Fourth of July Fun

We made our way back to the grand old United States of America to celebrate her birthday this year.  Our flights home went really well and since their weren't any hitches at all along the way, we did a lot of waiting.  But the wait was all worth it when we finally got off the plane in Cedar Rapids to see my mom and dad waiting for us.  We made it back to Marengo as the 3rd of July parade started but with signs of rain coming and us being totally exhausted we headed home.

  

The next morning my sister and brother were both at the house to see us and Addie got all cuddled up with them and Grandpa Jeff.

My nephew, Bo, has grown up sooooo much and is walking all over the place.  Harry and Addison loved getting to play with Bo in person versus just seeing him on Skype.  I don't think he was quite ready for all the attention from my two youngsters, but he got warmed up to them later that day.  

We went over to my Grandma Lynn's house for a big cookout and family get together so it felt like Christmas in July without the presents and we had rain instead of snow.  We are usually lounging around in lawn chairs but this year the cousins hung out in Grandma's living room.

I brought a little bit of British to our US celebration by making my favorite Eton Mess with a red, white, and blue flair.  Funny thing was that our local grocery store didn't sell merangie nests so I had to make them from scratch and they got done with seconds to spare before dinner.  Now in England all desserts get set out and eaten after dinner and this is something I had gotten accustomed to, but I forgot I was back in America and especially in "Schafbuchland" at our family gathers that all foods sweet and savory got put out at the same time.

Harrison loved getting to play with his Uncle Casey and it is amazing on how much these too look like each other...we hope they turn out a lot like eat other personality wise as well.  What a bunch of sweet hearts!

Addison was really digging all the sweeties and goodies at Grandma's house.  Grandpa Jeff didn't mind at all having her get her grubbly little fingers all over him either.

Here are my two boys...so serious looking!  I think they could both use a nap.

Addison was full of smiles all day!

One family tradition on the 4th is playing the bean bag game.  Since it rained they moved the tournament inside.  Kevin set up brackets and had teams broke out in the matter of minutes...my dad was so impressed.  Addison and Aubrey were showing the boys some new techniques.

The competition drew quite a crowd of spectators' in Grandpa's shed and his old Farmall M was a great seat for the show.

Bo cuddled up with my mom a lot.  She and my dad help watch Bo on the weekends when my sister and brother-in-law both work weekend packages at the hospital.  They have such a great bond with him and I'm glad they get to spend so much time with him.  He is such a cutie-patutie!!!

I so remember when Aubrey was Addie's age.  She was the youngest cousin and still is in my generation, but now we've got three little ones that seem to grab everyone's attention.  Addison loved following Aubrey around and I think Aubrey liked being the older one for once.  Bubbles have been a big entertainer for Addison and the two of them had a blast playing together.

First I want to thank my dad for letting me take this picture to illustrate to my British friends the meaning of "Farmer tan".  My dad is outside a lot and as you can see he wears ankle socks and developed a very distinctive tan line.  What is even funnier that is that he as another line from wearing these shoes and the base of his feet are even whiter than his ankles.  Love ya dad!!!

I love this picture of Addison with my Grandma Lynn.  I am blessed to part of such an amazing family and have my own family to pass on traditions, stories, and songs.

With us still being a bit jet lagged, my mom and I brought the kids back to the house before the fireworks show and we sat out on their deck to watch since they live just across the ravine from grandma.  My Uncle Kris lives in Wisconsin where fireworks are legal to buy and he brings them to Iowa where you can't buy them.  A few years ago they got a permit from the county so that we could shoot them off at Grandma's house and his been doing it ever since.  He and my dad have even built a rocket shooting platform for them.  I unfortunately kept dosing off during the spectacular light show so I had to  head off to bed.

Shopping in City Centre Peterborough

****Backdated blog entry from 1 July 2009****

This is a late post since I've been so busy lately but wanted you all to enjoy.

Today Min and I headed up to city centre to do some shopping ... completely unheard of for me but with a little companionship through it all I can manage it. My main goal was to head to Marks & Spencers to see if the pitcher that Sarah gave me for Christmas had any matching plates or bowls because I would like to build up a special dessert serving set. Marks and Spencer's (M&S) is a really nice place to shop...you get quality along with decent prices...kind of like Target in the State's. The funny thing about M&S in Peterborough is that they have their store broken up that all the men's and women's clothing is located in a building down in the pedestrian area with other shops and all the food, kids clothes, and home stuff in the Queensgate mall store.

