England in August, Part 2

Some of Sam's family the day after the wedding & Monty the puppy!

Sam with Sebastian & part of Warwick Castle

Trebuchet in action & me with the chicken!

Couple of the horses on the estate and our sunset stroll

Here are some more pics from another few days in England. We spent the day after Esther's wedding in the Fisher garden with family, coffee, and Jemima's new springer spaniel puppy Monty, he's adorable!! Later that afternoon Sam's friend Kate & Mark came over with their 3 year old and their 3 month old! Sebastian is such a good quiet handsome little baby. Sam and I are much better with babies now that we have a nephew! The next day Sam and I went to the medievil Warwick Castle with his parents. They made it really fun by having wax figures in certain parts of it to show you what different rooms were for and what people dressed like back then. We paid extra to go in the dungeon which turned out to be kinda scary - they had real actors down there and special effects...it was pretty dark and I kept a hold of Sam's hand the entire time while different people popped out at us to explain the different torture devices, etc. We also got to have a demonstration of a real live trebuchet (catapult) which is cranked up by men running in a huge hamster-type wheel and then it throws a huge flaming ball hundreds of yards away. I thought it might be lame but it was pretty dang cool, ha. Later that day we went to visit a family friend (she was actually our very first overnight visitor here in Vancouver in May)...her and her boyfriend live in a tiny town and have chickens that lay eggs for them! We went on a gorgeous walk with them around the estate that their house is on the edge of. I really feel blessed being able to walk around these little parts of England that probably 98% of tourists would never see or even know existed. The rolling hills, green pastures, sheep, cows, horses, sunsets that I got to see this past trip were truly amazing! Well...more pictures to come later of our 3 nights at a B&B in Forest of Dean which is near Wales and was Beautiful!

England, Part 1 - Esther's Wedding

Esther & Roo Miller..........all the Fisher siblings and their spouses!

Dancing the Gay Gordons....the Fisher/Lindley family

Sam & I just spent 2 weeks in Witney, England for his little sister's wedding. On August 15th, Esther married Andrew "Roo" Miller in a beautiful ceremony followed by a fun reception. They met at St. Andrews in Scotland and Roo's dad is Scottish - thus the theme & kilts! Sam was an usher and looked so cute in his kilt I loved it! The picture of us dancing is the traditional first scottish dance, it's called the Gay Gordons...it was the wedding party and the newly married couple and was actually so much fun. Thank goodness Esther taught us what to do before the big night! I'll post more pictures of the rest of our trip soon...we went to Warwick Castle, Forest of Dean for a few days with Sam's parents, and our friend Chris had a "leaving afghanistan, back in england, but moving to Washington, DC" party! It was a full and FUN 2 weeks, it's surreal to be back in Vancouver for some reason, it's never easy getting use to being back in the "real world".

Summer Summer Summer Time!

I cannot believe it's already August!! This summer is flying by. Vancouver has had the hottest days on record lately so we certainly didn't completely escape the Texas heat this year. However today it is an unusually low 66 so I can't really complain, ha. We've been spending as much time outdoors as we can either on walks, on the beach, or on the patios of our favorite pubs. The above pictures were just this past Sunday, our first time to actually sunbathe and get in the water! Water was a bit too cold for me to get all the way in, Sam swam pretty far out though. A week from today we leave for 2 weeks in the UK for Sam's youngest sister's wedding. It's been cold and rainy there all summer so I'll be sad to leave Vancouver during it's prime but it'll be really good to see the Fisher family - we haven't been over there in over a year! I still have to make my final decision on where we're boarding Marley, need to figure out what to pack (everything!?) and I have to prepare myself for the LONG travel day. We used miles to fly over so we're having to stop off in Houston - so it'll be a tiring trip for sure. We'll post pictures when we're back! Hope everyone is having a great summer and keeping that SPF on!

Quick Weekend Getaway!

This past weekend Sam and I finally got out of Vancouver for a fun trip to a Bed & Breakfast in Chilliwack, BC. It was about 2 hours east of Vancouver and such a beautiful place!! I was a bit unsure about not being close to town but I'm so glad Sam found this place. It was in the mountains and right on the water and the owners were just Amazing! They had a dog that Marley hung out with...Marls also got to roam free everywhere, we really trust him to not be leashed now which is great. Everyone else staying there was really fun too, we stayed up pretty late the first night with the owners drinking and everyone played the piano and guitar! The next day we went on a boat ride (Marley's first!) from the Fraser River to Harrison Hot Springs. Stopped to have a bbq on a private little island and of course many beers were had! That night we hung out with some of the other guests and owners again and drank a good amount of wine ;) Sunday everyone was pretty busy and out of the house so they let us just hang around by ourselves all afternoon before heading back to Vancouver so we got to have some quiet time and enjoy the view. Such an unexpectedly fun weekend. We'll definitely be back there...after we hit some of the other places on our list first though. Next might be Seattle or Vancouver Island...or possibly a quick camping trip somewhere up near Whistler. It's great living in a town with so much only an hour or 2 away. Hope everyone is well, life is pretty good for us right now! Oh, here is a quick video of us on the boat, Marley was finally getting his "sea legs" here:

My Family's Visit to Vancouver!

Over the July Fourth weekend my parents, sister, brother-in-law and baby nephew came to visit me and Sam in Vancouver! It was Harrison's first flight and he came all the way to Canada, with his cute passport. We had such a good time, I miss them soo much! We went whale watching, had a couple bbqs on the beach, went to the top of Grouse Mountain and saw bears and eagles, Sam with salmon fishing with my Dad and Austin, us girls went shopping, my nephew saw Beluga whales at the aquarium, we visited the botanical gardens and most importantly we just hung out and had a great time! Being around my nephew so much was great, I loved waking up in the morning and seeing his happy little face and having my family around! Hopefully they come back to visit us soon!!

The Man, The Legend, The King of Pop

I don't care if people think this post is cheesy, but I just had to take a minute to express my love for Michael Jackson. No matter what people have said and continue to say about him, it never bothered me, and frankly I never believed any of it. All I know is that almost every single one of us loved his music at one point in our lives. This man never had a childhood and gave up his life to give us the most amazing gift. I saw him in concert years ago and loved every second of it, he put on the most amazing show. My earliest memory in my childhood was when the Thriller video came out - I was probably only 3! They released a 2-hour behind the scenes 'making of' the video that we watched at my old house with my parents. We danced the whole time and were glued to the TV.

Anyway...totally cheesy but I always loved and will always remember Michael Jackson. I hope my kids learn to love his music as I did. I also hope his kids can live a normal life after all of this craziness! In the words of Michael "before you judge me, try hard to love me". RIP MJ!

I wasn't too sure about climbing up that hill in flip flops...

Horseshoe Bay

This past Saturday I decided it was time we started to explore the surrounding areas of Vancouver. We went to a quaint little town called Horseshoe Bay for lunch and then Whytecliffe Park for a little adventure with Marley. He climbed up the little 'island' and waded in the water. It was a gorgeous day and we plan on taking more little road trips to continue to explore Beautiful British Columbia!