I'm back!

I had a great vacation both with family and costume friends.

I will post pictures soon, but unfortunately my camera and my computer are having a fight right now.

And the computer is winning.

So we'll all just have to wait.

For now, how do you like my new layout? I think it's kind of fun.

No longer good society

I just had to share this video. Some of you may have seen it, but, well, you'll know why I love it.



I'm leaving tomorrow morning to fly to Alaska for my brothers wedding! And then I'm going to a costuming conference in California, so lots of fun photos and updates to come!

How could I be so remiss?

As to forget to post the adorable photos (and videos) from my trip to see my adorable niece and nephew!

Let me fix that right now.

Can you handle the adorableness?


Are you dead yet?

Jack loved my shoes.



How can you resist this face?

Oh and we had a dance party. Jack loves to dance.

Just ignore silly Aunt Carly...
Oh and did I mention that my phone now takes video?
Thanks Edwina!

Hello August

So far I've been very busy in the month of August. It started out as a volunteer thing and turned into a part time job. This is where I've been for the last week and where I'll be every night for the next week and a half:



Working on the Boston Common as a Costume Assistant for the annual Free Commonwealth Shakespeare Company production! So far working on the Comedy of Errors has been fun (if stressful going from full time day job, to the Common until midnight) and I've been excited for the chance to meet some new people and get out of my comfort zone a bit! Read the great review the Boston Globe gave us here. If you're in Boston come see us before August 16th!

Then two days after the show ends, I will be here:




Visiting my brother and his cute cute family in Utah! Yay!! I'm so excited!

And then when I get back it's time to move.... Dun dun dun! It's gonna be busy! Hopefully I'll have time to post all the adorable photos I'll be taking of my niece and nephew while visiting them, so check back later this month!

Long Overdue

Hi everybody! Sorry I've been so bad about keeping this up. What can I say, somethings never change...

Anyway, I thought I'd do a little bit of an update and try to get pictures up another time when I get my camera battery back from a friend.

Wow, a lot has happened in the last couple months! First some really good news, I got accepted to Grad School at West Dean for next year!! I am so excited to know for sure that it's going to happen! It's going to be an amazing year (I mean, just look at the pictures below), but I'm also glad that I have a year to prepare. I'm loving my job and not quite ready to leave just yet. The one thing I'm not quite looking forward to is taking a Chemistry class this year in prep. I'm a little nervous, but I think it will be ok.

More awesome news, my sister had her second child just a few short weeks ago! Grayden is so cute and I'm so excited to be an aunt again. I can't wait until I get to hold him!

And luckily I won't have to wait long! I'm really excited because I'm going to Utah next week because my little brother Mikie is getting off his mission this Friday! I will get to see my entire family and I can't even wait! I've actually been super homesick in the last couple months and was bummed that I'd have to wait until Christmas to see everyone in my family again. As much as I love Boston it's just too far away sometimes. But thank goodness for sale tickets! I got the sweetest deal ever and am going to have so much fun, I just wish I could stay longer!

Anyway, that's the big stuff that's been going on. Other fun stuff that I've been up to includes:

• reading Breaking Dawn (and winning the costume contest at the midnight release party... I'll have to post pictures) in one weekend and continuing to talk about it almost nonstop since, plus getting other people reading the series
• trivia night every Monday at the Sunset Cantina with groups big and small - last night we finally won!
• taking a workshop at North Bennett Street School - 18th Century French Leather Bindings that was really fun (except for the days that I got sick, lame)
• seeing lots of movies including American Teen (highly recommended), Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2 (ditto), Mamma Mia, Batman: the Dark Knight, and gearing up for the Twilight movie!! (btw, if you didn't know, since Harry Potter moved back to 2009 - boo- Twilight is now coming out Nov 12th! Yay!)
• Watching tons of Olympics and cheering on my secret boyfriend, Michael Phelps (guess it's not so much of a secret anymore...)
• Spending a Saturday soaking up the sun at Walden Pond
• Getting caught in a major thunderstorm while giving a tour of the Freedom Trail downtown
• Watching free Shakespeare on the Boston Commons ("As You Like It" - pretty good, but still can't compare to my first year here)
• Seeing a great little production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" (one of my favorite plays)
• Probably a lot of other stuff that I can't remember right now
• Talking with my niece, Kirsten, on the phone, who's just 15 months old. She somehow is able to randomly call me and proceeds to talk my ear off, it's the cutest thing ever!

