Relaxing, finally

Okay, so I didn't write the day after the last one as I had intended... sue me. Haha, just kidding. :) But I will finish talking about the excitement of Carrie's visit! I think I left off with us getting back to my house at 4a.m. Saturday after our crazy travel adventure, so I'll pick up there. We had planned on spending Saturday with Carrie's cousins Mark and Kathryn in Cambridge, and still wanted to do that, but sent them a message to say we would probably not make it down there until the afternoon. I think we made it around 2p.m., and we were blessed with an absolutely gorgeous day!

I had been hoping they would offer to take us punting (the British version of a gondola), and was thrilled when we arrived and were told that was the plan! When you go punting, you can either hire a professional punter (I am assuming that is what they are called, haha), or one person in your group can do the punting. Mark has become an expert punter while living in Cambridge, so he did all the work while Carrie and Kathryn and I sat back and enjoyed the ride, the sun, fruity drinks, and the beautiful sights along the river. Here is a picture of Carrie and me in the punt:

After a wonderful afternoon of punting, we went to a pub to get Carrie her first official British pint. Then Martin met us for dinner at a really cool pub called the Eagle, which used to be an RAF bar and has messages written on the walls and ceilings from WWII aircrews. We stayed at Mark and Kathryn's apartment that night and made Carrie's mom's famous buttermilk pancakes for breakfast the next morning... amazing! Sunday was also gorgeous weather, so we walked around the Cambridge campus and got Mark and Kathryn's awesome tour of all the beautiful buildings. Later that day, I took Carrie to Bury St Edmunds to see Abbey Gardens with all the flowers in bloom.

Carrie's flight back to Florida was supposed to be on Sunday, but thanks to the volcanic ash closing UK airspace, she was delayed until Friday. I had to go back to work on Monday, but when Mark and Kathryn offered to take Carrie and me to London on Wednesday, I immediately put in a leave request for the day off! It was another beautiful day in London, and we hit most of the famous sights: Tower of London, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace... it was so exciting to finally explore the city! I definitely feel more prepared to take my future visitors there for a day. Here is a picture of Carrie and me at the Tower Bridge:

It was so fun to have Carrie here for an extra week, it was like being roommates again! We went out to eat a couple times with friends, went bowling, and spent a couple evenings eating dinner on the couch and watching chick flicks. It was sad to say goodbye on Friday morning, but she had a lot of things to get back to in FL, so I am happy her flight went as scheduled and she made it back across the Atlantic. Here is the photo album with all of our fun times in England: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=419891&id=701905001&l=5fce919509

I was on weather standby the weekend after Carrie left, and ended up working Saturday so one of our squadrons could make up flying time lost to the volcano. This weekend has been wonderful so far... I had a great time at OCF last night catching up with friends I hadn't seen in a month or longer. Honestly, as much as I love traveling and as many amazing adventures as I had in the last 4 weeks, I am really happy to be sitting still for a weekend! Today I slept in, sat in my backyard in the sunshine and read a book, went running, showered, made dinner... and that's about it. It was glorious. Haha. Tomorrow I need to be more productive and do some cleaning, but I definitely enjoyed being lazy today.

My next trip will be the weekend of May 23rd for the Edinburgh Marathon in Scotland. My training was derailed slightly by all the craziness, but I am pretty much back on track and am starting to get excited about the race! Also of note, the ballot for the 2011 London Marathon opens this coming Tuesday, and I am hoping to get my name in before it fills up. This marathon is so big and popular, you actually have to compete in a lottery to be chosen to enter the race, and you have to put your name in a year ahead of time. I know my chances are not great for getting into the race, but I'd like to at least get my name in the lottery! There are 125,000 lottery slots, and they were gone in less than 2 days last year. The lottery will be held in October, so even if I get my name in on Tuesday, I won't know until this fall whether I get to run. Annoying, yes, but it would be so awesome if I actually got to run it!

That's all from here for now, looking forward to a day of productivity and church tomorrow. :) Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!