MOVING DAY!

Well we are officially in the house with all of our belongings.  It was a crazy few days but mission accomplished.  We are in.  We also did a lot of work on it this weekend so it finally feels like a "Cook" house.  Here are a few pictures of the house itself and the moving process.

Here is a picture from the gate at the beginning of the driveway. 

This is the garden (or backyard)

And the moving begins.  The men dropped off all of the furniture and boxes and put them all in the house on Monday.  They moved the mattresses to the rooms that we sleep in but then had to come back the next day to actually unpack and put everything where it was suppose to go. Both of these days were very long! 

Dining room full of boxes

Living room full of boxes

Front area full of boxes

Sitting room full of boxes

The most important of all these boxes was this one right here.  As you can see it has "Erin Breiner" written on it in Dad's hand writing!!  I searched through everything the first night to find the box that had my name on it!!!

The Rest of Debbie's Trip

The rest of the week while Debbie was here was a lot of fun.  We were able to take her to our favorite places around our area and head in to London for a day.  I had midterms all last week and so Tracy and Debbie got a lot of time to themselves during the day and could go out and explore. 

In my performing arts class we have to bring different things in every week.  For our midterm we had to perform a dialogue and a monologue.  I was not worried about the dialogue at all.  My partner Ellyn and I had already performed it once in class and nailed it.  The monologue that I picked however was not the easiest.  I decided to stick with a performance from Shakespeare's "As You Like It".  The language was hard to get down but I had been working on it for a few weeks.  I did feel a bit bad because by the time I performed it Tracy and Debbie basically knew the entire things because I made them sit through it so much.  I say all this to say that it was the most fun thing ever!  After those performances we went out to celebrate :)

 My favorite bartender Sally Anne was there to celebrate with us too! This made me very happy.  What a great way to end a nerve wrecking day. 

The next day,  Tracy and I went to work out in the morning as we normally do on Thursdays.  I hurried to get ready and headed out for my last midterm. Tracy and Debbie came into Richmond after my final exam. We were able to walk around, grab lunch and walk by the river.  We headed home and relaxed for a few hours and then went to the Wine Circle for a wine tasting.  It was so interesting because there were all different types of glasses and the instructor told us to switch the different types of wine into different glasses.  The differences that it made in the taste and smells were amazing.  I never had any clue that certain glasses made wine taste good.  I was asking the instructor some questions at the end of it and he told me he was very sorry to show this to me at such a young age because my life is now going to be very difficult when it comes to drinking wine.

Our menu that went along with all the wines

Friday was a day of relaxation. We were all very exhausted from the exciting week that we had.  It was a fun relaxing day.  The three of us were able to sit and bed and watch movies and forget about the rest of the world for a while.  After we realized that the day was almost over we decided to get out of our sweats and head out for some dinner.  We went to the Monkey's Forehead which is a place that Tracy and I have been wanting to check out for a long time now.  When we got there we overheard a man talking to a friend of his about his strong beliefs on different things in life including marriage, theatre, and Christianity within it all.  We were intrigued so we asked him to join us.  It turns out that he goes to the Church that we have started attending on Sunday's.  He is the Youth Intern so it was very interesting to learn more about the church and how it works.  We were very encouraged by Daniel because it is not often that you hear people openly talking about Christianity in a public place. 

Saturday we went into London for the day.  But in doing this we went to the coolest place ever! An IceBar. That is right.  Everything is made of ice including our glasses and excluding the ceiling and floors.  It was about 20 degrees in there so they provided us with huge jackets and gloves to wear.  They also only let you in there for about 45 minutes. We all loved it!

It was such a blessing to have Debbie here with us.  We all had so much fun the entire week.  It feels weird not to have someone here after having Michael come and the Debbie.  But there is a lot of work to do because our furniture has arrived.  I slept in my bed for the first time on Tuesday night and it was the best night sleep I have had since August.  It kind of feel like a little bit of home is now here with me.  Pictures of the move should be up by the weekend!

Paris... Round 2

Yes, that is correct.  I was able to go back to Paris.  Let me tell you.  The beauty of it all does not get old.  This time I went with Tracy and her twin sister Debbie to celebrate their birthdays.  (Basically, they were jealous that I got to spend my birthday there so they wanted to do the same.) We left the house at 5:15 Sunday morning to drive to Heathrow airport, then take the tube to King's Cross Station so that we could catch the Eurostar at 9:10.  We were exhausted by the time we got on the train but it was well worth it because we were able to be in Paris by 11:30 Sunday morning.

Once we had arrived we hit the ground running.  We went straight to Monmartre and Sacre Coeur.  It was the most incredible thing I had ever seen.  This is up on a very high part of the city where we were able to look down over the city and see the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame from afar.  This is also the area of town that many of the starving artist set up and try to sell their work.  

 We then realized how heavy our bags were beginning to feel so we headed down the hills to try and find our hotel.  Let me just say that even though it was a very long walk it was also incredible.  We were able to see a different side of Paris and went through the "local streets".

 We did however have a bit of a problem reading the maps.  So we double timed it.  I had the old school map and Tracy whipped out the GPS.  I am not positive she believed I knew how to read a map.

 I decided to find I very large map to prove I knew what I was doing.  (Even though I was totally guessing it worked out in my favor) 

 Made it to the Hotel :)

We headed out to the Champs de Elysses to look through some shops on the way to the Arc de Triomphe and found one that was named Morgan (this is fun because Tracy's middle son's name is Morgan)

Arc de Triomphe

Don't ask what happened.... 

