Plans are starting to form

Wedding plans are starting to come together. First off we have a date!!! Mark your calenders for August 8, 2009. I have only now just realized that we are it is on the 8th day of the 8th month.

Due to a lot of help from family we have a Reception Hall, a Chapel to get married in, and a location for a rehearsal dinner. (Thanks Mom for helping with the reception location and chapel... Thanks Dad and Charly for helping with the rehearsal dinner) It is all very exciting and nerve racking to make these decisions, but Arthur is great at making me feel comfortable that we are making the right choices. The best advice I have received came from Arthur's father, Hereward. He told us that it is going to be the happiest day of our lives and the only thing that really matters is us both getting to the church and committing our lives to each other. Everything else is just added bonuses.

Another great thing I have noticed is how supportive and encouraging everyone has been, we have a fire mantel full of Congratulation cards from friends and family. Many say what a wonderful guys Arthur is and I am lucky to have him... which i completely agree with. So thank you to everyone for all the wonderful and positive messages. I am so excited to start my life with Arthur and hope that many of you will be able to make it to Colorado to join us on our wedding day!

SKYPE

Hello all,

For an easy way to contact me please read the instructions Arthur so kindly wrote for me...

Skype is a means of calling friends and family, wherever they may be in the World, via your Internet connection. The best thing about it is that it is completely free when calling from computer to computer, so what are you waiting for! It takes literally 5mins to do…

Go to www.skype.com and click download

Once you have completed the next couple of steps Skype should now be installed to your computer (if you have multiple computers, you will have to install it to each one).

A Welcome to Skype screen will appear asking you for your Skype name and password. Click on don’t have a Skype name and create a Skype account.

Once you are signed in you can search for people, add them to your contacts and then start talking! Some computers will require a headset, but these are available for very little Best Buy, Walmart, amazon etc. (make sure they are Skype compatible –most are). As well, webcams can be attached to add to the whole experience! Make sure you search for me!

The Proposal

The engagement.

Even the worst blogger in the world has to write a message about this… As some of you know I am now engaged. ☺

Thought I would give a little background info first:

As many people know, I left the US to go the UK on January 19, 2008. I was going over for work and the last thing I was thinking about was a relationship. After just being here for a few weeks, I went out with a running group and met Arthur.
We instantly clicked and started hanging out. After date 5 he finally kissed me… or as I remember it I kissed him. Since then we have spent most of our free time together. It has been almost exactly 9 months. This past week was Arthur’s half term from school (Half term is a week off school for all the American readers), so we planned a trip to Italy. We spent 3 days in Rome and 3 days in Cinque Terre. I will write a detailed blog about the trip later this week, but this blog is about the proposal…

The last night we were in Cinque Terre, Arthur and I took a walk down to the Sea front…. It was beautiful, the sea was still very rough and the sun was setting. He started to make up stories to pass time, because there were other people around us… and for some reason he was stalling and didn’t want to walk to other areas. Finally when we were standing there alone. He asked me If I would marry him. I of course said Yes and gave him a huge hug and kiss. The next thing I thought was, so am I engaged? I’m still not sure it has sunk in, but I have had a permanent smile on my face since. I have been on cloud 9 and feel so blessed that I have ended up with someone who is as wonderful as Arthur.

Below is a pic right after he proposed... the next moment the camera died... so this is the only pic...

First Mountain bike ride in England

I finally got to ride my new bike. I have to say there is nothing better than going out for a ride on a sunny day. Yes I said sunny. This past Saturday Arthur and I ventured out for our first mountain bike ride, and we would not have asked for better weather… it was sunny with a crisp feeling in the air. I wore biking shorts and a long sleeve top… I was actually hot on the ride. The ride was incredible, and though it was just shy of a 15 k it was the perfect distance for my first mountain bike ride in over a year. It started off in a cute village called Austwick in the Yorkshire Dales . We started on a country road for our first accent, but quickly moved on to a muddy path… at this point my bike was properly broken in after the first 15 min… mud and all… We road down a path, which wasn’t to technical but defiantly harder than a dirt road, I made it down with just a few stops. At the bottom of the first hill, and just before starting on a Bridle way Arthur stopped to show me some nettles, so I would avoid them. We walked our bike through one spot to avoid getting stung by the nettle. Just as we started ridding we went through a huge section where it was unavoidable but to run into a few. I on the other hand fell into the nettles… which made my legs sting and tingle for the rest of the day. Lets just say it was not my finest moment. We then road up a very steep grassy hill to the top of the next hill… on the way down it was amazing… it was like a grassy roller coaster. I loved it. Then we had just a few small rolling hills on the rest of the way back. Arthur was in front of me the whole way… but was very good at waiting for me before he got to far ahead. After our ride we stopped in Settle for a bite to eat. I was really craving a sandwich… we both order the sandwich of the day it was on a whole grain roll with mozzarella, pepperoni and spicy tomato relish. Yummy. We also then stopped by a cute coffee shop for cappuccino. If I haven’t mentioned it before I love the coffee and tea shops in England. This one had the old time candy jar from which you could order different types of candy. I would have loved to post some pictures from the ride and the coffee shop, but I forgot my camera. I’m going biking again on Sunday,… so I will post pictures and blog about the next ride.