I found the display with all the cute little bits that go along with my new pitcher but no plates or bowls. Guess we'll have to find something else...darn.

Wanted to take a few more pictures of what the food part of M&S was like. Strawberries are in prime season right now and everyone is on their strawberries and cream kick right now. Here is a whole case of strawberries and single cream (like our half and half in the States) all lined up pretty. Most grocery stores have a promotion right now that if you buy two strawberry packs you get the cream for free.

One other food that I have really come to like since moving here are quiches. I haven't attempted to make my own from scratch because the ones they sell in the stores are soooooo good that it hard to pass up buying 3 for 5GBP. I particularly like Quiche Lorraine and the Bacon and Cheese ones, but they also offer Garden Vegetable, Broccoli and Tomato, Cheese & Onion, and Bacon/Leek/Mushroom ones as well. I think most of the Brits eat them for lunch or supper but I feel like they are a breakfast food so that's when I make them.

M&S grocery is loaded up with tons of little speciality types of foods from all over the place. They are really well known for their pre-made meals, not the frozen kind that come from a factory, but made up fresh to look and sound very posh. You can get something like 2 plump roast breasts of chicken with sumptuous sausage and herb stuffing with buttered new potatoes and veg and a moltoness flowing chocolate filled cake with a bottle of wine for two for only 10GBP. Do you think their advertising works??? Ahh...Yeah!

The other shop that I love to go to which we stopped by today is Lakeland. It is a fun little kitchen shop with everything I think my kitchen needs.

I was looking for some plates and bowls to match my pitcher which I did find a few polka dot dishes, but what really caught my eye was this strawberries and cream dish...I thought "only in England." That wasn't my quest for the day so I passed but I must go back and get it some day.

I've also wanted to snap a picture of the view out of the car park at Queensgate mall. This road leads into one of the busiest round abouts in town and the entrance to the train station is just to the right of the car park across the street. What is so cool about most European cities is that the city centre is really the heart of the city where the majority of shops and activities are. What's great about Peterborough is that you can hop off the train and you have everything you need at your disposal.

This is just a random picture of my car parked in a parent/child spot but what is unique is that I actually backed into this spot. There is a crazy obsession over here to back into a parking space. I know the cars are small but the spaces are too. It is also much easier to get out of space if you are facing forward but backing into a spot versus just backing out into the lane seems to be much more logical. Don't know what to say though because I was really taught to pull through a parking space to be facing out forward.

Here is a picture looking into the car park. One thing to take note of us the very large pylons you see about every three cars. Okay...the prime parking spot is the middle one of the three because with the other two you essentially have to park your cars 6 inches away from these massage concrete structures to make sure you fit in the space. The thing is that if you need to let any passengers you have in the car out before you actually park because their is no way of opening up your door. Luckily they do have some parent/child parking spots that allow you space to get your kiddos out.

It's Flippin' Hot

Record heat in the UK this week!!! At this moment it is 32 C which is almost 88 F. Now for a girl from the Midwest this shouldn't be tough to adapt to but in a house with no air conditioning and today there is absolutely NO wind it makes it pretty tough to stay cool. The only thing I could do was to close the conservatory door to keep the heat from radiating into the rest of the house because it was over 100 degrees in there. Also we closed all the blinds and curtains to keep the sun out. The living room was the coolest room in the house so we just hung out and watched TV most of the day...what a bunch of bums...sure wish we had a little paddling pool to fill up right now.

It's been pretty hot for the past week and they say it is going to continue for a few more days...guess this is our 2 week UK summer! Kevin said it's been really hot in the office as well. They installed air conditioning two years ago but during these hot days they have only been turning it on in the AM and they shut it off at 4:30 everyday, so it gets pretty hot by the time he is ready to leave at 6PM. Also he said that they didn't put A/C vents into the bathrooms so it was pretty sultry trying to use the facilities during the day.

Crazy thing is that we are heading back to the States in a few days to sit in even hotter weather. Well at least mom and dad have A/C!

"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.