1 Year Anniversary

Connor surprised me and took me to Paris for our anniversary. It was great. We were here a few years back but it was Feb. and freezing. It was nice to experience it in the spring. We mostly spent our time walking around and sitting in parks. We'd seen all the tourist sights so we didn't need to bother doing much. It was very relaxing and a great way to spend a weekend together.

Luxemberg Gardens

Lux Gardens again

Along the Siene and Notre Damn above me

I love this picture, one of my finest.

Don't know but looked cool

Eiffel Tour of course

I just got a LV purse on the Champs-Elysees

Arch de Triumphe

Arch de Triumphe

Connor's Birthday

I took Connor to Holland and Holland Shooting Ranch outside of London for his birthday. He got to have a shooting lesson out in the country air of England. He did pretty well except on one of his first tries where he didn't hold the gun tight enough and he ended up getting a bruise on his face. We went to dinner a few nights later for his real birthday at Scott's. It is a very yummy restaurant and rated Best Restaurant in London 2008. Guy Ritchie was there the night before celebrating his divorce from Madonna. Too bad we missed him.

PICTURES OVER THE PAST 3 MONTHS!!!!

Hello Everyone! I kind of messed this up and started with what happened first but that ended up putting everything in reverse order. You may want to start from the bottom and work your way up to this last picture of my dad with the bike.

Is it Jill's long lost bike?

A lovely day. You can rent these Punts and float along the river.

Corpus Christi

Kings College



My dad use to work right here at the University of Cambridge. My mom, sister, and brother all lived here back in the 70's.

Outside the pub


Cambridge. The yummiest pub with a yorkshire pudding wrap with roast beef. The yorkshire pudding was the "bread" and it was huge wrapped around the roast beef with a gravy sauce, mmm. The plaque above us signifies the discovery of DNA, right there in the pub they solved it. Also, in another room on the ceiling there were a bunch of names from the British Military who shipped out to D-Day. Probably the coolest pub I've been in.

Drinking on Sunday afternoon in a pub, or course.



We are in Falmouth on a boat tour. This is Pierce Brosnans new summer house. Right next door is Roger Moore's summer house, interesting.

Connor is trying to throw me into the ocean, as usual. Behind us in a St. Michaels Mount and when it is low tide you can walk out to it.

My dad and Martha have been visiting us for the past week and a half. Pretty view in Lands End.

Lands End. The most southwestern tip of all of the UK.

Gardens by the church. Pretty.

Church in St. Ives

Cornwall, England. This is St. Ives, a lot of great beach towns in the southwestern part of England.

No idea what this is it just looked important. We were in a little outdoor shopping area with some cute restaurants and this was at the beginning of the area.

Gotta love the Vikings!

We're in Malmo, Sweden. I was very excited to be in my homeland.

Looking back at our hotel, Copenhagen Admiral Hotel.

Copenhagen Opera House right across from our Hotel.

The mermaid was the reason for us trekking around in the rain.

Copenhagen. It rained on us all day and so we went on a boat tour in the afternoon and of course the sun came out while we were inside on the tour.

Me in Helsinki, bad picture but the only one. The clock tower in back was designed by the same guy who made the St. Louis Arch.

Helsinki. This area is often used in movies about "Russia". The architecture is very Russian looking. This area was in the movie Reds.

Almost done living out of suitcases! Helsinki fun, too!

Well, we are out on the street on Sunday so hopefully we get keys to this place before then. It isn't your typical small english flat you might think of. 2 1/2 baths, 2 bedrooms-1 very large, reception room is very large, small outdoor space so we can have a small grill. There is 2 1/2 flights of stairs and no lift, though. We are right between Oxford Circus and Bond Street (shopping mecca!!! and dangerous!!) about 5 blocks from Hyde Park. We get our stuff Feb. 15thish, so until then we'll have an airmatress and that is about it. :( At least we almost have a home! You can get from Chicago to London in April for $350!!!! We'll hopefully get a cell phone in the next few days, you have to have an address to get a cell phone. You can try to call us on YahooIM or Skype, yahoo:snoonan08 or connor_noonan skype: chicagosmellgren1 (i've had this one for a while). Well that is my update so far. OH, wait I was just in Helsinki. Ate some reindeer and elk, had some fish, beer, saw a bit of the town. There was a sauna in my hotel room! The room, not just the hotel! That was pretty cool. I wish I could buy all of the nick nacks and funishing type stuff from there...very West Elm/Crate and Barrel/CB2 like stuff. I hope to make it to Sweden and Norway and load up with cool stuff.

