A Party to Remember

Well the West Dean Halloween party took place this weekend and it did not disappoint. Here are some pictures of the costumes.

Catherine as a witch and Sarah as a gargoyle

Alex

Removing my brain freeze

Zack in his sweet mask

Matt, Catherine and Julie

The costume contest

You can't milk an oat

Catherine and I were in this really cute tea room this weekend drinking yummy hot beverages and enjoying the lovely atmosphere when I started perusing the menu. One of the beverages had the option of coming with "oat milk" what is oat milk? You can't milk an oat....can you?

I miss you Michael Scott

A dyer situation has come upon me. As many of you most likely know The Office is no longer sold on iTunes....wtf?! And the completely illegal highly questionable web site that I was watching copy-write questionable versions on has been shut down....AND all the episodes that were posted in segments on YouTube have been removed. NBC you are killing me. What are poor Americans living abroad supposed to do in this situation?! I think you should stream the episodes so that people in foreign countries can still view the show online....PLEASE!

A decision has been made

Well I figured out what I'm going to be for this Halloween party that is taking place on Saturday night. After much thought and consideration I have decided to be the guy from the game Operation. This will involve sticking various pieces to myself such as the "breadbasket" and the "Charlie Horse" and somehow attaching one of those cyclists flashing red lights to my nose. Needless to say it's going to be a pretty kick-a/jankity costume. I will be sure to post pictures and share the entertainment with you all.

Another Herd of Dog Deer

This weekend Catherine and I took a little day trip to a place called Knole, another run of the mill stonking British home filled with history and antiques. The house was fantastic and had loads of conservation going on which is interesting to the two of us. The house contains some of the oldest original textiles in the country (which I must say are really worn and a bit ugly but textiles are quite fragile). The most exciting thing about the visit was that the house has a deer park much like Petworth House had. You may remember a previous post about "dog deer", well this time I was able to feed one of them. We had some dried berries in the car for a snack and lucky for us dog deer happen to love dried berries, so one of them ate them from our hands!

Dear Readership,

How cute are they?!

Love, Kristi

Help!

A couple people are hosting a Halloween party in a week or so and everyone is dressing up as something. Other than the obvious choice of Georgia O'Keefe, what could I go as? I would like to go as something funny, but several people have insisted I go as something scary....I'm not too sure I can pull off scary, but I would be willing to give it a try should I be unable to generate anything funny. Any suggestions?

Mandolin Extraordinare

Well as usual West Dean has started providing me with interesting situations. The other night I was watching this show about "wild food" or in other words a show about people scavenging for things in the wild that you can find and eat should you desire a break from the grocery store. Anyway, I was watching this show when several people came into the common room with an assortment of instruments, everything from a french horn to an elecrtic guitar.

So someone hands me a mandolin in order to include me in on the band practice. Needless to say I have no idea how to play the mandolin and after several heinus F minor cords I opted out of the job. Instead I sang along to a song called Down with Bonaparte while the following instruments played along: electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboard, french horn, bass, and to top it all off a dulcimer. It's times like these that make me love this place, where else would that happen?

Bobble Head

A very exciting purchase was made this weekend. There have been a few cold days here in jolly old England the past couple weeks and my head and ears have been feeling the burn. SO, I decided to make it my goal to find a new winter hat and was lucky enough to find this little baby in the streets of Brighton this weekend.

The really amazing thing about this hat is that I tried it on one year ago in the same shop with Jackie and took a picture of us in the mirror to document the event. Well, less than a year later I was back there trying to make a serious decision about which color scheme looked best and was in need of being purchased. So after many many trials I ended up with the dark pinkie red one with the big blue bobble. Of course it's not nearly cold enough to wear it now, but soon enough I'm sure I will be bobbling around West Dean in my new cozy hat.

I'm an Aunt...AGAIN!

Say hello to little Alex! He was born on Friday and weighed 7 pounds 6 ounces. What a cutie!

The Threatdown

Well a threat has been made and a response is necessary. Someone…. I won’t name names, made a comment that if I did not blog lickity-split they would begin a very serious fast. One similar in seriousness to a somewhat famous person called Gandhi or a young man who goes by the name Jesus (sorry so sacrilegious). A fast so serious it would no doubt require removing this link from their blog and perhaps even clearing her browser cache in order to remove the temptation.

Well I would hate to lose this particular member of my readership and I must admit I have some doubts as to the actual strength of this person coming through with the threat, but just in case she was truly determined I felt I must blog to appease her.

