The New Addition to the Overton Family

The world has ended...yep, I know it has. How do I know? Well, because the Overton family got a dog...an inside dog at that! Yes, I know miracles do happen. Very rarely, but they do on occasion.

Yes, she has a coat because she didn't even weigh 3 pounds yet and its freezing outside.

She looks like a drowned rat

Action shot!

Just like OutKast said, "I'm so fresh and so clean!"

So, yeah that's the new addition to the family, Abbie. She's already proven to be a handful and don't let her size fool you; she is super stealth, fiesty, and loves to bite.

This Day in History v.3

When Hannah and I realized we had both gotten into our perspective programmes in London and were sharing the news with Sami we all had the bright idea of celebrating somewhere BIG for NYE that year. Where better than Paris? Two summers before my London programme, I did another study abroad in Bristol, England and Sami came to meet me at the end to patrol the streets of London. Hannah was also studying for a month in Paris that summer as well so Sami and I decided to fly to the city to have fun and also meet up with Hannah. Man, I really miss just jumping on an airplane and jetting off for two hours and then landing in another country! So when it came to making our master plan for the festivus holiday, we all decided to descend upon Paris again to wreak havoc! Danielle also decided to jump in on the plans after coming from Spain visiting our other friend Leah. (Man, I have such bad ass friends!)

I went home to America that Christmas and on my return, made a connection in London to Paris. I think I had to wait the entire day for my connection and I remember trying to sleep in the waiting hall at Heathrow trying to sleep and hold on to my luggage at the same time. Not an easy task I tell you. I finally made my connection but I mistakenly told the girls that my flight arrived way earlier than it actually did. When I finally got into the city I realized that my phone didn't work outside of the UK...oops! AND to top it off my phone was dying (where the number was stored and I don't have a pencil/pen to write it down). I finally find the place we are staying (we rented someone's flat while he was out of town...pretty bad ass) buuuut its just this large building and I don't know the exact flat number...uh oh. So I stand outside and try to whisper/scream the girls names but its night time and its quite outside and I'm afraid of waking anyone up. Some random old angry lady leans out her window and yells something in French to me. I am soooo scared and worried. I set out to find the phone booth I remember seeing a couple of streets over, however, I soon learn that I don't know how to use the machines! (Come to find out Danielle had come outside to check if I was outside while I was gone...figures). Now, I'm nearly in tears at this time and don't know what I'm going to do. Thankfully, I find this random group of guys and a girl on the street and they can speak broken Franglish (what I call my mix of french and english...you'd think after 6 years of French I could do better, but NO) and they let me use their mobile. The girls were so scared and thought I had died and said they were about to call my mom in America in the next 10 minutes if I didn't show up. What an EVENT!

Note to self: I promptly got a sim card for my mobile to make calls outside of the UK when I travelled!

Anyways, after the initial panic the rest of the trip turned out FABULOUS! I think we were there for 4 or 5 days so plenty of time for food, wine, and good times! For NYE we decided to just walk the streets since we didn't want to pay to get into a place..but DAMN it was COLD. We stood in front of the Arc de Triumphe and ended up meeting some random Lativan guy and his friends who shared "milk and cookies" with us...some mixture of burbon and cookies I think. And there were supposed to be fireworks that night too at the countdown but for some reason they didn't end up going off and it was after midnight before we realized it!It was pretty dangerous afterwards because people were throwing empty champagne bottles and glasses. And there was a mass exodis to the metro stations and we had a problem with random people groping us on the tube because it was so crowded. Ick. But all in all, we had a great time, as can be seen in the pictures below!

The girls under the Eiffel Tower

Sami and I in front of the Louvre

Out on the streets NYE...Freezing our butts off!

Partying at a random Irish bar in Paris that we stumbled upon

Sami and I in front of the Louvre again

Hannah and I eating the BEST icecream EVER. We have this EXACT same picture from 2 sumemrs before when Sami and I visited the summer Hannah studied abroad in Paris. Except Hannah's purse was a few (ok, a lot of) shades of orange brighter!

HAHAHAHA oh girls how I forgot about this list!

Drinking on the streets dreaming about Paublo and Piedro...our fantasy Parisean men

Me in front of the Arc de Triumphe

We met a random Latvian who LOVED us. Of course we loved him because he had a Santa hat with braids!

Shocked by all that was going on around us

Crowd shot of the night...SO many people!

God I loved this night...I will never forget the best NYE ever!

Third Times a Charm

So for my THIRD birthday party, the local girls and I planned to celebrate in style in Richmond, Va. But good ole random Virginia weather put a damper on those plans. The weatherman predicted that there would be snow and lots of it at that. Now, I'm not sure how exactly he pulls the weather forecast out of his magical ball but he's usually wrong. However it seems like this time his magic 8 ball was on pointe. Richmond was snowed in with a couple inches of snow so we decided to nix those plans and stay local. If any of you really know me, you know I really hate going out around here. Same 5 people at the same 5 bars. It was a soul crushing experience to move from london with thousands of bars and places to go to back here where there are only but so many options.

I decided that in true British fashion we should go to the Pub for my birthday. However since it was a mini snowstorm outside there weren't many people that braved the action to go to a bar. Thankfully I was out with girls who were from Pittsburg and were used to driving and dealing with the snow. I know how to drive in the snow, its just all the crazies out there that you have to worry about. So we ate at The Pub and had a few beers. The grub was GREAT - way different than the typical British food. Everyone knows when you go to London you don't actually eat the British food (except for Fish and Chips) because London is a mecca for great international food.

