I'm Thankful For...

Today is the wonderful American holiday of Thanksgiving. A year ago we were pretty bummed to be away from our families on a day devoted to just that being with family, but this year we did actually got to spend this wonderful day with our "extended" family - the Clayton/Gorman's, the Wong's, the Beale's and the Dobberfuhl's (minus Matt this year).

This year I also have some new helpers in the kitchen which was great!!! In the morning Addison helped me mix up the pumpkin pies and my Aunt Tammy's famous Chocolate Pie (next year I'm making two of these). Addison has recently been enjoying helping mom and dad make lots of things in the kitchen but I think she really enjoys the taste testing most of all. Min popped around after noon and helped make traditional stuffing, peeled potatoes, made the green bean casserole all on her own and more. It was great fun and I even had to Skype my mom a few times to make sure I was doing things right.

  

Min really made cooking great this year because she kept cleaning up after my messes.  I kept telling her to stop it, but if all that know Min, you'll know she doesn't listen very well.

Since we had 17 people to seat for our meal, we had to get a little creative moving the kitchen table into the conservatory via the patio doors in the living room.

Our babysitter Emily was so excited to enjoy her first Thanksgiving dinner and she jumped right in to help get things served up.

This so reminds me of the set up at my Grandma Lynn's house for family dinners!!!!

What a wonderful evening, a wonderful meal and wonderful people to celebrate a great day set aside to be thankful for all the wonderful blessings we have been given.

What I am thankful for in 2008:

• for understanding what God's purpose is for me right now - to support my family by being the best wife and mom I can be
• that the birth of my son was a wonderful and memorable experience
• amazing friends - home and abroad that make life enjoyable each day
• the makers of Skype and Blogger who keep these services free so that we can keep in touch with everyone
• for the opportunities to be able to explore new places - Germany, Greece, Croatia, Italy, and Ireland
• that my parents got to travel to the UK not once but twice in one year
• that mother and father-in-laws were able to full fill a life dream of traveling to Ireland with us
• that my sister could come with my aunt and grandma to see me before she had her baby
• that my sister made it back to the States to have her baby 5 days after leaving England!!!
• to celebrate my 30th birthday in Dublin with family and receive the best gift of greetings from all my friends and family
• my brother and sister in law for making me an auntie for a second time this year with the birth of their daughter Emma Jean
• the gift of patience - I've needed it a lot as I became a mother of two
• that my husband has a wonderful job and makes good financial decisions for our family so I don't have to worry about that kind of stuff when the economy sucks everywhere

Celebrating a Dear Friend's Birthday

Today is my dear friend Min's 33rd birthday and she doesn't look a day over 20. Min and I have grow to be as close as sisters over the past year and a half and since she is such a wonderful and giving person we spent the whole weekend celebrating with her. Friday night Sarah, Simon, Danny, Min, Kevin, Harrison and I went for a meal at Loch Fyne which is a chain of seafood restaurants that brings in freshly caught salmon and other fish from Scotland (usually caught in the past 24 hours). We had a wonderful time getting to enjoy each other and some really great food. I have the Smoked Fish Pie which was A-mazing!!! ( I must get the recipe)

Tonight we all again went over to Danny and Min's house for Mr. Wong's Famous Cooking. Danny kicked Min out of the kitchen tonight and made us all a feast that rivals any fine Chinese restaurant in the States. We got deep fried prawns, satay chicken skewers, spring rolls, Japanese curry, and wonderful desserts. We also got Min one of those funny cakes with her picture on it...actually it was a picture of her and her twin sister Wendy! We got Min a mini muffin tin with a tart press which many of you might think, what kind of gift is that, but this girl has been having so much fun trying new desserts and sweets that I had to get her a new toy.  In Singapore they don't typically have ovens to bake in since, number 1 it's too darn hot there to cook in an oven, and secondly, it's a whole ton cheaper to just eat out than it is to make your own meals at home...seriously they told us this.   Hope you had a wonderful birthday Min, we had a great time celebrating with you.

Thanksgiving with the ISEs

Today we celebrated Thanksgiving with our extended ISE family. In true American tradition, it actually snowed this morning. We have a few flurries that quickly turned into sleet, then rain, then back to snow again. No real accumulation but I was sooo excited to see the white.

