Meeting Santa

How funny is this that we had to travel all the way from England to Marengo, Iowa for Addison to get to meet Santa Claus. He is a mysterious fellow and he was running around some of the malls in Peterborough and even came to the Glinton Village Hall but we waited until Grandma Sue could come with and take pictures. Addison enjoyed her visit quite well and she told Santa and Mrs. Claus her deepest Christmas wishes in her special "baby" language which only Santa could understand.

Merry Christmas!!!

Happy Holi"deas"!!!

Instead of sending out Christmas cards this year we thought we would get a little creative since we've been on this technology kick to communicate with everyone. Since most of you have been staying up to date with us on our blog we'll just recap some of the amazing things that have happened in 2007. Also for fun, click on the video to see a pictoral of our year in review after you read this entry.

Obviously the greatest thing that happened to us was the birth of our little girl Addison Marie. Everyone told us that our lives would change when we became parents. They were right and it's all been great. Every day she amazes us with her funny and tender looks, new things she gets into, and her unconditional love for us with those death-grip hugs.

About two weeks after Addison was born and things were becoming right with the world, everything got turned upside down when we got offered an overseas assignment through CAT in Peterborough, England. Obviously our families weren't too keen on us moving Addison away so soon, but it was an opportunity of a lifetime that we couldn't turn down. I "retired" from GROWMARK and took on the profession as child careprovider, domestic engineer, cook, travel agent and communications specialist. It was definitely tough to leave my "family" at GROWMARK, but I've enjoyed every minute of being at home with Addison. Who ever coined the phrase "stay-at-home-mom" hasn't met the modern day women because Addie and I stay so busy that I need a special calendar to keep track of things. We've met some amazing people who have made our time in the UK unbelieveable.

Kevin is staying very busy with his new job in the Perkins organization. After a few twists and turns, he's settled into a new position, taking on a team leader role which should be some great experience for him. His hours are pretty interesting...he doesn't have to be to work until 8:30 AM, but he doesn't get home until about 6:30PM. Even though he still works 50+ hours a week, I think the more laid back culture of the UK has done us both some good. I do think that having Addison to come home to has been the best cure for Kevin on those stressful days.

Lots of traveling...we've done a weekend in London, a week in the Canary Islands and several day trips to Belvoir Castle, Warwick Castle, Nottingham, and Lincoln. I even got to do a girls weekend in London to shop and watch "Hairspray." We look forward to doing more traveling next year. Other cool things that happened were that my brother Casey graduated from Iowa State, my sister and Heath got married, and Brad and Jaye Geater came to visit us in the UK and suprised us with their wedding abroad.

Keep posted with our future 2008 adventures by checking out our blog. Also you are all welcome to come visit the Dea B&B free of charge anytime you want...let us know when you want to come over.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

"Home" for the Holidays!!!

Well our adventure started at 4:30 AM UK time (so about 10:30PM on Friday Central time). Obviously I couldn't sleep the night before but the "Velvet Hammers" that our neighbors served us for our Christmas dinner the night before helped a little bit. Anyway our driver, Karen, picked us up at the house around 5:45 AM and we made our way down to Heathrow.

Kevin and I were wondering how things would go on our trip home but we found that traveling with an infant definitely has it's advantages and disadvantages...we hit a lot of advantages. We got fast tracked through security at Heathrow and they bumped us up the the bulkhead seats on the plane - awesome. The stewardesses were very friendly, but sometimes they tried getting Addie's attention when we were trying to get her to sleep. Addie was pretty well behaved on the plane except she's at the stage that she wants to crawl around instead of sit for 9 hours. We got into Chicago okay, but we had only 1 hour to catch our flight to Cedar Rapids. We finally had someone fast track us through dropping off our luggage after US Customs because we had a baby - another YES!!!. After rushing to the train we headed to security, but along the way we saw what we feared...our flight was cancelled!!!! I instantly started crying...and was sobbing to the ticket agent who let us cut ahead in line (again because we had a baby). We found out that there were no seats for us on any flights later that night, so we were forced to stay over night in Chicago. Funny thing is that we ended up by accident at the same hotel Kevin and I stayed at when our flight to England was cancelled in June. As we waited for our shuttle, we got a Vienna hot dog from a vendor and it was the best hot dog we've had ever!!! Our luggage got sent on to Iowa on the 9:30PM flight so we only had the bags on our backs and the clothes on our bodies. Fortunately I packed a pair of Addie's PJs in my back pack and the airline did give us baby food, diapers, and formula so that was a help. Another blessing was that CAT hadn't turned off Kevin's work cell phone so we could communicate with family. We crashed in the hotel around 6:30 PM (12:30 AM our body clock time). We woke up at 2:30 AM ready for our day's adventure because we were still adjusting to the time change. We played with Addie and watched TV until we had to head to the airport again. We finally got to Cedar Rapids and had my family awaiting us which was so amazing to see them. We were very fortunate that we could get a hotel room and could get home the next morning, because lots of flights from Chicago were cancelled and people were stuck at the airport.

We finally got to mom and dad's to be amazed by white snow and beautiful Christmas decorations. Dad started up a fire and I sat in front of the fireplace and admired being in their warm log cabin for the holidays.

You Know...It's the Little Things

For fun, I took a half hour today while Addison was sleeping and I just flipped through the channels to see what was on the old tube and came across ER. Suprisingly it was an episode from just last year (most episodes of US shows seem to be several years old) so I caught up on a show I missed. An amazing thing that occured to me as I watched for a 1/2 hour was that I forgot for a moment that I was in England. I felt like I was back home on a Thursday night hanging out and I was truly at peace. It's not at all that I am unhappy here, I love it, but there are certain "little things" that calm the heart and make you feel normal or at least make where you are start to feel normal. Later today we went to the grocery store and every trip still can be a struggle when you are trying to find what you are used to and you just want to find what you want instead of trying to figure out what is a good alternative. The little thing that brought me to peace again was finding cans of Campbell's brand Cream of Mushroom Soup. Later on yet during Addison's nap I sat in the conservatory and looked out on my super green grass and noticed that it needs mowing very badly. Then it occured to me that it is the 6th of December and I was depressed and longed for snow. I put in a tape of Christmas shows I recorded last year...the Grinch, Charlie Brown Christmas, and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation...as every commercial came on or weather update by the local Peoria news people...for those few moments I was back in my house in Washington. We leave for America in nine days and I am overly excited to head back "home" to where I dream it will be "normal", but I am sure things will be great, but most definitely different. I'm sure when we are home that I will have to check the internet to see who wins X Factor (UK's American Idol), I'll have to email my friends from the UK to check in to see how things are going, I'll feel odd not having to drive on the left side of the road and zip around round abouts. Anyway, its always the little things that count and make life interesting...and we should cherish them all.

