And so it finally happened...

With the loss of Payton last week and trying to help the kids with their emotions and then with both Brett and Kameron getting the flu (or 'lurgy' as they sometimes call it in England), I haven't had much time to update the blog. Anyway, Kendall has been doing very well with her potty-training and went an entire week with being dry (day and night) -- yahoo!!! So on Sunday while everyone was feeling well, we went to Toys R Us and let her select a bicycle. My original thought would be that she would select the Disney Princess bike since she loves pink and princesses (plus she could carry around her baby in the doll carrier on the back); however since Kameron had already picked that one, Kendall decided that she wanted a purple "Glitter" bike (that came with a fancy purse, of course). She is very excited about her new bike -- and her big girl underwear that she is now wearing all of the time!!! ;o)

Goodbye, Payton

I'm not sure exactly how to start this blog -- I know, can you believe that I can't think of what to say?! My Mom called me this morning on Skype to let me know that our wonderful cat, Payton (or "Ton" as we called him -- as he is quite the chubby kitty), that she and Mark have been caring for since we moved to England, has passed away. This was a horrible shock to all of us as he was only 9 years old and had been acting perfectly fine. With our move to England at the end of 2006, we decided that Payton wouldn't most likely survive the 8+ hour flight overseas so Mom and Mark graciously accepted our request to keep him while we were away. It was very difficult leaving him behind; however we knew he was in wonderful hands.

Payton became part of our family in 1999. When we lived in Peoria, he was best friends with Bailey, our dalmatian. Unfortunately in 2001, Bailey passed away unexpectedly and Payton lost his best friend. Of course, the kids did their best to fill that void. ;o) When the kids and I moved to Mom and Mark's house in September 2006 (just a few months before we moved to England), Ton came along and worked his way into their household and found a new best friend -- Sadie Sue (Mom and Mark's cocker spaniel). In August and December during our visits to the U.S., we tried to spend as much time with him as we could. As you can see from the photos, the kids chased him around and smothered him while we were there. ;o) Since we've been in England, it seems that every week the kids are asking how Payton is doing in Illinois. When we talk to Mom and Mark on Skype, they always have to go get him and bring him to the camera so the kids can see him and talk to him. ;o) Mom is always sharing funny stories of what Payton and Sadie Sue have been doing to keep each other occupied/entertained.

It is amazing how quickly an animal can become a part of your family. I know that Payton became a part of Mom and Mark's family just as he did ours. Mike is in Spain this week so unfortunately I had to break the news to him over the telephone and this afternoon I had to break the news to the kids that Payton is now in Heaven with Bailey. Brett was only 9 months old when Bailey passed away so Payton is basically the only pet that our kids have ever known. Kendall & Kameron didn't really understand what I was trying to gently explain to them -- except by saying "I miss Payton and I don't want him to live in Heaven...I want him to live at Nana's house so I can see him again soon"; however Brett on the other hand did understand and so he sat on my lap and I held him while we both cried. All of them are asking me a ton of questions -- I just hope that I'm answering them correctly. Before bedtime as were praying, crying, and telling Payton that we loved him very much and will miss him, Kami said she wanted to go to Heaven to play with him. As I explained to all of them that we wouldn't be going to Heaven for a very long time, she simply said "okay, mommy, then can we please call him on the telephone so we can talk to him?" Oh, if it were just that easy... While Brett understands that Payton is in Heaven, he doesn't understand why his little buddy was taken from us so soon. How do you explain that to a child? Losing a pet is always difficult; however if it makes any sense at all, it seems to be harder since we are so far away from home right now.

Mom and Mark -- I am so sorry that you had to deal with the passing of Payton without us being there. Please know that we are eternally grateful for you taking such wonderful care of him and giving him the best life possible over the past year and a half. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day!!!

Today we celebrated Father's Day together by going to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull movie in Peterborough. We all enjoyed the movie -- although Kameron could have done without some of the bug scenes and she cringed quite a bit and squirmed while sitting on my lap (oh, she is definitely my daughter!).

It is very difficult not being able to spend Father's Day with our family back in the US; however we hope that you have a very Happy Father's Day!!! Miss you...

Rutland Water visit

This morning the weather was fairly nice in Peterborough (as you can see from the photo of the kids in front of the roses in our garden) so we decided to make the most of it by taking the kids to Rutland Water (a huge park with watersports, a rock climbing wall, bicycle trails, cafes, etc.) which is about 20-30 minutes from our house. It rained for a bit once we first arrived at the park; however that passed quickly so were able to get outside and enjoy some sunshine. (I enjoyed too much sunshine this past Tuesday while the girls were napping -- as you can probably see from the photo under the Chinese cooking lesson section -- so made sure not to get too much today as I'm still paying the price.) Brett and Kameron enjoyed riding their bikes while the rest of us walked, walked, and walked behind them on the trails. After we wore the kids out with exercise, we stopped at one of their cafes for an ice cream cone before heading home.