We had over 120+ people attend this year's Thanksgiving event and I remember standing in the food line and looking out on everyone and just being in awe that this is "us" the ISE group of Peterborough, England. Then I looked outside and the British passers-by who were playing tennis and looking in on us with the funniest of faces.  

Our family had a great time visiting with everyone and Harrison got passed around to so many people that I had to stop a few times and look around to see who had him now. It felt like we were back home at Grandma's and passing the baby around to all the aunties. Addison had a great time playing and at one point Kevin caught her upfront by the older boys (teenagers)...she just made her way to sit down between two of the boys. I didn't get there qick enough with the camera, She is so sociable which can be a good thing, but I told Kevin that we watch out for when she gets older.  

An Answered Prayer

Since Kevin and I have been married we've attempted to find a church that would help us grow closer to God and closer together spiritually. The hard thing for us as been that we've both moved three times in the past 6 years. A year ago we tried out the King's Gate which is a very large Christian church and it had lots of great things to offer especially the fact that a lot of our ISE friends attended. All said and done it wasn't the right fit for us and we stopped looking for awhile. Most of the churches in villages are the Church of England which I believe was formed when Henry the VIII separated off from the catholic church way back when. Well a couple of weeks ago we both agreed that it was time that we really tried to find a church to attend since we will be here at least another 2 1/2 years and we need to be setting good examples for our children. We did like any modern couple does when you are looking for something...no not hop on the computer, but I pulled out the Yellow Pages and looked up "churches" which actually took me to "places of worship". I essentially went down the list and wrote down a few that peaked our interest. Next we looked up the names of the churches online to get proper addresses and that Sunday afternoon we drove around and checked out where our top four were at. I know you aren't supposed to judge a book by its cover by two of the four looked pretty scary outside. Another one looked like the old village churches and the other was actually a school and the sanctuary looked like it was the school's gym. We felt like we struck out until I put in a call or actually a text to one of our babysitters - Katie. She told us about a Methodist Church near the city center that she attended and actually headed up the Children's Church at which I thought was great. One of our biggest fears was having to try out a new church and leave the children in a creche (nursery) with strangers. Well in the midst of checking out the church's website it brought me to the Methodist Church in England page and I casually looked for other Methodist churches in the area. I happened to find one in Deeping St. James which was only 10 minutes from our house. It sounded from things to be the most promising, so that next Sunday we got up and got ourselves ready for church. Interestingly enough this particular morning, t it decided to snow and sleet and rain. Satan was really testing us to see if we would actually get up and go. We did and I am so glad that we did. It is a small church with about 80 members and most of the congregation are much older than we are, but they were all so friendly and very curious about us. Addison and Harrison were the only children there and Addie stayed in the creche for about 20 minutes and then realized I was gone. I went back to sit with her and visit with the lady supervising the nursery for the rest of the service. Afterwards we had biscuits and tea and got to visit with lots of people. Kevin and I felt really good about our choice...I think this will be a nice small place that will allow us to grow step by step until we head back to the States in get involved with a church that has a few more people our age and the kids' age to allow us to go to Sunday school along with service. Hallelujah!!!! I have been praying for so long for us to find such a place and God has opened the door for us!!!

Paintballin' Papa

I remember back in our college days when Kevin would go paint balling with his buddies, Weston and Kyle. They would come back with all these welts on their bodies and go on and on about their strategies - I thought they were just plum crazy for wanting to run around in the woods shooting at each other like they were in a Rambo movie. Well, it's been a good 9-10 years since those days, but today Kevin got to re-live his college fun by going paint balling with some guys from work. I personally have never gone but have been curious to what all goes on on these things. A friend of Kevin's passed on this picture so I at least know what they get all dressed up in. I guess they play a game similarly to "Capture the Flag" and Kevin got to play snipper during one of he games. Of course the weather had been great all week but they talked chances of snow on Saturday. It didn't end up snowing but it was darn chilly and coldest day we've had so far this year...down to 0 C (that's 32F). Kevin came home fairly unharmed, except for a huge welt on his bum. He had a great time, but said that at the very end they did a free for all and he had just loaded up is cartridge and at the call he got shot right in the front of his helmet, so he couldn't see a thing 10 seconds in and he was all done.

