Gone to search for a pot of gold...

I didn't want anyone to think I have stopped updating our blog ... we're just on vacation for a week. We're leaving for Ireland to tour the countryside and hopefully find some leprechauns and a HUGE pot of gold! ;o)
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We finally had a nice Spring day in England so the kids enjoyed getting outside and blowing some bubbles.

"A person is a person, no matter how small..."

With Brett being on Easter break for two weeks now -- and since it was rainy on Wednesday (go figure, considering we live in England) -- the kids and I decided to go see the new Horton Hears A Who movie in Peterborough. At first, I wondered how in the world they could turn a 20-minute story into an hour and a half movie...but I must admit that I was very pleasantly surprised. Besides the theatre seats not being as comfortable as in the U.S. (okay, I know I'm being a bit picky!), the movie was absolutely darling and held the kids' attention the entire time. The movie made me stop and think about how important every day is and how it can be taken away in an instant. I know I'm sometimes guilty of not always listening to our kids as I should since they are so small and don't really know what is going on...but, again, the movie made me sit back and realize that it doesn't matter how small they are, I always need to listen to what they have to say as they can still sense what is happening around them and really do know what they are talking about (most of the time). ;o)

I'm dreaming of a white Easter?!?!?!

Well, although we didn't have a white Christmas here in England, we DID have a white Easter. ;o) Brett woke us up Easter morning telling us to look outside as we had a ton of snow in the garden. We must admit that the Easter Bunny is quite intelligent as he hid the eggs inside the house this year rather than outside -- he was definitely thinking ahead! After the kids made a mad dash to find all of the eggs hidden in the house, we bundled them up so they could go outside and make a snowman and some snowangels. They have been quite upset that Illinois has been getting all of the snow ... so when we finally received some in England, they were thrilled! The several inches of snow we had Easter morning melted rather quickly ... and while it did snow, sleet, and hail throughout the day, nothing really stuck too much after that. On Easter afternoon, we headed to our good friends' house, Holli & Andy Kieser. They opened their house to several of the Caterpillar families living here in the U.K. Since we couldn't be with our family in the U.S. over this holiday, it was wonderful being able to spend it with an "extended family" in the U.K. The kids had an Easter egg hunt outside in some of the snow pellets that had just fallen upon our arrival at the Kiesers' house, and we enjoyed a great dinner and wonderful conversations with our friends.

Wonderful visit with my "Mum" and Mark

We had a fabulous visit with my Mom and Mark this past weekend. Since they were quite jetlagged the first day, we simply ate dinner at the Black Horse Pub in Elton and then let them come back home to rest. On Saturday, Brett and I took them to London for the day. We enjoyed showing them around the sights in London and the nice weather (if you can actually believe that for England). Sunday we toured Warwick Castle and even though it was a bit rainy, we still enjoyed climbing the almost 300 stairs to the top of the castle as well as the Ghosts Alive exhibit in the Ghost Tower. Climbing that many stairs at least made me feel like I was getting my exercise for the day! ;o) Brett had school on their last day with us, so the girls and I took them to visit Peterborough Cathedral and Stamford. As when any of our visitors leave, it is very emotional ... so Monday night wasn't a very pleasant one for us driving home from the London Stansted area after dropping them off. While in Europe, they toured several other areas for a few days and then they headed back to London on Friday prior to their Saturday afternoon departure back to the U.S. The kids and I decided that since they would only be 1 1/2 hours away from us on Friday night, rather than the normal 4,000+ miles, we would go to London to surprise them. We thoroughly enjoyed spending a few hours with them Friday night as well as on Saturday morning before their flight. While saying goodbye for the second time was just as hard, if not harder, than the first -- it was totally worth it and we wouldn't have changed it for the world.

