Random Thoughts

I have been thinking lately how nice it is to move from time to time. I think back to when Charles and I lived in New York city and all the great friendships we made there, then on to London, Chicago and now back to England. Every place we have been, we have made close friends that seem like family. Friends that we spend holidays and birthdays with and friends we just hang out with and dream of living in a compound together with (perhaps a little strange but it is true). When we leave them, we miss them like crazy and long to hang out just a few more times. I think by moving around your life is richer because of the great people you meet. In fact, I almost feel sorry for those who don't move because if we keep meeting such amazing people then I am thinking we better move every two to three years so we can meet all the great people out there that have so much to offer and teach me. The people we have met have certainly enriched my life.

It is interesting to move to a new country versus just a new city in the same country. I have discovered that any American I meet here instantly becomes my best friend. That is not to say that I do not have plenty of English friends or friends of other nationalities but there is an instant bonding that takes place when people are American. I guess the other reason I have also made friends so quickly here is that my girls are now in school. When one of them wants someone to come over for a play date I am forced to get to know the mother and we become friends. It speeds up the whole friendship making process.

Another thing I have been thinking about lately is my vocabulary. When we first moved to London in 2003, I was eager and willing to use all of the English terms for things and made a huge effort to do so. Things like nappy instead of diaper; garden instead of backyard; rubbish instead of garbage; pavement instead of sidewalk. However, we then moved back to the States and I was quickly trying to change my vocabulary back to the American terms mostly so I would stop getting strange looks. Words I had a hard time changing were: pacifier instead of dummy; cell phone instead of mobile phone; crib instead of cot.

But now once again I am back in England but this time I am actually finding myself refuse to change my vocabulary yet again! Most of it is PURE laziness on my part. I just simply cannot be bothered this time. Besides I AM American after all. Why should I change? Especially if we are going to be here for the long term I have started to feel like I need to preserve the "Americanisms" for my children and myself. Besides that, living in the country versus the city, I am constantly being reminded that I am American. I ask the man in the grocery store - "Where is the molasses or black treacle?" The man responds, "you are American." "Yes," I reply, "now back to my treacle, where is it?"

At Halloween, I found myself saying, "I am American and yes we go overboard and decorate for holidays like this." At Christmas I found myself saying, "I am American and Americans decorate early for the holidays (right after Thanksgiving) and yes, we decorate the whole house." In a sense it feels liberating to be who I was born to be! I guess though if I am here long enough I may start to use the English terms just because I hear them so much or because I am now constantly being corrected by my children of what the right term to use is. It is tea not dinner; trousers not pants; motorway not freeway; boot not trunk; and post not mail, they say. They also correct me if I do not pronounce words properly. Such as the word "parcel." I say "parcel" like any American would but apparently that is unacceptable to Abby and Sammy who immediately correct and mock me and say it should be pronounced "pah sel." I am sorry but I don't even naturally use the word parcel. I mail PACKAGES!

Merry Christmas

Christmas Activities

The last weekend in November, Charles was in Germany, so I decided to take the girls on an outing. We went to a Christmas market at the Knebworth House. Santa was even there with his reindeer! Sammy asked the care-taker of the reindeer lots of questions about how they fly. The man told her it was magic pixy dust. Sammy was impressed. Santa was a bit pathetic though, his mustache was up over his nose. His sleeves were too short so they tried to hide it by throwing a bunch of cotton over his wrists. Lame! The girls didn't seem to mind, they got a bag of treats from him. What's more important than that? They did conclude that he was probably just one of Santa's helpers and not the REAL thing. I guess you can no longer sit on his lap either. Every Santa we have seen since no one has been allowed to sit on his lap.

This is the girls outside the gates of the Knebworth House.

These pictures are an attempt by me to be a bit creative with the camera. 

I found out that you can see Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol in the Knebworth House at Christmas time. We may have to do that next year.

There was a huge crater sized hole in the lawn outside the house that the girls loved to run down into. The old chapel is just beyond it.

The following week, Abby sang with her school choir at the annual village Christmas lighting carnival. They blocked off the high street and had rides and vendors and performers all night long. It was really fun and a lot bigger than we had expected. I of course had brought no money because I thought she was just going to sing and then we would go home. I had no idea it would be so fun. So the girls got no treats, no rides but they did enjoy the performances from some Glee Club singers.