"Sew" What Have You Been Doing

When I was little my mom made a cloth book with lots of little activities in it like buttoning a flower on a dress, moving the hands around a clock, tying a shoe, and more. I thought it would be fun to make something similar for my own kids, but wasn't going to try anything without some kind of pattern. I do admit to be a little creative but I needed some serious guidance on how to start something like this on my own with my mother 4000 miles away. Well, my lovely new American/Canadian friend Lana is quite the domestic diva and had a pattern for a "quiet book." So I organized a few ISE friends of mine and I to tackle a "small" sewing project to make some homemade Christmas presents this year.

Okay, so ideally someone in the US would be able to pop by JoAnn's or Hobby Lobby and get everything you need for such a project and at a reasonable price. Well folks, we don't have anything at all like that here. I "Googled" for fabric stores online and tried calling each of the places to verify that they sold fabric and half the time the phone number was disconnected, other times I couldn't understand the person on the other end of the phone, and some sold clothing not fabric. I then resorted to the Peterborough City Market because I remembered seeing a haberdashery stall (someone who sells thread, felt, buttons, zippers, sewing notions, etc) and two stalls that sold fabric. Now the City Market isn't the flashiest place in Peterborough, some may say it's a complete dive, but you can find about anything there. So last Saturday morning Lana and I headed up to city center to pick up a few notions that the group would need for their books, but nothing tripped my trigger for fabric.

I did remember Kevin saying that he saw what looked like a fabric store as we passed through a town called Whittlesey on our way to look for carpeting for the upstairs (remember that drama)! So hours just hours before the girls were going to show up Monday night and out of desperation of not having any fabric, I drove the half hour to where I thought might be this so called fabric store.   I hit the jackpot folks. There is a little men's shop called Wright's that has a proper fabric store attached to it. It was lovely and I had a wonderful lady who helped me pick out some lovely fabrics for our books. She also put up with my two little ones as Addie loved playing with the threads and buttons and such throughout the store.

Well, that Monday evening six ladies in all, Lana, Laurie, Min, Luz, Emily and I gathered in my small dining room/conservatory (now nicknamed the "sewing room") Monday evening to start tackling our project. The first hour was just explaining the project and figuring out how we were going to tackle this monster. You see, only three of the six of us actually have sewing machines, but it turned out alright because there was going to be plenty of cutting out, piecing together, and hand sewing for the others to help with.


Now Luz and Lana were our sewing "experts" since Luz was a textiles major in college and Lana had been sewing loads of things for her family for years now. I was borderline with knowing enough to be dangerous and was totally relying on remembering how my mom used to sew crafts and piece work for years she worked at home as we grew up.


Time sure flew as we got a good start on preparing our pieces. On Tuesday morning, Min, Laurie and I were so excited about the project that ventured back to Whittlesey to pick out some fabric for our pages. The whole group met again on Friday evening to continue cutting and piecing things together. We kept making comments to each other on how fun this was and "wow, I could never do this type of thing on my own." Honestly, it has been a real team effort to get this thing going. I think the funnest part has been all the new things we have all been learning. On Friday night, we all got a great belly laugh when Min picked up the glue gun and asked what it was. We told her what it was and she looked at it funny and then asked if you blew here (at the end of the glue stick) to get the glue out. She didn't realize that you just pulled the trigger and it forced the glue through a heated tip that melted it. How funny!!!
Emily has really helped us stay organized my making out lists of things we needed to get do. I must have rubbed off on her or she has the same quarky obsession with list making as me.

