Yesterday was fun, Clayton and I decided to go and have a look at an old Double Decker bus that was in a local town not far from us. We had passed it before, but we had never had a chance to have a good look at it. Turns out it was a Fish n Chip shop, if you look in the top left hand corner window it has a Fish n Chip sign. You can read more about the history of the bus here.

So yes, my diet was ruined yesterday, but it was worth it to try the Fish n Chips. Not that it was anything like a good old British Fish n Chip shop, the chips were just like regular fries and the fish were little bite size pieces of Alaskan Cod. I can still remember Clayton's face when he was in the U.K, my Grandad had taken us both to one of the best Fish n Chip shops in the area. They handed him his meal, and there in front of him was a massive piece of battered cod with a huge portion of chips, his reaction was very amusing.


Double Decker Bus 


Front of Bus 

After the Fish n Chips we needed a long walk, and there we noticed a British Tea Room called 'The Abbey Garden Tea Room' so in we go, for some tea and a Scone with Jam and Devon Cream. Mmm so good. The place was very sweet, and had a lot of British foods.

After that we ended up taking a long drive to Anacortes we found out a London Play was being performed at the local Theater there. The play is Agatha Christie's The Mouse Trap funnily enough this is the same play I saw when I was in London getting my K-1 Visa. So we got tickets to go and see that next Saturday, the 5th February.

My interview at the YMCA went rather well. Everyone was really friendly and nice, and with me being from a different country it kinda broke the ice a little bit. Ben's grandmother had given me a good reference to, so I'm hopeful. They said they'd call me towards the end of the week with a decision, so fingers crossed everyone. I'd really love this job, it'll be nice to get back out there and meet new people.

My Curves workout went really well. The ladies were all so very nice, and made me feel welcome, I was shown how to work all the machines, and they did a complete workout with me. I felt really good afterwards, and I didn't ache that much. I'm going again tomorrow, so that's good.

Yesterday in Wales was St. Dwynwen's Day. It commemorates the patron saint of friendship and love. It's basically the Welsh equivalent of St. Valentine's Day. Not very many people celebrate it in Wales though. I made Clayton a Welsh St. Valentine's Day card, he was kinda surprised he was getting something so early, and then he was like 'Ooh I get two Valentine's Days'

Oh I forget to mention, one day last week my new mother in law asked Clayton how I'd feel about her taking me shopping one Saturday. That's a surprise, looks like I'm starting to be accepted which is great. Hopefully we'll be able to get to know each other a bit better, and given time things will be a little less uncomfortable between us.

Wow been a while since I updated, I've been super busy with looking for a job an all. I had a couple of Interview's last week, but nothing came from it. I do have a promising interview on Wednesday though, I applied for a job at the YMCA Day Care Center at the mall, funnily enough Ben the little boy I use to baby-sit, is going there. It's a full time position looking after toddlers between 1-3yrs. I really think I'd enjoy this position I love kids, and I also have a diploma in Child Care. Ben's grandmother & mom put in a good word for me, my name has been spoken off quite a few times, so that's good.

On Friday night we went to see the movie White Noise. It was really freaky, but interesting too. It freaked out Clayton, and so we made a packed that we wouldn't see anymore, horror or thriller movies for a while. He doesn't like them kind of movies, although I quite enjoy them. After the movie we went and got a Mint choc chip milk shake at Baskin Robbins, which was yummy.

On Saturday I joined Curves it's a weight loss and fitness group for women. It's a 30min workout; they have 7 different fitness machines along with some fitness platforms in a circle. You have about 30 to 40 seconds on a machine or platform, and then you rotate. I have singed up for a year, so I'm determined to lose weight and get back into shape, I have my first work out tonight at 6pm. I'll be going at least 3 times a week, well that's what they recommend anyway.

Not much else going on, I finally finished updating my Homepage so do take a lot of the new graphics, and content.

New Valentine's layout. I had inspiration from the Rose photo, which is from Stock Xchng.

Not much going on, I've been looking into getting me a better job, as me babysitting Ben is about to finish soon. The babysitting was only a temporarily thing, until she could get better childcare anyways. I've started to get my resume together, and tomorrow I'll be faxing it to many offices. There are many receptionist and office assistants available right now. I also applied for a job at the local Whatcom Humane Society this is the same place we adopted our cat Liza from. They are looking for a F/T Animal Tech person. As I have a diploma in small Animal care, I thought I'd enjoy this job, but I haven't heard anything from them yet. Fingers crossed I find something soon.

Well the snow has nearly gone, the roads are still pretty slick. And the weather report says we might have more today, I can't believe how much snow we had, but yeah Joy it did look very bleak. After all the wind gales and snow drifts had gone through. We had tree branches all over our lawn the next morning, and it didn't look real pretty at all.

Hmm been sorting out our Health Insurance, and I'm really frustrated with everything. Clayton's work will only let him have certain coverage, and the one thing I wanted was prenatal care. As my mother said, you can't be to careful just in case. So it looks like I'll have to get separate Insurance, which I really can't afford as the Insurance payments are just so high. One Insurance place did say that if I found out I was pregnant I could sign up for the Insurance plan straight away, and they'd pay for everything other than the delivery of the baby. So I thought that wasn't to bad right? But when I phoned the hospital just to check how much a delivery of a baby was they said it can cost up to $4000-$6000. I was like wow, and then I started to get frustrated. I wouldn't have this problem in the United Kingdom, as most probably all of this would be covered be the NHS. Hmph so I don't know what I'm gonna do.

