138/365

Happy New Year!

Oh, and our new fridge was delivered today... its LOVely!

137/365

Only five days after Christmas and they are already selling Easter candy!?

136/365

We went bowling today.... I lost. Imagine that.

135/365

Recovery day with the Snuggie. (Thanks Karre!)

134/365

Today was one of the days I look forward to the entire year: PRAM RACE DAY! Other wise known as Boxing Day to most, but to me its just the day that the wonderful Pram Race happens in Windlesham. Basically, participants choose a theme such as GI Joe, Legos, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc and decorate a pram (stroller), shopping cart, parade float (depending on how fancy they are), dress up like idiots and run around this very quaint village going from pub to pub drinking in each one. Its lovely. Here are a few shots:

133/365

For Christmas lunch, we went to a fairly swanky hotel with David's parents instead of cooking at home (my genius idea). I love the tradition of wearing hats on during your Christmas meal no matter how fancy of a place you may be eating. The tradition is that each person has a Christmas cracker on their plate and you open them at the start of the meal and wear the paper hat which is inside. On a side note: David and I went to Fortnum and Mason (aka the Queen's grocery store) and saw crackers being sold for £1000 for 4 of them! I wonder what kind of hats are in those...!

Oh and we went to David's parents to after lunch and played Monopoly (some new version where you buy famous places in London) and I won big time!! Look at my hotels!

132/365

I spotted these sad snowmen while walking Mirra this Christmas Eve.

131/365

As you can tell by this photo, Jolly England has much to learn when it comes to clearing roads after snowfall (especially after rain falls on the snow and turns it into thick sheets of ice). I imagine the side roads will be treacherously slippery for days to come.

130/365

Sadly, this was pretty much the extent of our office Christmas party..

127/365

WOO HOO!! I got my Christmas present early... Meet my new (very light weight) laptop . I still need to name him/her. She/he is bright red, and needs a sassy name!

126/365

It snowed lots more over night... Look how pretty the Rose and Thistle looks in the snow.

125/365

Our visitor, Flat Bob likes our Christmas tree.

124/365

IT SNOWED TODAY!!

We're supposed to get "heavy snow" on Friday, but I had to laugh when I heard the news readers say to expect 5 centimeters - who measures snow in centimeters!? If you're only going to get few centimeters why bother measuring? :)

122/365

We've been having some pretty cold weather and the car was frosty this morning, so I asked David if he wanted me to turn it on to warm up and he said "no, just turn the kettle on".... Instead of deicer or the defroster, he poured the hot water on the windshield and back window!! Is that normal???

121/365

We went shopping (again) for our fridge/freezer and I love how all the side-by-side ones are called American or USA style.

120/365

We went with David's parents to the National Theatre today to see a play called "The Power of Yes", all about the banking/financial crisis. It was mcuh like a lecture, and the lady next to me fell asleep, but I manged to stay awake. Horray for small victories!

113/365

I came across this in a cooridor of Kingsmead shopping center... Wonder where all the drivers were??

109/365

Excitement = the new Sainsbury's (grocery store) is open in Farnborough.

Oh, and also I went into London today for a training and navigated the tube without even consulting a map! Go me!

108/365

First frost of the season. Brrr!

109/365

THE PUB QUIZ WINNERS!! (minus me, of course)
David, his mom, Mirra and I went to the Rose and Thistle for their pub quiz tonight and we won with a score of 37 out of 50. GO US!!

107/365

I had a tuna pasta thing for lunch that came with this awesome fork. It folds up nicely for storage in the box, and then unfolds and the little square thing in the middle clicks on to make it sturdy. Genius!

107/365

Classic.

106/365

David took Tina and I to Hampton Court Palace today. I love it love it! ... Probably because its the only part of British history that I really know anything about and it makes me feel smart :) I didnt get a picture of it, but very close to the Palace is a pub named The Cardinal Wolsey! I must go there one day.

105/365

Tina and I went to Brighton (all by ourselves!) today. It was a bit longer travel time than I expected, and we got there a bit later than we had planned, but we had a some awesome cheesy garlic bread and fun with the arcade rides and games!