Chinese cooking lesson

On Thursday night, I went to Min and Danny's house (another Caterpillar/Perkins ISE family) with several other ISE wives for a lesson in Chinese-type cooking. Danny and Min are from Singapore and have been in Peterborough for one year. I don't normally get to eat this type of food...so needless to say, I was very excited. ;o) They had prepared all of the ingredients for the various dishes ahead of time so all Min had to do was tell us what the ingredients were (and where we could purchase them in England) and then show us how to make everything. We enjoyed things such as sushi, ribs, spring rolls, fried rice, marinated pork, etc., etc., etc. Everything was fabulous and we all had a fabulous time! Thank you, Min and Danny!!! ;o)

Baseball and bike riding...

The baseball season at the Alconbury Royal Air Force Base has ended for the year. The season is quite short as it is; however with the fabulous weather in England, many of the games were cancelled due to -- can you guess?! -- rain. Brett played on the Blue Claws team and did extremely well. He seemed to improve each and every game. Mike and I were talking about the season and realized that Brett literally hit every ball that was thrown to him. Now that doesn't mean that the pitches should have been swung at -- but nonetheless, Brett swung and hit them. ;o) The closing awards ceremony was held last night at Alconbury. Soccer season (I know, "football" in England -- but it is quite nice that at the Base, they still call it "soccer") begins in a little over a month so Brett is now looking forward to that.

Kameron and Kendall have been giving us quite a run for our money on this whole potty-training thing. I know, you must be thinking to yourself -- why in the world doesn't she have them potty-trained...they are almost 4! Well, most of the time that would be what I'm thinking, too. We began working with them around their 3rd birthday and have had struggle, upon struggle, upon struggle (I won't go into all of the not-so-pleasant details that we have endured). Anyway, to make a long story fairly short, when we were in Munich, Kami said that she didn't want to wear pull-ups anymore -- she wanted to just wear "big girl underwear". I told her that as soon as we returned to England, she could start wearing her underwear all of the time. Well, she is one smart cookie and held me to it. When we returned from holiday, she started consistently going to the potty and was dry for a solid two weeks. Mike and I decided that she needed a reward (and we also wanted to see if the "reward" would potentially push Kendall into being dry too -- I know, pretty sneaky aren't we?!). So last Sunday, we went to Toys R Us and let Kami pick out a bicycle. She, of course, picked out the Disney Princess bike with the baby doll carrier. ;o) For the last week, Brett and Kami have been riding their bikes in the lane next to our house and enjoying every minute. We have told Kendall that if she stays dry for a solid week, we would go to Toys R Us and let her pick out a bike, too. As of today, Kendall is working on dry Day 2 -- so hopefully this is the turning point we needed to have both in underwear all of the time...and we can stop paying 5 pounds ($10) for each pack of pull-ups. ;o) Please keep your fingers crossed that I will be posting a picture of Kendall on her new bike sometime within the next week or so...

Holiday in Munich and Innsbruck

After my Dad left on Sunday, May 25, we scurried around to get packed for our trip to Munich. Mid-morning on Monday, we drove to London Heathrow to catch our afternoon flight. The weather in England when we left on Monday was rainy, rainy, rainy...so when we arrived in Munich and it was mostly sunny and warm, we were very pleasantly surprised.

I let Mike drive the rental car when we first picked it up as it was a manual and I hadn't driven one of those in about 13 years. It was quite stressful when I first got behind the wheel on about Day 3 but thank heavens everything came back to me fairly quick. I enjoyed driving on the "American" side of the car and the "American" side of the road. Plus, it couldn't get any better driving 180 kilometers per hour on the Autobahn (with cars still passing us) listening to Nena's 99 Red Balloons on the radio (in German, of course). ;o)

In our current van, the kids are totally separated from each other (which I have now realized is a really good thing); however with the rental car, they were all seated right next to each other in the back seat. There were several times throughout the week when I asked if I was going to have to stop the car since they kept touching each other. ;o) It seemed the only quiet time during our drives was when they all fell asleep for an hour or so. Finally, we had a little bit of peace and quiet (mind you, this only happened one time at the end of the week).


Our hotel was The Alte Post hotel which is situated in the Alps of Oberammergau, Germany (about 1.5 hours south of Munich). The town was very quaint and the hotel fit us perfectly (two level apartment-type setting). Upon arriving at the hotel and trying to wind down, we put in the Travel Channel's DVD on Munich and Bavaria (to see exactly what we wanted to visit while we were on holiday) and saw that the host, Samantha Brown, stayed at the same hotel when she visited the area.


We walked around Oberammergau several different times attempting to take in all of the beautiful scenery. Almost every building is decorated with gorgeous art that seems to tell a story. Down the main road of the town, we walked past the Little Red Riding Hood house as well as the Hansel & Gretel house. The kids enjoyed talking through the stories with us while looking at the murals on the buildings. With all 3 kids taking in the sights of the town with us, they easily spotted a gelato shop which was about 1 block from our hotel -- so, of course, we ended up visiting it for gelato every night of our trip.

