"Quick" Ice Run

For my birthday party today we were having a BBQ and I needed to make a run to the store to get some ice for the cooler since it was so hot out. It's definitely not a "quick" run to the store as I had to drive 10 minutes to the Deepings Tesco, load the kids up in the cart and make my way to the freezer section in the store. And right next to the chips they have a three foot section dedicated for bags of ice.

The grocery stores are the only place I know of so far to find bags of ice and I looked awfully funny to everyone as I went through the check out with three bags of ice in my trolley.

Of course this is also the day that Addison decided that she wanted to ride the Bob the Builder ride outside of the store. She asked, "Coins please, mummy" so of course I had to let her ride since she asked so nicely. But it was a quick ride since we had to get our melting ice back home...like a good girl I did bring along a cooler to keep water from soaking the boot of my car.

Turning 31 !!!!

Yes, today I turned 31 years old and I'm still not depressed that I am in my thirties. I just feel more like a grown up now and am enjoying being a mom while taking on all the amazing adventures that we do.   One thing that is cool is that a year ago my little baby was in my tummy and now he's hear celebrating with me...how amazing!!! I got to celebrate this joyous day with wonderful friends in our back garden on beautiful and warm English summer evening.  I couldn't have asked for anything more.

Last year we bought this big tent when rain threatened our picnic at the Burghley House Battle Proms but we never got to use it.  With the strong sun and heat we have been having the past few days it was a great opportunity to break it out and give us a little relief and it worked out great.

Of course I have to talk about the food because that totally sets the theme for the party.  We had three different types of kabobs - chicken with veggies in an Asian marinade, beef with peppers in a Turkish marinade, and citrus marinaded prawns (shrimp).  Min made potato casserole while I also made up crab salad for a cool touch to the meal.  Sarah brought over strawberries and cream after she swears that her pavlova was unrecoverable...she is so funny!  Debbie Beales brought over a wonderful trifle and the goodies to make mango champagne spritzers (one of my favs)!!!!

Min surprised me with a beautifully decorated angel food cake that she had Laurie get for her from the US base.  I haven't had angel food cake is ages and it was sooooo yummy.  The food was great and of course we actually had more puddings that main course food!!!  I had said that by my 31st birthday that would have lost 15 pounds, but I only ended up losing 10 and I totally attribute it to having too many BBQs the last few weeks where you can't resist all these great sweets...  I'll have to work on the last five when we get back from the States. 

It's been pretty hot the past few days but Min handles the heat well since she grew up with it being like this and hotter most f her life.  And of course she totally looks like a rockstar model with her shades on.

Harry was coping with the heat pretty well and gave us his best "gun" show in the process.

I was totally spoilt (spoiled-American) this year.  Kevin all out and bought me a brand new dress from Monsoon which is a higher end clothing store here and he got me a Radley handbag which is the British "Coach" bag.  They are distinctively identified by the little Scottie dog.  It is so nice that I am only going to use it for special occasions because I totally abuse my everyday bag with all my "mom" supplies.  Thank you sweetie!!!!  And thank you to Emily for wrapping them up for Kevin and reminding him to make time to go get me something this year (hee hee).

My friends also spoiled me way to much.  The Beales' got be a wonderful bottle of Oyster Bay Wine which I absolutely love.  The Gorman/Clayton's got me a super cute custard pitcher for me to use when serving my puddings and a recipe journal to write down my most favorite recipes.  I may have to get another one since I have some many favorites.  The Wong's went overboard as well by getting me Delia Smith's "How to Cook" cookbook which is about 2" thick and filled with some of the best instructions on how to do the basics of cooking.  Essentially Delia is the Martha Stewart or Betty Crocker of the UK.  Funny thing was that I had just bought the earlier versions of this book at a boot sale just a few weeks ago.   Now that had the new book I could share my "previously loved" books with my sister for her birthday...it's wonderful how things work out!

Thank you all for making my day so special!