A Night Out with the Mums

Tonight I went out with a few of the gals I had met at the Glinton Mum and Toddler group. We went to see the "Vagina Monologues" at the local theater in Peterborough. Since this is a "family friendly" blog, I won't get into the details of what the show is about. Althought I will say that I learned a lot more about my womenhood and they brought up things that I am too shy to even talk about with my husband. I would have to say it was the funniest and most brutally honest show I have ever seen. There were some serious parts, but I haven't laughed so hard in a very long time. The interesting bits were the conversations we had afterwards on the way to the car. Most of us agreed that it would have been a difficult show to watch with our husbands, but I think Kevin may have gotten a kick out of parts of it. Also we noticed that a the few groups of older women and husband/wife couples didn't return to there seats behind us for the second half of the show - a bit to raunchy for them I guess. As an American, I guess I wasn't shocked by the crudeness of the show or the boisterousness of the actresses, but I have heard that most British are very conservative and it may have been a stretch to feel comfortable during the show. It was very empowering though to be in a theatre surrounded by other women who were laughing, giggling and enjoying the poking of fun about ourselves on a topic we probably would have never thought much about. Afterwards I joined the "mums" at the pub to unwind. I was a good girl and only had a still water with 2 ice cubes. It was great being with them and just listening to their stories. I was so tired from being up with Addison at 5AM, that at 11:30PM it was difficult at times to understand what they were saying because their accents were really throwing me for a loop. For a moment I sat in awe and felt blessed that I got to experience where I was and who I was with...it was all a bit surreal. I am truly looking forward to future nights out with the "mums" and making wonderful friendships with them.

ISE Thanksgiving

Today we gathered together with our fellow ISEs to celebrate our wonderful American holiday of Thanksgiving. We have lots to be thankful for this year and to be able to gather with the group made it feel a lot more like home. We came together at the village hall in small village outside of Peterborough that had plenty of space for the kids to play outside. We had all the traditional goodies and turkey...it was like being at a family dinner. The day was bittersweet as we were glad to be with with our ISE family, but we were also mourning the loss of Kevin's Grandma Alma Rasmussen who passed just the day before. We were trying to enjoy meeting new faces byt were longing to be with our family at that time. Grandma Ras was an amazing woman and we were lucky to have the opportunity to see her this past summer before we left. We knew we would potentially have things like this happen while being over here, but until you have to face it straight on and you can't image how helpless you feel. On the brighter side, she is now all around us and watching over us here. I told Kevin that she's now with Grandpa Ras and my Grandpa Dick and they are having a grand ole time.

To reflect a bit on what I'm thankful for this year...

1) To be blessed with a beautiful and healthy little girl who has truly changed Kevin's and my life is such a positive way
2) To have a family who loves us so much and supports us with all the crazy adventures we take on (AKA...moving to England)
3) Skype - this has been a life saving tool - the miracle of getting to "see" our family and them to see us makes us feel that there isn't a huge ocean between us
4) My husband - who takes on the challenge of working in a foreign place and having the strength and ambition to bring us here to the UK to live and experience a whole new world. Especially that he has allowed me to "retire" early in order to care for our daughter
5) TalkTalk international calling - I can pick up the phone anytime and call anyone back in the States and talk to those of you who actually pick up the phone after being scared off by the "restricted incoming call" on your caller ID.
6) Wonderful people (English, American, Malaysian, and more) who have accepted us into this country and have become wonderful friends and a great support

A British Thanksgiving Day

The interesting thing about a British Thanksgiving Day is that there is no such thing and here in lies the interesting part about trying to celebrate an American holiday in a foreign country. Since there is no hype up for the big day, it came up on us quickly and it almost ended up being an ordinary day in the UK..."oh Thanksgiving is on Thursday, I almost forgot." As we all know, one of the biggest things about Thanksgiving is the traditional meal and I worked very hard to collect the recipes of all the traditional goodies - pumpkin pie with my great grandma Vera's pie crust recipe, Kevin's grandma Ras's stuffing recipe, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes/gravy, homemade rolls, Ocean Spray Cranberry's in a jar, and a large British "chicken." Kevin took the day off, yes, he actually had to use a vacation day because we are to follow our host country's vacation schedule. I made some homemade cinnamon rolls the night before so we started out the day with some yummie sweets. To get our minds off being away from family and as we patiently waited to call family back home, we went for a walk out in the country on a beautiful cool,wet fall day. Around 11:30 AM our time (5:30 AM Central) we called up my mom and dad...got my mom to shoot right out of bed and she about scared Addison with the wild bed head hair. A few hours later we visited with Kevin's folks and I kept quizzing Sally about how to perfect the stuffing recipe - it was a crockpot recipe and I don't have one so it posed some tweaking. Most of the afternoon I spent prepping and preparing our evening meal...the pumpkin pie ended up being a team effort. I was missing some ingredients so my wonderful neighbor, Min, ran to the store for me, then Kevin had to help me wrap the edges with foil and put it in our oven, and of course everyone had a piece to eat. Also since there is no Cool Whip in the blessed country I had to make my own sweetened whipping cream (actually it tastes a lot better than Cool Whip). Kevin told me it really started to feel like Thanksgiving once he could smell the stuffing cooking...me too. We got a special treat when we decided to Skype my mom and dad again in the afternoon, my Auntie Julie and Uncle Thom stopped and we got to see them as well. They had a hoot seeing Addison. Our friends/neighbors Danny, Min, Yi Xuen, and Yi Hong came over for dinner. Since they are from Singapore, this was their first Thanksgiving and what a treat it was having them share a great American tradition. Our other British neighbors also brought us a bottle of wine since they knew we were celebrating the day. After dinner, Min and I ran off to our neighbors house for a Virgin Vie home party, Danny brought the kids home to bed and Kevin turned on Sky Sports and watched the NFL games that happened to be broadcasting. It was a great day, but bittersweet to be away from our extended family, but it was a great opportunity to start some new traditions with our "new family" over here.

Girls Weekend in London

This weekend I headed down to London with a great group of gals for a couple of days of shopping, shows, and loads of fun. This was the first time I was to be away from both Kevin and Addison overnight and I was pretty nervous so it was hard to sleep the night before, but I got up bright an early to catch the 7:48AM train down to London. It is pretty nice that it's only an hour train ride down to London right from Peterborough. After the other gals made it to King's Cross Station, we all made our way to the hotel which was about a 1/2 mile hike from the train station. We then headed to the Covent Garden market, which was really cool. It was an open air market with lots of different vendors and I did happen to find some unique Christmas gifts and now looking back I should have bought more. We navigated ourselves by accident to the TGIFridays for lunch where it took almost 2 1/5 hours for us to eat a late lunch...gotta love that English service. Saturday night we went to see "Hairspray" at the Shaftsbury Theater and it was so amazing. I haven't seen the movie, but I love the story and seeing it live and feeling the excitement that the cast conveyed was so cool. Afterwards we waited outside the side stage door to see the actors come out. We headed back to the hotel where we stayed up like a bunch of grade school girls and visited until 2:30AM...it was so fun. On Sunday we went to the Country Living Christmas Show at the Business Center. We split up for 2 hours to circle the show on our own and it definitely took that long navigate through all the people. There were lots of unique gift ideas and I happen to pick up some really fun things for Addison. Amazingly I happen to run into my neighbors Simon and Sarah at the show...who would of thunk...what a small world. We ended up wandering back to our hotel in the misty rain since it was pretty hard to find a cab at that hour. Sadly our weekend was coming to an end, but we did get to enjoy the train ride home together and we chatted the whole way. I think this weekend was a real turning point for me - I got a little time to focus on me and to get to know some very special gals that I think will make living over here great!

Is the UK more child friendly?

I've had visits with British moms who feel that the US is much more family friendly than the UK. I have to say that I agree that hotels and restaraunts for "holidays" or vacations are pretty nice in the US, but I'm not sure that much else can beat some of the things they have in the UK. Now I haven't had much experience with the US and dealing with kid friendliness since we left when Addie was only 5 months old, but over here there are some amazing things that they have that I've never seen in the States. Here are a few things we have available:

1) Parent/child parking - they have this at almost every major type of store. They are designated parking spots with extra room (3-4 feet) on either side of the space to that you can easily pull a child out of the car and put them in a push chair (stroller). Regular parking spots allow you just enough room for someone to crack their door open about 8 inches and squeeze out of your car and that's if you have a small car. The coolest part is that these spots are often right up next to the store on the other side of the handicap parking and there are usually a ton of spots. Today we parked front and center at a very packed new store called B&Q which is just like a Home Depot but cooler. It seemed so unfair that we got to park so close, but we'll take advantage of any thing that makes life easier here.

