Texans in London

I thought I'd like to wait until we had some news, which (somewhat) explains my absence. It's been a cold winter, but spring--and almost summer--arrived early this year. It's pretty warm already, so we're looking forward to some hot weather this summer. Alex is finally looking into getting air conditioning for the shop, which is a very welcome idea!! In light of this fortunate weather, we at home have decided to take advantage and do some gardening. It's been great so far, and we're growing lots of vegetables for good summer meals. The vegetables are inspired by Jonathan, who has lots of big plans for meals! And now that the garden is weed-free and a bit less buzzing with flies, we'll be able to have some bar-b-ques.

Tommy's basil--doing well!

Tomatoes! Growing from seeds. Exciting!!

Zucchini. They grew up overnight!

My lillies, before the cat attacked them.... :(

The garden from the second floor. Beautiful!

So we're having fun watching all the plants grow, and I hope that we'll have some nice veggies at the end of the summer!

Tommy recently participated in a contest for the California Raisins Company, where young bakers from schools around the country went to Leeds to bake their own recipes that included raisins (of course). The contest was in March, and he just got back from the awards ceremony last night. His team got second place, which is good. (But they should have won first, because the team that won brought their stuff pre-mixed--and it tasted bad!!) So maybe they'll try and get a recount on the votes. Tommy said that many people at the awards ceremony were telling him that his team SHOULD have won.... Oh well. Still, second place is good for his resume!

My biggest news is that we had a seminar in Italy (about a month ago). It was similar to the show in Madeira, but this time, the whole weekend was dedicated to us, and we had a show on Sunday, demonstrating our cuts and COLOUR BY ME ON STAGE!! SCARY! Then on Monday, those who wanted to pay a bit extra came to the workshop where Alex taught a step-by-step of two of the cuts, and I demonstrated some interesting colour techniques. The weekend was a great success; we were all really happy with our work on the models, and we got a great response from the people who attended the show, about 80 on Sunday and 25 for the workshop Monday. The next step for us is trying to set up an academy in London, so we can host the seminars at home! Alex has a space ready for that, and we're going to start getting everything underway. That's a really exciting prospect for me because it means a move towards creative work, but also lots of experience starting up a new branch of business. Luckily, Alex has a great business sense, so he's a really good mentor.

Here's a few pictures from the seminar.

Our fantastic models after the show!

My live colour model.

The presentation models, we changed the styles each time they went on stage in order to demonstrate the versitility of the cuts(one of Alex's main objectives.)

Giovanni's cut.

Domenico's cut.

Alex's first cut. He also cut my colour model.

Monday's workshop.

Well, I think that's it for now, but I'll try and post more regularly, now that I've got something interesting to take pictures of--my plants growing. If you can't tell, I'm excited! I just hope they actually grow well and the cats and flies stay away. Wish us luck!