Danielle xx

Running and Biking

Arthur has signed me up for the Abbey Dash. So it is official I will be running a 10K on November 23. I started my ‘train’ this week, which mean no more skipping my runs. It is a 12 week training plan… On my entry form Arthur estimated I will run a time of 50 min (around an 8 min mile). I would be delighted if I ran 50 min. I think it is a bit optimist considering how I have been running. Since, I don’t want to get frustrated if I don’t reach that goal… I am going to time myself figure out how fast I have been running. To be honest, I have no idea how fast I have been running/ jogging. I want to make sure I set a realistic goal. The current plan is for me to run 4 times a week for now. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I will run for 30-40 min and on Sunday I will run for an hour. This is the plan for the next three weeks. For my first week… I ran 30 min on Tuesday, 30 min on Thursday… I skipped Saturday cause I was wasn’t feeling very well (my coach skipped his run too). To make up for it I was a crazy woman on Sunday, even though I still wasn’t feeling very good. I ran off and on for 2 hours while watching and cheering for a few friends running the Leeds half marathon. I have figured I ran somewhere between 7-8 miles. Even though I have run further in the past I felt like it was a great accomplishment. I have two more weeks of phase one. Then I will move on to phase two… not sure what that entails, but I will keep you posted. I will defiantly be running next weekend as I am headed to the Mountain Hut this year with Doss (click here for more details/pictures on the hut). It is a week of running, hiking, and no showers. I am only staying for the weekend so there will really only be one day I don’t shower. I will defiantly write a blog about that next week!

In other news… I bought a mountain bike on last Sunday… there just happened to be a great bike on sale for a great price. It was begging me to buy it and take it home. I am SOOO excited. I get to pick up the bike on Friday.















I got the Myka Pro version… which means I better also start biking! Who knows soon I might start training for triathlons.
Love you all, Danielle xx

Worst blogger ever

I am not very good at this blogging thing. But I am writing again, so maybe i will keep it up.

The past several months I have been all over the UK... and will have to do several update blogs... I have been to the following places... Blankeney, Norwich, Isle of Man, Edinburgh, the Lake District, Conwy (in Wales), Chester, London, plus a few others... Arthur has been my travel companion on most of these trip. Except to Chester and Conwy, which I had a lovely time traveling with my mother.

Well I better finish cleaning my place before I have company.

Danielle xxx

Pictures from the Ceilidh

Last weekend I went to a Ceilidh, or Irish dance with a few friends. It was so much fun learning traditional Irish dances. To spice things up they had everyone dress like cowboys and cowgirls. Here are a few pictures from that night.

Safe and sound.

Hello everyone… sorry I haven’t been updating my blog, but I guess better late than never right. To be honest so much as gone on I’m not sure where to start. I guess starting with the place I live would be good. I’m staying in a service apartment hotel… Basically I have a studio apartment that someone comes and changes my sheet and towel, if I forgot to put the dishes in the dishwasher they have done that too. But knowing someone is going to come in makes me keep my place cleaner. I started off in an apartment right above the downstairs bar… which was fine but at night I can hear the people who are outside… and I was in the middle size studio and was supposed to be in the larger studio… they moved me to the 9th floor and a bigger place. When I moved in here on Wednesday I finally got to unpack. It has been interesting because my wardrobe had 6 hangers, I bought 8 more, but there isn’t room for much more than that. There are also no drawers so I have everything folded on shelves. I have my undergarments I cloth bags so that they aren’t out in the open. I don’t think everyone wants to see that. Oh I also did laundry for the first time… which was very entertaining. In my place I have washer and dryer in one. I threw in two pair of jeans. I ran through the wash dry cycle… but my jeans were still fairly wet when I took them out so I threw them if for just drying, but I’m not sure what I did wrong cause several hours later the mashing was still going. I tried to stop it and remove my pants but the door wouldn’t open. I ended up having to run another wash / dry cycle to get my stuff out. Note: there are no user manuals for how anything works… so with each appliance in my place I seem to have had difficulties.

Last night I went out to a pub and then to a club with a family friends running team. It was VERY interesting. The club played a mix of music the most random music most of which I didn’t know but there sounded like there was stuff from the 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and also a little bit of reggae… at times I felt like I was on the set of Austin powers with the way people were dancing. It was a great time.

I will write another blog on driving… for now I will just say… I’m getting better at it…. I’m off to run some errands in the city center. Hope everyone is doing great!

Cheers, Danielle

Potential pad and temporary address.

My potential pads… so right now I guess they are looking at two different corporate apartments for us.
I’m either living
http://www.hotelsclick.com/indexe.php?country=United_Kingdom&city=Leeds&hotel=Roomzzz&hotel_id=31679&language=en&gclid=CLbliNTO2pACFSG8Ggodt2ETXA

or
http://www.kspace-apartments.co.uk/ks5/default.asp?pg=/ks5/kspace_serviced_apartments_leeds.asp&p=&t=

I’m flying over on Thursday the 17th then temporally staying at a hotel… most likely it will be a Marriott. I will let everyone know my address when i find out. Untill then if you need to mail something you can send it to the Junction solutions office C/O Danielle Watz

Junction Solutions UK
302 Ringinglow Road
Sheffield S11 7PX