Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from California.

We have had lots of rain recently, but today the sun came out for us, so we headed down to Pier 39 with the dogs.

We spent a lovely few hours walking around Fisherman's Wharf and indulged in some very yummy warm mini donuts, and got some chocolate apples from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and some special non-chocolate biscuit bones for the pups.  We normally head to Pier 39 Christmas Day, but it's due to rain tomorrow, so we went today, there were definitely a lot more people around today than there are on a Christmas Day morning. Off to the movies tonight, then tomorrow we will chill out in our PJ's all day, and I am going to attempt to make Beef Wellington for Christmas dinner. Looking forward to skyping with family on Christmas Day too, and seeing all the presents our nieces got from Santa.

Have a fun and safe Christmas
Sarah xxx

Christmas in England

It's strange sat here at home surrounded by Christmas cards and tree and decorations as it kind of feels like Christmas is over - and no that isn't me being a Christmas grinch!!

As most of you will know Dave and I have just been back home to England for a visit and we had lots and lots of fun. Whilst there we met up with all our family and celebrated Christmas early. We had Christmas dinner, decorations, tree lighting, visits to Santa and there was even snow (although I never actually saw it fall from the sky!). I thought I had some photos on my phone to share with you guys, but just checked and I don't appear to have any on there - sorry! So now that we've had all our presents and meals, we don't really have anything to celebrate, although there is one wrapped present under our tree, and we will still be skyping with family Christmas day, but it was strange coming back and everyone talking about their Christmas plans when we have already done it all.

Whilst in England I went to London a few times, went with family to see Santa at Harrods, Ill be honest it was a little disappointing, but I think the kids liked it - I personally thought Santa was a little creepy and his elf was very miserable. I also went with my sister to the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, was really good, was free to get into but things weren't cheap once you were in there. We spent a few hours in there and enjoyed the ice kingdom and playing a few of the fairground games. We also went to see The Bodyguard the musical, was really really good, although the big shooting scene I think could have been better done. 

Was great to meet up with friends as well as family, and I'm always amazed at how easily we all fall back into conversations as if we had seen each other the other day rather than many months ago. Guess that is a sign of a good friendship. I think that having facebook helps a lot too as it doesn't feel like you have been away for that long or you are that far away.

Food, food, food. Yes I ate loads even though I said I wouldn't! I made it to Gregg's - twice in fact, the sausage rolls are still awesome. I skipped the curry, egg custard tarts and bacon sarnies this time though. 

Got home Monday after a fantastic time away, was home only a few hours and suddenly got sick, the bathroom was my best friend for the next 12 hours!! I really thought like I was dying.  Not sure if it was food poisoning or a virus I had picked up, it's now day 4 and I am feeling so much better. Today I managed to venture out of the house and eat something other than toast. Plan to resume normal routines from tomorrow. Sadly I had to miss hubby's work holiday party tonight, still quite tired but think that is due to not eating much the last four days. On the plus side I was 6lbs lighter the second day of my sickness than I was before I went to England.

Today I purchased two domain names - this one www.uktocalifornia.com and (name to be revealed shortly). I plan to move all of my weight loss posts/info over to the second blog - so you will see some changes here, as soon as I am finished setting up the second blog I will post with a link to it.

Sarah x

Week 36

Only 98 sleeps till Christmas :) I know you are loving my little updates each week.

I actually have quite a few countdowns on my phone:

37 sleeps till Lisa, Paige and Ebbie come to visit

39 sleeps until Lisa, Julia and I take part in the Dirty Girl run

40 sleeps until Dave, Lisa, Paige, Ebbie and I take part in the virtual 'run the hood' zombie dash

42 sleeps until Lisa, Paige, Ebbie and I go to Disneyland

61 sleeps until Dave and I take part in the 10k Awesome 80's run

73 sleeps until Dave and I fly to England for a visit

and 303 sleeps until Comic Con

As you can tell I love my countdowns, also it's been 50 days today since I drank soda :)

Talking of soda, since giving it up I have had no caffeine as the tea I drink is caffeine free, over the weekend I bought a Keurig brewer and I've been drinking a lot of iced tea and regular tea, it dawned on me this morning that this is the reason I haven't been sleeping well the last few nights, I've been awake at 4am each morning, clearly my body needs to adjust to the caffeine intake again.

So week 36, it was an OK week, here are the stats from my fitness pal

Yes Thursday I ate lots, although it wasn't as bad as I expected, I decided to order pizza, garlic bread and wings, normally I would eat the lot but this time I only had two slices of pizza and half the garlic bread, so that's a major improvement for me. I would say I ate 60% clean this week, I do need to work on trying harder with that, as I know the more clean I eat the better I feel and the more energy I have.

This week I worked out  four days. Monday I took the dogs on a 2.76 mile walk, it was a lot warmer than I expected, so was a tough walk. Wednesday I cycled 8 miles on my exercise bike, Friday I did 40 mins on my wii fit, and Sunday I took part  virtually in the Dani Ryan Holmes-Kirk birthday 5k with Dave which we completed in 58 mins. I think the thing I need to focus on the most is drinking more water, as I've been slacking on that.

So the numbers for this week, just a small loss of 0.4lbs this week, but it's heading in the right direction and my total loss is now at 23lbs :) I would like to try and lose 2lbs this week to hit 25lbs next week.

Thanks for reading my blog and have a great week everyone

Sarah x

Candy making and holiday gifts

A few weeks ago a fellow expat Sarah G who blogs at We have moved to USA posted that she was making candy, and two of my favorite kinds twix and crunchie. So of course I had to give it a go.

We attempted to make the crunchie first which was really to easy to make and as you can see from the recipe it only has three ingredients. Well four if you count the chocolate.

The messiest part was the coating in chocolate, I'm sure there must be an easier way to do it! They tasted so good, just like a proper crunchie. We ate a few then I sent the rest to Dave's office where they didn't last long!

Next was the twix, these took a lot longer to make as it was three longer stages, I purchased a cheap candy thermometer for making the caramel but it somehow managed to get water in it and stopped working, so I had to use guesswork and it turned out pretty well, although there was a lot more caramel than we needed. I have since been out and purchased a new candy thermometer that I plan to use soon.

Dave said the people in his office also enjoyed the twix. I think the biscuit could have been more crunchy, it had more of a shortbread consistency to it, but tasted nice all the same.

After making all of this it got me thinking about the upcoming holidays, halloween, thanksgiving and chritsmas. I love baking and often make cookies and other things for Dave's office and the neighbors, but they are always presented in a ziplock bag, which is fine, but I thought I wanted something nicer for holiday gifts. So I plan to buy some see through bags. This then got me thinking, how about some nice tags. As it turns out a friend on twitter Kelly happened to post about her etsy shop The Country Crab. I had never been on etsy before, and I love it. I purchased two sets of tags from Kelly's shop, some general baking ones and some halloween ones.

She then mentioned she can do custom made tags and other things too. I didn't need to be told twice and sent her to work making me some custom made holiday kitchen tags which arrived today. I also have her making my Christmas cards for me. Her prices are great and she ships really fast too. Those of you who are on my Christmas card list will get to see her wonderful Christmas card desing later in the year.