You say tomato and I say tomahto

There are some things I have adapted to saying or pronouncing differently since we have been here. The other day at Tesco I asked hubby to grab a trolley without even giving it a second thought. Then stopped and said to him – “I just called that a trolley.” He just laughed and said –“yes you did”. The moms at school drop off always say – “ya’ll right?”, instead of “how are you?” and I have started to adapt to that as well. Some other things that come out without even thinking about them – brilliant, cheers, and straightaway. Now, why am I even bothering to try to fit in you ask? Well, some of it is happening naturally from just hearing this stuff for the last few months, but I also don’t want to be the ugly American that does not try to adapt to the new culture, so I do try to learn and conform a tiny little bit when possible. On the other hand, I don’t want to be the American who lived in England for awhile and comes back to the US pretending I am British either, so have no fear friends – I will drop these British-isms faster than we can unload our storage container – or I promise I will try to anyway. You can't say tomahto in the US without looking a tad bit crazy. However. There are two things that I just. can’t. say...with a straight face. Well...I can’t say them without feeling uncomfortable or awkward anyway. The first is asking for the toilets. To my American self – they are restrooms, or bathrooms or even the ladies room. They are not “toilets”. Period. Also, when I order a chicken fillet sandwich (as I did today for my lunch), I pronounce it as– fil-LAY. In England, they say fil-LET. That is just one of those things that I think is so awkward to say that I would rather try to say it my way first and then when I get the blank stare and the “huh?”, then I try to mumble fil-LET and hope they figure out what I want so that I don’t have to say it again. I have no idea why in bloody hell that seems so awkward to me, but it does. And I just realized one more thing – I apparently can’t pull off ‘bloody hell’ either – oh rubbish.

Bean goes on vacation

We had to apply and receive approval to take Bean out of school for our Edinburgh trip this weekend, since we are leaving on Friday morning and not coming home until Monday night. Now...I am not normally someone who approves of taking my children out of school for vacations. However, there can and should be exceptions. After all, it is for this Friday -which happens to be July- and Bean has been going to Kindergarten/Reception since the end of August 2009. She has not had the two week long half term breaks that her England friends have had all year long and she did not get out of school at the end of May like her American friends did. I believe my daughter got what you would call the shaft this year. This has been the LONGEST year of Kindergarten in the history of Kindergarten, so I think the poor girl deserves a two day break before she keeps going for the next three weeks (school officially ends July 16). When we look back at this past year we have seen how much Bean has grown. It is hard to believe that she technically would not have been eligible for Kindergarten until this coming school year because of her late fall birthday. But Bean has always met her milestones early and her Pre-K teachers assured us that she was ready for Kindergarten in 2009. After all, she really only missed the deadline by 2 months. We had some trepidation about it, but enrolled her in a private Kindergarten and assumed that worst case scenario she would just have to repeat Kindergarten this coming fall. It is very obvious now that repeating Kindergarten will not be necessary -Bean continues to amaze and surprise us and she has really thrived this past year. She tested 98th percentile nationwide in her American school Kindergarten testing, she has been reading chapter books for 6-8 year olds since the beginning of this year and writes full paragraphs without asking us how to spell anything – and gets all the spelling and punctuation correct. She loves math and is doing well with her French lessons at school. She is so creative – she is constantly making up stories and songs. Bean has been fearless, determined and independent since she started walking at 9 months old- there is nothing that scares this girl. She still has some control issues – once she gets emotional, it is really hard to get her to calm down but I think that is normal for 5 year olds- and, I am emotional myself, so she may get some of that honestly. We are so proud of our little girl! Yes, I think she deserves to have a little summer fun and be out of school, even if it is only for two days. She is looking forward to our trip to Edinburgh – after all, our hotel has a swimming pool. In the picture at the bottom she is not drinking coffee - don't worry, we realize she is 5, even though she has the teenage attitude perfected already. It is a bambinoccino-frothy milk with coco sprinkled on top that a local restaurant does here for kids.

Monkey Forest

Bean said it best today - "this is more amazing than I thought it would be!". The monkey forest has monkeys roaming around, walking right up to you, around you and crossing your path. There were even a lot of baby monkeys climbing on their moms and dads and the girls loved seeing them. One of the monkey guides even pointed out a one week old monkey baby to us. It is a pleasant walk in a forest area and you can watch the hundreds of monkeys in action...eating, picking bugs off of each other, sleeping. You have an entire set of rules you need to abide by - no yelling, chasing the monkeys or running. No eating, drinking or even chewing gum. No opening your bags or getting anything out of your purse (they may think it is food) and I was only slightly worried that one would attack us and eat our faces off (active imagination again). I am really glad we went. Since Bean was chosen to bring home the class bear this week -Bertie the bear, or better known by my husband and I as the class 'germ share bear' - she was able to take Bertie with her and get some pictures of the monkeys and Bertie together. I took about 80 pictures, but I tried to pick out a few good ones that would really show how close we got to the monkeys. After a quick lunch at the Banana Cafe (located right outside of Monkey Forest), the kids were able to play on a playground and trampoline. We had a great time!