Anyway, I guess that's what you get when I forget to update for so long! Sorry again! I'll definitely try to post some pics this week, and for sure will have lots to report on when I get back from Utah! I can't wait for the cuteness of all the babies I'll get to hold! My head just might explode from all the family fun!

England Trip Part 3 - West Dean

Ok, so here's the last bit! West Dean College!

Wow, is all I can say. This place is Beautiful! I mean check out the front door!

So I got here on Monday night and didn't see anyone really at that point, but the next morning when I went in to breakfast I met Lili, who is my email friend at the school. It's kind of funny actually, her brother is in my ward in Boston and we've been emailing each other for the last year and half because she was applying for a job at Harvard, plus she went to BYU, knows everyone I know, and so it's just funny that this was the first time we'd actually met in person! She is really lovely, I wish I'd gotten a picture with her, oh well!

After breakfast (which was delicious by the way, all the food there was, they have meals "cafeteria style") I met up with the instructor of the book course for my Practical Test and Interview. He gave me a tour of the facility and set me to work on making some things. It went well, in fact I wasn't nervous at all, until they started asking me questions in the interview and portfolio part... But overall I think it went well.

This took pretty much all day, but I was done at 4 and after having a tour of the accommodations and talk about financing options, I went to bother Lili a bit in her room. She was trying to finish a huge research paper, so I tried not to distract her for too long. Luckily though, she had an adaptor that I could use to recharge my camera battery, so yay! Pictures! After dinner she took me on a lovely walk through the Arboretum where most of the pictures were taken...

A view of the school from the top of a nearby hill.

The beautiful green fields next to the school (these don't really do it justice... it was raining most of Monday and Tuesday)

Lambies!! All the lambs here have twins because they are artificially inseminated. Baby lambs are the cutest!

These are fields of white daisies. Pretty!

Coming back to the school (we did a big loop), isn't it just so picturesque?

This is the hallway on the way to my room in the main house! Crazy! There are like hundred-year-old tapestries hanging on the walls, antique marble pillars, urns, armor and dead animal heads all over the school!

The view from my window in my room, showing the back-side garden. You can see a quaint little cottage behind the shrub wall there...

A better view of the cottage.

Another view of the front of the school.

So anyway! That is pretty much the end of my trip! I went to bed on Tuesday, got up early Wednesday morning for breakfast and then drove back up to the airport. My plane left in the afternoon, so I had plenty of time to return the car and do a bit of airport shopping before it was back to Boston, this time through Toronto!

All in all, it was an amazing trip! I'm so glad I was able to go! I'm still not sure what to do about school, in fact I'm almost more confused than I was before, but I'm glad I got a feel for both of them, and that I was able to meet up with some friends! It was so great to be back in England after 7 years. It's still the same as I remembered, which I'm glad of, and I really hope that I'll be back again very soon!

Next up are some pictures of what I've been up to since getting back. Yes, my life never stops.... Seriously though, it's usually really boring, but maybe since it's summer it's getting a little more exciting. Anyway, I'll be sure to be better about posting what I'm up to this summer, so keep checking back!

England Trip Part 2 - Hampshire and Jane Austen's House

So, to continue the journey, I got up bright and early on Monday morning to pick up my rental car at the airport. That's right! I drove in England! On the right hand side of the car! On the left side of the road! And I lived to tell the tale! It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I got used to it pretty quickly.

Anyway, after a short hiccup at the rental desk I was off in a cute little sliver VW hatchback. It was an automatic, so luckily I didn't have to worry about anything other than getting used to driving "backwards". I actually didn't have a map (maybe a bad idea and I found out later that the rental company had one I could have borrowed, why they didn't tell me that at the time...) but I had printed directions from Google which worked just fine. I headed first to... Jane Austen's House!

