Valentine's Day

For as long as I can remember, my mother has made Valentine's Day very special. She used to make heart shaped meatloaf, pink mashed potatoes, heartshaped chocolate cake, and have loads of V-Day candy and presents waiting for us when we got home from school. Well, this is a tradition I have been trying to carryon ever since Kevin and I have been together and this year was no different. Kevin and I actually went out to eat on our first date by ourselves the night before Valentine's Day and a wonderful restaraunt called Loch Fyne. It is well known for the seafood that is flown in from Scotland that is caught the day before. We had a very nice evening and we caught a glimpse again of what it was like BA (before Addison).

On Valentine's Day, Addison and I made Kevin cheesecake (his favorite) and spegetti (Italitan food of love - you've all seen Lady and the Tramp when they share the plate of pasta). I had also smuggled in 4 different bags of V-Day candy that I purchased from the States when we were home for Christmas (I guess that's an advantage of commercializing holidays - to have products out 3 months before the actual holiday). Addison made Kevin a very cute card and Kevin suprised us with a beautiful bright pink mum flower for us to plant out in our garden when it gets warmer.

What really hit us is that this was now Addison's second Valentine's Day...wow...where has the time gone. Last year she was only a couple of weeks old on V-Day.

First Prenatal Visits

Well I've gotten through the first round of prenatal visits. On Thursday I went to visit with Ann my community midwife, now, she won't actually be the one delivering our little one but she'll be my main contact for care. We took about 45 minutes to go through about 20 pages of paperwork. One of the big differences over here is that you personally keep your preganancy "notes" (or files) which I think is pretty scary since during pregnancy your mind goes a little crazy, I'm totally afraid that I'll misplace them. Ann is pretty cool and she also worked with Stacey and Marti (the two other ISEs who recently had babies over here).

On Tuesday, Kevin went with me to the Peterborough hospital to get my 12 week scan (ultrasound). The first thing that alarmed me was that you had to pay to park - 2 GBP for the first hour - 10 pounds for 24 hours (that was the maximum time on the meter) and the car park was very small. When my friend Stacey went into labour it took her husband almost an hour to finally find a place to park...I could see why. As Kevin and I walked in to the maternity ward there was a woman walking out in her bathrobe and slippers followed by her husband and a brand spanking new baby....probably only a few hours old on their way home.

As we waited in the holding area it hit me on how worldly of a place I was actually in. There were all sorts of people there waiting to see a little glimpse of their new little life. Some of them needed translators, some of them were like us and didn't understand all the "English" terms and had to ask the receptionist for help. We finally got called back into our room where a technicial did the ultrasound and showed us up on the TV screen our fully formed little baby. After doing some measurements she determined that I was actually a little further along so she bumped up my due date to August 22nd. In the States, when I had ultrasounds with Addison they printed off about 6 pictures each time and sent me on my way. Here they print out your pictures, but you are to pay for them. You get your scan pictures and then before you check out you put 4 GBP in a vending machine to get a stamp to show as a reciept that you paid for them. Our technician didn't charge us for ours because she said the baby wasn't in a very good position...we were gracious but thought the pictures looked wonderful.

We're Having Another Baby!!!!

Yes, Baby Dea #2 is on its way...wow, I'm so glad we can start telling people. While we were hoping to start trying for our second little one this summer, we are very happy about our little surprise. Honestly I had no idea that anything was out of the ordinary until we got back to the States for Christmas break. I thought it was a bit weird that after a week I wasn't getting over the jet lag and I was soooo tired and zonking out at 7PM every night. Just before New Year's I starting feeling kind of icky at night but I figured it was the traveling, but on New Year's Eve I had no appetite for all the wonderful goodies and I had a strong feeling it wasn't the flu. The thought of being pregnant again was not something I thought I would have to be worrying about yet. On New Year's Day, I made Kevin stop so we could buy a pregnancy test. I never got to use one with Addie so I was kind of naive on which one to buy. Well I tried using one that afternoon and I didn't work, so I had to wait until the next day. The next morning I hopped out of bed, did my thing, and came back to tell my hubby that we were going to have another baby. We just laid their gleaming but both of us were filled with fears of the uncertainty of having a baby abroad. Since we were in the States and on our way back to Peoria, I got to visit my OB/GYN office and get a sonogram to find out how far along we were...6 weeks and 4 days...so we are due August 28th !!! I have to aplogize to our all of our friends back in the States who we got to see and couldn't say anything. Needless to say this pregancy has been much different than Addie's so far. I was sick (not just poorly), but throwing up several times a day for about 4 weeks straight. Either I'm having a boy or this is the most awnry little girl to make me feel so icky. It was really tough heading back to the UK knowing we probably weren't going back to the States for a whole year and that I wouldn't be able to go back when my sister has her baby at the beginning of August. When we got back life was miserable for about 2 weeks since I was so sick and couldn't find the "home remedies" that I used back in the States the first time around. I felt so bad for Kevin and Addie, but we got through it and mommy is starting to feel better. I went to see my general practitioner and he sent through the referral to the Peterborough Maternity Ward to start "the process." He said it would most likely be a "forte night" before I heard from the hospital and the midwife community. I found out later that a "forte night" is two weeks and I wouldn't be getting a phone call, oh no, just a letter in the post (mail). The nerves really starting kicking in because I just felt lost. But now that we've been able to start telling others, I've been getting some reassuring news from the two gals who just had babies here that everything will be okay. I'll be keeping you updated as I have my first midwife visit on Thursday and 12 week scan on Tuesday the 12th.

Addison's 1st Birthday

Well the day finally got her that my little baby turned 1 year old. Some may ask, "Does it make you sad that your little baby is a whole year old?" Really I don't know if I've had time to feel sad. We've been having a blast with all the new things going on with her. She started walking about three weeks ago and I thought it would be great to have her be able to get around more on her own, but she's more work than before. I spend half of my day picking up after her "explorations."

Well her birthday was lovely. We had 11 of her friends over on Thursday for a party and it was a blast having the house full of kiddies. I made homemade white cupcakes (you can't buy anything other than chocolate cake mix here) and got them all decorated up. Funny thing was that I got to use the No. 1 candle that I got for my one year anniversary at GROWMARK (someone be sure to thank Ann Hastings for me)!!! Addison got lots of great new toys, books, and outfits. Funny thing about toys...when we first moved here Addison had nothing for toys and now our house looks like a mini Toys R Us.

On Sunday we had our friends/neighbors over for dinner and cake and ice cream. It's always a joy to have our British lessons from Sarah. Some of you thought I used some funny terms when I came home for Christmas but she is transforming me and toning down my American language. It's all fun!!! I made Addison a chocolate cake for this day and watching her eat it was the funniest and cutest thing ever.

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.