Field trip to Morborne Farm

On Thursday, I joined Kendall and Kameron on a field trip with their playgroup to Morborne Farm. Their "boyfriend" (I can't believe I'm saying that since they are only 3 years old), Ian, and his mom, Tina, rode with us to the farm. Upon our arrival, we went straight to the barn where the sheep live. There were several sheep in labor and we were able to witness a couple births (what a wondeful miracle -- but definitely NOT a pretty sight!). At the beginning of our visit, Kameron enjoyed chasing a little lamb around the barn, while Kendall was quite content just watching. However I was able to convince Kendall to at least give the little lamb a pat on the head for a VERY brief second (oh, she is definitely my daughter!). ;o) After a few minutes, Kendall enjoyed bouncing around the barn watching all of the sheep and lambs during the rest of our visit there. Kameron, on the other hand, stood and watched a new little lamb that was just born for almost 30 minutes attempt to stand up. She was very intrigued by the little lamb and was cheering him (yes, I'm guessing that it was a him) on. Although the lamb still wasn't standing when we left the barn, we did confirm with the owners of the farm that there was nothing wrong with him and he was just smaller than his sibling and probably a bit cold. We all thoroughly enjoyed our visit. And while I grew up in the country, I was gently reminded during that trip that I am definitely NOT a farm girl. ;o)

Weekend whirlwind of emotions in the UK

Well, this weekend has been quite a whirlwind for us. We picked up my Mom and Mark from Heathrow Airport on Friday morning and we are so happy to see them. They are visiting until Monday night and we are going to make the most of our weekend with them! (I'll post pictures soon...)

In addition to our fabulous visitors, we also received notification that our debit card had been shut off. At first, I was quite upset that the card had been shut off without receiving a telephone call asking if we had made the charges. When I contacted Citibank here in the UK, I found that someone had charged over 3,200 pounds for two transactions! After reviewing our account online, we noticed there were many more charges made that didn't make the risk management's radar screen at Citibank because they were less than 1,000 pounds. We added up the total charges from the "cloned" card and it was almost 5,000 pounds! Yes, we (okay -- especially me) about had heartattacks!!! Then to top our frustrations off, we received an invoice in the mail from one of the last transactions confirming my name and address as well as the delivery address from the !@#$% who basically stole my card. I called Citibank again and they are having their risk management team investigate all of the fraudulent charges and hopefully within a week, they will reimburse our account as well as arrest the thief. Here's hoping and praying...

As I don't want to end this blog entry on a horrible note, we are truly enjoying my Mom and Mark's visit and look forward to many, many, many more visitors to come (hint, hint, hint!). ;o)

A girls night out...

While we have met a significant number of wonderful people while living in the U.K., there are several of the Caterpillar/Perkins wives that have a lot in common and so we try to get together quite frequently to chat (and eat, of course!). We normally try to get together around twice a month -- although unfortunately that doesn't always happen with travelling, etc. Our last get together was earlier this week and we met at Becki's house (about 15 minutes from where we live). We love our husbands and kids dearly but it is always nice to get together and just relax with the girls. We ate lots of fabulous food and, as always, had great conversation and a tremendous amount of laughs. ;o)

Gymmies Class

For the past six months or so while Brett is at school, Kendall and Kameron have been participating in a gymnastics class ("gymmies") at Sims Gym in Peterborough. It took them awhile to get the hang of things; however now they are doing great and having a wonderful time! I wish I could have just a portion of their energy!

I'm "official"...

One of the policies we must follow over here for insurance purposes is that Mike and I must have a valid U.K. drivers license within one year of living in the country. Well, since we have now lived here a little over one year (and Mike already passed his test several months ago), I figured I had better get my act in gear and take the test. While I took the written test before Christmas, I was dreading taking the practical driving test since the rules of the road are SO different here. Since I didn't want my vehicle to be potentially taken away from me, I decided I had better schedule the test. With that, I took the practical driving test just a few weeks ago. I studied EVERYTHING about the vehicle and knew where everything (okay, almost everything) was under the "bonnet" (hood) since besides the actual driving, they also ask you 1-2 questions about the vehicle as well as 1-or 2 questions that are "show me" type of things. I was all prepared to open the bonnet and show the examiner where things were -- and the only things he asked me were 1) "could you tell me how to check the tyre pressure of your vehicle" and 2) "could you please show me how to honk the horn". Are you kidding me??? All I have to do for the "show me" portion of the test is to honk the horn? Yahoo -- it really was my lucky day, guess I should have played the lottery or something. ;o) Anyway, with all of the stress of having to learn how to drive in a foreign country, I passed both tests and am now an "official" U.K. driver.