2) Family changing rooms - everywhere you can actually find bathrooms they have a men's, women's and family changing room. It's not just a pull down changing table but loaded with necessities, most are impecably clean, and they have been wonderful.

3) Free baby food offered at grocery store cafes. The ASDA supermarket store (the British Wal-Mart) gives out free jars of baby food when mums get something to eat or drink.

4) Mother feeding rooms - I have seen at IKEA and at a store called Mothercare that they have designated rooms for breastfeeding mothers....wow. It's challenging enough to keep yourself discrete feeding your child when out and about, but it's amazing to walk in a store that cares enough about the little things. Back to IKEA...the store in Milton Keynes is the most family friendly place I have ever seen. They have an entire play room loaded with games, toys, and movies for kids to play while parents go shopping in the store. They offer free baby food, designated family eating tables, and more.

5) Maternity leave here is for months...not weeks. Some of the moms here about fell over when I told them I got to take 7 weeks for my maternity leave. They thought the few months they get off pretty stringent compared to other places in Europe that offer women up to a year or more off with pay and they get their jobs when they want to come back.

6) Baby TV - we have two television channels that are devoted completely to programs for baby's. Not that I want Addie to be a couch potato, but they have some great little programs with nursery rhymes, bright colors, and learning about shapes, numbers, and letters.

You be the judge, but even with weird baby food and other quarky things we've run into I have found the UK a pretty great place to be raising our little girl.

What's a Refill?

This afternoon we decided to do lunch at McDonald's. We have a McDonald's only a mile down the road at the first major round about south of Glinton. We've done the drive thru a few times and that took some getting used to because you obviously drive up to the other side. Over here you actually talk to a person to give them your order which is quite lovely. The hard thing is to realize when you are ordering your 4.50GBP quarter pounder with cheese that it's actually costing us $9. I've taken quite a liking to the Chicken Selects and they don't have your typical Ranch, Honey Mustard, and BBQ sauces, no they have Smokey BBQ, Sweet Chili, and Brown Sauce. Well today Kevin and I split a Chicken Selects meal and we downed the Coke we had been sharing and we were still pretty parched when we finished off so I attempted to get a refill. Now I say attempted because typically in restaraunts in the UK you don't get free refills on really anything. I walked up with my empty cup and asked the chap behind the counter how much it would cost to get a refill on my Coke. You thought I started speaking a foreign language to him with the look I got. I then went on to explain that I wanted to get more Coke in my cup and asked how much would it cost. He asked if I had Coke left in the cup, I said no, and he asked "What is it that you want?"...."I want you to refill my cup with Coke and I will pay for it." He proceeded to ask if I wanted a large and if I wanted a new cup. We came to a consensus that I would just buy a brand new cup of Coke. I filled Kevin in with my conversation as we walked out of the store and we just marveled at the idea that guy didn't understand what a refill was.

Bonfire Night

I know in the States we have some unique holidays...4th of July, Thanksgiving, Columbus Day, etc., but tonight we took part in a British holiday celebrated for hundreds of years called Bonfire Night. To an outsider looking in, you probably think it's a cool sounding fall holiday to have bonfires out in your garden (yard), shoot off some fireworks, and get together with friends, and I bet you didn't know that Bonfire Night is actually more popular in the UK than Halloween is. Well let me tell you a little bit of history about Bonfire Night which is actually its on November 5th, but is celebrated through out the whole weekend before.

Hundreds of years ago there was a plot to kill King James I by a conspirator, Guy Fawkes, who loaded up the cellar below the House of Lords in Parliment with barrels of gun powder. An insider leaked out the secret to a friend and the king found out about it, so they found Guy and they took him to the Tower of London and tortured him horribly - hung him until he was almost dead, put him on the racks and stretched him out, then quartered him and hung his parts all around London to warn others against attempting plots to assasinate the king. Today they celebrate the fact that the king was saved by burning huge bonfires with effigies (stuffed fake bodies) of Guy Fawkes as a reminder of how he was tortured and shoot off fireworks to remember the failed blowing up of the king. It's quite an interesting story for parents to explain to their children. "Why mummy are they throwing a man on the fire?" Their response, "Because he was very, very naughty."

Well on Saturday nighat around 5:30PM we walked to the neighboring village in the dark carrying our torches (flashlights) to a huge bonfire and then fireworks at 6:30 (that's a lot earlier in the evening to watch fireworks than in the summer in the States). We ran into quite a few people we knew from our own village, so it was to see familiar faces in a nice gathering of a few hundred people. It is truly amazing on how we feel like a part of our community when we've only been here for three months.

Bugs, bugs, bugs

Well we've discovered several types of bugs while here in the UK. First this summer there were these things that looked like giant mosquitos. They seemed to fly all over the place and I often wondered if we were getting bit throughout the night. They don't believe in screens on windows so there's now way of keeping the icky things out and you need to have the windows open because there is no air conditioning. Secondly, the spiders here are bigger than Volkswagons (well maybe not that big), but they are huge and hairly looking. I've had a few run ins while in my laundry room and a few times in my bathroom and I haven't screemed like that since I was a little girl. Another day I was cleaning up in our "extra" room and as I moved over Kevin's ties a huge bee came swarming at me...where the heck did that come from. I grabbed the first thing handy and squarshed it and let it out the window. Well the most bugs Addie and I have been dealing with are so small you can't see them. Today we went to the GP because we had noticed Addison had been quite irritable with a horrible cough and runny nose for a couple weeks. Well it seems that our little one had bronchitis...the cold she had a few weeks ago moved into her lungs. What an amazing difference it made the day after she started taking her medicine. She was happy and crawling around all over the place. I felt horrible that it took me so long to get her into the doctor, but there is that overlying fear that they wouldn't do anything for her. Well about too days later a microscopic bug got in me and knocked me off my feet. After waking up with Addie in the middle of the I felt like my spine had horrible shooting pains in it and I was cold but with no fever. The next day we ran some errands up town and I couldn't hardly get myself home because I was so feverish. I don't care much for driving through lots of round abouts when I'm feeling good, and when you are sick it's about 100 worse because the last thing you want to do is think and you have to be on your A game when driving around those things. Well I ended up with 101.5 F temperature and completely helpless. They had an opening at the doctor that night and he told me I likely had an infection that caused the high fever but he was afraid I was developing bronchitis as well so I was put on an antibiotic. Needless to say, Kevin played "mom" that night and I think he quite enjoyed it. Addie had a hard time understanding why he kept her away from me. I went to bed early that night and woke up in a pool of wet when my fever finallly broke in the middle of the night. Later that next night I felt much better...it was so weird how quickly it came and went. I felt hopeless though because I couldn't do anything. You could say I am about sick of bugs!!!