Graduating to the Big Girl Bed

Friday night was Addison's first night to sleep in her new room in her big girl bed.  For the past several weeks we've been trying to play in our new room to get used to it.  Friday afternoon after Addison's nap I attempted to make her bed feel like the crib, so took the bumper and wrapped it around three sides, laid her monkey blanket down on the mattress sheet, and brought in her CD player with her lullaby music.  That night we laid pillows down on the side of the bed and I laid on the floor next to her until she fell asleep.  She woke up a few times in the night and cried, but we popped her back in bed and laid with her until she fell back asleep.  Saturday afternoon she was ornry I did threaten a few times that if she didn't lay back down and close her eyes that she would have to go back in her crib...she got really upset about that. One time I actually put her back in her crib and she wanted right back out, so at least I know now that she would prefer her bed. Saturday night after the fireworks she showed some signs that she wasn't feeling well.  By Sunday she had a barking cough and was feverish, so nap times and bed time were a bit little challenging to say the least.   On Monday I got her into the GP and he diagnosed her with a severe ear infection and a cold.  Needless to say, it has taken much more time and energy to keep our going to bed ritual on task with her not feeling well at all.  Sometimes in the middle of the night now she may roll out of bed and fuss a bit or she'll hop out on her own and come pattering into our room.  It's kind of scary now that she can do that because being a mom I hear my children breath in my sleep and the new sounds freak me out.  With the not-so-restful nights and all the hundreds of books I've been reading to get her to fall asleep, I now feel the cold bug settling in and my throat hurts pretty bad.  Kevin has been a trooper helping out though.  He did ask me when she will be old enough to just send up to bed and have her fall asleep on her own...I just shrugged my shoulders, but in my heart knew it was going to be a long time before that ever happens.  It will be a few weeks before we move Harrison into his new room.  We are waiting until he starts sleeping though the night more...the trick is that we need to get him to take a bottle to "top-him-up" just before he goes to bed.  He's really not liking bottles or pacifiers right now so my future freedom for the next few months looks bleak.

It's Bonfire Night (well the Night We Celebrated It)!!

Tonight we celebrated our second Guy Fawkes Night (aka Bonfire Night).  The actual holiday is on November 5th (Remember, Remember the 5th of November), but we attended the bonfire and fireworks in Peakirk which held their celebration on Saturday night.  To learn more about what Guy Fawkes Night is about look back at last year's blog entry.  The weather was wonderful again this year.  Not too cool but the kids stayed nice and warm with our new hats from Grandma and Grandpa.   We walked over to Peakirk with the Dobberfuhl's (the other American family in Glinton) and had a great time with them as they experienced their first Bonfire Night...thanks Lana for taking our picture!

For the past week people have randomly been shooting off fireworks in their back gardens and Addison seemed to be pretty freaked out, so we were a little worried about how she would like these ones that are shot off pretty much up close and personal...only a few hundred yards away.  Both kids seemed to do pretty well.  Addison kept leading Kevin to the gate to head home and Harrison just jumped whenever fireworks went off.  The bonfire was huge and you could feel the warmth from it from where we were standing in this picture.  The coolest part was that someone had thrown in a dead palm tree and it stuck out the top.  When it started on fire, it looked like a candle on a birthday cake. 

What a Trip to the US Embassy

Today Kevin and I headed down to London with little Harrison to the US Embassy to apply for his US passport.  It's been quite an ordeal to get up to this point.  

After Harrison was born I went online to line up an appointment with the embassy but I couldn't get one until November 24th and we were planning on traveling home for Christmas on December 12th.  Since we weren't sure if we would get his passport and VISA before we headed back we talked with the CAT legal people to help us.  

So this is when the drama began.  The law firm helped us get a new appointment for us on October 30th while my parents were going to be here, but they were cool with another trip down to London.  I went early to buy our train tickets, so I could get the "cheap" ones.  Well about a week before our appointment we got a notice from the embassy saying they were going to close down their offices on the 30th for an "Administrative Day" and moved our appointment to the 5th of November.  No big deal we thought until I went to change our train tickets.  You see in the past I have been able to get the "cheap" tickets and was told that if our travel plans would change I could get a refund.  Well this time around there was some fine print, I guess.  The four tickets I purchased to London were now non-refundable and would cost 10 GBP per person per trip to move and whatever extra the new tickets cost (so to move Kevin's and my tickets to November cost me just over 40 GBP).  I was almost in tears when the gentleman behind the counter told me all of this and had no sympathy for me.  I ended up switching two of the tickets and we "ate" the rest (almost 150 GBP total).

Okay, so the day we go to London on the 5th, Addison got to spend the day at Auntie Min's house which she absolutely loved (I think Min liked it too).  We got up around 4:30AM so we could get to the train station to catch our 6:10AM train in order to get to the embassy at 8AM.  Our "appointment" was supposed to be at 8:30 and they told us to be a half hour early, but when we got out front we were told that the embassy doesn't even open until 8:30.  There was no official line but over the next half hour about a dozen or so more people were just hanging out outside the doors waiting to get in.  Apparently where we were randomly standing outside ended up forming the queue (line) and even though we were the 2nd people to show up at the embassy that morning we ended up 10th in line because they gave priority to people taking the Foreign Services Exam.  We were a bit irritated, but this is when the funny stuff starts to happen.  