Oh man, I wish I had someone there to share the excitement with, but at the same time it was great to be able to go through at my own pace. I was really lucky because I love fashion and costuming from this time and they were having an exhibit throughout the museum of dresses from the new adaptation of Sense & Sensibility that just aired on Masterpiece (which you should all watch, because although it's not as great as the Emma Thompson version, is still a nice long adaptation).

So onto the pictures!

This dress was in the entrance to the museum. Elinor Dashwood wears it throughout the movie. So fun to see it up close!

This is Jane Austen's writing desk. It's in the same place it was in her lifetime. In the breakfast room under the window. It's actually really small and I can't imagine her sitting and writing six novels here!

This was in the same room as the desk and was worn by Fanny Dashwood, the evil step-sister-in-law, in the movie. It's accordingly a "finer" dress.

One of my favorite dresses, worn by Marianne Dashwood, this was upstairs in Jane and Cassandra's room, which was actually quite small!

I'm pretty sure this was another one of Elinor's dresses.

I believe this was an original copy (couldn't be sure as it was in the back of case) of one of JA's first "novels", "Love and Friendship". The illustrations were done by her sister. I actually ended up talking the with curator of the museum for some time about who they have doing conservation work on their objects because there were many, like this one, that I wanted to cradle like a little baby and fix myself! I got a contact and might be able to do some work for them when I get over there...

This is an actual quilt made by Jane, her mother and sister. It's actually so amazing and this picture doesn't do it justice! Can you imagine piecing all these together by hand?!

This was worn by Edward Ferras in the movie... swoon... man, I love Regency Men!

This is JA's donkey cart. At the end of her life she was very sick and it was hard for her to move around, so she would get out in this little cart which was pulled by a donkey.

A view of the pump and behind it the bake house where the bread was made.

A view of the entrance gate on the side of the house.

Jane Austen's House!

After getting my fill of her gardens and house I went on to Winchester where she died and was buried. There's a memorial to her in Winchester Cathedral. This is the only place I actually got lost. The directions I had were hard to follow as they don't like to post the name of roads in England (so it seems), have a million one way streets and the directions only told me to stay on roads for about 200 yards before I was supposed to make another turn! I was just going to park and find my way on foot, but I was out of cash and so I got in a catch-22, I couldn't park without cash, but I couldn't stop to get cash without parking! So eventually I stopped at a petrol station and a really nice bloke (see I'm picking up the lingo already!) helped me find an ATM and gave me directions to the cathedral, so eventually I made it! I wish I had more time to explore this quaint little city. It had some fun shops on the High Street too. I ate lunch then made my way to the Cathedral for pictures.

The entrance to Winchester Cathedral. There has actually been a church on this site since like the late 1100's, can you believe it?

This is the stone in the floor that marks Jane Austen's death. It was placed here by her family. It actually doesn't mention anything about her being a writer.

This plaque was placed here later above the stone on the floor and refers to her writing. There was also a stained glass window above it which also commemorate her as a writer.

Unfortunately after this the battery on my camera died so I didn't get any pictures of the rest of my adventures on Monday. But after walking around the church a bit more I decided I wanted to try to get to Brighton before going to the school. I figured I had the car, why not take advantage of it! Brighton was about a two hour drive from Winchester so I didn't spend any more time in the town and just took off on the motorway. I kept thinking the whole drive down there "But I want to go to Brighton!", like how Lydia Bennet says it in the A&E version of Pride & Prejudice! Fun times.

Again, I didn't have a map, and although I knew where it was, I hadn't printed any directions from Winchester to Brighton, so I just decided to wing it by following signs on the motorways! It turned out fine and I made it there in no time at all!

When I got to Brighton I found a parking garage and followed signs to the Royal Pavilion. Since it was a bank holiday Brighton seemed pretty busy! There were tons of people out walking around, and while this was fun, I felt a little conspicuous walking around by myself. So I did the tour of the Royal Pavilion and then walked down along the Victorian Boardwalk, which has an amusement park on it. Again, I didn't linger long at many things, but bought some cotton candy (or floss as they call it) and played one of the booth games they had where you compete against a lot of other people. It was pretty fun!