This was the only free "ride" - a giant sled pulled by a tractor to play on.

We have been quite busy this Christmas season so far. We took the girls to see the Nutcracker on December 3rd. They loved it. It was really fun to watch the reactions to the beautiful, sparkly costumes. They know the story so well because we have watched it every year and read the book many, many times. I think they really enjoyed it. Charles and I certainly enjoyed taking them. I have been dreaming about taking my girls to the Nutcracker for a very long time.   Sammy had her Street Dance recital and was also in the school Nativity play. She was an angel. She was fabulous. The only one to put some extra flare into her angel dance and shake her hips a little more. (Unfortunately, much to my horror, I forgot my carmera so I got NO pictures of the performance.) I have been so happy with the girls' school. I love having them at a church of England school where it is not punishable by death to say the word "Christmas." In Chicago, Abby's school could not make any Christmas crafts or have any Christmas parties. They had to have Gingerbread parties instead. Here, the students all participated to put up and decorate the school Christmas tree. They each got to bring in an ornament and put it on the tree. Sammy was in the Nativity pageant (like I mentioned) and Abby was in the Christmas choir. The girls have both done Christmas cooking with their classes and made mince pies (not my favorite). Abby has been typing up the Christmas story in the computer lab.  Their classes have had Christmas parties where Father Christmas himself showed up and the whole school has a special Christmas dinner together. It is truly lovely! I could go on and on about it. It is such a nice change!

Shopping Trip Gone Bad

This past week I decided to take a trip to Costco. It had been several weeks since I had been there last and I was out of all kinds of things like diapers, wipes, toilet paper, frozen chicken etc. After dropping the girls off at school I headed down to the nearest Costco which is about 30 minutes from our house. I got there around 10:30am. I got Alexandra out of the car and loaded her into the cart and found my way to the door. As I flashed my Costco card toward the man at the door, I was abruptly stopped by him and told I was not allowed to enter. What? Not allowed to enter? Apparently here in England, traders are the only ones allowed in in the morning. Individual members like me can shop after 12 noon. Lovely! I now had an hour and a half to kill waiting to get into Costco.


I went back to my car. I thought about going to the Indian/Pakistani grocery store I have wanted to visit that is in the area. However, I did not have the postcode for it to program into my trusty GPS (they call it a SatNav here) and find it. I thought of calling Charles so that he could quickly look it up for me and I would be on my way. However just that same morning before leaving for Costco, I had changed my cell phone provider and as a result switched my old sim card for a new one. Therefore, I had NO ONE's phone numbers (including Charles) in my phone. Actually that is not true. By some fluke, I had ONE phone number - a friend of mine who's husband is a partner at Charles' current firm. So I called and had a chat with her for a few minutes and I snuck in the exit of Costco and went to the restaurant and got Alex and I a snack. By the time I had done all this and wasted some more time, it was finally noon and I could enter Costco. Hooray!


I went in and promptly loaded up my cart with all sorts of groceries, Christmas presents, Christmas decorations, rugs, diapers, wipes, buckets of pretzels, toilet paper, large bags and boxes of this and that. For anyone who shops at Costco, you know everything is BIG and your cart fills up quickly because everything looks delicious or appeals to you in such a way that you must buy it because you have never wanted anything more in your life. So my cart was overflowing with items and I could barely fit the large box of diapers and wipes on at the end. I get in line to pay and unload all my items onto the conveyor belt (which is a chore within itself). The woman rings everything up and we manage to pile it all back into my cart. I reach for my debit card (since they don't take credit cards) and throw it in the card reader. The clerk announces to me that it has been declined. She tries again. Declined. Three times is a charm. NOPE. Declined! I turn red and start to panic. There are LOADS of people in the line waiting to check out. Christmas shopping begins in earnest on November 1st here since we don't even have a holiday like Thanksgiving to distract us. Every cashier has a huge line. People start looking at me in frustration. What do I do? I can't call Charles (I don't have his phone number). I can't pay with check. I don't have my check book. The cashier suggests I go try my card in the ATM. So out of a panic, I leave Alexandra with the cashier and run down to the ATM. (Wow what was I thinking there? I would never normally do that.) My card is declined. If it didn't work for the cashier, why would it work in the machine? I race back to the cashier who suggests that I step aside and figure something out while she starts checking out another customer.


