The story of the iTouch from Otter to Bamboo

Just in case anyone ever receives an iTouch with the inscription "To Bamboo from her Otter" on it, we thought we would post this little story...

For Christmas in 2007, Charles gave Rachael an iPod Touch for Christmas. At the time they were in England visiting Uncle Mark, Aunt Marylin, and Elliot (yay, Elliot gets another tag in the blog). You can see the pictures here.

The iTouch has a funny engraving on the back which is an inside joke between Rachael and Charles. Because Charles likes to lay on his back in bed with his laptop on his belly like an otter, Rachael sometimes calls him Otter. Because Rachael was obsessed with this cute picture of a puppy on a piece of bamboo, Charles sometimes calls her Bamboo. Thus, the iTouch was given to Bamboo from Otter.

So that's the story. Our wedding rings also have references to these wacky names.

Congrats to Elliot and Colin!

Elliot gets one more tagged mention in our blog. Congrats to Elliot and Colin whose civil partnership ceremony Charles and I attended in England this past weekend. We were too jet lagged to take pictures, but there are some here.

Massive Holiday Picture Post

We're back from the holidays and we have a whole lot of photos to prove it. Here's the story in picture form...

Despite crazy fog in London, on the 23rd we finally made it to visit Charles' Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Mark. Ben (Charles' Dad), Anna (Charles' sister), and Micah (Anna's boyfriend) all flew in from the US and met up with us in Blewbury (a village outside Oxford)...



We spent a good part of the 24th in Oxford which was pretty cool for me because I got to see the location where the Great Hall scenes for the Harry Potter movies are films.



Elliot was an awesome tour guide and we promised him we would make an "Elliot" tag in our blog. We kept our word...although I am not sure how many other posts will get the tag. ;)



You can see all our Oxford pictures here.

The next day was Christmas which started out with tearing into our stockings. The goods included lots of chocolate, liquor-flavored coffee, and rubber ducks.



We had a proper Christmas lunch, exchanged gifts, and did lots of lounging. You can see all the pictures here.

The 26th = Boxing Day and Blewbury had a very interesting Boxing Day Parade. You can check out detailed views of a selection of costumes here.



After Blewbury, Charles and I made it to London for one night before heading back to Rotterdam with Anna, Ben, and Micah to celebrate the New Year. We enjoyed the complete Dutch experience watching the fireworks from our terrace with champagne, cigars, and oliebollen. You won't believe how long we had to wait in line to get these fried pieces of dough. The photo set including Ben cowering from the fireworks and Anna puffing on a cigar is here.



The fireworks were insane but we all had a great time...