104/365

Tina is here to visit!! And look at all the goodies she brought me. Seriously a grown woman should not be this happy to see a box of Velveeta cheese. (Notice David in the background disgusted by this assortment... what does he know?)

102/365

Yay! Let the Christmas present wrapping begin!!

100/365

While cleaning today, we realized there are certain objects that are simply not cleaned often enough... (yes, I am seriously lame enough that this was super funny to me)

99/365

ALERT ALERT! Look what I found in Camberley!! I seriously gasped and dropped my purse to the floor to grab them off the shelf. Its like a scavenger hunt everytime I go shopping!

98/365

Ha ha! We went to Hardy's restaurant in Bagshot (the only "real" Mexican/TexMex restaurant around here) tonight and look at this... Pronunciation of fajita? Seriously?

And for the record: It was really very good. I will be back for sure!

97/365

Yes, we're watching more 3D television.... Good times.

96/365

Just in case you havent been one of the hundreds of people I have told about the wonderful 10 pound note. Imagine the uproar if Americans attempted to put Darwin on any goverment anything! Go Darwin.

95/365

Mirra's favourite place in the house = on the large laundry pile.

94/365

Its 3-D week on Channel 4! Tonight, we watched the Queen's Coronation in 3-D with our really cool glasses and pretended we were a hip couple.

93/365

Coming from Colorado, when I first walked by this store I didnt think much of it, but then I realized its extremely out of place in England. If you've been looking high and low for some cowboy boots, buckles, hats and shirts, here's your answer!

92/365

Sailor Steve sees serious need for improvement here...

91/365

I went to the doctor today and noticed this sign and it made me giggle. (Its an advertisment for a local gym)
In America, signs in doctor's offices would probably urge you not to drink at all, but look at the print in the black box: "Workout your weekly alcohol intake in the club, then work it off with a free 5 day pass". I love that they just assume everyone has a weekly alcohol intake! Good 'ol England.

90/365

I found this in my purse this morning as I was headed to work. Aww ... as Hugh says "love actually is all around"

89/365

Although it doesnt translate really well in this photo, it was eerily foggy this morning! (I know.. no big news for England, but its the best I got today)

88/365

I love my junk mail box at work. "Subject: Having a big penis is the most important of all male qualities"

86/365

We went back to Virgina Water today to take Mirra for a nice walk and finally saw the famous 100 foot totem pole that was apparently given to the Queen by British Columbia in 1958 to celebrate the BC's 100th birthday. Liz gets all the cool gifts!

85/365

A bit of confusion in the Camberley parking garage... One sign tells you to "pay and display" (your ticket showing you've paid to park), while the other one tells you to take your ticket with you... could they not have removed the old sign when putting up the new one!?

84/365: Mirra's First Night Out!

A dream came true tonight when we took Mirra to the Rose and Thistle for her first night out at the pub. In true Mirra fashion, she was unimpressed and slept for the majority of the night (which is good since I thought she would be pretty nervous)....

...but she even managed to capture the heart of one of Britain's finest...

83/365: Guy Fawkes Day

Today was Guy Fawkes Day where all the Brits celebrate the day when Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament, with fireworks and bonfires. Guy failed and sadly, we failed too in our celebrations and did nothing at all. :(

82/365

I love this traffic light sytem used for marking food. I makes it so easy to see at a glance how healthy something is... this bag of chocolate covered raisins, with its 2 red lights, clearly isnt very healthy. Luckily they werent very good either, so I didnt eat very many.

81/365

I didn't take a picture today, but when I turned on my camera to look for others, I saw that David took this lovely one of a random woman on TV. Good enough!

79/365

We went to Virginia Water today, which is great for dogs since leash laws do not apply and everyone just lets their dogs run around. They were swimming in the lake, rolling in the leaves, chasing eachother and making me very nervous that they would get seperated from their owners! We tried to get Mirra to pose in front of the waterfall... this was easier said than done, however there was another dog there wh was very willing to jump in front of the camera everytime I pointed it at Mirra. Another lovely weekend day for the Hendersons x 3 :)