Winter is Coming ...

Cooler weather is quickly on its way here up north! We had a great summer and topped off August with some wonderful trips. Looking forward to my parent's visit next week as well to kick off September the right way :) maybe they will bring a last bit of warm weather with them before it's sweater and tea season here in England.

I haven't even had time to look at all my photos from Finland, Estonia, and Northern Ireland yet-so many great shots I don't even know where to start! Here's a few pictures that were sitting on my phone. We had a wonderful trip to Helsinki to visit our good friends Dragan and Sohan and really enjoyed our ferry trip to Tallinn to see the lovely capital of Estonia. Last weekend was a bank holiday weekend here so we decided to make an early anniversary trip to Northern Ireland. Amazing views, good weather (windy but not rainy) and a fun way to celebrate two years of marriage. It was also quite fun to draw parallels between this trip and our honeymoon in Maine, of which there were quite a few. I do like the Irish accent better, though!

Helsinki together for the first time :D And the Finns can't spell my name

At the pier getting ready to get on the ferry

Lunch with two of my favorites :) and Azerbaijani food :P

Old town Tallinn

Epic Ireland :D

 The good ol' rocky coastline :)

This trip may or may not have been inspired by Game of Thrones :P We even went to winterfell!!

Autumn approaching

We are enjoying the last taste of summer here up north as the days quickly get cooler here in Liverpool! Last weekend we had a mix of rain and sun and took advantage of the rainy day to explore some of the indoor activities here in town. We spent the afternoon at the Museum of Liverpool on the Albert docks. It is a really nice museum, and like all the others in town has free admission. We enjoyed learning more about the history of our adopted city :)

Liverpool has a lot of museums so we will definitely explore them in the coming weeks and months once the weather gets a bit wet and cold. It will be nice to live in a bigger city with more of this type of thing to see and do. We did love the Gainesville art museum but it will be a nice change to have more than one museum to visit now.

Austin in front of one of the oldest steam trains

We made our own family crest :)

The devil seagulls don't seem to mind the bad weather

Today I also realized that after over 4 years living in Florida I don't have any real autumn clothes anymore :( these summer sweaters are certainly not working out when an August breeze off the Irish sea hits you! Looks like a trip to H&M is in my near future :)

Summer days in England

Can't believe it's already August. Somehow I've neglected all my blogs this summer! Maybe it's the busy days at work, nights spent relaxing and enjoying our new apartment or out at tae kwon do class/rock climbing/exploring the city/etc. Maybe now this rainy Sunday will inspire me to do some blog writing again :)

We have had a really lovely summer here in Liverpool, with weather that everyone likes to continuously remind us is not normal. A week of near 80's for highs full of sun was fun, and the main reason for us going to costco to purchase a fan, but now it appears the heat wave is over. Still have had some really lovely days, especially yesterday when we made a trip to the River Dee with views of the Irish Sea from Hilbre island. Austin found this place when we first arrived and we made the muddy walk to the island at low tide on a sunny Saturday.

It was a gorgeous windy day with clear views all the way to the hills of Wales. We saw two seals, lots of happy crabs and fish, and explored the island during all of low tide. It was a lovely Saturday and a good way to get out of the city and enjoy the gorgeous nature of this part of the world.

our picnic view

towards Wales

happy hikers :D

Next week is a short one for us, as we'll fly out on Wednesday afternoon to Helsinki to visit two of our best friends, Dragan and Sohan :) We are both looking forward to a weekend up north with 'me mates' in Finlandia for a weekend of saunas, ferry rides to Estonia, and salmiaki :D