***DISCLAIMER:  There are not many pictures of me on this post for a reason.  We have been having quite a heat wave in the UK this past week.  Temps in the high 80's and humidity and with no air conditioning and days without any wind can get horribly uncomfortable.  Well, after spending most of the day getting ready for the BBQ I ended up hopping in the shower about 20 minutes before everyone got to our house and I didn't bother drying my hair because the humidity and my hair do not mix.  So I looked atrocious for my own party and if can't tell by these pictures you are blind, but you are kind if you don't mention how bad I look.

Picnic with Kevin's Work Colleagues

This afternoon we headed to Ferry Meadows to meet up with some of Kevin's work colleagues for a picnic. This was the first time I had gotten to meet the people works with other than the ISE's so I was pretty excited.

We had lots of fun. The guys played "American" football and it was pretty funny to see Kevin Dea and Kevin Duffy out there playing together because it was hard for others to call out their names since they are the same and last initial is the same and they are both the only American's playing. That was a good laugh. Kevin did admit that he had as much fun blowing bubbles with the kids and watching them chase them all over the place.

Harrison showed off his muscles to the crowd as it was very hot that day. As Addie played and Harrison got pampered by the Duffy girls, Cathy and I got to have a really nice visit during the day. We all ended up walking down to the little play area so the kids could swing for a bit and blow off some more steam.

Some one had brought along a giant Jenga game and Addie tried her hand out at the ginormous game.

Towards the end of the day the Hardy's finally were able to find the group in the massive park and Addison had a familiar face of her friend Madeline to play with and share her favorite snack of Pringles with.

Peterborough Heritage Festival

This afternoon we made our way up to the Peterborough Heritage Festival.  There were tons of tents and displays set up all around the Peterborough Cathedral and soldiers and entertainers out in the town square.  What was unique about this event was that there were so many different periods of history portrayed from the early viking settlers to Roman soldiers to the soldiers of the World Wars.  It really gave more light to how much history has been on this tiny little island.

One of our favorite demonstrations that we got to see was the blacksmith who was making arrowheads.  It seemed to be taking him a really long time to be making just one arrowhead, but he explained that in a period time shop the master would have lots of apprentices that would be manning the fire and alternating the iron and such.  He had a pretty cool little set up with double accordion fans stoking the fire.

Roman soldiers

Don't forget the vikings!!!  The chap in the viking gear is someone Kevin and I have seen around town and he is known as the Viking Biker...he has a motorcycle and this is his modified riding outfit.

They also had falconry demonstrations.  We didn't get to watch any shows but this guy totally looks like a character out of a Robin Hood movies so I had to get his picture.

This was just a model of how British soldiers would line up in formation.  The actual figurines are like 3mm high.  There was another one that showed over 1000 soldiers that would line up in a straight line about 3-4 lines deep.  I would think it would be a pretty intimidating site to see in real life.

Here was a truck from one of the World Wars and a bombardier outside chatting with you as you awaited your tea.

First Fancy Dress British Birthday Party

Addison got invited to her little friend Robyn's 3rd birthday party and this was her first real "British" fancy dress birthday party (other than Yi Xuen's when she was 10 months old). "Fancy dress" means you get to dress up in little costumes, kind of like a mini Halloween party I guess. Addison of course wanted to dress up as Snow White.

Since this was the first party we have really been too like this I made Kevin come along with us so that we could mingle with some of the other parents from the village. Well, it turns out that mostly mom's turned out and just a couple of dads, but it was great to visit with everyone who was there. I got to point out a few of the mom's from the toddler group that we get together with and show Kevin a bit what toddler play group was like because the party was in the Glinton Village Hall and they had a load of the toys and crafty stuff out.

After some play time we played a game call "Pass the Parcel" which was completely new to us. You pass around a package and when the music stops the child who has the parcel unwraps the first layer and they get a treat. Then the music starts up again and you continue to pass it around and around. Essentially their are enough layers to the package that each child should get a little sweetie by the end of the game and in the very center is a big prize that one lucky child gets at the end. It's very fun and something I think we'll adopt at our future birthday parties.

Next is party food. Now it is very interesting to see British birthday food because it is "uber" healthy for the most part. They have little cheese and butter sandwhiches, sausage rolls, plates of veggies like little tomatoes and cucumber, and little potato puff crisps in the shapes of little teddy bears. And to drink...orange and blackcurrent squash!!!! All the other little kids really enjoyed on their "regular" party food but Addison was much more interested in playing with the toys.