A Week in the Canary Islands

This week we set out on our first big "holiday" trip to the Spanish Canary Islands off the western coast of Morocco, Africa. Sounds exotic but it's the equivalent of some in the US going to the Caribbean. Things started out pretty interesting for us about 4 hours before we were going to leave - Kevin discovered in the small print that Addison didn't have any baggage allowance. Funny thing was that the "stuff" we needed for her ended up in one suitcase and both of our carryons, so Kevin and I had to skrimp down our stuff into one case because we had pretty strick baggage allowance rules. We took a 4 hour flight our of the London-Stanstead Airport to the tiny volcanic island of Lanzarote. Stepping off the plane we felt like we had stepped onto the moon or a giant rock pile. There are over 300 volcanoes on the island and several of them are still active. We hopped on the coach to our hotel and the weird thing was that they drive on the right side of the road there and we were freaked out since we'd been driving on the left side for such a time. Even though they drive on the right side, all the speed limit signs are in km/hour and everything is in written in Spanish so those two years of high school Spanish had to be recalled in a hurry. We stayed at the Playa Flamingo resort which is set up as villa type apartments. The weather was amazing. It was sunny and hot...about 34 C each day...I think that's in the mid-90's F. We loaded up on SPF 30 and put 50 SPF on Addie and kept her in the shade as much as possible. The first day we went to the beach and floated in the cold Atlantic Ocean. After Addie ate most of the sand and tried eating a few volcanic rock pieces we felt that was too stressful so we stayed up around the pool for the rest of the week. We sat everyday and soaked up the sun. We took Addie for long walks twice a day to get her to fall asleep for her naps. We ordered take-away Hawaiian pizza everyday from the Beach Club for lunch. Kevin played very competitive water polo matches each day and later on in the week I ventured to do the water aerobics sessions in the pool. We attemtpted to do the trivia but everything was British trivia since the resort was owned by Thomson a British company. A nice thing was that the Canary Islands utilize the Euro for currency so our dollar went a bit farther. The biggest treat was that they had Oreo cookies at the supermarkets onsite and we ate them like they were going out of style because you can't find them in the UK. The staff was amazing at the resort and it was very family friendly. Addison did pretty well. We all had to sleep in the same room so the two weeks of sleeping routines all went out the window when she would wake up in the night. The only downfall of the accomodations was that there was no air conditioning, but we did have a ceiling fan and an oscilating fan. The Canary Islands' infastructure was built by tax contributions from the EU so all the roads and such were almost brand new, but because of the strain on natural resources they don't utilize A/C to conserve electricity. Since we were trying to keep Addie's bedtime to around 7:30 we had to keep ourselves entertained. We did so by watching Sky News and EuroSport TV because they happened to be the only English speaking channels and by playing cards. It was a great vacation for all of us to be together, but we learned that 7 nights is a long time for a vacation and we were excited to finally get home and sleep in our own bed.

First Tooth

It finally happened...Addison's first tooth broke through...it's about time. We've been waiting for almost a month for something to happen to our cranky little princess. I rubbed my finger around on her gums and I could feel her bottom right tooth was poking through.

Our Baby's Eight Months Old

Wow...eight months has gone by so fast! Our little baby is growing up and she is the most beautiful thing in the world to her daddy and me. Having a child has certainly changed our outlook on life so much. Movies get me teary eyed when some sentimental scene happens with a parent and child. Kevin looks forward to getting home from work to give Addie her bath and play with her before she zonks out for the night. Tough thing is is she starts to get fussier about that time of night when he gets home so he doesn't get to enjoy her happiest times of the day like I do. She is starting to give hugs and she even gives wet kisses. One little amazing thing she does is now if you put your hands out in front of her, she will actually grab your hands and brings them together to clap like she's teaching you how to clap. She's so adorable. She crawling everywhere and will pull herself up on anything she can - we don't have the house "Addie-proofed" yet. She likes going after the recycling bin so I told her a story about a little girl who got her finger cut off by reaching in to a bin with empty soda cans in it. My attempt to teach her a valuable lesson fell on deaf ears and she still goes after the bin. Kevin certainly likes hearing the story which of course is completely made up, but I thought it was a better approach then nipping "NO" at her all the time.

First Encounter with British Health Care

Today Addison had her first visit with a "Health Visitor." Over here your child's development and growth up through kindergarten age is monitored by health visitors which are usually nurses. You only go to the doctor (General Practitioner - GP) when you are sick. For babies, they usually come out to your home for the initial visit, but since Addie was more than a few days old we had to make our made way up the big clinic in Market Deeping (that's the nearby village with the big medical practice is). Paddi was very nice and she had worked in the States for 15 years, so she was very familiar with how I was used to things in America. We sat in a room that they do the weekly "check up" clinics in to visit about immuninizations and general develop things to know about Addie. It was pretty cold in the room so when she asked me to get Addie down to her birthday suit to weigh and measure her I felt pretty bad for my baby. At Dr. Carlson's office they used to heat up the room and lay down heated blankets when Addie would come in. She fussed but she's tough. She weighed 9.4 kg and was 68.5 cm long (that's 20 lbs and 27 inches long) so she's in the 91st percentile in weigh still and 50% in height. She's starting to slow down in the growth spurt. There were a few things that I was advised to start trying with Addie now that she was 8 months old. In terms of food, we could start mashing up food from our plates at dinner for her to eat. Hard thing is that she's hungry at 5PM and Kevin gets held up at work until at least 6:30 each night. Paddi recommended that I start feeding her whole milk in her cereal in the morning, "Greek" style yogurt and mixing fruit with it (not the sugar loaded kid stuff), and try to get her eating a Wheatabix biscuit for breakfast. (Wheatbix is like a Shredded Wheat biscuit type food). Well I still had Addie on Stage 1 foods which means everything is finely pureed and any kind of texture usually freaked her out. She was doing just fine but I didn't want her getting behind on food I guess so being the over anxious and bought it all that afternoon. Needless to stay she revolted on me and decided she didn't want to eat anything for the next few days. Duh, Corrina - baby steps on changing our routine! The nice thing about it all was that she got so mad about the solid foods that when I gave her the bottle she grabbed hold of it and fed herself for the first time. She even did it one handed (I think she gets that bit from her dad)...no double gripping for this little girl! Overall the first health visit was okay, but for my first child it's probably good that I don't know any better about the way things are suggested in the US because it seems like some things could be quite different here.

Daddy/Addie Day and First British Baby-Sitter

Today was pretty momentous for me because I left Addison twice in one day and was away from her for the longest amount of time since our house hunting trip. I was asked back on our house hunting trip to attend the local production of "High School Musical" and I of course agreed, but I didn't realize it was going to be on a Saturday afternoon and that it wasn't going to be appropriate for me to bring her with me. So it was an Addie and Daddy afternoon while Mommy went off to the show. I did have a great time but I thought about my two kiddos the whole time and had to text message home to see how things were going. Later that evening Kevin and I had plans to attend a get-together at a friends house. My friend had offered that I could bring Addison and have her babysitter watch her, but since we had Addie on this new sleeping regiment we wanted her to be in her own bed. So we had the daunting/scary task of finding a babysitter for the evening. We asked around to some other ISE's and we got Abbey's name. She lives only 5 minutes away in a neighboring village and she was super sweet on the phone but we were about to leave our baby with a complete stranger....we were so nervous, but all went well. We let Addison met Abbey but then I put her to bed before we took off because she had been going through some serious "mommy withdrawl". We had a lovely time at the party and surprisingly we didn't call home...mostly because we didn't want the home phone to wake up Addison. Abbey reported that Addie did end up waking up about an hour or so after we left so she brought her down to play and then she went back to sleep. The really interesting thing about hiring a babysitter is that the going rate for their services is 5 pounds/hour....so if you are gone for four hours that's 20 pounds and that translates to $40 for 4 hours of someone sitting at your house while your daughter sleeps upstairs. Crazy you say...but well worth it!