Finally had my SSN number through last Monday which is great, I danced a happy dance. I can now get paid by the State for Child caring. I'm also looking for some jobs, near by quite local for me. Clayton also mentioned to me that I had to file my taxes now, which kinda sucks more paper work.

Las Vegas is off for Valentine's, Clayton phoned to make reservations and they were all fully booked. Plus you had to phone within 2mths notice which kinda sucks cause Clayton was saving for the trip. He's thinking of booking it for my Birthday though, so at least we still get to go. We are planning on going to Vancouver Canada for Valentines weekend now. At least it would give the weather some time to calm down.

Oh also had Clayton's business cards today, they look really smart. Clayton's all excited about them.

Snow Pictures, I measured and about a foot of snow had fallen with the snow drifts we had. It seems to have cleared up for now, but they said we could have, some more tomorrow and Monday.


This is a picture outside my cottage, notice my flower pot has nearly gone. 


Outside my cottage again. 

Edited Version from earlier today.

Today is our 6mth anniversary of being married, I can't believe it's been 6mths already. Clayton surprised me with a Romantic Weekend getaway to Vancouver Canada seeming I'm a permanent resident now, I can leave the country, we only live like 30mins from the Canadian border. We were meant to spend a night in a Hotel Friday night, and have all day Saturday in Vancouver. But you never guess what we are getting.. Snow and not just a sprinkle either they are forecasting about 3ins. So we might not go this weekend, depends on the weather, if not we'll probably go next weekend. I know 3ins is nothing compared to some States across the US, but this is really exciting for me, we never got a lot of snow in Wales, I'm such a big kid when it come to snow.

Today my views on snow changed, it has snowed all day today from 8am onwards and it's still coming down really heavy. We had Ben again today, and we left our cottage at noon to pick his mother up and to take them back home. The roads were pretty bad so we went really slow and careful. Ben's mom wanted to run some errands, which I wasn't to happy about seeming it was snowing so bad. They live right up in the hills by a huge lake, so I knew it would be bad getting up there. After her errands we started to make our way to their place. I really had a feeling something bad was going to happen, you know you just get that feeling, well I was right.

We were heading down a small hill, and Clayton lost total control of the car, as we glided down the hill into a ditch. Everyone was okay, no one was hurt thankfully. The ice and snow on the roads were just so slick. We tried to push the car out, but it was wedged right in the mud. So Clayton had to phone AAA to get a toe truck out and help us, which took about 3hrs. Ben and Michele (Ben's Mom) decided to hitch a ride with someone passing by, so she could get the baby home. And so Clayton and I were stuck waiting for the toe truck.

During this time we watched many other accidents happen, I tried to yell at some of the cars to slow down and stop. A huge gravel truck skidded down the hill and slammed right into another car. It was really bad, most of the cars had toe people come out and help them, while we were still waiting for AAA. What really annoyed me though was after all these accidents the stupid sand truck comes through to sand the roads, I'm like "A bit late now mate".

AAA finally arrived and we were toed out, we mangaged to get home safely without a problem. lol nice way to spend a 6mth anniversary, but at least we were together. We are expecting snow all through the weekend, so we won't be going to Vancouver, we are waiting till next weekend.

I'm going to order the Walk Away the Pounds DVD's I really need to get back on my diet and try and lose weight. I can't believe how much weight I've put on, I really feel bad with myself, I need to lose something. Starting Monday Clayton and I are going back on a strict diet and exercise regime. Clayton's also put a lot of weight on, so we are both going to work at it.

Monday was all about Clayton's real estate, I ordered more Business cards for him. And we went round all the local towns in our area putting flyers and posters up, he has 1 client he's working with at the moment, he was hoping he'd sell a house with them before Christmas but they had a few problems. So we are working on building his clientele. Anyone have any ideas for advertising a business? We have had many ideas, but a lot of them cost a great deal of money, and when your first starting out you don't have a lot.

That's about it here, everyone like the siggie at the bottom of my post? It's my first Pixel Painting, I made it from a tutorial the other day. I'm very pleased with it.

We had a good New Years, I had made a nice meal, and I had just recently bought Wimbledon the movie so we watched that. Clayton thought it would be really rubbish but he actually enjoyed it. I thought it was really good also. Towards midnight, we watched the Seattle news and watched the Fireworks off the Seattle Space Needle. It was pretty Impressive. I was also excited because the news channel showed the London New Years. So I saw Big Ben Chime at midnight.

My eye has been really bad the last couple of days, apparently the Pharmacist said I had a Stye on the bottom eyelid. It's been really sore, and has felt like someone has given me a big punch in the eye. He couldn't give me anything for it, he just said to keep really warm compresses on it. My mum had mentioned for me to rub my gold wedding ring on it, apparently the gold helps the eye. Never heard that before, it's probably an old wives tale. But the eye is better today, which is good.

Been taking all my Christmas decorations down, I hate it when you take them all down and everything looks so bare. Still haven't taken the tree down yet, it's still surviving so we might keep it up there until it's ready to die.

Clayton surprised me with a trip to Las Vegas for Valentines weekend, it's part of our Honeymoon package holiday. And he's hoping to cash in on it for Valentines, if we do go it'll be for 2 days 3 nights. It's the first Valentine's that we are actually together, as all the others we were apart. So it'll be nice to go away and have a memorable one. Can't wait!

Well that's about all the news here.