I stand there with my loaded cart dumbfounded. I had just used my debit card that morning to pay my new cell phone provider to put minutes on my phone. It worked then. I finally just give up. I tell the woman that I will just leave the cart and all the items except for the large box of kid's lunch-sized juice boxes. Alexandra started getting restless at one point while I was shopping so I had given her one of the juice boxes I was buying so I had to at least pay for those. I pay the woman cash for the juice boxes and take the awkward box under my arm. It is heavy and awkward so I cannot carry Alex. So Alex is walking through crowds of people and their enormous carts lined up quite a way back so the man at the exit can check their receipts at let them out of the store.


I continue to encourage (a nice way to put it) Alexandra to walk forward. She is easily distracted by anything shiny or that moves. We finally get up to the man who must check our receipt and to my horror, I have misplaced it. He sends me ALL the way back to find it or get a new one. So I again make my way, WITH MY TODDLER, all the way back through what feels like hundreds of shoppers and their gi-normous carts all the way back to the cashier. We have no luck finding the receipt. The cashier flags down her manager who goes in the back room and has to print out a receipt SPECIAL for my stupid box of juice boxes! He brings it out after a few minutes and I again fight my way all the way back up to the front of the store, while barking at Alex to follow me, show the man my blasted receipt and exit the store with my ONE item. I drive home and arrive at 2:30pm with 30 minutes before I have to pick up Abby and Sammy. I feel so upset that I have truly WASTED the ENTIRE day, including the HOUR AND A HALF of doing nothing while waiting to get into the store. I call the bank and find out that between the time that I paid for my cell phone minutes and I tried to make a purchase at Costco they had decided to put a stop on my card because they thought there were some strange transactions on it, one being a purchase in Istanbul several days previous made by Charles! I do appreciate them looking out for us but could it be at a worse time?


I end up going back to Costco the very next day and reloading my cart with all of my needed items (as well as a few more) and this time my card works.What a nightmare. I don't think I can handle another trip to Costco for quite a while.

Take a Drive Thru England at OneTrueMedia.com

Come take a drive with us and see the narrow country lanes of England that we use all the time. The fall colors are also so beautiful but I am not sure you can see them too well. Hopefully this will at least give you an idea of what we get to see everyday when we go out.

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Two of My Favorite Things...

These bowls are now counted as some of my favorite things. Charles just brought them back from Istanbul. Aren't they gorgeous? The two above are bigger and the three below are very small - just big enough for a personal portion of soy sauce to dip your sushi in or something.

I actually already had two of these bowls (the yellow and orange ones) from our 2008 trip to Istanbul. I bought four of them at the time.  However, two were broken (one by Charles) over the years. I was so pleased that he remembered and got me more. I really thought after we moved to Chicago there would never be another chance to get more! He is going again next week to Istanbul, let's hope he picks up MORE!

My other favorite thing lately is my juicer. I just made carrot, apple (just picked fresh off the tree from my friend's orchard) and ginger juice. I feel so healthy drinking it. I did learn that only a little bit of ginger goes a long way though.

It makes me even happier to see this little one drinking it. Now if I can just get the other two to drink it as well....

Half Term and Halloween

Butterfly World, Celtic Harmony Camp, Millenium Bridge, Tate Modern, No Man's Land and the Lea Singers Swansong for an Empress - this sums up our week of half term.


The last week of October the girls had a week break from school. They are on a year-round system here where you have six weeks of school and then a week break. We didn't travel anywhere because I felt like we needed to explore the local area and explore we did!


Butterfly World
Our first stop was Butterfly World www.butterflyworldproject.com. This is a lovely park about a 15-20 minute drive from our house.

There is an array of different gardens from ‘The Theatre of Insects’ to ‘Through the Flowerpot Garden’, in which you are transformed into ‘insect size’ and can walk through a giant flowerpot. Butterfly World also has a designer gardens exhibition where garden designers from around the world created 12 thought-provoking and inspiring gardens in the shape of a caterpillar. It was so fun to explore each one and see the different designs. Oh and yes, they had lots of butterflies for us to see.