Hardest Night as a Parent so Far

Well after serveral weeks of giving Addison the benefit of the doubt that she was probably teething and that was what was keeping her up at night we decided to set down a new regime in the Dea household. I had looked up some things on the internet about sleeping problems with 8 month olds and I finally felt that we needed to do something different. Either we could let Addie keep us up every 1 1/2 hours each night or we could start taking back our evenings. It seemed so harsh but we lowered the matress and we put Addison in bed at 7PM and let her scream it out. It was the most heart wrenching thing ever to hear your child scream, and to top it all off it was the first time I had ever heard her call out "Ma-ma". After about 20 minutes she finally fell asleep. When I went to check on her and she had her face buried down in the sheets and her butt sticking up in the air. Needless to say she woke up at midnight and screamed again. It took about four nights before she would sleep through the night and wake up around 6:30. Addison and I (and Kevin) hadn't slept that long through the night in ages and it felt wonderful (for all of us).

Weekend In London

This weekend we decided to take our first trip to London as British residents. Kevin and I had spent two hectic days there a year ago and saw a lot of sites but our goal was to "take it easy" since we had Addie this time. We decided to back pack it and take the train from Peterborough to King's Cross Station in London. It only took 1 hour and 20 minutes and was very relaxing not having to drive. Addie had a great time on the train and even took a short nap. We brought Addison to Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, Big Ben at Parliament and Westminster Abbey. We made our way up to Nottinghill in search of Portabello Road, but got sidetracked when I wanted to find Kensington Palace (former home of Diana). Well after an hour of walking around we couldn't find it (it really pays to have a good map of London to find things). Kevin had about enough walking and said "I need a pint." We turned around and went into a Tex Mex place. It was a good rest. We finally found Portabello Road and it was chaotic...so many people, but some really cool stuff. The street was loaded with vendors selling antiques to brand new Wallace and Grommit memorabilia. We made our way to the Holiday Inn in Camden Town which we didn't realize must be the tatoo and piercing capital of the UK. When we went to get dinner at 5:50PM the restarants would not allow children inside after 6PM because they were all considered bars, but we could sit outside. We finally ended up eating at some sushi restaraunt, which was really good, but we didn't eat sushi though. The area was a bit rough for a young couple with an 8 month old and only after we made our way through the market area to end up surrounded by "goth" looking people and Asian food vendors yelling to us that all their food was on sale for 2 GBP a plate. The next day we walked about 2 miles to Regent Park and to the London Zoo. Addie loved the zoo and all the animals. I think her favorite was the gorillas because they would come right up to the glass and make faces at the children. The train ride home was so much nicer than driving, but the train was pretty busy. When we go to the station the exit gates were open which we thought was weird. The car park was one of those pay based on how long you stayed there. While other people stood at the machines paying their 5 pounds a day for weekend parking we passed by and snuck out the gate....I hope that wasn't illegal, but why would they keep the gates wide open going in and out with no one around. Lucky us, we saved 10 pounds (that's $20).

A Quest to Find Conservatory Furniture and the Cyclone/Hawkeye Game

Well to start things off you have to realize that yes in the UK lots of people have conservatories...just like in the game Clue, but our is more like a 4 seasons room. Also when it comes to British vocabulary...you pronouce conservatory all jumbled up like "con-serv-a-tree"...sounds kind of like conserving a tree. Anyway I started with the yellow pages, which is almost impossible to find anything in because they call everything something different. So being the techno junkie I am I went to the internet to look for places that sold such furniture and I found two that were close by. My first place was called "Wicker World"...to me it sounded like that RV place in Pontiac, IL - "RV World". It took me a while to find the place because it was out in the middle of no where and my Sat Nav put it next to a pig farm, but I actually ended up calling the place and found it down the road. From the looks of the place I didn't know what to expect, but they had some really nice and modern looking pieces and the sales chap was very nice and helped me load up Addie's push chair (stroller) in the car. I checked out a second place that was hidden back in a scary looking building. What they had really reminded me of one of the "Golden Girls" sitcom episodes. I told the salesman that looking at wicker furniture reminded me of Florida and he asked me "Why?" in a curious manner. I said it reminded me of old retired people who live in Florida that have those tropical prints on the super light and shiny cane type furniture. I don't think he really understood since most Brits seem to think of Florida as sandy beaches and Disney World. Kevin went back to Wicker World with me on Saturday and we picked out a pretty nice set which should be in around 3-6 weeks. When we got home from shopping we fixed up some hot dogs and taco dip and sat around the computer to listen to our favorite Iowa State Cyclones beat the tar out of the Iowa Hawkeyes. It was great to listen to some familiar sounds of home and listening to the commericals was even weirder...an American accent instead of British...it was great.

Guess Who Got Married???

We were in for the biggest suprise when our friends Brad and Jaye came for the weekend. As we strolled to the pub Thursday evening they filled us in on the biggest secret of all...they were planning to get married in Peterborough on Saturday night and we were asked to be a part of it. This was bigger than Bush's "shock and awe" and we were so honored. So on Friday we went to Warwick Castle (one of the greatest castle's in all of England - a must go for everyone) to get some English sites in. We got to watch and participate in the shooting of the largest working trebuchet in the world...yes we walked around a big hamster wheel type thing to wind up a rope to pull over 6 tons up in the air 5 meters to then hurl a 15kg ball that was lit on fire. It was sweet. Addison slept through the whole thing but we got it all on video so we'll show it to her later.
On Saturday we helped Brad and Jaye get things ready for the wedding and of course Addison and I needed new outfits for the occasion so we ran into M&S and I got a new black dress and Addie got a new pink sweater to wear over the same dress she wore in Auntie Crystal's wedding. The ceremony was beautiful and it was so wonderful to see they two great people finally get "hitched". They told us they had been planning things ever since they knew we were moving over here. It was first of all great to have visitors so soon but to be a part of their wedding was spectacular. After the ceremony we went to the Sessions House for a few pints and then off to Tuscanini's...a fabulous Italian restaraunt in Eye. Then on Sunday we dropped them off at Luton Airport so they could head out on their honeymoon in Amsterdam and France.

Did She Just Crawl???

We're in trouble now, Addison is mobile. As we were hanging up some shelfs in the living room tonight, Kevin shouted to me to look as we watched her move forward about 3 crawls and then flat on her tummy. "She's crawling, she's crawling" Kevin was extatic...I said "We're in trouble now." She really enjoys moving around and had been pretty stable on her arms and moving backwards lately but never moved forward until tonight.Kevin also likes to get her to stand up and here he's got her to hold on to the couch and stand for a while on her own. I guess I would prefer her to climb up on the couch versus her always heading towards the fireplace...I can tell that's going to be our toughest challenge. We are so proud of her though. We couldn't wait to get her to replicate her efforts in front of the grandparents on Skype the next day.

Our Sea Shipment Made It - Feels Like Christmas

Our sea shipment showed up today and it was wonderful seeing our own furniture after it was packed up almost 5 weeks ago. It only took them three hours to unload all of our belongings into our house. We quickly found out that there was no way we were going to be able to use everything we brought so as soon as we unpacked we repacked several boxes. As you can see Addison wanted to help out when she could, but unwrapping boxes. She worked so hard though that she zonked out for a nap after they brought in our living room furniture. The biggest issue for me was unpacking my kitchen things because my kitchen here is about 1/3 the size of the one I had before. I got through being frustrated after realizing that I really didn't need to have all of the things I brought, I could do without I guess. Alot of my "fun" stuff got put back into boxes and will have to wait 3-5 years to either be used again or sold at a sale. A big life lesson I have learned over the past month is that we can get by on much less than we think we need, although some of the little extras are nice we survived for 5 months without it. I slept like a baby that night on my very own bed with my new bedroom furniture. Addison didn't do so well back in her own bed in her own room. Poor thing has forgotten how to be on her own...she used to sleep so well through the night and now she's all mixed up. Her room is so much smaller than before and we have no closets so we are going to have to be very creative throughout the whole house on where we can put things. It can be very frustrating, but I'm sure we'll make it all work.