Visit to Sacrewell Farm Centre

To welcome in Spring (okay, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the cold weather stays away), I thought it would be nice for us to visit the Sacrewell Farm Centre (located about 10 minutes from our house). The kids enjoyed petting the horses, talking to the bunnies, chicks, and goats, and milking a fake cow (quite the interesting sight!); however their favorite part of the visit (and I must admit, mine too) was feeding the little lambs. The lambs were only 5 days old and were cute, cute, cute!

Happy Mother's Day -- from the U.K.

We have found that England has a few different holidays from the U.S. ... so today we are celebrating Mother's Day. Obviously, Father's Day is also on a different day than in the U.S.

Besides that, England has many "bank holidays" that are recognized throughout the year. Bank holidays have been recognized in the U.K. since 1871. There are currently a total of 8 permanent bank and public holidays in England -- New Year's Day, Easter Monday, May Day (not necessarily 1 May), Spring Holiday at the end of May, Late Summer Holiday at the end of August, Boxing Day (26 December or the Monday nearest), Good Friday, and Christmas Day.

So to all of the "Mums" in the U.S. and in England -- Happy Mother's Day!

WAKE UP -- do you feel that?!?!?!

I woke up this morning at 1 a.m. to a horrible loud rumbling noise (kind of sounded like the London Underground trains) and realized the whole house was shaking. I laid in bed for a second thinking I was dreaming, but ended up waking up Mike to ask if he felt it too. Having not felt an earthquake since I was in 8th grade, I wasn't really sure if that is what it was OR if the house we live in that was built in 1625 was going to blow up from a problem with the gas tank or something (tons of things were running through my sleepy head at 1 a.m.!). The shaking ended after about 10 or 11 seconds, so I attempted to go back to sleep. When I woke up this morning, I turned on BBC News to see if they were saying anything -- and thank heavens, I'm not crazy...they were talking about the earthquake that happened at 1 a.m. this morning and was felt almost all across England. Since we don't have any damage, it was quite a relief to know it was an earthquake so now I don't have to worry about if there is anything terribly wrong with our house. While we felt it in Peterborough, it looks like the worst hit area was in Lincolnshire (which is about 1 1/2 hours north of us). It was the first earthquake England has had since 1984 and it registered a 5.2 on the richter scale. There was even a man who lives in Lincolnshire that used to live in Los Angeles talking on the telly this morning confirming that this was the weirdest and worst earthquake he has ever been in. Needless to say, it was quite an odd way to be woken up and I'm hopeful that it doesn't happen again anytime soon...

Amsterdam and Brussels

Well, we took our first trip to Amsterdam a few weeks ago. And, oh boy, did that city open our eyes to lots of new things?! Travelling to and around Amsterdam was fairly easy (besides me attempting to purchase tickets at the train station's ticket machine in Dutch rather than English!). Once we arrived at our hotel, we were pleasantly surprised that they put us in one of their nearby apartments which had a lot of space -- guess they felt sorry for us travelling with three small kids. ;o)

When walking down the street the first night and smelling an "odd" smoke aroma, we realized that there were a lot of people smoking things other than cigarettes. Then, of course, we weren't sure what to tell the children when they asked why there were so many ladies behind the windows (in the Red Light District). We spent only two days there as we had seen as much as our eyes could take and decided to take a train to Brussels for a day trip. We decided to do our sightseeing on one of the tour buses and were able to see everything we wanted to in just a couple of hours. We ate lunch inside the Atomium which had quite a view ... and before leaving Brussels, we treated ourselves to a belgian waffle in the Grand Place (central square). ;o)

I'm finally a blogger...

I have finally done it -- I've created a blog! It is hard to believe that we have lived in the U.K. for over a year (and sad to say I'm just getting around to updating everyone via a blog as well as sending out the monthly photo gallery).

The past year has been quite an adventure for our family. Moving 4,000 miles away from our family in 2006 was definitely difficult; however we found a great number of friends here through Caterpillar/Perkins as well as the surrounding English villages.

For our opening blog, I'll just give everyone a brief update on our family.