Celtic Harmony Camp

The next day we went to the Samhain Winter Festival at Celtic Harmony Camp celebrating the Celtic New Year.  I just happened to run across this while I was doing a search online of things to do. It turned into a fantastic day out. When we first arrived there was a warrior demonstration. The girls were so excited because they helped the "local celtic warrior" carry all his gear - swords and shields and spears etc. 

Here is Alexandra eating her apple while watching the warrior demonstration. I think she was giving me a proud warrior growl too.

Here is Sammy in front of the children's size Celtic home. There were several large ones at the camp that actually had camp fires in them.

I had a picture of Abby and Sammy with all the gear on but somehow it got deleted or lost.

After the warrior demonstration, there was storytelling. The story they told was about a dragon and this fire-breathing woman would breathe out fire (really she would spit out some kind of fuel to make a mini fire explosion) every time the dragon did in the story. 
Unfortunately, just after I took this picture of the fire-breathing woman my camera batteries died. So sad because I missed out on some great photo opportunities. Next we saw the Owl display where a handler brought out three large owls. The largest was almost the size of Alex. But she didn't mind she still thought that she could hold him so she kept wandering up to the man in front of the crowd putting out her hand. At one point, the owl leaped at her with wings spread but she didn't even flinch. She just wanted to "hold the bubby." (Note: Bubby is what she calls birds even though she can say the word "bird." None of the rest of us will let her say the right word.  We all make her continue to say "bubby" because it is so cute.) After the owls, the girls had their faces painted. It was pretty exciting for them because it was the first time they have had it done. Abby got an angel and Sammy had a butterfly. The most unfortunate part was that after they painted their faces, they went and did archery. Here is where I was dying to have my camera. Not only did Abby and Sammy do archery which would have been great to get pictures of (by the way, Sammy was a natural and got the target every time) but Alexandra - MY TWO YEAR OLD - insisted on doing archery as well! I asked if they ever had a two year old do it before and they said no but were willing to give it a try since she was pretty adamant about it. It was hilarious and she was pretty darn proud of herself. After archery, we went over fed the goats and had some "Celtic" hot chocolate! All in all, it was such a fun day. I was so pleased with myself for finding this activity for the girls. We all really enjoyed it.  

London - Millenium Bridge and Tate Modern

The next day, we got on the train that Charles rides everyday to work and went into London. The girls have been dying to do this. They complain that it is not fair that Daddy gets to ride the train to work everyday. We got on and experienced what a lovely commute Daddy really does have. It does not take long at all - about 20 minutes and you are in the middle of London. We got off at Charles stop and met him. He showed us his firm's building and then we all went for a picnic by Millenium Bridge. Charles works about a block or two from St. Paul's cathedral which is where all the sympathetic wall street protests are happening. There is quite a nice sized tent village set up outside with the protesters about their "down with government" duties. After lunch we walked across Millenium bridge and went into the Tate Modern museum. The girls enjoyed the day but loved riding the train most of all. No pictures since at this point, I had not even charged my camera batteries because I was unsure of what adaptor/transformer to plug it in to.

  

No Man's Land

No Man's Land is less than a five minute drive from our house. This is a large wooded area where people walk their dogs and fly model airplanes, ride horses and generally get out to enjoy the outdoors. Abby was dying to take us there because her school had a field trip to the area a few weeks before. They had walked the two or three miles all the way there and back. Abby showed us the huts they made out of large branches. I must say, we were all rather impressed by them. The girls all had fun running in and out of them all. We had a picnic up there that day as well. The funny thing is was that was October 30th and we were enjoying gorgeous weather while the east coast of America was being blanketed with snow! 

Lea Singers - Swansong for an Empress

That night Charles and I had an evening out (which has not happened in ages). We attended the Lea Singers performance of "Swansong for an Empress." Our landlord is in the choir and we have attended two of his performances now. The first one was geared to children during harvest and was all about food. This one was mostly in Latin and was performed in a lovely old church in Hemel Hampstead (a village not far from us). It was a perfect end to an active week. 