Another custom is that at the end of the party when you get your little treat bag you get a slice of the birthday cake wrapped up in little napkin to take home with you instead of cutting it up and eating it after they blow out the candles. Also they didn't open up any of the presents in front of the other kids....which in all honesty is pretty good so that they don't have any jealous outbursts from other kids. It was jolly good fun had by all!!!

Play Date with Jack at the Park

Today we went to Ferry Meadows Park with our neighbor Jane and her son Jack. Jack is just a year older than Addie but they get on very well together.

We took time time to feed the ducks for a bit and then settled under a really nice tree for a picnic.

Brother and sisterly love going on here...

I brought some bubbles along with me since it seems to be magical tool to entertain small children. Jack and Addison each took turns at "having a go" (Addison's new favorite saying). It was funny though that after about 30 seconds of them starting to blow bubbles about 5 other children had gathered around them from out of no where and started chasing bubbles as well. It was quite a sight.

Bottle Breakthrough

For the past 10 months I have been trying to get Harrison to take a bottle, a sippy cup, whatever I could to get him to be not so reliant on my for a drink.  Well I've found something that he finally likes...a Fruit Shoot bottle.  Now I don't give him the juice but I fill up these mini water bottles essentially and he gulps it down.  It is a little messier than a sippy cup but it works.  We did notice a couple months ago that he would kind of take water from a bigger one but now he can pick up these little ones on his own and gulp it down...now to get him to drink milk from it...the saga continues.

Yi Hong's Early Birthday

Since us and Steve and Laurie are going to be gone in the States over Yi Hong's birthday, Min wanted us to be able to celebrate with him a little early.  Tyler and Yi Xuen are in the same class and Bryce and Yi Hong are in the year ahead of them.  This was also kind of a going away party for them as well since they won't be back from the States before the Wong's move back to Singapore.

We had lots of fun.  Harrison always steals the show with this giggles and charm.  He's really growing up and looks so much like Kevin.

Addison enjoyed eating the chocolate birthday cake.

Danny is all about the wine.  We brought over one of our bottles of wine that we got from Germany since it was such a special occasion.

Yi Hong is a HUGE Manchester United fan so we hooked him up with some gear - a Man U gym bag and wallet stocked with 5GBP to start a savings to get Ronald0 back from Spain (he was a really good player that left the team to get paid 80 million GBP) to play for Spain...Yi Hong was crushed.)  His friend Tyler is a Liverpool fan so there is a bit of banter going on between them.

I'm Legal Now...

Well after 22 months of living in the UK I finally got my UK driver's license.  Technically I think we are supposed to have it within 12 months of moving here for insurance purposes, but last year didn't work out so well since I was about 8 months pregnant.  Back in March I took my theory test which was a 50 question multiple choice test that I studied several evenings for.  Also there was a hazard perception test which was a driving simulation that you had to click a button every time you saw a potential hazard and based on when you click it you get a certain number of points.  I failed ever one of my practice tests so was quit surprised when I did so well on the actual exam.  Next I had to prepare for my driving exam.  I didn't get to take it until June because I had to find time to leave my kids with someone so I could get driving lessons and take the actual exam plus there is about a 6 week waiting time in order to take your driving test in Peterborough.  You essentially have to drive around for 40 minutes and do two of four backing procedures.  The two I had the toughest time with at first were the backing into a parking bay and backing around a corner, but since I practiced them so much to figure them out they were the easiest to do.  The no brainer ones were turning in the road (3 point turn but since the roads are so flipping narrow here you get as many turns as you need as long as you don't hit the curb) and parallel parking. 

