Posts

Showing posts from 2010

Great News!

Image
After all we have been doing lately we have even more to tell you. We are expecting our first baby in July 2011.  I am ten weeks along and doing great. We are really excited. In our excitement we went out and bought a cute stuffed animal for the baby. We have started calling the baby Baby Plothow or BP for short. Lyndon just suggested we name it Godgifu which means gift of God in Old English. If anyone wants to use that name they are more than welcome. Baby Plothow's first stuffed animal!

Northern England/Scotland Trip

Image
While we are here in England we decided to do some traveling. We took a week and ventured to the Peak District, Lake District, Edinburgh, Scottish Highlands, Inverness, and York. We traveled about 1400 miles in five days mostly on small highways. It was quite an adventure. We took off monday in a little Ford Fiesta we rented. The first thing we had to get used to was driving on the wrong side of the road. We are still alive! Driving on the wrong side of the road really was not that bad. The first day was a little shaky but the rest of the trip Lyndon drove like he has always driven on the opposite side of the road. Driving on the wrong side of the road. Our first day we drove from Cambridge to the Peak District where we visited the Chatsworth House. Our google map directions led us far astray, luckily we had a map. We got there but the sun had already gone down. The nice man at the entrance to the garden let us into the garden for free. It was designed by Lancelot "

Thanksgiving

Image
Thanksgiving this year was lots of work. We decided to host Thanksgiving for all our American friends in the UK this year. We also invited everyone in our house who wanted to come. We ended up having 25 guests for Thanksgiving. It was wonderful! Lyndon and I cooked for two days straight to prepare this feast. We ordered a 30 pound turkey from the butchers. My Miniature Schnauzer, Moses, could have fit inside the turkey. We were really excited. Lyndon picked it up and had to carry it the two miles from the butchers to our house. We made the usual Thanksgiving food: rolls, turkey, gravy, stuffing, cranberry jello, sweet potato casserole, and of course pie. We made ten pies. We attempted to make pecan pie but failed. The grocery stores do not sell the key ingredient to pecan pie, corn syrup. We bought golden syrup which looked like the closest alternative to corn syrup. Yeah, instead of pecan pie we had pecan pie soup. It still tasted good but not quite the same. Everything else

Lyndon's Birthday

Image
Lyndon's birthday was great. We spent the day walking around Cambridge looking into some interesting shops. We made a stop at the University store and Lyndon picked out Downing cufflinks for his birthday. That night we celebrated by eating delicious Indian food and yellow cake with chocolate frosting. A bunch of our friends from our house came and celebrated Lyndon's birthday with us. One of our friends, Julian, brought out his guitar to sing happy birthday and some other songs. Overall it was a great day. Our friends who came to celebrate with us. Here's the video of Lyndon's birthday song. Enjoy!

English Fall

Image
Cambridge is beautiful right now. All the trees are shedding their leaves sprinkling the ground with the colors of fall. The only color the leaves are missing is orange. A few of the collages have vines growing up the sides of the wall that have turned red. The colors are stunning. In front of Kings College Cathedral. I a great opportunity to go to  London and visit Parliament and the Churchill War museum. There is a group I discovered for new comers so visiting faculty and families of students. They have weekly meetings and many groups and activities to get involved with. Parliament is amazing. The architecture is fantastic. The buildings are all done in the neo-gothic style. Pugen was the architect for rebuilding parliament after it was burnt down. The entrance is the oldest standing building. It has been around since before Henry VIII. There has been a building on Parliament's site for a thousand years. The decor is fantastic. I was amazed. The two main plac

Can't You See Us Bashing Around London?!

Image
Hey Everyone, Now that you are updated on all our travels we can update you on Cambridge. Cambridge is the ultimate college town. The colleges are the most important things in town and own most of town. Cambridge has a total of 31 colleges spread through out the city. Each college has their own separate campus. Lyndon is a member of Downing College. He chose Downing for its law tradition and the classical architecture. The greatest legal historian of all time, Maitland, was a scholar of Downing. It is right in the heart of Cambridge with close access to everything. Lyndon's favorite building is the library but he loves that the chapel is in the center of campus. The campus is wide open so it makes you feel like you are on an estate out in the country side. Their symbol is the griffin (Gryffindor!) and their colors are black and magenta. St. Paul's Cathedral. Wren's epic masterpiece. So far we have mostly been settling in. We live in a building tha

Greece!

Image
Hey Everyone, Before Lyndon and I went to Cambridge we went on our honeymoon to Greece. Here is what we did on our trip: I conqured the Minotaur. Lyndon with what could be the statue of Perseus holding the gorgons head. Athens! It was not what I expected it to be. We did a lot though. Thursday we got into London I think around 1 pm. I am not sure. The flight was good. Neither one of us slept very well. I watched one of the movies and then kept dozing in and out of sleep. Lyndon threw a blanket over his head and I did not see his face again until we landed. When we got to London we had to check in with immigration so they would let us in to the country. We had no problem with getting our luggage which saved us a lot of hassle. After we left the airport we took the tube down to Kings Cross station. I saw where platform 9 3/4 should be (Yay for Harry Potter). We ended up going all the way to Cambridge that day. We called our warden and we were able to

Married Life

Image
Hey Everyone, Since Lyndon and I have been married all we have been doing is traveling. Our first excursion was from Utah all the way to East Tennessee. It was a fun trip. We kept entertained by listening to Dracula on tape. We started on Monday and made it to my parents house by 4am Wednesday morning. We were exhausted but happy to be out of the car. Our first few days in Oak Ridge were busy helping my parents get the twins and Ellen ready for college, the house ready for our reception, and entertaining Eston's Japaneses exchange student. Thursday evening Lyndon and I went with my family to pick up my brother Eston's Japanese exchange student. It was a fun evening meeting all of the rest of the host families and Japanese students. Eston's student name was Kenta. He is from Nakamachi Japan, one of five kids, likes frogs, and Abercrombie and Fitch. An hour after that my sister Bethany left for Pennsylvania for her first semester at Bucknell University. Her twin, Leslie