In keeping with my love of list making I decided to make a little list of some of my favorite moments from week one (these are in on particular order):

1. Sonia falling asleep during the fire talk…these people are obsessed with fire.
2. Figuring out the limits of Sonia’s label maker…my favorite label was in a waving banner, with shadowed and outlined text…nice.
3. Singing about a “salty dog” in the bar with the jug band
4. Gold tooling sentences like “Sonia is a riot” and “ititt isti sit rato”
5. Joining a queue on the streets of Brighton without actually knowing what it was for…just saw a queue and joined, no questions. Then when Catherine and I got to the front we just sat there bumbling like idiots to the person who was apparently handing out parking permits
6. Learning the ins and outs of the new icemaker in the bar. Who knew someone could be so excited about a little frozen water, but he has even managed to name the parts, one of them being “Scoop”.

All in all it was a good first week and I’m hoping the next 12 only get better.

Something I saw recently

A Visit to the Bennetts

Sorry it's been so long and let me begin this post by saying that there will be no pictures for a little while, but yesterday Catherine and I visited the house she is working on, Groombridge Place...the Bennett's house in Pride & Prejudice.

It was a fun trip, and although the house is currently covered in scaffolding because it is being worked on it was still fun to see. The house is surrounded by an "Enchanted Forest" which was filled with things like a dragon's nest, a serpent's lair, a mystic pool and even a little village called Mossy Bottom. Whoever came up with all of the little spots along the way must have had a real hoot coming up with not only the places but the very entertaining sign posts. After walking around a standing stone backwards three times were were able to make a wish, then we walked a double spiral in order to find ourselves and we also had the opportunity to see into the future through the mystic pool...all in all a pretty good day superstition-wise.

Leaving on a jet plane

Well I leave today to return to England. I had a fantastic summer filled with lots of visits and even more shenanigans. Just wanted to let the readership know that I will be out of the blogging commission for a little bit, but have no fear I will return as soon as I can sit myself down and get my computer up and running.

A hotdog....really?

We all have moments in life that we would like to forget. After seeing pictures of Katy and her sisters growing up I decided to look through some of my old pictures and boy did I find some real gems. Take for example this little beauty.Yes, that is me. Not only am I sporting a red and white striped belly shirt, but I was somehow convinced to pose triumphantly with a hotdog in my hand. Part of me is incredibly embarrassed that this was caught on film, and yet another much larger part is a little proud that this picture is in existence.
Next comes the phase of my life where I was obsessed with dance. This Polaroid (can I just say that I love that this was caught on instant film) is of me and some girl (no idea who that is) at dress rehearsal. Notice the extensive use of blush and red lipstick, nice. I am also fond of the sequined pillbox hat.Now this one is a phase in my life that I REALLY wish never happened. Jackie and I were discussing how when we’ve met new people in new places we conveniently leave out minor details of our lives. Let me tell you my membership on the 98’ Jasper Jazz drill team is one of those things that may be left out of my past from time to time. Again, more sequins not to mention fringe.This final one is by FAR the most amazing family picture in existence. Where to begin?! Lets start with the fro my mom is sporting, love it. Now move on to Jenna’s awesome shirt complete with an embroidered medal that I can only assume she won for wearing such awesome shorts. Moving further to the right is Jill wearing a festive belt made of curly ribbon and what I believe are Z. Cavaricci jean shorts. Once again I am in a red and white striped ensemble luckily this one is a little less revealing than the previous. And to top it all off my dad is dressed as the spitting image of Uncle Sam if he was beardless, bald and preparing to lead the Plano 4th Ward 4th of July Bike Parade. I LOVE THIS PICTURE!

Hope you enjoyed the memories, I know I did.

Yo, I'm in the booth

Well you saw all of Jenny's photo booth pictures and I just wanted to add one of my own.

An amazing conversation:

Jackie: (listing her movies) The Kid
Me: I love that movie!
Jackie: Really!?
Me: The one with Bruce Willlis?
Jackie: No, the one with Charlie Chaplin...
Me: Clearly we have different tastes in movies.

Something I gotta know

I've been catching up on my Colbert and he is wearing a cast-type wrap around his wrist, what happened to him?

Junktiques

My mom and I stopped at a "junktique" yard on the way home from Kentucky and boy was I amazed at all the crap this place had. I mean look at it! Have you ever seen so much crap piled outside like this with such pride?! It was truly amazing. I took some pictures of a couple things I found interesting:
I never realized just how huge a stop light was until I was standing looking down at this baby. I mean it's HUGE!As I walked through the endless piles of stuff I came across this table filled with old fans and I couldn't stop thinking of Pottery Barn, people pay good money for crap like this and here it was baking in the Kentucky sun just waiting to be sold.

Another Sweatshop

Well this weekend I visited my sister Jill in Louisville, Kentucky. The real reason for the visit was her baby shower which took place on Saturday and turned out just fantastic. She got lots of stuff for little Alex and is well on her way to being prepared for his grand arrival. Jill also decided to take up quilting what with her extra time and recruited me to help her with the job. After many many "jammers" situations and sewing machine troubles we managed to knock up this little baby in a day and a half, not too shabby. Anyway, it was a great weekend and I'm really happy I got to see her.