Well the day of my driving exam I wasn't too nervous, but left myself plenty of time to get to the testing facility.   It was a good thing too because I needed it.  Before I left I attached my L-plates (learner plates...to the common lay person - Loser plates).  I had problems with them flying off so I taped them on as well.  I drove off an about a mile down the road as I picked up speed the front one went flying off the car.  My mouth dropped and I about died because you NEED to have these on your car or you can't take the test and they are not very forgiving if you aren't ready.  I drove until I could find a little field gate to turn around at which I guess gave me really good practice for my turn in the road.   I drove back looking all over the road for it but I couldn't see anything and this really wasn't a road that you can pull over on to took around.  I went back down to the round about and came back and still couldn't find it.  I had 25 minutes to get to the testing facility and it took about 15 minutes to get there from where I was at...how in the heck was I going to get another L plate.  So I preceeded to break every driving rule and I sped to the Werrington Tesco, physically ran into the store, found where they sold the plates, through down my money at the till and ran out.  I sped all the way to the testing facility with one plate on the back praying I wouldn't get stopped because I was technically illegal to be driving at the time.  I got the the testing facility at 12:27 and my test was at 12:38.  I stopped just outside so I could double tape on this plate and when I got there....I was the first person to get in the office.  I was so nerved up and out of sorts but tried laughing it all off with another lady getting ready to take the test with me.  As I waited about 5 other people showed up to take their test but they all had people who came with them since on a provisional license (what you get when you pass your theory exam) you need to have fully licensed driver with you.  I felt kind of odd not having anyone with me.  Then precisely at 12:38 a door opens and all these grumpy looking men with clipboards come out calling names.  I kept praying that none of them would call my name, then finally a lady walks out and says my name.  My nerves go down but I worked so hard to "brown nose" this lady because I was bound and determined to pass this test.  I was thinking that maybe if I did screw up a few times that she wouldn't mark them as bad if I killed her with kindness.

At the start you get asked two safety questions....so the night before Kevin had helped me go through the entire car to understand how to read all the levels and check my tire tread and all sorts of stuff.  I got asked how to check to see if my horn was working.  I asked if she really wanted me to honk it which was yes.  So I pressed on the horn and nothing happened, then I said, "oh, excuse me, I forgot the car needs to be on for the horn to work" so I turned it on and the thing finally honked...duh!  Next she asked me about tread depth and I knew that one from the practice material so that was easy.  I also had been advised to back into my parking bay so that I could avoid having to do that procedure and it made it easier getting out of the very tiny car park they have.  My first procedure was to parallel park which made me nervous because one of the no brainer moves had been kind of hard on me lately because half of the time I would end up hitting the curb when I practiced (remember I'm parking on the opposite side of the road people - it's tough learning that all over again).  Well, it took me three attempts to get it right but each time I thought I was going to hit the curb and apologized and said I needed to pull up again.  Thank goodness she didn't mark me down bad for that...that killing her with kindness really worked out.  Now they don't tell you if you pass or not until you get to the end, unless you know you did something really bad.  But she did tell me that I passed and when through my marks with me.  Apparently I sped through some round-abouts and she said to watch it...since I did slow way down for the last one she let me off the hook.  Finally I got two marks against me for not using my hand brake...okay, I drive an automatic car and I have NEVER used my hand brake.  I know I was supposed to try and use it which I thought I tried to, but apparently I didn't and using your hand brake is a HUGE deal over here since they have such problems with fender benders and are high on safety.

Long story short...I PASSED and it's good for 10 years!!!!

Fishin' on Father's Day

For Father's Day we took the day pretty easy. After discovering where the "Nine Bridges" area was just outside of Glinton we decided to head down and dip our toes in the nice cold water on this super hot day.

There were a couple of other families down there at the same time and they were trying to catch little minnow-sized fish with little nets. One little boy let Addison borrow a net so her and her daddy could fish together.

It was super cute to watch and Addison was a little startled at first by the little fish but then she jumped right in to grab them and put them in the other kids' little bucket.

What a cute little fisher-girl in her little swimming pullover...she must have grown quite a bit from last year because this barely covered her bum.

Harrison and I hung out together while Kevin and Addie fished. We went wading in the water and attempted to walk up into the little falls area. I don't think he liked the cold water too much when I dipped his toes.

The video isn't the greatest but enjoy watching Addie during one of her fishing adventures.

Tea Time at the Pub

Since it was a beautiful day we thought it would be nice to join the Wong's for dinner at the Blue Bell (our local pub).  The back garden at the pub is so beautiful in the summer time.  They have picnic tables all around and this huge willow tree that we like to sit under.

