HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANGELA!!!!

A weekend in Hessle

After my week in North Yorkshire, I had a weekend in the East Riding at my parents house. David and I went to see the Hull v Arsenal game and unfortunately Arsenal won 2-1. However, it was the first time I saw Hull City play in the Premiership. We also had a nice sunday roast before I had to fly back on Monday morning. A father & son Momemt: I have never seen Mark and my Dad so close and smiling.........

Everyone but me in this picture!
Me & David
Sunday Lunch with "proper" Yorkshire puddings. Thanks Mum!

A trip to the Shire

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting England for just over a week. It is always nice to visit the homeland even if it is on business rather than pleasure. I was attending several meetings at an R&D centre near Middlesbrough called the Wilton Centre (just north of Yorkshire). The site I was visiting was a large chemical plant (ugly), therefore I decided to tak a few pictures of the village/countryside I was staying in (Great Broughton). This is a picture of a local landmark known as Roseberry Topping. Every year there is a race to the top and down again, usually resulting in numerous ankle injuries.

I have decided that this is going to be our new summer residence.....

Beautiful views

Every village needs a stream running thru it.

An alternative summer residence......

Every village also needs a ford too.....

It was two long flights followed by a two hour drive to get there. However I had the pleasure of the following classic meals: scampi & chips with tartar sauce, fish & chips, steak & ale pie and a rack of lamb. I also had the pleasure of several very good beers: Black sheep, John Smiths, Tetleys and I had my first pint of Freddie Trueman beer. FT beer was named after the famous Yorkshire cricket player (fast bowler). To be honest the beer FT was ok but not great, I would rate it 6/10.

My parents, Grandma and Mark made the long trip up to meet me for Sunday lunch the day I arrived. I was a little tired, so was probably not the best company! It was a nice lunch and great to see everyone.

Aaron's 21st

So I know it's been a really long time since we last posted anything. But to be honest, we really haven't got up to anything interesting. Saturday night we went to my Aunt Milissa's house for Aaron's 21st birthday. It's hard to believe he is just turning 21 but what can I say, my cousin is a cougar, lol. At least Aaron is a pretty awesome guy and he had a fantastic party.

Here is a picture of Aaron while we were singing happy birthday.


My brother and his girl Laura.

A picture of Jamie and I, all bundled up in our jackets. My mom was kind enough to save me a seat by the heater but I still kept my jacket on :)



My Mom, Aunt Michelle, and me.

Milissa's, as usual, decorated and everything looked amazing. It was raining, yet again, so they had a big marque for everyone to sit under. It stopped raining about an hour into the party so everyone was able to dance after that to a live band. We had a lot of fun and ate some pretty great food.

But now the weekend is over and it's back to work. Hope everyone has a great week!

Super Bowl XLIV

On Sunday, we watched the Super Bowl with my parents and bbq'd. Of course, as many Americans do, we created a Super Bowl pool for the 4 of us. I'm happy to report I won $5 and Jamie won $15. Basically the Griffin's swept the pool, sorry Mom and Dad.

The Super Bowl was watched by more than 106 million people and is now the most-watched program in television history.

In case you were wondering, the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts 31-17.

The Mission Inn

On Saturday, we drove inland to Downtown Riverside to see the Mission Inn. The Mission Inn is a hotel built in the Mission Style. It was never meant to be a mission at all but the owner, a bit eccentric, built it in this style and often dressed as a monk to draw guests to his hotel (even though he was a quaker). It was started in 1874 but took off as a destination hotel in the early 1900's.

Frank Miller, took over the hotel from his father and created an amazing place. He traveled across Europe and bought what he could from different places. If he couldn't buy it, he would sketch it and have his builders re-create it. If he didn't have a place for it, he would build one. Which makes the hotel a bit of a maze with all sorts of different pathways and art within it's walls.

Although Riverside isn't very highly regarded these days, back in the early 1900s it used to be quite the destination spot primarily because of the Orange industry. People would spend several months in the area and many of them stayed at the Mission Inn. Including several Presidents, movie stars, and writers.

It is now a National Historic Landmark and is protected from any alterations. It was a beautiful hotel and it would be pretty fun to stay there for a night. While we were there, the Dickens Festival was going on just down the street from the hotel. It was a bit funny to see people in Victorian dress walking up and down the streets and around the hotel. It was also interesting to see the different interpretations of Victorian dress. The home made soldiers outfits were definitely interesting. We've decided people just like to dress up and if they can why not, lol.

Downtown L.A. - Art Deco Tour

Saturday was one of those amazing days that you know you're just never going to forget. We drove up to the Long Beach area and jumped on the metro blue line to go into downtown Los Angeles. We had been wanting to take the LA Conservancy Art Deco walking tour for about a year and a half and we finally had a weekend free to go and do it.

Our tour started at 10 am and we got there with plenty of time. The metro was interesting. It was cheap, for $5 you can get an all day pass. However, we did go through Compton and Watts and so saw some rough areas along the way. There are some very poor neighborhoods but the trip was nice and easy and it was a straight ride into the city.


Los Angeles really boomed in the 20s and 30s and there are quite a few Art Deco buildings still around. A few, unfortunately, have been torn down but there were enough buildings to see to keep the tour going for over two hours. This picture is of the Eastern Columbia Building built in 1930. It is a beautiful turquoise color and has all the qualities of a classic Art Deco building.

Many of the buildings are still used as office space, a lot have been turned into apartments and lofts, and others are empty.

One of the highlights of the tour was the Oviatt Building. On the outside it is not an Art Deco building but on the inside it is all done out in the Art Deco style. The lower floor, which originally was a haberdashery is now a restaurant. The Cicada Restaurant and Club now occupy the lower floor.

The interior of the restaurant still has all it's 1930's grandeur and the restaurant still puts on big band, jazz, and costumed themed parties of the 20s, 30s, and 40s. I'd love to spend an evening here!

The top floor of the Oviatt Building was built as the building owners penthouse. The security guard was kind enough to let us go up and have a look. You can still rent out the penthouse for $4,500 a night. The Cicada Club has some of their event after parties there. This is the view from one of the windows, 13 floors up.

The Los Angeles Public Library is another example of Art Deco architecture but a bit more simplistic and with more Egyptian influences.

Here is a close up of one of the sides of the library.

Unfortunately, one of Downtown's best examples of Art Deco architecture and one of it's most ornate was the Richfield Tower, also known as the Richfield Oil Company Building, torn down in 1968 to make way for more "Modern" buildings. It was black and gold, as seen in the picture above and was built in 1928. In it's place two sky scrapers were built, once known as Arco Towers. City National Bank now occupies one of the buildings and I went there a year and a half ago for training when I first started working there.


The only thing remaining of the building is to the back of the two towers. These are the elevator doors stacked on top of each other, hidden away as an art installment. Truly sad that this building didn't make it, but the elevator doors were amazing and at least they were still around to see.

After the tour, we continued to explore Downtown and had a great time seeing all the amazing buildings. We finished the day having tea at the Biltmore Hotel. The hotel was built in 1923 and is in the Beaux Arts style. It's beautiful and ornate and was the perfect finish to our day. I think we will be doing some more exploring of Los Angeles in the future.