The Royal Pavilion (this picture was not taken by me, my camera had broken but I wanted you to see what it looked like). This is one amazing place!

Again, not my picture (obviously) but this is a shot of Brighton Pier from the air. It's a pretty big place!

From the Beach. The white building had a huge arcade inside.

I decided I'd get some dinner before driving to the school, so I walked around The Lanes, which are little alleyways that have been turned into a shopping district, and found a little Italian restaurant that didn't look too uncomfortable for sitting by myself.

After dinner I drove back along the coastal road to West Dean and was astonished when passing this castle, which I found out later was Arundel Castle! Wish I'd had time to stop!!

So amazing! I could see this off in the distance sitting above a little village and I can't wait to go back and explore more!

Well, that brings me to the end of that leg of the journey. Next up, West Dean! I made it in at about 8:30 that night and went right to sleep in my beautiful old room!

England Trip Part 1 - London

Get ready for picture overload!

Ok, so I've needed some time to recuperate since my trip so sorry for the delay on posting. I have a million pictures so I'm going to break this into a few posts, so you've been warned! I'm sorry if I overload your computer, but really, I crammed so much into just a few short days, it's amazing! Ok, onto the recap!

I got in at 9:30 am on Thursday morning after flying all night. I had a layover in Halifax, and unfortunately didn't get much sleep, so was pretty dead. Aimee, my friend from High School who I was staying with, met me at the airport and we headed to her "fella's" house in south London. I crashed as soon as we got there. Man jet-lag is such a pain! I seriously didn't feel normal until 4 days into the trip! After a good 2 hour nap, I was ready to get out and see some sights.

We had decided before hand that we should try to see a play on Thursday, since it was a bank holiday which meant more people in London over the weekend, so we first went down to Leischester Square to the discount ticket booths. Unfortunately Les Mis wasn't on sale that weekend because of said bank holiday so instead we got a great deal on tickets to... "Spamalot"! This one has always been on my list, just because I love the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" so I was actually happy to go, plus it was high on Aimee and John's (Aimee's fella) list. Since most of the day was gone (thanks jet-lag) we walked around the book stores on Charing Cross Road looking for used paperbacks with not a lot of luck. We eventually ended up at Foyle's, a five story mega-store, like Borders and they had newer editions of what I was looking for. Then we met up with John, grabbed a quick bite at McDonald's (don't worry I had better food on the trip) then headed to the theater with you "pick-n-mix" candy (shhh...)!

The "curtian" before the show opened. The stage was great! Very "Python"...

This theater was seriously cool, there were little cherubs along all the balconies. As you can see from the pictures our seats were pretty great. Right in the center about ten rows back. But the seat I wish I had (and which you should all try to get if you have the choice is D1... you might just get to meet the cast, we'll call it a mini role). The show was so much fun, Aimee got a killer rabbit, plus there was even a famous actor in the cast! King Arthur was played by Alan Dale who's in Ugly Betty, the O.C., and aparently some really famous Australian TV show... he was pretty good! Overall, I'm glad I got to see it. Les Mis would have been great, but this was fun, and very British!

We got Chinese food in China Town after the show, then headed home to collapse again, this time for about 8 hours.

My attempt to get up early the next day was not very successful, so by the time we got to our first stop, The Globe Theater, we didn't have time for a tour before I had to run off to meet with people at Camberwell College, one of the schools I'm considering for Grad School. We grabbed some lunch, which included some Banoffi Pie and then I braved the busses to get to the school.

My tour of the school was great and it's made my decision making process even harder! They both have pluses and minuses, but they are pretty much opposites, so we'll have to see which is a better fit, luckily I have a bit of time to do that.

Then it was back to meet Aimee! We had missed the last tour by that time so decided it would have to wait until the next day. We grabbed some pictures and then boarded a boat for a tour of sights from the Thames.

In front of Shakespeare's Globe

From the boat:

London Bridge

Tower Bridge (don't know why I didn't get close to this last time)

The Tower, this inner building used to be the Norman's castle. It's most famously been used as a prison.