Our First Bank Holiday

Well I'm still not sure what a "Bank Holiday" is other than an excuse for the country to have a long weekend break. August Bank Holiday seemed to come the week before Labor Day, but it sure doesn't seem like Labor Day should be here either. Where did the summer go? We decided to spend our Monday off at Nene Park...along with hundreds of other Peterboroughites (???). It was another beautiful day, around 20 degrees C (around 70 degrees F). Nene Park is a large park trust in the middle of Peterborough which has lots of different lakes, playgrounds, and walking paths. We did lots of walking and looking at the ducks. Mom and dad even bought popsicles for fun and Addie got to taste as well. We headed home after a couple of hours and to our wonderful suprise, one of our neighbors invited us over for a British cookout. He was emphatic to tell us that it wouldn't be like the huge BBQ's we have in the States. We had a lovely time meeting Sara and Simon. I tried Pimm's with lemonade (their lemonade is actually carbonated lemon flavored drink like Sprite) with limes and cucumber mixed in...it was actually quite refreshing. They made a ton of food and the highlight was the pavlov dessert that Sara made...it's an Australian sweet with fresh whipping cream and raspberries on top. We got a lesson on "football" because I accidentally called it soccer and Simon showed us that he was a bit NY Jets fan after telling us that we would be able to get NFL coverage on Sky TV so we were pretty pumped. Sara is a teacher and did a teacher exchange with a gal who lives outside of St. Louis but here parents live in Germantown Hills which is just north of where we lived in Washington, IL. She talked about how much she enjoyed visiting the States and loved to shop for clothes there and how she brought back little satchels of some drink - it was actually Kool-aid packets. Our friends Danny and Min where there as well so it was a great day!!!

Boot Sales and Belvoir Castle

Today we decided to do some local siteseeing and headed north through the country side up to Belvoir (pronounced Bee-vor - yeah it screwed us up also) Castle. On the way we noticed some unusally high amounts of traffic in Stamford and then as we passed a sign that said "Boot Sale Sunday" I told Kevin we had to stop. I had seen something about boot sales on a channel that would be equivalent to TLC and they are like garage sales except out the back of your car...they call a car's trunk a "boot" over here. We saw lots of interesting things old, new, odd, and just wierd. Our goal was to find some new toys for the Addster and we made out like bandits. We jumped right in and bought some books for 30 pence each (60 cents) which we thought was good but the going rate books on the other side of the grounds was only 10 pence each so we loaded up over there. We found a cool block set, a Playskool farm and a Weebleville town all in perfect condition and we only spent 6 pounds ($12). After we loaded up our car boot with "bits and bobs" we headed north through some very beautiful villages and finally made it to the castle which is out in the middle of nowhere. The castle is still lived in by the Duke and Duchess of Rutland so parts of it are inaccessible, but we got to look around a lot of the rooms and the gardens. The only way to take pictures on the inside of the castle is to by a photography license for 2 pounds...we passed on that. They had some British soldier re-inactments going on that day so we got to watch them march and shoot at each other and shoot off canons...pretty cool. We brought a picnic to eat, but forgot our blanket so we had to sit on a stone wall underneath a several hundred year old oak tree...not a bad alternative. The castle was pretty neat but probably only worth visiting once for us. We agreed that we had been spoiled by seeing Warwick and Windor Castles that this couldn't compare, but we would recommend to others...the drive up to it is worth it wether you like the castle or not. We found that our stroller is a bit challenging to manuver because of its size. Also they didn't really thing back in the 13th century that they would need to make castles "push chair" accesible. We ended up having to carry Addie around and she gets pretty squirming in new places and wants to grab everything...even 200 year old swords and stuff. Also we had to haul the stroller up and down steep flights of stairs in the garden.

Improvising

Well since we no longer have our nice 4 door pickup truck we have learned to improvise. We had ordered a new refridgerator and freezer for the house since all we had was our "integrated" fridge (it is the size of a dorm fridge). I had picked out the models and had a friend help me pick up the fridge with her mini van on Saturday, but we were determined to pick up the freezer on our own. It was truly the principle of not having to pay 20 pounds to have them deliver them at some unknown time. So we did what any good engineer/farm boy would do...buy some rope and strap that sucker in the trunk. We asked the guy at Curry's if this was the first time he had seem someone do this...he had actually seen people strap matresses to even smaller cars. We only had 3 1/2 miles to get home so Kevin eased around the round abouts and we got it home just fine. We squeezed in the fridge and freezer underneath the counter in the laundry room and we had about a half centimeter to spare on either side and on top. It was certainly nice to finally get my Brita pitcher cooled down in something. I think I had been drinking more Coca-Cola over the past two weeks, that water is so refreshing.

Look at Me!!!

Addison is having fun playing with her musical tool and learning how to get up on her knees...is she getting ready to start crawling?

Grrrrrrr and Green Beans

Today Addie started making the cutest noise....she's growling. I don't know where she learned it but she has this sinister smile as she does it. She's also taken a liking to green beans. I have a food grinder that I've been making up beans and peas since I can't find any baby foods with green veggies in them. She loves the taste and the texture, but I've found that her tummy's having a tough time with them.

Laundrymat Lesson

We had ordered our brand new washer and dryer from Curry's, but in true English fashion they couldn't locked in a date to deliver so I was feeling pretty hopeless. We had been experimenting with new foods and she had been spitting them up all over her clothes. I had a fear that stains would set, so I hand washed everything in the sink and it took over a day to let them air dry. After a week without a washer I was getting pretty desparate and looked up local laundry mats...well over there what we would know as a laundry mat is really called a laundryette. I packed up Addison and our five bags of laundry and headed out to what I thought was close by in Werrington and to the start of my luck it happened to be that the only time this place was closed was on the afternoon I show up. I went to the store next door and asked the lady for the yellow pages to find another place...in the meantime I called Kevin to look up any places for me online. By the time he called back I was beyond myself. He gave me the address of what turned out to be a dry cleaner in the Werrington Center and they gave me the address of a laundryette on Lincoln Road. I found the place but it took me two times around the block to find parking that didn't look too scary. I pulled out the stroller, loaded up Addie and grabbed up a few bundles of laundry and walked into the scariest place I've ever been. I guess my greatest sign that I was in the wrong place was the carboard sign up on the wall saying that each load was 4 UK pounds each. I was not going to pay $8 to wash a load of laundry. I turned Addie around and we jetted out of there...later Kevin told me he would have never sent me down into that rough of a neighborhood. Once I got home I immediately called a friend and asked it was okay to run to her house to run a couple of loads which she graciously let me. Tough thing was that her washer took 40 minutes to run a load and she only had a condenser dryer so it literally takes 2 hours to dry and then you still needed to air dry the clothes. I washed and dried one load of Addie's whites and Kev's tee shirts and she let some of Addie's other clothes dry after I left. The next day after I picked up Addie's clothes and called up Curry's to get an ETA on my washer and dryer...still no definite answers...ahhhh!!!

I'm Losssst!!!