 

Jessica with her chocolate beer

 

Jessica, Myself, Emily, and Melissa

After the pub we decided to go to the girl's usual hangout in downtown Hampton, the Taphouse. Of if these walls could only talk...thank god they don't. There are plenty of skeletons in those closets. Crystal and Steve also joined in on the birthday festivities.

And no the scarves were not planned

Baby its Cold Outside

Baby its cold outside! Man, I'm going to have to start celebrating my half birthday in June instead of my regularly scheduled program in December. For my second birthday celebration I made the journey up to DC to celebrate with some of my amazing sisters. Big shout out to Hannah, Ashleigh, Bree, Megan, and Kelly for making my birthday great :)

So I headed up to DC friday night for a pj/movie night with the lovely Hannah and Ashleigh and I brought my FAVOURITE movie of all time (yes, the British spelling!). Its called Wild Child and it was only released to DVD in America but Hannah and I fell in love with it in the cinema in London. Now, watching movies in a cinema was kind of expensive in London, so obvi this was a big deal. Its all about an American girl who is shipped off to a British boarding school. Its quirky bristh humour coupled with a hot Brit, what else is there in life? I mean, how can you NOT love a movie where the characters dress up like this:

Then on Saturday after a lazy morning, we headed to the capital to see the Christmas tree. Once again, I wasn't blown away by this tree either, much like the tree in NYC. Oh well, it was still fun. Even more fun was trying to find a parking spot in DC...HAHAHAHAHA...I don't do parallel parking very well. In my defense its hard to see out of the back of my car, I can parallel park I swear!

Ashleigh and I in front of the tree

The other half of my heart

We then made it over to Megan's apartment in Crystal City to pregame and get ready to bring the party!

It might have been December but that wasn't going to prevent me from dressing scantily. DUH. Hello I am Queen of getting free drinks.

So thats about all the pictures I have from the night which is appropraite because thats about all I remember. Hey, you only celebrate 27 once!

These Streets Will Make You Feel Brand New

Man, lots to catch up on!

So to kick off my birthday celebrations (yes, with an S...3 scheduled birthday parties so far...) I made a trip to NJ/NYC to visit my friend Teresa. Teresa and I studied abroad together to our trip to Bristol and then again in London. She was actually my housemate the first time and then roommate the second time. Ahhh memories....cider, evil house mothers, sneaking in boys, the 24 hour grocery store, wine nights, McDonald runs....I could go on forever and forever.

After my flight is severly delayed (it hadn't left NY yet by the time we were supposed to take off) I arrived in Hoboken, NJ after somehow managing to catch all the correct trains to get to the city. Our first stop was Carlos Bake Shop. Have any of you see Cake Boss on TLC? Well, that's where this show is taped. Let me tell you, the cakes are AMAZINGLY done. We even got to see one of the characters, Mauro!

Mauro, or Buddy's right hand man

I was very overwhelmed at all of the cake/cupcake options but I had to choose just 1! Of course I had to also check out these famous canoli's as well.

The Bake Shop

Wedding cake in the shop's front window

Um, yes please...I'll take one of those

It was LOVE at first bite! (Insert Kylie Minogue's song right here)

One of the famous canolis

Teresa's santa clause cupcake. I annialated my cupcake before I thought to capture the beauty on film :(

It was soooo cold on Saturday that we ddin't end up doing what we planned for which was going to see the Statue of Liberty. I mean, it was too cold to snow. Instead, we opted to warm up our credit cards by shopping! Saturday night we went to this really good Mexican place and the portion size was GINORMOUS! Later we met up with my friend Maura who was also in my London programme.
Sunday we went to see a show called Rock of Ages, a hilarious love story based on the true 80s hariband music. We frolicked around the Times Square area. I really love all the lights, reminds me of Picadilly Circus in London. Sigh.

And then we made our way to the Christmas Tree in Bryant Park where we watched all the iceskaters fall and make fools of themselves. For some reason, I expected to be more in awe of the tree so I was a little dissapointed.

Teresa and I in front of the tree

It was just too cold to be out on that ice!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas...

Holy shit man, its pink!

How very fitting to write a post about Christmas yule tide on Dcember 1st! Well these next few weeks are going to be very festive for me. I went to Christmas town at Busch Gardens last week with the girls, going to NYC this weekend with my roomate Teresa from London, DC the next weekend, and Richmond the next one! Hopefully I can hit up the Christmas decorations in each place. I've haven't really been excited about Christmas in a really long time. I was always dating someone and he seemed to never be home around Christmas/my birthday so this year I said screw it, I'm going to make my own Christmas Cheer!

Here are a few pictures from Christmas town at Busch Gardens. It really was a rip off that we paid $20 to get in at 3pm and $12 for parking...OUCH! And um, hello...the hours are ridic...you can't see christmas decorations at 3pm...its still light out!

The girls and I in front of Frosty.

Um, I really want that Christmas tree in my house!!!!

This is how I always envisioned my North Pole...with a disco ball on top!

Emily in front of the green tree.

Of course I fought teeth and nails to get the pink horse! There might have been a some scarred children after I pushed them out of the way...oops.

Probably THE best icecream...Mint soft serve icecream drizzled with hot chocolate and a waffle cone with holiday sprinkles. I die a little inside everytime I think about it.

It finally started to get dark outside so we could see the lights!!!

Can't wait to see what these next few weeks hold for me!!! Next stop, NYC!!!!