House Pics

So these are a little late but here they are, some pictures of the house (with some American to British conversions):

Here is the full size bed given to us by one of my Mom's friends.

A full size bed (54 x 75 in) is equivalent to a double UK size.
The bed we bought last weekend. A Queen size bed (60 x 80 in) for our other spare room.

A Queen size bed is equivalent to a UK King size bed (60 x 78 in).

On another bed note: a Super King in the UK is 72 x 78 in. A California King is 78 x 84 in.

We've slowly started framing pictures and hanging them on the wall.

These two prints Jamie bought in Hull with some money given to him by his Great Grandma when she passed away. They are by a local artist in Hull.

The picture from China we took in to get framed two weeks ago still isn't ready.

Here is the backyard/garden. We decided to take everything out and just start from scratch. Jamie has been working so hard to get all the bushes out and finally they are gone.

There's just the palm in the far left corner that needs to come out.

Now comes the fun yet difficult decisions of what we will plant???

The Queen Mary

We decided to have some fun this weekend after spending the last two weekends working on the house. So we jumped in the car and drove down to Long Beach to see the Queen Mary. We spent half a day in the sun wandering around the art deco masterpiece. There were a considerable number of Brits aboard along with lots of red telephone boxes (no white ones!). Note to all Americans: Kingston-upon-Hull is the only place blessed with the privilege of having white telephone boxes, the rest of the UK has common red ones.

RMS Queen Mary is a retired ocean liner that sailed the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line (then Cunard White Star Line). Built by John Brown and Company, Clydebank, Scotland, she was designed to be the first of Cunard's planned two-ship weekly express service from Southampton to Cherbourg to New York, in answer to the mainland European superliners of the late 1920s and early 1930s. After their release from World War II troop transport duties, Queen Mary and her running mate RMS Queen Elizabeth commenced this two-ship service and continued it for two decades until Queen Mary's retirement in 1967. The ship is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is permanently berthed in Long Beach, California serving as a museum ship and hotel. The Queen Mary celebrated the 70th anniversary of her launch in both Clydebank and in Long Beach during 2004, and the 70th anniversary of her maiden voyage in 2006 (www.wikipedia.org).

I could not fit the whole ship in one picture !

This is the view of downtown Long Beach from aboard the RMS Queen Mary (Note to Brits: downtown just means the city centre) Note to Americans: Centre is spelt centRE not centER.

The RMS Queen Mary has very big smoke stacks!

A picture of my beautiful wife :-)

This is me squinting in the sun, not an inch of snow in sight! I hope you are having fun in the snow, 4 inches in one night is nothing! Its 73F or 23C here so I doubt it will be snowing this week, Jamie.

House Update

Well, it's been two weeks since my last post and you would think I would have a lot to report. But we have mainly continued to work on the house. We started getting things framed and hanging pictures. We were given a full size bed complete with bedding and a headboard (it's amazing and we are so thankful for it) and we bought a queen size bed for the other spare bedroom. The house is slowly starting to fill up. I will take some more pictures this week to post so you can see the progress. Jamie has done a lot in the backyard/garden and only has 2 more stumps to remove from the bushes that were back there (there were about 16 to begin with - *Jamie would like this corrected as I've been told there were more like 20 to begin with* ).

I think we are anxious for the summer and want to get the house ready to have bbq's and guests. We've done so much in the last 6 months (yes we have had the house 6 months now!) but have so many things we still want to get to. Next weekend we will pick up another piece we had custom framed that Jamie bought in China, which will go in the dining room. So the work continues.

DIY Weekend

This weekend was spent working on the house. The main goal of the weekend was to put new lights in the garage, paint the closet doors, and go shopping for a guest bed. Two of them were completed but the guest bed was put on hold. With the Santa Ana winds starting up last Friday, they quickly killed off our side gate that was already pretty battered to begin with. So unless we wanted to hear it open and close all week, we needed to fix it.

Saturday, Jamie and my Dad, spent the day working on the lighting in the garage. The lighting was really bad, their was one light bulb working near the door. On several occasions Jamie and I went into the garage to get something and I asked Jamie to turn on the light only to find that it was on! So it was much needed and it looks amazing. I think our garage is now the best lite room in the house. Meanwhile, my Mom and I did some research on how to go about building a replacement gate.

We were able to find something called an Adjust-A-Gate which gave you all the metal pieces and you just had to buy the remaining wood pieces. So Sunday Jamie tackled the gate and I painted closet doors. If you are ever looking for a great way to do squats without thinking about it, paint doors. You go up and down all day and it totally works your legs and arms and trust me you feel the results all week. I'm so soar from the shoulders down but after the Christmas Holiday I definitely needed the workout. Jamie finished the gate with a bit of beginners frustration but it looks great and works perfectly. Not the most exciting weekend but a very productive one.

Snow

Last Saturday we decided to take a trip to the mountains, partly to get some fresh air after being in doors so much over the holidays, partly to walk off some of the food we ate, but mostly to have some fun in the snow. Jamie was a bit disappointed when we didn't get any snow in England so we drove an hour and a half to Idyllwild, which is in the San Jacinto Mountains. It's about 5,300 ft to 6,500 ft and although it wasn't completely blanketed with snow, there was plenty around to make a beautiful scene.We got there early and did a short hike, about 5 miles up the mountain. There wasn't another person in sight the whole way up and down. It was peaceful and beautiful. The only problem with no one being around is that we couldn't get a picture together.
While hiking we saw this warning, something I'm used to, but something that Jamie gets a kick out of. It always puts me on edge, although sighting are extremely rare they happen, but there is nothing even remotely comparable in England.

Once we reached the top of our trail we stopped at this rock and had some of our rations, mostly chocolate for Jamie and shortbread for me. It's a bit harder to hike in the snow than we thought, it was icy at times with some parts about a ft deep, which is why we only did 5 miles, any farther and we would have needed more gear.

Lastly, we stopped at a Lake partially frozen over. It was an amazing scene, it was so still and the reflection in the water was breathtaking.

It was a cold day, it was extremely foggy driving up the mountain and on the way home we got some rain. I know what your thinking, Ang in the snow? Well, I dressed warmly and was able to somewhat acclimate after an hour. At least we had a warm car to climb into and a warm home, with a heater that is working wonderfully, thanks Dad. I can last a day or a weekend but living there is another story...

New Year's Day (a.k.a Christmas # 2)

As we were with Jamie's family over Christmas, we decided to celebrate Christmas with my family on New Year's Day. So we celebrated Christmas #2 with the Saldana Family at our house :) My parents and brother didn't open any of their presents Christmas Day so that they could open them with us when we got back. How sweet is that!
Jamie and I decorated the table for Christmas and made a lovely dinner of our signature lasagna dish and garlic bread (By the time all the eating for Christmas #1 was complete, we wanted something different). We were able to find Christmas Crackers after Christmas, as most stores were already sold out, we didn't get around to buying them before Christmas and so they weren't the best.

The whole day was great. We ate, drank, opened presents, and watched the Rose Bowl game (A college football game played every year on New Year's day). It was so relaxing, as you can see below of my brother and dad after dinner.

More to come later on the rest of our weekend...

2009

Happy New Year Everyone!