seen a cuter picture than this!!!!!

Snog

Here is your British vocabulary Word of the Day!  Seriously, they actually do use this term here.  I personally hate the word and think it is gross, but unfortunately, I hear it all the time...especially from screeching teenage girls on the tube. 

Verb.  snog - touch with the lips or press the lips (against someone's mouth or other body part) as an expression of love, greeting, etc.

Last Friday it was an okay day outside...and let it be known that by okay I mean it wasn't freezing, windy or raining...so I decided after work to take a stroll down South Bank and catch the tube at Westminster the rest of the way home.  It is about a 30 minute walk and I love walking along the river, next thing I knew I had walked the entire 2 hours home.  I love walking home because I discover so many new restaurants, shops, and areas in London I never knew about. When I got to South Kensington, about 3/4 of the way home, a store front caught my eye...you can probably see why...

Anyways, I was intrigued, so I crossed over to have a closer look to see what this was...maybe a kissing booth of sorts?!!?  Alas, it was not, it was a frozen yogurt shop. Once they see you peering in through their windows you are sort of obliged to go in and order something.  So I went in and Snog was another one of those Organic, natural frozen yogurt places like Pinkberry in LA or Berri-pop in Houston.  Moriarty took us all to Berri-pop when I was in Houston a few weeks ago, and sorry Courtney...but I wasn't a huge fan.  It wasn't bad, just I think I prefer my fro-yo artificial and sugary!  Well once I was in, I had to order so I ordered the smallest size which was still huge, but only had 130 calories or something like that, so the last 30 minutes of my walk were consumed with having a Snog! Haha, sorry, couldn't help myself :)

Arachnophobia

If you are scared of spiders you may just want to skip this post! When I got back to London a couple of weeks ago from my trip home to Texas I found a new flatmate had moved in while I was gone...he didn't last long, the met the bottom of my shoe...three times!  He was just chillin' in my bathtub, yikes! He was the size of my palm, seriously, HUGE!  He was also the 2nd little fellow like this I have found in my flat in the last month, I have a serious problem with that.  I say He, because I know he is a He and not a She.  I googled "Common British House Spiders" and found out he is just that, he is called a House Spider (original, huh!) They are most common in the fall b/c it is mating season and the ones you find scurrying across the floor or trapped in your bathtub are usually the males looking for some females to love.  Ick, I hope I caught my boys before they found any females, I don't have enough room for all their babies in my flat!

Sweet Stitchings

I am so excited and proud to announce that my Mom has started her own business, Sweet Stitchings, doing embroidery and monogramming!!!  For those of you who don't know my mother personally, she is immensely creative and talented! I seriously only have a fraction of her creativity.  She has always loved sewing and even owned a small business smocking baby clothes when my sister and I were babies.  She has decided to turn her gift and passion into a business yet again!  I have already put her to work making a few things for some of my friends who have recently had babies!  Please check out her blog to see some of her work, she is still working on getting together her actual website and pricing, but it should be up soon! 

sweetstitchings.blogspot.com

Are You Ready for Fall? - Day

For a day in the City:



Fall Casual by lwaterfield featuring French Connection

My New Obsession

Polyvore.com

This is my new obsession!!! It is so much fun, you can create inspiration boards, I had so much fun doing this and I am working on several more Fall related inspiration boards so be prepared to see many more of these little gems on my blog!!

Are You Ready for Fall? - Night

For a Night out:



Fall Dress by lwaterfield featuring Chanel

A Year in Pictures - The Post

(***photo album in separate post below!)

This is a book I made for my dad for his 60th birthday this year. He and my mom bought me this camera last year before I moved. Hopefully, he doesn't think it was a total waste of money! I have been sitting on this book for a while now, but I am happy I can share it with you all since I gave it to him this past weekend while our family was together in Houston. His birthday isn't until October 7th, but I wanted to celebrate with him while I was in town so we threw a little surprise dinner for him Friday night!

When I was putting the book together for my dad, I thought "hey, I kinda want one of these too!" Easy enough, I just pressed the little up arrow when I was checking out and ordered myself one as well!! I think this is something I am going to do every year...hopefully for the rest of my life!!

Oh, and for anyone who might be interested, the cover is actually a photograph I took of a ceiling in the Royal Alcazar (palace) in Seville. I love taking pictures of patterns!

Here is a list of the places I have travelled in my first year of living in London (note: this is more for myself since people as me this question all the time and I always draw a blank...my short term memory is failing me FAST!)

• San Sebastian, Spain - with Kelly - August 2008
• Munich, Germany - with Amy - September 2008
• Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabe) - with Amy - November 2008
• Windsor, England - with my family - December 2008
• Paris, France - with Lindsey - February 2009
• Prague, Czech Republic - with Kelly & Desi - March 2009
• Albufeira, Portugal - with Melissa & Courtney - April 2009
• The Lakes District, England - with Annie - May 2009
• Istanbul, Turkey - Annie & Mary - May 2009
• Seville, Spain - with the Hernandez family - June 2009

A Year in Pictures

Click here to view this photo book larger