Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Moab weekend

This year my birthday happened to land on a Wednesday, and it happened to be one of the busiest Wednesdays of the whole month! We both had to work that day and Spencer got stuck working until Midnight! So since Wednesday was void of any fun, Spencer decided to surprise me with a trip to Moab! On Saturday we went white water rafting on the Colorado River. After we got through that alive we decided to hike to Delicate Arch in Arches National Park.


The next morning we went horseback riding. My horse liked to stop and eat a lot, so it took a while for little me to show that big animal who was boss, but after a while we were trotting down the same trails that Butch Cassidy and other famous cowboys took a long time ago.


After riding along the red canyons all afternoon, we managed to find enough energy to hike the rest of Arches. It came back to haunt our muscles the next day, but it was well worth it. Such a great weekend!


Thursday, January 7, 2010

What a Welcome!

So as many of you probably already knew, we are finally back in the good old USA. It was great to get back home to family, friends, Walmart, free refills, normal food, and a decent bed. It wasn't long however that we realized that things were not all happy go lucky back in the land of promise. As soon as we arrived back home our hot water wasn't working (by not working I don't mean it wasn't hot, there simply wasn't any water at all when switched to hot). We didn't have a frozen pipe - we weren't that blessed; it turned out that our hot water heater died after a long twenty years. So we replaced our water heater and then went out of town to relax and enjoy the holidays.

We then returned home once again and found that our furnace had contracted the same ailment as the water heater and had also died. We therefore replaced the furnace and then immediately paid tuition on top of it. I almost feel like a broken slot machine just paying jackpots to everyone willing to pull the handle.

But in all reality, we enjoy being home so much that the cost is worth it...I think. Its good to be back.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Museums, museums, museums

Since we are poor college students with no income at the moment we have been doing everything in London that we can do for free. Luckily that's pretty easy for a city with so much history and so many amazing free museums! Here are a few pictures from each museum, monument (there are a lot of those around) or random place that we went to:
The Museum of London

St. Paul's Cathedral

Buckingham Palace and the Royal Mews (where they keep the royal horses and carriages)

Parliament, Westminster Abby and Big Ben

Westminster Hall inside the houses of Parliament. This plaque may be too small to read, but it says: "Near this spot, at the King's bench at the south end of the hall, took place the trial of Sir William Wallace the Scottish patriot on Monday, 23rd August 1305"

The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square and Picadilly Circus


The Museum of Natural History


Hyde Park


Shakespear's Globe Theatre

The Royal Observatory and Greenwich Park


The Tower of London

Monday, November 2, 2009

Anniversary in Bath

So, we have been having so much fun lately, and I'll have to admit I have been a little lazy too, that I haven't put up a new post in a while. I apologize to all of our fans out there that have been waiting, so I think I will try to fit two in one day. First I have to start with our trip to Bath, and because it was such an awesome trip I will give it it's own post. If you follow Becky and Spencer on facebook, you probably have already seen most of these photos, but enjoy anyway! The cool thing about Bath is that it was built by the Romans almost 2,000 years ago! The Romans built baths everywhere throughout their empire, and since they ruled Britain for hundreds of years they built one here. The difference is that this one is built over a natural hot spring and it is the largest Roman bath ever found in the entire world outside of Rome itself.

The main bath was actually more like a pool and would have been covered during the roman days by a giant canopy made of hollow tiles 50 feet higher than where we were standing. The water is green because of algae, but when the baths were covered they would not have been in the sun and the water would have been perfectly clear.

The Bath Abbey Church, the tall building in the back, now stands were the ancient temple would have stood next to the baths. Inside the Abby is a very large, beautiful stained glass window that is about 60 feet tall and depicts 50 scenes from the life of Jesus.

Bath is also famous for its Victorian architecture. This part of town is called the Royal Circus and is a full circle of these giant homes that were built together. Apparently Nicolas Cage owned one of these homes, but recently sold it and bought a small castle on the outskirts of the city.

Just down the street from the Royal Circus is the Royal Crescent!

It was so big we needed a panoramic camera!

The city has some amazing history! Next to the ancient Roman Baths they have built some modern bath spas that we took full advantage of the last day that we were there, but there are no pictures of this because we were in our bathing suits! Sorry! :)