Halloween

Several people have asked if they do Halloween here. Yes, they do. It seems to get bigger every year but seems to be only a recent thing in the past ten years or so. I took the girls to a Halloween party at the church that sponsors their school. The party was right after school and so we rushed home and got ready and rushed back to the party. The party had storytelling, crafts, games, cupcake decorating,  and singing. The girls really enjoyed it. However, by the time we got home they were exhausted. I was trying to rush them around and get ready to go out trick-or-treating but we had some very grumpy girls. There was lots of drama and needless to say, there was not much trick-or-treating for us. The girls went to three houses on our street and Charles called it quits after all the complaining and moaning. They didn't seem too bothered. They got enough candy at the party with a little bit more from the few neighbors. They went to bed promptly at 8pm. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures because of all the chaos and grumpiness. Abby was Cinderella wearing a lovely dress made by our Naperville friend with long gloves and plenty of jewelry and high heel shoes. Sammy was a witch with hot pink fake eyelashes, black long haired wig and a broom. Alexandra refused to dress up which I found surprising since everything else Abby and Sammy does she seems to insist on doing. I think next year we just the party OR trick-or-treating but NOT both!

 

Out and About

I feel like since we moved to England (which was only two months ago) we have had so many opportunities to be outside and explore. I have really enjoyed this because it has not been typical for our family but of course there is so much to see and do outside here that even we can't resist. I really like getting us all outdoors. We seem to get along better and are generally happier when we are outdoors.  Of course we have been enjoying the most spectacular weather for the past two months as well so that has been helpful too.
At the beginning of October, we went up to Buckinghamshire to visit some friends of ours who just bought a house there. Above is the view from their house.

Their house is the Old Rectory behind this very old little church in a quaint, little hamlet. We love visiting them and seem to go now almost every Sunday.

On this particular visit, we all took to the fields for a walk, as is customary. We also picked apples and collected conkers.

This visit was also a farewell party for some friends of ours moving back to the States (Goodbye Weylands!). Here we all are posing again in the field during our walk.

This is in the cemetery on the grounds of the old church. Our friends said that their neighbors who were out that day have not talked to them since. I hope we didn't offend them with our disrespectful picture-taking. 

This one is a bit random but here is Alexandra in her adorable dress given to her by Auntie Susi! (Thanks Susi!) I put her hair in pigtails for the first time. Pretty adorable!

On this particular day, we ventured over to the neighboring village (Wheathampstead) where the girls go to school and explored the park there. It is gorgeous with a little stream and lots of wooded areas. You can even stop in at the local pub for a nice snack or meal afterward.The girls were amazingly good at posing for pictures that day.

We love this park. It is a favorite after school destination.

The view of the park from Abby and Sammy's perspective

Here is another random photo that has nothing to do with the outdoors, but I just have to throw it in here. I thought this homework of Sammy's was so cute. Sammy was asked to write a few sentences about herself and she did it "by herself." I love it when kids are first learning to spell.  I will translate in case you can't tell what she wrote.
"I'm Samantha Marie Farnsworth. I like pepperoni pizza. My favorite color is all the colors in the world except black, I don't mind. My favorite thing to do is going to Birthday parties. I have 2 sisters named Abby and Alex." (I am not sure what the last three words say.) 
That's all. More of our outdoor adventure over half term will be in my next post. 

Back Blogging

Well it is time to play catch-up. Here are a few pictures from August when we had just arrived in England. We were staying in a temporary flat in North London not far from where we lived previously. When we left in 2008, Abby was four and Sammy was only two years old. Neither of them remembered much. The first few days, they kept asking where London was. I kept telling them that we were IN London but they didn't believe me. We finally took them down to "see London."

 changing of the guard

 It was really fun to show Abby and Sammy the sights. They loved it all. It is so different now that they are older and realize and appreciate where they are.

This is Golders Hill park near where we used to live. They have a little zoo. It was nice walking through it and remembering all the times I used to take both Abby and Sammy there.

 One day we went down to the Natural History and Science Museum. I think they liked riding the tube (subway) the most though. They thought the Natural History Museum looked like a big castle.

This is the big T-Rex at the Natural History Museum. He actually moves and makes lots of noise. Pretty cool! 

More pictures and stories of our adventures to come...