(Little Red Riding Hood house)

(Hansel & Gretel house)

(Enjoying a "pinocchio" gelato on our last night in Oberammergau)

The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site was our first actual place to tour. The camp was the first one created in Germany during the Nazi rule and was one of the last ones still being used at the end of their rule (1933-1945). It served as the model for other Nazi concentration camps. During its twelve years in existence, there were 200,000 prisoners from over 30 countries. With the girls only being 3.5, they obviously didn't understand what had occurred at the location; however Brett did understand and was asking a ton of questions. Attempting to explain to him the horrific things the prisoners had to endure was heartbreaking and almost uncomprehendable. It was a very sobering experience to say the least.


The next place we visited was Neuschwanstein Castle. King Ludwig II built the castle in hopes that he would one day live there and have his own retreat; however he passed away in 1886 while it was still being built. The castle, itself, was the inspiration for the Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty castles at Disney. We took a carriage ride up the steep hill to reach the castle. Following our tour of the castle, we hiked to a nearby rope bridge to get a birds-eye view of the castle. With me being scared of heights and water, this location obviously wasn't my favourite location -- as you can tell in the photo as I have a deathgrip on all 3 kids. ;o)


On Wednesday, we visited Swarovski Crystal World near Munich. We enjoyed taking a tour of the building to see everything on display -- although I would have really like to have brought a few "crystals" back home with me. After the tour, we let the kids play for a bit on the rope swing and jungle gym. As it seems with all of our trips, we always run into a group of people who find our kids extremely interesting with their blonde hair and blue eyes. Of course, once they also notice the "twin" thing, they are drawn to them even more. Just thought I would share a few photos so everyone could see what we experience on a fairly frequent basis. ;o)


The Olympic Park (Olympiapark) was the next stop on the agenda. This stadium located at the heart of the Olympic Park was the main venue for the 1972 Summer Olympics.


While we were in the general area, we decided to also visit downtown Munich on that day. While my handy companion "Jane" (fabulous GPS system) seemed to have us walk about a mile more than what we needed to in order to get to the Marienplatz in the center of the city, it ended up just perfectly as the Rathaus-Glockenspiel began playing music and the figurines began moving and dancing around just as we arrived at 5 p.m. The figurines are reinacting two different stories from the 16th century. The top half of the Glockenspiel tells the story of the marriage of the local Duke Wilhelm V to Renata of Lothringen and the bottom half tells about the Schäfflerstanz (the coopers' dance). There was a time in the 16th century when the plague hit the town and everyone went into hiding. The first people to dare go back onto the streets were barrel makers who performed a big dance to show that it was okay to come out again. While music plays every hour, the figures only move 3 times a day so it was perfect luck that we caught it just in time. ;o)


On Thursday, we visited Innsbruck, Austria. While there, we toured Ambras Castle (Schloss Ambras) and also visited the center of the city where the Golden Roof (Goldenes Dachl) is located. The Golden Roof is a landmark in Innsbruck that was built in 1500. It is decorated with 2,657 copper tiles for Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor.


On our last full day in the Munich area, we decided to visit Linderhof Castle (Schloss Linderhof). The castle is the smallest of the three palaces built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria and is the only one that he lived to see completed. After taking the tour of the castle and realizing we still had several hours before dinner, we decided to go to the Tegelbergbahn (alpine slide) near Neuschwanstein Castle. Since Mike and I were pretty sure we had exhausted the kids visiting so many castles, etc. over the week, we let them play here for quite a while. Brett loved flying down the slide (on his own since he was old enough); Kendall was a bit hesitant at first but ended up finally liking the slide; and Kameron kept telling me "keep your hands off the brake, mommy!" ;o)


Saturday was our last day in Munich and since we didn't have to be at the airport until around 7 p.m., we decided to eat lunch at the Hofbrauhaus and then visit the Hellabrunn Zoo. The Hofbrauhaus has a great German atmosphere and we all enjoyed watching the waiters/waitresses carry up to 10 huge mugs of beer at a time. I don't think I could have carried 3 at a time so I'm not honestly sure how these people did it -- but it was really neat to see. Our final stop before the airport was the Hellabrunn Zoo. This zoo is one of the largest in Europe. The kids enjoyed seeing all of the animals but their favourite was the monkeys (go figure!).

(FYI -- As happy as he looks, Brett didn't drink any of this beer...) ;o)

While we can't speak German (or French, or Italian, or Spanish, etc. for that matter) we found it relatively easy to get around. Everyone we ran into was extremely helpful. Our only real frustration was not being able to read street signs very well. While on the trip, the kids have now come up with a favourite word ... Ausfahrt (which means 'exit' but sounds extremely funny to them).