One gentleman in front of us was trying to get in the embassy with a large blue suitcase which obviously is not allowed.  The gal who was confirming the appointments just outside of security said that he couldn't bring it in, but he couldn't leave it sit outside either.  She then directed him to some places to be held but would charge a fee...he then said he didn't have any money.  Finally she told him that he needed to visit with the policemen who were guarding the embassy, but I thought it was hilarious that he couldn't bring it with him and he couldn't leave it...what a pickle he was in.  Another guy in front of us had accidentally left a bag of his on the Tube and it happened to have his passport in it. The kicker was that he was flying back to the States that night and the Underground personnel couldn't find his bag.  

We didn't get inside until 9:10 because security was ridiculously slow. They only let one person inside at a time to go through the scanner and you had to give them your cell phones and key fabs to keep there.  When we got inside it wasn't at all what we expected.  We waited in line again and when we got to the window we had to give the guy all of our original documents.  Thankfully we sent copies ahead of time to "expediate" the process, but in the shuffling of papers the law firm forgot to include the passport pictures.  We were going to be shuffled downstairs and out of line to (these were to be used sent in later for the work visa).  I was a bit miffed at this point because I had hauled the kids all the way to city centre and paid 10GBP for each set of those pictures and they lost a set!!!  Anyway we got a number and sat in some chairs to wait...I felt like I was at the DMV.  

Okay so here is the funniest part of the day though.  While outside there was obviously a pretty clueless lady and her not so patient husband.  They paced all over outside and kept bothering the gal checking us in.  They ended up right behind us in line and then sat in front of us in the chairs.  We had the number 4 and they obviously got number 5.  So, at one point Window number 11 called up number 500, which I thought was a bit weird since we started at 1, but the lady in front of me had just started breast feeding and got all in a panic thinking they were getting called up already.  So she jumps up with the kid attached to her, hanging halfway down her body, and runs up to the window....you have to picture a woman though that is probably about 120 pounds at most and she holding what looks like a 6 month old baby who is much bigger that Harrison.  She runs up and asked if they called number 5 or 500.  They said 500.  Then she runs back at her husband and asks are we number 5 or 500.  He says I think we are number 5. She goes back up and asks again - 5 or 500. She rushes back to the chairs and says go up and make sure.  Then he goes up with their ticket and asks if its a 5 or 500.  They weren't being called obviously but they were sooooo clueless.  It was pretty amusing though to just people watch - fellow Americans in a strange land - or maybe were they strange Americans in a pretty normal land?  

Lastly we had some time before our train so we thought it would be great to eat at TGI Fridays since were pretty close to Piccadilly Circus (about a 20 minute walk).  They didn't open until 11 and it was about 10:30 so we walked slow and then looked around some shops.  At 11 we are at Friday's door and there is no one to be seen.  We wait out under the canopy of the restaurant for another 15 minutes because it was raining and then we finally see the bartender.  Then a gal comes out to the front door and looked like she was trying to unlock it and then mouthed to us that they weren't open.  WHAT???  I want my Sesame Jack Chicken Strips now!!!  Well it ended up that we ate lunch at KFC...another American favorite but not what I really wanted.

In light of this interesting set of events and it being the day after the election, the coolest part of the day was getting the little piece of paper that recognized that little Harrison was a native born American citizen.  This means he can legally run for President of the United States some day. As good parents, we will keep the paper safe so when they American people ask to see it during his election we can produce the proper documentation. (unlike some other candidates we know of this year...)

Turkey Day Came A Little Early at the Dea's

For our final meal while my parents were here I decided to make a "mini" Thanksgiving dinner since we wouldn't get to be with them on the holiday this year. As we all know the traditional center piece to any Thanksgiving meal is the tasty TURKEY!!! The problem is that since they don't celebrate Thanksgiving in the UK, the only turkey you can get is at Christmas time. Otherwise you settle for the sliced turkey you put on sandwiches and those honkin' huge turkey legs that look like they belong to ostriches. You can actually get what they call a large chicken which really looks like a small turkey, but doesn't everything end up tasting like chicken anyway??? Tonight I made a regular chicken, my mother-in-laws crockpot stuffing, a lovely cranberry relish from a recipe I found in the BH & G magazine, Pillsbury crescent rolls, and my all time favorite - mashed potatoes and gravy.

