Flashback Friday

I figured that for this Flashback Friday, it would only be fitting to go back and look at some pictures from my very first solo England trip (not counting those 12-hours alone after my senior year of HS). Oh the adventure! Oh the memories!

Liverpool!

Michael Owen's seat at St. James' Park

playing music in the hostel

first but certainly not the last time seeing WWRY

Brenda and JJ at the toast party

card games in the hostel

Victoria's Memorial on the first day

on the throne in Scotland

favorite place in London

Tapuzina at the market across from the hostel

a night out in Newcastle with Greg and Tim

frolicking through the fields

changing of the guard on Day 1

My Mary Russell day in Sussex

Sheldonian men in Oxford

McBride sisters in Harrods

talking through Brighton with Mindy

JJ and OCs in Glasgow

Earl Grey

ice cream mimicking real life

weirdest place in Canterbury

with Lisa and Prince Consort Albert

Brighton beach

busket outside Canterbury Cathedral

seeing a movie star on stage

The Globe

lions in Glasgow

seeing Avenue Q with Mindy and Lisa

hanging heads at the Kelvingrove

St. James Park

ontop of Primrose Hill

relaxing on the beach in Brighton

the Rad Cam!

gorgeous stained glass

outside the Royal Pavilion in Brighton

at the Globe

where St. Thomas was assassinated

most modern building in Newcastle

the Cresent

Tyne Bridge

St. James Park

overlooking Oxford

windows inside Canterbury

We won it 5 times!

inside Canterbury Cathedral

red phone booth in London

me and the McBrides

Trafalgar Lions

Tower Bridge

Eagle and Child

under the Thames in the Greenwich Tunnel

cushiest seats ever

Canterbury Cathedral

with Carra's kit

future signing for Newcastle United

St. James Park

no explanation necessary...

NOT Idaho potatoes

Anne Hathaway's thatched cotage

our punter, Toby

Dover Castle- and my future home

Newcastle

Coldstreams uniform from the Guard's Museum

Anne Hathaway's garden

King's College Cambridge

straddling two hemispheres

Big Ben and the Eye

hanging out with Hamlet

Liverpool

Cambridge

little did I know I'd ride these buses every day

London Eye

poor monkey at the BALTIC

weird BALTIC exhibits

White Cliffs of Dover

at the BALTIC

Small Group Memories

Last week, Tessa and I went over to Mary's house for dinner. It had been a LONG time since any of us had been over to her house for dinner but I am so grateful that we did. Mary made delicious pad thai and the conversation over dinner with her and Ted was fruitful and full of stories. After dinner, we went upstairs and looked at some OLD pictures from small group cabin time, including a video that I had taken of Tessa tubing down the hill in the snow. I don't know when the last time I had laughed so much was. It got me thinking about how important these ladies were to me in college but also how important they still are to me. We met for two and a half years, spending afternoons together learning about each other, praying for each other, being listening ears and commiserating about shared experiences and shared frustrations, supporting each other, and spending time together. We were so lucky to have gotten Mary as our leader, with her wisdom, her prayers, her stories, her experience, her a-mazing cooking, her wonderful husband, and her gentleness and hospitality.

Here are some of my favorite memories of times with the small group ladies:

-trips to the cabin in McCall (favorite memories from cabin time include LONG gossip session in the middle of the night with Tessa and Kristen, playing JENGA at the Bistro with Tessa, meeting "Brad" and Hunter, free dessert, Special Harvest wine and communion, tubing and making snow men- actually, a pregnant snow woman for Ted- hot chocolate and hot tubbing)

-visits to Portland to see Ali (and having drinks at the City Pub and Grill way above the city, watching terrible movies, cooking, skype session with Allie, delicious pizza, Sunday Market), to Spokane to see Tessa (long talks outside on the grass about Michigan and California and life), and to Colorado to see Kristen (Ghost Adventures, Idaho monopoly, baseball games and mimosas, her fantastic wedding)

-lots of dinners at Mary's house, both when we were students and then when I was in town visition (and each dinner had the most delicious food, even the one time I was hung-over, the views were always gorgeous and there was always Special Harvest, no matter what)

-hangouts with all the girls during school, either at soccer games, at my house eating falafel, Spring Formals, margaritas at Applebees, bus rides to basketball games, graduating together in our caps and gowns, birthday celebrations

-Alive After 5 with Ali, Knitting Factory concerts with Tessa, Hurricane Chasing with Kristen

I love these ladies so much and am so freaking blessed that they're in my life!

Stage It Concert

If you know me at all, you know that Jars of Clay is my all-time favorite group. I've met them a few times, I've managed to seem them in concert a bunch, I had their book on bible smuggling, I have all of their CDs, they're just amazing. Their songs speak to me in so many ways and it doesn't hurt that they are the nicest people on the planet. 

In anticipation of their new album, they've released a life EP, which I love, and are also doing Stage-It concerts where they broadcast themselves performing live in their production studio, and basically give oyu a concert in your living room (or office, since that's where I was when I watched their second Stage-It performance). 

It was so coo. They had a web-cam set up, played their songs, talked to us, answered questions that people were asking on the live-chat, so great! And I LOVED the songs that they played. It was such a great mixture of old (Trouble Is, Sing, Revolution, Jealous Kind, Portraid, Fade to Gray and Silence) with some newer ones (Scenic Route, Boys), with a clear emphasis on the older but not frequently performed songs. And the fact that they played Scenic Route which is up there as one of my all-time favorite Jars songs didn't hurt. Plus, the guys were adorable, with their joking, their laughter, their riffs on the guitar, their overall genuine nature. I just love them so much! What a fun opportunity, especially since I never know when I might see them in concert again!