Madrid

Hello All. Had a fast trip to Madrid last week. It was quite a process to take the train, took forever, get there early since I had to go through customs, it was actually fast. Then my flight got cancelled, nice, got on a later flight and missed my appointment and had to reschedule for the next day. I didn't have time to explore at all so I really saw the highway, my hotel, and the airport. Next trip is to Helsinki so hopefully I'll have some fun pictures of that!

We are still in the middle of finding a place to live and getting mobiles. If feels like it will be about another 3 weeks before any of this gets done. Our stuff is getting shipped so hopefully we'll have our own unpacking celebration! Wahoo our own stuff.

Sunday Roast and A Night Out of the Town

So we met up with a friend of a friend that moved to London about a month ago. She was cool and her boyfriend was nice, too. We went to a "club" and hung out for a while. Sunday we went to one of Connor's work friends houses and had "Sunday Roast". A very English thing to do, have a roast and drink all day. It was nice because although they were from Australia they just moved from the US where they had lived for many years. We had a great time and can't wait for more roasts!

We're Here, seriously it's not a tease.

So we have officially moved to London finally. We landed on January 2nd. We spend the freezing weekend walking around Notting Hill and Bayswater trying to figure out where we want to live. Of course Connor got picked up in a bar by an Austrialian on Sunday and he made us drink with him the day before our first days at work. Ha. I was gone to the bathroom for 2 mintues and he had moved tables and made friends. Our temporary apartment is nice, we can cook at least. It is pretty cold, I need my ear warmers! We basically work all day and then go apartment looking. The wire that hooks my camera to the computer seems to be malfunctioning so no pictures just yet. I'm going to Madrid next week for work so hopefully I'll get those pictures up.

Almost there!!!

So our latest update on the Work Permit and Visa situation is that, after all the loops we've gone through applying for the second time, we got a call on Saturday saying everything looks fine they just needed to know an entry date into the UK and they would send out passports and paperwork back to us on Monday. So we are hoping to get it all taken care of in the next week. Who knows when we will actually leave. I'm guessing between 1-2 weeks. Thanks to everyone for baring with us, housing us, cheering us up through all of this. Hopefully just a few more weeks and we'll be London bound. So start looking into trips to see us!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Well we had a nice snow on Sunday after Thanksgiving. We escaped the 18 inches in Monument since we made it back to Castle Rock on Saturday night. (We spend Thanksgiving weekend in Monument Colorado). We bundled up in our finest old school snow gear and took the dog sledding. I almost got in a fight with some stupid snowboarding kids who decided to build a ramp in the middle of my sledding lane. It snowed all day Sunday but this week it is going to be about 60 so it will all melt.

Amsterdam, Switzerland, Germany, Oklahoma, Colorado, OH MY!

I've made it back from Switzerland and Germany. I just had one day flying in and out of Dusseldorf and a direct cab to and from Essen. I didn't see much and there were no real photo opportunities. I made it back to Oklahoma and am now in Denver. I'm seeing my first snow of the year and it is gorgeous. Connor and I will be here through Thanksgiving. Still working on the work permit issues we'll see how it progresses over the next few weeks. Here is a picture of what is going on currently just south of Denver.

Switzerland

This is my co-worker in London, Dawn. We are at a conference in Geneva and this is a trader party one night at "Club Bypass". Above that is my train ride from Geneva to Zurich. These mountains, outside Luasanne, were so close and big it seemed like I could have reached out and touched them. They looked like they were floating on a cloud/the water (it all blended together). I am staying with Gretchen and Greg in Zurich now. We had a good time this weekend doing some baby shopping for Baby Smith and Greg and I enjoyed way too many bottles of wine while poor Gretchen just had to watch. I'm off to Dusseldorf/Essen Germany tomorrow. In and out in one day, quick trip we'll see if I remember to take pictures!

Amsterdam

I, Sarah, was in Amsterdam for the past week for business. I had a few meetings and then also attended a conference. Connor and I have been to Amsterdam before but it was a fast 1 1/2 day trip in Feb. about 5 years ago. It was nice to see it again in some warmer weather! My next visit to Europe will be in 2 weeks when I head off to Geneva.