There are swing sets further back for the kids to play on and Addison found a wonderful little stick to pretend fish with.

The food was really good and the company even better.  

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Tonight we got a taste of some English arts and culture.  Just north of where we live in Stamford is an outdoor theatre that in the summer time has showings of a few different plays.  We went with friends to see A Midsummer's Night Dream by William Shakespeare.  It's a story of how the king and queen of fairies play tricks on each other and on humans.  It was amazing to experience but very hard to understand because it was performed in "Old English" so even the "English" had a tough time understanding, but you got the jist of it with the actions and animations. The open woods set was amazing and it was really fun because we got to bring our own wine and snacks to enjoy while we watched.  Normally you are able to bring a picnic to enjoy ahead of time out in the surrounding gardens, but since everyone had kids to get fed we showed up just ahead of the show.  I stole this picture off of Danny's Facebook page because I didn't get to take any pictures.  They said you weren't supposed to take pictures but I think he was a little on the bored side of the production because he played with his iPhone most of the time.  He actually compared this type of theatre to the Chinese opera which is kind of like a pantomime that you really can't understand.  Danny is so silly...

Chinese Cooking Lesson

The other day Min brought me to Janson Hong's which is an oriental supermarket in Peterborough city centre.  Our goal was to have her point out a lot of the ingredients that she regularly uses in her cooking.  The main things I picked up were items to make spring rolls and some seaweed wrappers and rollup mat to make sushi.  I also found some "American" favorites of Hunt's tomato sauce, A&W rootbeer, and graham crackers, all imported from Singapore!!!!  Other things I got were really good soy sauce, rice wine, satay sauce, black peppered beef sauce, coconut milk, garlic chili sauce, hoisin sauce, dried Chinese mushrooms, and bamboo shoots.

Today Laurie and my neighbor, Jane, came over for a cooking lesson from Min.  We made spring rolls, PF Chang's lettuce wraps (amazing), a recipe that said it was like Panda Express' orange chicken but was not very close at all, and fried rice.  Also Min showed us how to steam cook a barbequed pork roast.  She has this amazing layered steamer that allows you to cook loads of things, but the pork roast takes about 3 hours to steam done as it sits in his marinade.

Min had me show the other gals how to make the fried rice.  It's really unnerving to make food in front of your teacher, but she is very patient.  The one lesson that we all learned was that there is a TON of prep work involved with Chinese cooking.  You need to chop, shred, dice so many things before you actually turn on the heat on the wok.  We had a lot of fun and really enjoyed getting to eat what we made.  

Yi Xuen's Wedding

Today was a very big day.  Our little Yi Xuen got married!!!! It's not that they marry off children over here but it's more for educational purposes only.  Most schools in the UK are affiliated with the Church of England so Religious Education is actually required.  I think this is great because they actually educate children about different religions, their practices and beliefs so they grow up understanding others than prejudicing them.  In Year 1 (kindergarten in the US) they do a mock wedding, but it feels pretty real.  They all get dressed up and do the ceremony in the parish church which is across the street from the school.  The reverend goes through the vows, they exchange rings and they sign the register.  Some of us are still trying to figure out how this is not a legal wedding and hopefully (hee hee) Yi Xuen doesn't have any trouble getting married later with records of her getting hitched at 6 years old.

So Addison, Harry and I got dressed up and joined in the fun.  I think we may have been the only people there who weren't parents of the kids who were in the class, but we definitely family of the bride.

Yi Xuen was such a beautiful bride and I got to help Min in making her veil so that was a lot of fun.

Look at all the parents taking pictures.  This so felt like the real thing.  How cute are they??!!!

Addison and Auntie Min at the reception enjoying fairy cakes, cookies, wedding cake and squash.

Addison had a special gift for Yi Xuen, a card that she drew of Yi Xuen with her wedding dress on, and a pound coin.

I'm so excited that in 20 years (give or take) I can get another picture just like this one at Yi Xuen's real wedding. Addison adores Yi Xuen and we love her so much and were so excited for her big day.