Brett is 7 1/2 and is in Year 2 at Elton Church of England Primary School and seems to enjoy school very much. His favorite subjects are reading, PE (thanks to his daddy), and, of course, socializing (he can blame me for that wonderful feature). When he gets in trouble at school for being too talkative, I really can't get too upset at him because that is what I used to get in trouble for at school, too. As my mother always said "what goes around, comes around" and "paybacks are @#$%^." ;o) Brett is very excited that baseball season is coming up. We have just signed him up to play baseball at the Alconbury Royal Air Force Base. All we can do is hope that the English weather is kind to us this year and he actually gets to play in springlike weather rather than lots of wind with the occasional rain.

Kendall and Kameron are quite the little young ladies. While they are only 3 1/2, they sometimes act like they are 13 (and, oh how I am already dreading that!). They go to Warmington Playgroup three mornings a week and enjoy playing with their friends. Their favorite subject is -- can you guess -- socializing! ;o) They have been participating in Gymmies (a gymnastics class) one afternoon a week for the past four months or so and really seem to enjoy it.

While it may take me a little while, I will begin posting some photos from all of the adventures we have had over the past year as well as begin putting photos and updates on this site from all of our future adventures.

And we thought speaking English would be easy...

Brett and I have compiled a list over the past year of the words that we use all of the time in America that mean totally different things in England. It would seem that living in a country that speaks English would be a fairly easy transition; however it definitely comes with its challenges. We have received many confused looks from English people -- but once they hear our American accent, they begin focusing on that rather than the weird words that are coming out of our mouths. It is amusing how I would love for Brett, Kendall & Kameron to pick up the English accent and bring it back to the U.S. with them -- and everyone over here is intrigued by the U.S. and loves our American accent. That's funny, I didn't realize we HAD an accent. ;o)

Words we used on a daily basis in America and their meanings in England...
Rainboots -- Wellingtons (or wellies)
Oversize truck -- Lorrey
Graham cracker -- Digestive biscuit
French fries -- Chips
Potato chips -- Crisps
Stroller -- Pushchair, pram
Cookies -- Biscuits
Umbrella -- Brolley
Trunk of car -- Boot
Television -- Telly
Hood of car -- Bonnet
Shopping cart -- Trolley
Cast -- Plaster
Bandaid -- Plastie
Windshield -- Windscreen
Sweatshirt -- Jumper
Wait -- Queue
Bathroom -- Loo
Diaper -- Nappy
Diaper cream -- Nappy cream
Long pants -- Trousers
Boys underwear -- Pants
Girls underwear -- Knickers
Tennis shoes -- Trainers
Canvas, velcro-type shoes -- Plimsolls
Crib -- Cot
Soccer -- Football
Pencil eraser -- Rubber
Sausage -- Banger
Hamburger bun -- Bap
Garbage can -- Bin
Guy -- Bloke
Fantastic, Great -- Brilliant
School lunch room -- Canteen
Scotch tape -- Cellotape
Naughty -- Cheeky
Thanks, Good-bye -- Cheers
Pharmacy -- Chemist
Throw -- Chuck
Bus -- Coach
Toothpick -- Cocktail stick
Buckeye -- Conker
Oven -- Cooker
Appointment calendar -- Diary
Unclear -- Dodgy
Two weeks -- Fortnight
Period at the end of a sentence -- Full stop
Ham -- Gammon
Yard -- Garden
Pickle -- Gherkin
Stove top -- Hob
Vacation -- Holiday
Vacuum sweeper -- Hoover
Boy -- Lad
Elevator -- Lift
Candy sucker -- Lolly
Popsicle -- Ice lolly
Friend, buddy -- Mate
Zero -- Nought
Mini-van -- People carrier
Gasoline -- Petrol
Mail -- Post
Pound (money) -- Quid
Awful, terrible -- Rubbish
A fruit concentrate you mix with water -- Squash
Unit of weight -- Stone
Candy -- Sweet
Faucet -- Tap
The drink or evening meal -- Tea
Children's game of Tag -- Tig
Cash register, checkout -- Till
Lottery, raffle -- Tombola
Flashlight -- Torch
Undershirt -- Vest
Crosswalk -- Zebra crossing
Speedbump -- Sleeping policeman