The trip recap is starting!

http://www.heatherandshawn.net/blog/index.html
Our first recap post is on the travel blog. There are many to follow...

It didn't occur to me.

For months now, I've been pretty pumped about seeing Sex & the City come out. For some dumb reason, it never occurred to me what a "girl's night out" it would be for most people. So, I'm sitting here at work today feeling kind of sorry for myself. All of my co-workers seem to be going out with their girlfriends to see it tonight. 99% of mine live far, far away from here, so I'm getting kind of sad hearing about it. Time to call the wah-mbulance. =(

National teams.

Yesterday, England's national soccer team defeated the US team 2-0. Our Chelsea captain, John Terry, headed in the first goal, which should ease the sting of missing a penalty kick in the Champions League Final, at least a little.
I admit to having a bit of a hard time deciding who to root for in this one, but since I regularly watch and enjoy English soccer, I had to go with the boys in white. [View match recap]

While we're on the topic, I want to clear up a common misconception about national team play. Basically, it's like the Olympics: you play for the country of which you are a citizen. Last night, we overhead one girl say to her friend: "I thought David Beckham played for the US now!" Although Beckham does indeed play in the US for the LA Galaxy, he's still a member of the England national team. Any questions? :)

We are back.

We were all a bit slap happy on our last night in Italy. The trip there took 27 hours, and coming home was another 14. We watched a combination of 5 movies on yesterday's international flight: Dan in Real Life, Enchanted, Atonement, and I Am Legend.

Will post a bunch about the trip soon, but am sure we will need to catch up at work this week (while also catching up on our sleep!).

On a jet plane.

We're off to Italy with our moms in the morning! Looking forward to 11 days of great food, beautiful scenery, cultural immersion, and all around inspiration. We'll be reporting back here:

Travelling Light blog

If you've written me an email over the past couple of days, I'm sorry if I haven't gotten back to you. I promise to do so in the very near future...

TTYL, h&s.

Survivor 16.

Holy cow! How awesome was this season of Survivor? Some of my favorite moments:

• Eliza telling Jason that his "immunity idol" was just a stick. Even better was his response: "But it has a face on it!"
• Eliza attempting to use the fake immunity idol only to have Jeff P. throw it into the fire at tribal council.
• Amanda blindsiding everyone with the real immunity idol, ousting Alexis in her place.
• Ozzy's speech at the final tribal council last night. How sweet was that?

Back to it...

Studying.

So, we leave in 3 days... =) Our house is covered in notecards. For instance, the wall near our key rack (where we also happen to keep stamps and the bills) has the top sign. Our cupboard with the spices says "sale" and "pepe" (salt & pepper). We're down the wire, so we're cramming!

Hoping to get the travel blog rolling again before we go, too...

C'mon Chelsea!

So I know there's been a lot of soccer talk on here lately, but with the season drawing to a close this weekend, it's been on our brains. Our favorite team, Chelsea, are currently tied for the league title against Manchester Utd. They square off at 7:00 am our time this Sunday, so we'll be dragging ourselves out of bed quite early tomorrow!

And, even better, my boy Joe Cole (as S would say) was chosen as Player of the Year. Hopefully he'll end the year with a bang!

Thanks!

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who gave me feedback on the previous post. I'll probably remove the post by Monday to be on the safe side, but wanted you to know that your encouragement and thoughts are most appreciated!

Have a great weekend, everyone!
xoxo, h.

Big music news!

Just hit Pitchfork:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/50411-my-bloody-valentine-announce-north-american-tour

Looks like my birthday is going to be pretty sweet this year. ;)

And a few more things...

A couple more things we're lovin' right now...

• Flight of the Conchords' new album on Sub Pop. It's dang funny and makes us want to go back and revisit the entire first season. Looking forward to seeing them at Sub Pop's 20th anniversary fest in July. BillyP will even be joining us!

  
  
  
  

• Design Sponge's Indianapolis design guide. How random that one of the premier interior design blogs would post this?!

Indy (and some random things).

How cute are they? We spent a lot of time outside and at the park last weekend. She got to play with Aidan, but they also held hands and hugged a bit. It was way too adorable. I also bought some sweet headbands to help control her crazy little head of hair. In these pics, the headband was about to fall off, but she did pretty good wearing it otherwise. I love those curls.

A few other things on my mind:

Politics.
Mom says Bill Clinton is making an appearance at my high school tonight. Insane! Edited to add a couple of articles about the race in Indiana:
Article 1 | Article 2

Rollerblading.
Last night, we officially started our rollerblading season. The weather was perfect!

Travel (of course).
Just ran across a site created by one of my favorite travel guide publishers. Looking forward to absorbing even more information for our upcoming trip.

Fiori di zucca (zucchini flowers).
Looking forward to eating these again... they are light, flavorful and lovely. Yum.

Lately.

Haven't had much to report on lately as life in Seattle has been uneventful. The weather isn't quite nice enough to get out for anything fun and we've been decompressing from a very busy few months.

Things are on the up, though. The sun is shining for a few hours each day though it is often preceded or followed by a bit of rain. Work is slowing down somewhat, and we are getting ready for our trip to Italy that's coming up in two weeks.

Otherwise, it's the end of the soccer season, so we've been at the George quite a bit lately. It has become our place to escape and we've made friends with some fellow anglophiles while getting to know some actual Brits as well. =) Last night we joined quite a large group and watched one heck of an exciting match between Chelsea and Liverpool. When Chelsea won, we all celebrated and I was happy to feel part of a community again. Even after 2.5 years, the social aspects of moving away from home are challenging, but slowly we've seen some change. There are still no crafty girls in my life and S still doesn't have a poker group, but at least there's something. I'm feeling thankful for that today...

I'll share some pics from my trip to Indy v. soon.