Recent Movies

I love my Netflix subscriptions because it gives me access to movies I've never heard of and that I would have never known I enjoyed. The last few weeks I've seen some fascinating films.

The Skin I Live In- This was captivating. It was all about obsession and how far someone will go to get what he wants. I had no idea what was coming and all the predictions I made didn’t end up happening (thankfully- I was predicting some pretty dire things…) Although I wasn’t sure about Antonio Banderas, the entire premise was absolutely fascinating. I later went on to watch "Talk to Her" which had similar themes about obsession but was also fantastic, yet incredibly uncomfortable (just like The Skin I Live IN)

Safety Not Guaranteed- I love Jake Johnson but Aubrey Plaza seemed too much like April on Parks ‘n Rec. I can handle that for 22 minutes but for an hour and a half was a little much. I loved their third friend, Aruon, though. Reminded me almost of an Abed-type character. The entire thing seemed pretty realistic until the very end but it was a unique premise and there were moments that definitely made me laugh. I guess I ended up expecting something different from what I ended up seeing.

Conspiracy- First of all, here’s what I posted on facebook while I was watching this: Thoughts after watching the first 15 mins of HBO's "Conspiracy": 1) how exhausting must it have been to Heil Hitler ever time you greeted someone? 2) if you took a drink every time Neumann said "four year plan" you'd be on the floor. 3) I'm not sure how I feel about Colin Firth, Stanley Tucci, Kenneth Branagh and Bates as Nazis. That being said, I really enjoyed “Conspiracy” especially because it felt like watching a play. Plus, it’s fascinating to think of the discussions that must have taken place to come up with the details of the Final Solution.

Uncertainty- I usually like stories that kind of follow two different paths, where you don’t’ really know what’s real and what’s not and where you’re guessing if the stories are going to cross or anything. “Uncertainty” identified the two stories by color- Yellow and Green. You could tell what story was being told by looking at the colors the two main characters were wearing. Unfortunately, my attention wasn’t kept like I hoped it would. The Yellow story was not fast enough and the Green story just kind of dragged on. Even Joseph Gordon-Leavitt couldn’t spark my interest enough, and that’s pretty dire.

Footnote- So many feelings after watching this movie! First of all, I loved that it was centered around the Israel Prize because I felt so familiar with that. There were so many tough decisions that had to be made and so many feelings of frustration that was more complicated than I would have imagined watching a movie about scholars wining the Israel Prize. It’s an amazing film, though.

Argo- I LOVED this. I’ve managed to watch almost all of the Academy Award movies over the last few weeks (Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Lining’s Playbook) but Argo was maybe one of my favorites. I think Ben Affleck is an incredible director and he’s not too shabby as an actor either. I didn’t know much (anything, to be honest) about this whole situation but I was drawn in from the first moment. I was skeptical about all the details they were going into with the creation of the fake movie but I’m so glad that they did because it all paid off. I was nearly in tears at the end when they get out of Iranian airspace. Such a powerful film.

Vertigo- I love Alfred Hitchcock movies. I love James Stewart. I love San Francisco. I love twists and turns. I love this movie. I also love hokey old trailers.

Moonrise Kingdom- Even if the entire movie was terrible, I would love this movie simply because of the use of Britten’s “A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.” Luckily, the cast was phenomenal (Edward Norton is always a plus), Frances McDormand, Bruce Willis, Bill Murray. The two kids were wonderful as well- so sweet and innocent. This is a movie I would buy and watching many times. Mostly so I can memorize all the witty things that were said (my favorite: Jiminy cricket, he flew the coop!)

The Giant Mechanical Man- This was labeled as a comedy. It really wasn't. There were some funny bits but I liked it because it was just real. It was true, it was not overly emotional or sappy, it was just real life. Chris Messina and Jenna Fischer were just wonderful. I wanted to smack Topher Grace. A lot.

Compliance- Guys, this movie. I just don't even know. Do a bit of research, read up on the true story behind the movie and ask yourself how this could have happened? I mean, seriously. Does nobody at some point think this isn't OK? Do they never do anything? There were some comments about how these people worked at fast-food restaurants and so naturally weren't smart but I don't buy that. None of them had ever seen a Law and Order episode and knows what is and isn't OK? This was the most frustrating movie ever. Ugh.

 What movies have YOU seen recently and what do you recommend?

Mother's Day Away From Home

When you live far away from your family, celebrating birthdays and holidays gets a little more complicated. My sisters and I try to put our heads together to figure out a good gift to get our parents for Mothers or Fathers Day or for anniversaries. Nothing will, I think, ever top the hot air balloon ride we got (although it ended up being more expensive than we thought...)

However, it's nice to still be able to celebrate these family holidays which is by I'm so lucky to have my second family in Boise. This year for Mother's Day, I joined the Godwins for a bike ride out to Lucky 13. Earlier in the morning, while Kevin and Bailie were dealing with bikes, Brooke and I took Addy on a walk in the foothills.

The ride from Park Center to Lucky 13 was gorgeous and it wasn't too hot. Our pizzas were delicious and I got an Angry Orchard cider which was well worth it. On the ride home, we cut through Bown's Crossing and I learned about some beautiful Boise neighborhoods I never knew of before. I just love Boise- it never ceases to surprise me and teach me something new.

It was hot when we got home so the pool was quite inviting... Especially when you can lounge in cool water with a book, looking up to see gorgeous views. Certainly a great day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the lovely moms out there!