I also made up a pumpkin pie with my newly made pumpkin. It was great practice and I realized I have some work to do before the real Thanksgiving gets here because it didn't quite look right. I know some of you think I'm Miss Betty Crocker but I cheated and bought some of the Roll-Out Short Crust Pastry instead of making homemade pie crust, but it works like magic!!!! The thing is that since I hadn't used it before I didn't know what to expect and when I cooked the crust a bit before putting the pumpkin stuff in it, the crust ended up sinking way down the sides and it ended up being a pretty thin pumpkin pie. Next time I'll have to figure out what to do to make sure it doesn't sink down...let me know if anyone has any suggestions. It tasted awesome though and with some fresh whipped cream it was sooooo goooood!!!

Thanksgiving is also about traditions and one tradition that Kevin and my dad seem to have adopted was putting bunny rabbit ears on each other in family pictures. It annoys the heck out of me, but I guess when they do it to themselves I can't complain too much.

We've Been Using the "Wong" Ladder

Kevin has been such a hard worker in trying to keep up on trimming our back garden's hedges and as soon as he gets them cut down they seem to grow another foot in just a few months.  So while my dad was here they tried brainstorming more effective ways to trim the hedges since we felt the step ladder on the patio table wasn't very safe.  Well, they determined we must have been using the wrong ladder so Kevin decided to borrow the Wong ladder (Danny Wong's ladder to be exact).  The boys came up with the idea to attach a wide board on the end of Danny's wooden ladder and then lean the whole thing up against the hedges.   I know Kevin thinks I am picking on him when I post things like this but I love him so much and I think he is so smart and inventive.  Thank you sweetie and thanks Dad for helping him out...the hedges look great!

I Get it All From My Mom

Okay, for all of you who say I'm such the "Martha Stewart"...well I learned from the best and I keep on learning. Today I learned how to make homemade pumpkin for baking. The reason being is because on Thursday we went to Waitrose in the mall to buy canned pumpkin (it's the only place in Peterborough to buy it). To my surprise and dismay they were out of pumpkin and didn't think they would be getting any more. Now you are probably wondering why am I so freaked out about having pumpkin on hand, Halloween's over right? Well, I am going to be hosting a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for my "international" neighbors on Thanksgiving and I must have pumpkin pie for them!!! So my motto over here has been, if you can't buy it, make it from scratch. We had bought 4 pumpkins for carving this year, so we only carved 2 of them when I found out I would have to use them for other purposes.

My mom jumped right in on Saturday and started showing me how to prepare "baking" pumpkin and for any of you interested in learning how to make your own pumpkin here is the pictoral along with instructions:


First you wash the outside of the pumpkins to remove any dirt from sitting your pumpkin outside for the past few weeks. Next with a HUGE knife, cut the pumpkin in half, empty out the seeds and gunk and lay the pumpkins cut side down in a large baking dish with a bit of water. Bake the pumpkin for about an hour at 350F (or 160C in a fan assisted oven like my own).

Once it's done you'll really start to smell the yummy pumpkin smell and you can poke your fingers (carefully - it's really hot) in the side of the pumpkin and it will feel soft. Once you take it out it may deflate like this one...it's pretty cool to see it shrink!
Once the pumpkin cools down a bit, start scraping out the cooked pumpkin into a blender and let 'er rip!!!

Next measure out amounts that you would typically use in a recipe into freezer bags. A can of pumpkin is now about 15 oz so that is 1 2/3 cups. Most recipes call for 2 cups of pumpkin because cans used to hold 16 oz (2 cups) and then over the years I'm sure to shave a few cents off cost they dropped it down to 15 oz and sold it at the same price!!! According to my Betty Crocker Cookbook with fresh pumpkin you don't need the full two cups I guess since it is more "liquidy."

Lastly you seal it with a smile and let cool before you put it in the freezer. My large pumpkin yielded about 5 bags and the small pumpkin gave me 3 bags. Of course with the size of freezer I have I better use most of it up in the next month because the bags are taking up about 1/8 of my freezer space if you can believe it.