Today we were finally going to be moving into our house...a long awaited day, but first we needed to head up to Lincoln to pick up our car (finally). It rained pretty much all morning and it must have been an omen that this day was going to be turned upside down. This was my first solo flight in driving a car on the other side of the road and the hour ride home wasn't too bad other than Kevin had gotten pretty frustrated with the insurance company trying to get someone to pull up the right quote we were given. I lead the way with the Tom Tom in the rental car and Kevin drove the new Passat. As we got near Peterborough, I heard "Jane" (our Tom Tom's alter ego) tell me to exit and after that the powers of the universe cast down a spell on "Jane" and she disappeared. With no navigation system, I instantly started to freak out. Since it is illegal to talk on your cell phone without hands free, I pulled off on the exit and tried find a place to pull over so that I could have Kevin lead the way. I instinctly pulled through a round about and jetted off into a petro station, but watched for Kevin, and I watched and watched and no sign of him. I was in so much trouble now. I finally called Kevin and he was cut off on the round about and lost me and then he got horribly lost trying to find me. By now we were 10 minutes from having to be at the house so I looked for signs pointing to city centre. I knew how to get to Glinton if I could make it to city centre so I drove and drove with nothing looking familiar and then I crested a hill and finally saw the Queensgate Mall...I knew where I was! So I jetted north and finally made it to the house. They were unloading the rental furniture and Peter was there checking things out and then we had to rush back into our apartment to get our stuff packed up. We stuffed our seven suitcases, our food, and our child and headed back to our house...our home. We ended up having to do a hard reset on the Tom Tom but it was one of the worst and best days we've had so far.

Carrots and Sweetcorn

Well it seems that we've found the magic combination. We found some babyfood finally at Sainsbury's that had carrots and sweetcorn mixed together. We tried it out on Addie on Saturday and she shunned it a bit but ate a few bites. We tried again on Sunday night and she did a little more, but tonight she actually ate about a half a jar and she really seemed to like it. Looks like we'll stick with this for a few days. I also found some apples that we'll try later as well. I'm hoping that I can mush up some peas and beans once we get our air shipment on Wednesday. Tomorrow we go to pick up our car and move into our house...finally! Our air shipment comes in on Wednesday and I'm so happy to get my own pots and pans and Addie's rocker glider and bath tub. We are going to be without internet for the next three weeks until our phone line gets hooked up and our internet will be another 21 days after that. We are finding patience is a virture over here...everything takes a long time to get through. We sat on the phone for hours on several occasions to find out our phone line was to be hooked up on the 4th and they are still working on a "small bit." I may have to borrow's someone connection to do my updates...talk to you all soon!

Visting Stamford

Today we ventured off to Stamford, a town northwest of Peterborough. It is a beautiful place and it was cool sunny day on Sunday. We walked around town and window shopped. We sat and visited in the park for awhile before we headed off to the Pizza Express a very nice Italian place with gourmet pizzas. I ordered a chicken, roma tomato, and sweet peppers pizza and Kevin had a pizza that was more like pizza. Addison sat there and played with her very first balloon...she loved playing with it. Afterwards we drove to Tallington, where they have a set of small lakes that people go to do camping and water skiing and sailing. It's a neat little place. We have to pay 3 pounds to get into the park but we got it back when we ordered dessert at the pub...a strawberry cheesecake with ice cream and a pint of Coke with ice. We watched a guy do the slalom course in water that had to only be 75 degrees max. The lakes happen to be only 5 miles from our house in Glinton...it's probably the closest we'll live to a lake and we don't have a boat.

Kevin's Birthday

Today is Kevin's 28th Birthday!!! He took the day off and we drove up to Lincoln to look at a car. Car shopping has been exhausting to this point. We've searched online and driven throughout Peterborough and even down to New Market to look and test drive, but we think we've found the one. A 2003 Passat Highline...it's black, has leather and all the other good stuff. It also has a Navigation system so that is great...we have the Tom Tom for Kev's car and guests and I get to use the in car system. Yes, its going to be my car...yeah! We stopped at the Harvester restarant on the way home. I had what is affectionally known as a jacket potato, in the States we call them baked potatoes. Addison and I got Kevin a Europe travel book so that he could start picking out places for us to visit. He's pretty interested in taking a week in October to go to Greece...sounds good to me! I brought along a strawberry cake mix but I didn't have a pan to cook it in so we'll have to save it for next week.

Addie's Rolling...Momma's Driving

Yes, folks she's finally rolling all the way over. Since the end of May she's able to roll from her back to her tummy and then gets all fussy about being on her stomach. A few days ago she really started lifting up her back legs and now she kicks out one leg and kind of pushes herself over. We cheer everytime she does it. While Skyping my mom and dad, she rolled from her back to her tummy and then to her back - we were extatic.
Today was also the first day that I drove in the UK. I have been scared to death of this moment since I knew we were going to be moving here, but today I conquered my fear. Kevin was my driving coach and he must have been pretty nervous for me...I caught him dodging curbs on his side and he only yelled at me to not hit another car or the curb 3 times. The left side of the road isn't all that bad. I think the narrow roads and the little cas going faster than the posted speed limits and the craziness of the roundabouts get you out of sorts. I think it's everyone's dream in the US at some point in time to be a rebel and drive on the wrong side of the road. Here I get to fulfill that crazy dream.

First Veggies

We've been giving Addison cereal for the past two weeks and thought it was time to start introducing some veggies. Interesting enough our pediatrician advised me to feed Addie single veggies and fruits, but you can't find any baby food made here that doesn't seem to have less than three things mixed together. Needless to say we started out with a veggie mix of carrots, peas, potatoes and califlower and needless to say she didn't like them much. She spattered out food all over herself and dad and then refused to eat any cereal as well for the next two days. She screamed pretty hard until she got herself a bottle of mommy milk. We felt out of frustration that if she didn't want to eat any food she could start holding her own bottle. Evidently that worked...she'll take her bottle on her own about 80% of the time now. We tried the veggies again the next night and no luck so we're going to do just milk for a couple of days and try it all again later.

Pub Crawling

After feeling a little cramped up in our apartment we felt like driving up to Glinton to see our house. While we were up there we felt like stopping by the Blue Bell, our soon to be local pub. Now I know you are all thinking, what are you doing bring a baby to a bar, but over here the local pub is truly a "public house". The Blue Bell has a beautiful garden in the back and lots of picnic tables scattered throughout the back and two swingsets. We ordered a wonderful lunch and thoroghly enjoyed the weather. While we were eating a local cricket team stopped in for lunch and were dressed up in their garb. It was half time in the game and they were heading back to the field as we were leaving. We visited with the owner as we were paying our tab and let her know that we were moving to town soon. She said to stop back in when we got settled and she would introduce us to some folks. The bar maid as told me about the mommy toddler group that starts up in the fall so Addie and I will have to look into that.

Addie Turns 6 Months Old

Today we celebrated the fact that 6 months ago our little Addison Marie was born, so I got her all dolled up for our monthly photo shoot. We also decided to check out the little park that we discovered was about two blocks away. There were a few other kids there but all of them much bigger than Addie. We sat and enjoyed the sunshine and cool breeze, well at least until I discovered a really big bug starting to crawl up on Addie so we packed and headed home...I'm weird like that. Amaziningly we hit a milestone to day as well. Addison decided that she would pull up her self up on her back legs and sit up on all fours for the first time. It only laste about 10 seconds but it was awesome.

