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.