March 2017

- At the start of the month we saw Russell Howard in London at the Royal Albert Hall, it was great, very funny but also quite serious at the same time. We can also now say we have been on the stage at the Royal Albert Hall as that was where we were seated as there was essentially a circular platform Russell stood on and did a 360 degree performance.

- Met up with Karen and Paul for Karen's birthday in London, went to the sky garden for lunch. The view was amazing but it made Beckie feel pretty sick. We then went for a walk around the river banks and visited a lovely old church and its crypt.

-  Beckie got invited to interview with the Law Commission.  She thinks the interview went okay but sadly the day of the interview was the Westminster terror attacks and I was fortunate to be back the LSE by the time anything happened. Beckie will hear back from the Law Commission in Mid-April so fingers crossed.

- Beckie also put in a last min application to Sussex for PhD. Had some supervisor drama at Kings. My original supervisor was not available anymore and I had two weeks to find a new supervisor. One the 14th day I heard back from an alternative supervisor an have an interview with her in April exciting things.

- We now both know our exam timetables so we have finally gotten round to booking our summer holiday. We are off on a road trip to Scotland and very excited. Were going for a week and flying in and out of Edinburgh. We plan on hiring a car whilst up there and driving up to highlands.

February 2017

February has felt pretty busy. Beckie submitted her PhD application to Kings and applied for the law commissions so hoping one of the two works out. Chris had an awards ceremony for his IET scholarship he was awarded last year (below is a picture of him and the rest of the people who got the same scholarship as him).

February means valentines day, we decided to go pretty low key this year having a lovely dinner at home (curtsey of waitrose). 

At the end of the month we went to the Harry Potter Studios with our friends Merry and Curtis. Though it was kinda pricey the tour lasted so much longer than we expected we spend 4 hours there and could have spent longer but for the fact they were closing. 

January 2017

Another month, another year. Life seems to be passing by so quickly for us both. The month started where the last ended at Beckie's parents in Cambridge. It was lovely to relax there over the holidays but we had to come back to Brighton for Chris' exams which started very early. Sadly Chris had an exam on our anniversary so we went out for dinner the night after. When we chose to get married at Ashdown we decided upon a tradition of dining there every year for our anniversary and so this January was the start of that tradition. We got all dressed up for an amazing evening of devious food. We had an amuse bouche to start that was a boiled egg with a chive filling instead of the yolk. following that we had our starters where I had a mushroom soup delightfully served to my bowl at the table and Chris had a balloting. For the mains I had duck (no surprises there) and Chris had the steak but before these were served we had sorbet to cleanse out pallets, it was a tart lime and mint (it was like having a frozen mojito). We had got chatting to our server before our dessert and mentioned it was our anniversary having got married at Ashdown the previous year and they brought out a little surprise with our Banoffee pie deserts.

Other than our trip to Ashdown for our anniversary January was pretty low key Beckie was back at school early on and Chris has a global design challenge competition he was involved in (and won the round of). Chris also was awarded a google scholarship to learn how to code android which as super exciting.

November + December 2016

November was quite a quiet month for us both. We were generally just pushing through to the end of term as both of us had pretty busy workloads that month. Beckie has been working hard on fine-tuning her PhD applications and has found someone who seems to be a good match to be her supervisor. She should know the outcome of her applications early next spring.

December started out on a high when Chris discovered he had been awarded a Scholarship by the IET (the accreditation body for his degree) which will not only help financially but also provide networking opportunities. In February Chris will get to attend an awards ceremony in London to receive his award.

At Stake Conference we both got new callings. Beckie is now 2nd Counsellor on the stake primary presidency and Chris has been called as a stake young mens advisor. We are both excited and a little nervous about the new challenge.

After term finished to celebrate Chris' birthday we went to Belgium for a few days. We caught the Eurostar to Brussels spending two nights there exploring the city. We found these awesome free walking tours that take you around the city's main historian sites.

We then caught a train to Brugge where we had the opportunity to try even more traditional food (rabbit for Chris and beef stewed in beer for Beckie). The following morning we did a walking tour of the 'legends of Brugge' which provided some interesting and some what comical insights to the major sites within Brugge.

We then caught the train back to Brussels for our final night. As a treat for Chris' birthday Beckie surprised Chris with a stay at a gorgeous traditional Belgian hotel (which looked like something out of a Poirot film) and we had dinner there for Chris' birthday. We then went to the main square where in the evening they play waltz music and people dance around the christmas tree.

The next day we went and got waffles for breakfast (we though it wrong to not have had any at all during the trip). We then went to the Cathedral for a tour around there as it was the last key site we wanted to go to. They had nativity sets from all around the world displayed but there was one that we particularly liked. On the display it said "come closer to the pond and see the temple where I wish to build my crib'. The pond was a mirror which when you came close showed your own reflection.

A couple of days after getting back from Belgium we then headed up to Blackpool to pick up Beckie's granny to bring her to Beckie's parents house for christmas. We spent the Christmas and New Years period with Beckie's family having celebrated with Chris' at a family meal the week before our holiday. We are now spending the rest of the christmas holidays revising (Chris has 3 exams in January) and writing papers (Beckie has one essay and PhD applications to finalise). 

Overall December has felt like a very busy month (especially when compared to November) but we are looking forward to the new year. 

Merry christmas and a happy new year from the Scotts.