Silly American...Learning How to Do Laundry Again

One would think doing laundry is a simple task that I've done hundreds of times and what would any different in the UK. Well I was so lost when it came to the laundry that I first attempted to look at the machine and figure things out, then I broke out the instructions which could have been written in Chinese. I broke down and called Cathy Duffy, a fellow ISE wife, to ask how to run my washer dryer...yes it washes and then dries your clothes...supposedly. Well Cathy couldn't help because she had a separate washer and dryer, so she called Holli who once had a washer dryer. Well she actually came over the apartment to show me how to use it and between the two of us we couldn't get it to work. So I ended up calling David our apartment landlord and he couldn't get it to work, so he ended up calling a "chap" to come look at it. Well I don't know how but he turned some knobs and the water started running. He had to think I was a total ditz and left thinking silly American woman. Well I finally figured out that you have to set the washer up with the RPMs you want it to spin and set the tempurature of the water along with the drying heat, set a knob for how long you want the clothes to dry and then you can depress the economy and quick wash buttons to put it on the coldest water and faster loads. One load takes about an hour to wash and then I usually set the dryer for about 60 minutes and when I pull the clothes out they are steaming hot so I let them air dry for about 5-6 hours. The capacity of the washer is about 5 kg so I can fit a pair of jeans, a couple of tshirts, and a few of Addie's outfits and bibs. In a week and a half I've already gone through a box of laundry soap and bottle of fabric softener, but we've had the cleanest clothes ever.

First Trip to the Tesco (the Supermarket)

Well after we got a couple of hours of light sleep we needed to head off into town to find the local grocery store so that we could have food to eat. We were footing it because we didn't feel up to going to the car rental place to pick up the car. As we ventured on the streets (actually very narrow sidewalks) we tried to navigate our way to the local metro Tesco which is one of the major types supermarkets in the UK. Grocery shopping is hard enough when your are tired and the store is packed but when you don't know any of the brands or how different things taste it makes it a real gamble when you pick up that jar of sauce that looks like something you used to buy at home. We put our money on something they call white lasagna sauce which we assumed was like alfredo sauce. When we got home I looked at the label and the first few ingredients were water, oil, and eggs....no mention of cheese at all. Needless to say we both tried it, but my share was sparing and I am warning you all that white lasagna sauce is like pouring liquid mayo on your noodles...try it at your own risk. But we did find some other great foods. The fruits and vegetables are unbelieveably fresh and are equal in price or cheaper than the produce we get back home. Chicken breasts were about 5 British pounds for four breasts so it was about $10 for 4 chicken breasts...pretty pricey, but I think they go on sale sometime.

The Trip of a Life Time

Well we got up Friday morning and repacked our bags. We took care of a few things before heading to the airport like getting a new battery for my watch (I haven't worn it in 2 years, but today I decided it would be good to have something to tell time), Kevin ran into Hobby Lobby to buy some fabric to use as markers on our luggage, and we popped through the Arby's drive through to get lunch (what a great last meal to have in Peoria). We got to the airport just fine and as we unloaded our 7 huge suitcases on the curb a gentleman helped us and his wife had overheard we were moving to the UK...so he asked if Kevin worked for CAT and told us to look up someone he knew. Kevin and I were a bit nervous on how things would work bringing Addie through security and on the plane, but everything seemed to work out okay. Nothing softens up TSA agents than a little baby coming through security...I'm glad we did the security thing in Peoria verses Chicago, it could have been even more nerve wracking. Addie fell asleep as soon as the plane to Chicago took off (that was a good sign). We had a short layover in Chicago, just enough time to grab some airport pizza (yummy!). The flight took off at 7PM after being delayed about 45 minutes due to bad weather out east. We got to sit up in the front seats near the bulkhead because we had Addison, so we had awesome leg room. She ended up sleeping the whole way which was wonderful, but later we found that we should have woke her up for a while because she was wired for the rest of the day when we got tired and wanted to sleep. We arrived at 8:15 AM UK time (it felt like 2AM to us). We had a driver pick us up at the airport which was wonderful. It took some time to actually find him because he didn't have a sign and after Kevin made a $15 payphone call we got hooked up. I slept on the way to Peterborough and still felt this surreal feeling of where I was at. We stopped along the way for petro and a bottle of water and I was comforted by the bag of Twizzlers I had stashed in my back pack. I looked around me at the travel, at the landscape, and then at my family and new we were in for an adventure of a life time. As we took back off I fell asleep and day dreamed about our new life. We finally made it to our apartment at 11:30 and we were just happy to be at a home base. We wish we were actually going to be at our house but the apartment was fully furnished so it was nice...boy we were really tired...except for Addie.

UK or Bust - Getting Ready for the Big Move

Well the house got packed up after 5 days of packing with a visit over the weekend from Grandma Sue and Grandpa Jeff and Uncle Casey. It was great getting to see my folks and Case before we left. Dad helped Kevin mow the yard one last time and we ate out on the deck with the card table and chairs. We tried eating up as much of our extra food as possible. I also gave up all of my spices and aerosol cleaning supplies to mom and Casey. We ended up moving into a hotel Tuesday night because they wanted to pack up our beds. We got to stay on the Executive level floor at the Holiday Inn in downtown Peoria because of all the points Kevin and I had built up from traveling with our jobs. Free drinks and appetizers at night!!! Addie enjoyed taking baths in the hotel sink...we all had to adjust to not having any of our possessions except for what would fit in our 7 suitcases. We will have access to our air shipment when we get into our house in mid August but it is certainly scary to be completely liquid...no house, no cars, no furniture or anything. We still had fun together...Addie got to sleep between mom and dad so she got a little spoiled, but it goes to show you that worldly possessions don't bring you happiness. We had a lot of fun without them. Thursday night our friends had a going away party for us at the Bosely's and it was a blast.

Cousins Camping Weekend in MN

This week Grandpa Mike and Grandma Sally came over to Illinois to spend a few days with us before we all took off for our Annual Cousin's camping weekend. This year we headed up to Aitkin, MN near Lake Mille Lacs (that's way up north). On the way we stopped to see Great Grandma Rasmussen and got a great 4 generation picture. We also got to stop at one of my all time favorite restaraunts that we used to stop at on the way up to Wisconsin when I was a kid...the A & W drive thru at Spring Valley, MN. Grandma Sally let Addie try her first rootbeer and grandpa gave her her french frie to knaw on.We had a wonderful time with all of Kevin's mom's side of the family. Since we were "new" parents, we got to share the cabin for sleeping arrangements. Kevin caught a huge bass, a big walley (neither that he could keep) and lots of crappies and sunnies.

I learned how to play the "golf" card game and Addie got to meet all of the family along with her third cousin MacKenzie who is only three weeks older. They had a ball playing together. It was tough saying good bye to everyone. We took a detour through Rice Lake, Wisconsin to see my Grandma and Grandpa Roux and some other of my relatives.

Auntie Crystal and Uncle Heath's Wedding

This weekend was Crystal and Heath's wedding. I think they picked the hottest day of the year to get married with an outdoor wedding but after everything was said and done, it was such a beautiful wedding and I've never seen my sister look so beautiful on the inside and out. They are such a happy looking couple and they are going to have great looking kids (hopefully soon). Addison was a junior flower girl, but didn't make it down the aisle because she fell asleep for about 20 minutes as the ceremony went on so Kevin had to hold her in the air conditioned winery. Kevin was one of the ushers and looked great in his taupe suit tux...all the guys looked great! I was the Matron of Honor and was so proud of my sister and got pretty emotional during my speech. For any of you who ever make it to Marengo, Iowa I truly recommend the Fireside Winery to make a visit too. They have the best wine I've ever had and I asked if they would export to the UK...no such luck. I would recommend the Firefly and the Blu...they are my favorite.