The sun was setting and I was determined to see the Eiffel Tower at sunset because it was one of the things I had really wanted to do when I visited the first time but it never worked out.  So I told Tracy and Debbie that we needed to pick up the pace.  And we did it.  We were able to get to a bridge and see it.  I was in utter amazement.  We walked all the way to it and sat by the water, played cards, and people watched.  It was so much fun.

and then of course the light show was amazing!

 The night was still young though.  We headed back toward the hotel and decided it was time for some dinner.  There was a quaint place a block away from our hotel where we had a great dinner.  The people here were very kind and the food was excellent.  In fact, I got to try some escargot.... This is how I felt about it.

 Really Excited!!

Not so pumped anymore...

The next day we explored the town.  Did all the touristy things so that Debbie and Tracy could see it all.  I will not bore you with more pictures because most of the places were the same as last time.  However... when we went to Notre Dame there was a man who I believe is the bird whisperer.  He grabbed my hand, flattened it, put some bird seed on it, told me to be very quiet and raised it in the air.  It was intense

We headed back up to Montmartre to spend our last few hours. 

And surprise surprise... I was out!

It was a short but sweet trip. (little over 24 hours)  I think everyone was able to see what they wanted and there is a lot that I got to see that I was not able to my first time around.  I am officially in LOVE with this city and know my way around so if anyone wants to go.... Well lets just say I am a great tour guide :)

Breiners together in London = EPIC

What a fun week I had with Michael and Shelby!!!!!!  It was so fun to have another Breiner here with me for a while.  The first day that he got here we decided to take him and Shelby (his friend that came with) to all of our favorite pubs.  It was so fun showing him around and letting him meet some of our favorite people.  The only problem was that Mike and Shelby had stayed up late a few nights before they came here to study for exams so they were very tired when they got here.  In fact, I am pretty sure that Shelby actually fell asleep at our last stop.

On Sunday, Shelby Michael and I headed into London and went to speakers corner.  This is in Hyde Park where people basically stand on chairs while ranting and raving about their opinions on politics and religion.  Then there is another group of people who are not on the chairs telling those people how wrong their beliefs are.  As weird as it all sounds, it really is a lot of fun to listen to.  That night we met up with Alex and Elliot who go to school with Mike and Shelby but are studying over here.  It was nice for me to finally hang with them.

It was Shelby's birthday on Monday and her only request was to not wake her up in the morning (which was hard but I did good!) Once they finally woke up the three of us headed out to Virginia Water Lake/Windsor Great Park which was a lot of fun.  We went to the Cascade which is a beautiful waterfall and also stopped by the Ruins. That night Tracy made an incredible steak dinner and a wonderful birthday cake.  After dinner we went into London and met up with a few of Shelby's friends along with some friends of mine and had a few drinks for her birthday which was a lot of fun.

 Shelby and I at the top of the Waterfall!!!

 Obviously we all thought it was a great idea to start climbing the trees...

(Mike and I out for Shelby's birthday)

Tuesday, I had class all day so Michael and Shelby did their own thing for most of the day.  I did have a bit of a break and we all went to meet up with Maddy who is a girl that Mike knows (who happened to be in town at the same time) I went back to class and we headed home for the night.  Wednesday, I had class again (yes I know it is shocking that I actually went to class this week seeing that my bro was in town but I was a good student... shocking I know...)  the two of them went into London and did a walking tour and then we all met back at the house that evening.  Tim was back in town and we thought it would be fun for all of us to go to Windsor Castle that night.  We ended up eating dinner at a Thai Restaurant that Mason really likes. Not sure it is still his favorite because we had a bit of an incident this time. When we were here last time Mason and I both got Pad Thai and asked to have it a little bit spicy.  So this time we both thought that it was a solid choice and would do it again..... Wrong! Oh my, I have never suffered through a meal like I did in this one.  It was the hottest thing I have ever had.  I had tears running down my face and was sweating through the entire meal.  Normally I would of stopped eating or sent it back but the problem was that it tasted so good! I had to keep eating it.  So basically I could not feel my mouth for hours. Mason had this same problem and of course everyone with us decided to try it too so we all were struggling to an extent. 

Shelby went to Scotland for the day on Thursday so Michael headed in and did a little exploring in London  by himself because once again I had class...  After class we met up back at the house and hung out with the Cooks.  We had dinner, played cards, watched Modern Family, talked about the past present and future.  It really was an extremely fun night.  It was nice to have this time with Michael and the Cooks.

  Finally my week of classes was over which means it is now Friday. Tracy, Tim, Mike and I headed into London to the Wine and Cheese Festival.  There were different venues and it was fun to try all the different types of cheeses that they had.  Shelby got back in town and we all went to a restaurant by the river and started to teach Shelby how to play euchre.  It started getting cold so we headed home.  We ordered some pizza and Chinese food and continued to play cards all night long  (breaking for some Modern Family of course).  

Saturday was their last day here so we went into London to meet up with one of Michael's fraternity brothers who was in town. (And for those of you who have actually been able to keep up with all these different people we have been meeting up with you are probably wondering if they have more friends here than me... well I am not sure but reading this through it is starting to make me wonder.) We went to Hyde Park and represented some Breiner decision making (with a shout out to Sue and Jeff Breiner) because we decided to get  a bottle of wine and some chicken and a baguette and hang out in the park for the afternoon.  That night we met up with my friend Jesse and a few other people from my school and hung out with them for a while.  It was fun to see them since it had been a while. I was so sad to see Mike and Shelby leave but I had so much fun when they were here.  It was a week that I will never forget!  Thank you both for coming and putting up with me for a week :)  Chuck... Mom... Dad... its your turn!!