Our First Visitor - Kelly Schmit

There was no better way to celebrate our first six weeks of living in London than to welcome our first visitor - my best friend Kelly Schmit. Kelly arrived on Friday, 8 February after flying all night and stayed until Sunday. We had some ground to cover and I have to say, she was a real trooper!

We spent the afternoon strolling along SJW High Street. We picked up some coffee to keep Kelly going and managed to shop for a couple of hours before it was time to collect Jack and Owen from school.



Thanks to John, we had a lovely girls' weekend at Claridge's Hotel. Spencer Tracy is quoted as saying, "when I die, I do not want to go to heaven, I want to go to Claridge's." I have to agree whole heartedly. We checked into a beautiful room, toasted our weekend with a glass of champagne and immediately proceeded to the spa for our facials. Next it was a quick shower and change for our evening out on the town.

We met John and a friend of his, Devin and Devin's fiance Sophie for drinks in the hotel bar. Then Kelly and I were off to Nobu Berkeley, where according to Kelly I fed her "too much wine and raw fish." After a late dinner, we made our way back to Claridge's for a night cap, which turned out to be much longer than we planned and I have to hand it to Kelly, ending our evening at 2:00 a.m. was impressive work!



We woke up on Saturday to get our massages at 9:00 a.m. Although our massages were fabulous and helped a bit, we returned to bed as quickly as we could to recover from an evening of too much champagne and wine. Finally around noon we got ready for our retail therapy. We barely choked down some lunch before heading over to Marylebone High Street where we managed to find several stores willing to take our credit cards. We were finally feeling better after splitting a cheeseburger and nachos at the Prince Regent Pub. The beer and bloody mary helped too.

We shopped right up until it was time to get ready for dinner. And what a dinner we had! Upon arriving to Cipriani, we noticed the photographer in front of the restaurant. I said to Kelly, "there's the paparazzi." We went to the bar to wait for our table and Kelly said to me, "that guy is on The Apprentice." I looked over and having not watched this season of "The Apprentice" I had no idea who it was. But Kelly did and so she said to him, "Do you win?!" That was our ice breaker.

Turns out it was Piers Morgan, who is on the current season of "Celebrity Apprentice." He told us he couldn't tell us who wins because of confidentiality but he did disclose his disgust of Omarosa...he did not have a kind word to say about her. Anyway, he tells us he is waiting for his friends, "Ryan and Simon." We sat at the bar for quite a while visiting with Piers and another friend of his. Then after seeing the camera flashes outside, in walk Simon Cowell with his beautiful girlfriend Terry and Ryan Seacrest! Piers says to them both, "hey meet my friends Kelly and Colleen from Chicago." It was a riot. I do not have a picture though because we had to "be cool."

We had a lovely dinner but called it a night much earlier than the previous evening. It was really hard to say goodbye. We had a great, albeit too short, weekend and I look forward to her next visit with Larry and their girls, Kara and Liv. Thanks Kel for coming - what fun we always have together!