Blenheim Palace...because the sun came out.

Went to Blenheim palace on Saturday to be out in the sun. Our first English winter really hasn't been too hard, we are just ready for the sun now. Alan is almost as white as me so that should tell you something. It may be sunny but it was still cold! We did have a great time walking around and enjoying our free pass to Blenheim. We walked around the gardens, rode the train, went through the maze, through the butterfly house, and finally sat down for a nice cup of tea (We are officially English ;)

Here are some pictures from the Butterfly house. The cool thing about caterpillars/butterflies is that when they are in the cocoon everything but there heart turns into goo then they are reconstructed into butterflies. Hmmm...sounds like intelligent design to me.

The maze was fun, it is supposedly the second biggest hedge maze in the world but we did it in like 15 min. So either we were just extremely good at mazes or they just don't make hedge mazes like they used to ;)

I hope that this sunshine sticks around!

My Favorite Person

He happens to be my Valentine too.

I love him so!

Our Snow Friends

Our snow dog thing...haha ok it doesn't exactly look like a dog. It's hard! We did manage to support the entire body on four individual legs.

Snow penguin, his eyes are green beens and his nose is a frozen french fry.

Ok, so we didn't make one. There was a ton of snowmen all over town. If you have to come to work while everyone else got a snow day you might as well make a snowman in front of your work. This one was outside a college kitchen. The staff that made this starting waving at us while we were admiring their work.

Baby it's cold outside

Downtown Oxford during a snow storm is what I imagine the setting of a Dickens novel to be like. It is so enchanting. Buildings older than the USA covered in snow.

A classic British icon.

Doesn't he look cold?

We walked downtown during a brief hiatus in the snow, it is now back to flurries :)

I love snowwwwww!!!

We had so many layers on today! Undershirts, thermals, hoodies, and our oh so warm and wonderful waterproof jackets. (a must in the UK, thanks again Gary & Judy. Those jackets have kept us very cozy!)

Snow Angels

This view of Christ Church always looks stunning, but I love it even more in the snow. I don't think I have ever walked by this spot when there wasn't at least one tourist taking pictures. Which means there is always someone there to take your picture :)

Snow and New Hair...you totally see the connection right?

It is snowing!!! It has already got a good 3 or 4 inches down and is suppose to snow for the next two days!!! We had some fun building this snow man with our neighbours James and Emma. The snow flakes were enormous. They have simmered down in size now but is still coming down pretty thick.

TaDa! I cut my hair...well obviously. I was super nervous last night, but today I knew half way through the hair cut that I was going to like it. And bonus Alan likes it too. :) When did I get this brave? I can move across the world just fine but cutting my hair...yikes.

Christmas & New Year

This is Christmas morning at the Berthiaume flat, squishy faced, tired eyes, hair a mess...and all smiles.

New Years Eve 2009! We went down to London to bring in the new year/new decade with thousands of people we didn't know. Needless to say it was pretty fun :)

(Below) This is our first picture of the New Year!!!


So after the fireworks and everyone singing Auld Lang Syne. We noticed some ash falling from the sky, we thought it was just from the fireworks. Then as we walked away from West Minster, and were a few blocks away the "ash" kept growing bigger and began sticking to us, then we (along with the hundreds of people walking down the street) realized that it was snowing!!! It was the perfect end to a fun night, and a fun way to start the new decade. The picture below is right after we realized it was snowing, you can sort of see some of the flakes and maybe my tonsils ;)

This is just a video of when Big Ben struck midnight. You can kind of hear the chimes of Big Ben between the fireworks.

May you know God's peace