From the other side of Tower Bridge

Passing back by the Tower, this is Traitors Gate, where prisoners used to be taken into the prison.

The Globe again.

The London Eye (a 400 ft tall ferris wheel, scary!)

Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Did you know that Big Ben is the bell, not the clock?

After our boat tour we walked from the Houses of Parliament up to Buckingham Palace. There's a beautiful park along the walk, I was so glad that the weather was nice for the first few days of my trip!

St. Jame's Park

The Palace with a monument to Queen Victoria

Palace Gaurd

In front of the gates!

It's hard to remember (since a lot of this and the next day had been spent in the same area) but I think this was also the night we ate at Wagamama's for dinner, which on the reccommendation from Aimee was very tasty. We also had some fabulous coconut ice cream for dessert! Yum-O!

We were tired after all that walking so headed home, watched some telly, then crashed again!

The next day we got up bright and early to do the Globe tour! Yay! Finally! It was a really great tour, great museum, and I only wish I could have seen a play! If I'd come a week later I could have seen "A Mid Summer Night's Dream" which is my favorite, so kind of a bummer, but someday... This building is obviously a replica, the original was somewhere in the near vacinity but had burned down only a few years after Shakespeare's death. I learned lots of interesting facts that I hadn't known before, and now of course I want to go read more! I'll spare you the details though as this post is getting long and just get to the pictures...

The Stage and the pit. You can see the decoration on the ceiling and pillars.

More of a view of the audience seating.

After that we headed to Oxford Street for shopping at New Look (great deals!) and then lunch at the Marloborough Head, a true English Pub! I wish I got pictures of the basement where we sat. It had a whole wall of bookshelves (with false spines) which cleverly concealed the doors to the "loos". It was funny to watch people try to find their way. We helped many a poor soul since we were right next to the Men's room... so funny. I had a true English Sunday Roast, with Yorkshire Pudding (yay!), Mashers (mashed potatoes) and Roast Beef. It was delicious!

After that we headed up to the British Library, but first since we came out at King's Cross station we had to make a pilgramage to Platform Nine and Three Quarters of course!! So much fun to push a trolley through the barrier...

Off to the Hogwarts Express!!

Oh, and in other related Harry Potter news, guess who gets to hear J.K. Rowling speak this Thursday at Harvard's Commencement!? You guessed it! I'm sooooo excited!

Ok, back to London... We spent a good chunk of time at the Brit Lib of course. Had to go check out the new Conservation facilities even thought it was Sat. so they weren't open. It was great to see all those treasures again, especially the Jane Austen letters and manuscripts!

So that night we went home to have a Birthday Bash for Aimee's friend Claudia which involved ordering "a curry" (indian take-out to you Yanks) and watching the craziest thing this American's ever seen, Eurovision! And of course cake! Just for a little taste of what the competition looked like this year, check out my favorite of the performances: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Let's just say it was an experience...

On Sunday we packed in the last of the things on my "to-do" list. First we hit Harrod's and saw the "Egyptian Hall" and the "Food Halls". Wow, that is all I can say. Shopping at Harrod's really is an "experience".

At the top of the Egyptian Hall

They even had an opera singer singing live!

We then went on to the Victoria & Albert Museum where we had lunch and then I walked quicly around my favorite exhibit, the Fashion hall, before heading off the the Brittania ward, which is the only singles ward in the UK.

They were having a special exhibit about the Supremes, which looked great, although I didn't see it.

While I was at church the rest of the group went to the Natural History Museum to see a live Buterfly exhibit. I snapped this picture of the great hall while I was waiting for them in the gift shop.

By that time it was getting close to the end of the day. We had just enough time to head home, change, grab some food then walk to the local movie theater to see the new "Indiana Jones" movie! So much fun!

Wow, so that's just the first end of my trip! Whew, is everyone even still with me? I think that might be the longest post I've ever written! So maybe tonight or tomorrow I'll post about the next part which I think might be my favorite! London was great and I'm so glad I was able to stay with Aimee and that she played all weekend with me, but the English country side is GORGEOUS! Just wait, it's gonna be good!

Ok, that's all for now! Check back soon!