discovery weekend

In a very few days we will reach the 16 month mark in our Oxford life.

In fact, it's just over three years since I first picked up and moved to the UK to join Dean in his second year of PhD studies at the University of Aberdeen.

We've seen A LOT in our first couple years in Britain - most of Scotland, the south coast of Wales, we've seen Kent, the Dorset coast and the Lake District, we've rambled our way through nearly a dozen Cotswold villages, and I can now find my way around London without a map (sometimes)... but for such a tiny island, Britain has so much to see!

This weekend I started composing a mental list of everything I still want to do in England - starting with activities right here in Oxford, extending all the way down to the southernmost tip of Cornwall. Every weekend from now until December 11 (when I head home for Christmas), I plan to cross at least one item off my list.

And this weekend we crossed off two!

Saturday took us to the Oxford Botanic Gardens. Sure, it's autumn, but that doesn't make plants any less fascinating.

Sunday we Jazzed up to Birmingham to see if the Brummies are as dumb as they sound (just kidding! only some of them were) and if the shopping lived up to its own reputation. It did!