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.