Traveling with small children

Traveling with two small children is not for the faint of heart. I have to say, my children have been great little world travelers so far, with a lot of preparation and planning. Not only have they conquered very long International flights, but they now have many train rides, overnight stays in hotels and trips in the car under their belts. And the fact that we are still planning more trips means that we have all survived and are asking for more. It does actually take a lot of planning to leave the house for even a day with a toddler in tow, so 2 days or longer makes it a little more of a challenge. Since on an airplane you are limited to what you can take on board with you, planning is really crucial. For train rides, we have had to force ourselves to limit our luggage. In theory, you could probably take whatever you wanted on a train. In reality, you have to carry it or pull it behind and stuff it in a taxi when you get to your destination…and with two small children, a stroller, my husband’s camera bag and a diaper bag, this presents some unique challenges. You also need to have enough things along to entertain during the train ride, at the hotel or during breaks in the action. Since touring 'big and old historic things' is not always fun for small children, we have gotten really good at scouting out play areas, ice cream and swimming pools to mix it up a little. My husband and I, fortunately, seem to have traveling with our children down to a science after all this experience of traveling around England. I grab the toddler, the stroller and the diaper bag. He puts the camera bag on his back, pulls behind any luggage we have and Bean either holds on to the stroller or daddy’s hand. We have done this countless times now, getting on and off of trains quickly and walking around our site seeing cities. For Edinburgh, we are going for 3 nights, 4 days by train. I would like to try to fit all the clothes, sundries and gear needed in one large suitcase and find smallish things for the kids to do on a long train ride (3 hours one way) that will fit in the diaper bag. What makes this a little more difficult is the weather this time of year. In England and Scotland, the day starts out cold in the morning and ends cold in the evenings (could be down in the 40’s), but can get warmer during the day (possibly up to high 70’s). This means a lot of layers for each day. Yes, I love a good challenge. I am sure the day will come where we have a bad trip or I forget to pack something crucial, but so far, so good. We are also going to try to make it to the monkey forest this weekend. The girls are so excited! (The picture above is them playing dress up this morning before school, the bottom pictures are from our last two hotel stays).

A message I truly needed

I have been a little bummed out lately. As much as I love the travel, I seem to dislike the daily living in England. Most of my blog postings in the last week have been about my irritations and annoyances. When we first moved here, I had culture shock and was feeling lost and confused. Now that we are more settled, I have had enough time to start figuring out how I really feel about certain things. Overall, this whole experience has been worth it and I am so glad we came. We are making the most of our time here, but I do get homesick which makes some of these little things harder to deal with. However, I got an email last night that really helped me put some of this in perspective. I have to give you some background first: shortly after we moved into our house in England, a lot of the moms at Bean's school were asking which house we were living in (it is a really small community). When I told them, they would get all excited and say -"that's Michigan's house". Now, clearly, her name is not really "Michigan", but for blog privacy purposes, Michigan is what I am going to call her because that is where she is from. Anyway, having never met this woman or her family, I didn't think much of it...until recently. We received some rather important mail for someone I had never heard of, but who was clearly American (it was from the US Government). I was really thrown for a loop because the last name on the envelope was my maiden name. Thinking about identify theft, I opened it and then I realized that the first name was a variation of what the other Mom's had called Michigan. I asked one of the mom's at school pick up what Michigan's last name was and low and behold, it was my maiden name. What are the chances? I am living in the same house that another American had lived in (from a neighboring state no less) and we had the same last name? So one of the mom's gave me her email address and I sent her a message to let her know about this mail that we had received. We have emailed back and forth quite a bit since then and I really like this woman. We have so much in common. Her kids were 5 and 2 when they moved here. She has sent me emails about what she misses (and I sit here reading it and thinking - YES - those are the things I will miss). And the things she hated (and again - YES - those are the things I hate). She even has made comments about the house, such as how strange it is that when you take a shower that you run out of COLD water before you run out of hot water. I laughed when I read this one- you have no idea how many showers I have ended by scalding myself when the cold water runs out. I just think that I connected with this woman for a specific reason at a time when I needed it. And the email that I got from her last night said that as much as she hated some of these daily things and as many cars as she wrecked by side swiping parked cars (I have not done this yet, but feel like I am going to every day as I weave in and out of cars parked in the streets!), she truly looks back at her time in England as a wonderful time in their life. She said her older child still wistfully talks about his time in England and that they have seen more places than most people get to in a lifetime. Once they got back home, they forgot the bad things, and only really remember the good times. I truly needed to hear all that right now and it really helps me put all of this in perspective. I am also really excited about our trip to Edinburgh next weekend which is starting to cheer me up. I have wanted to see Scotland since I adopted my little Scottie dog 12 years ago - you can't read about a Scottish Terrier without reading a lot about Scotland. I am hoping we look back at our time in England in the same way that Michigan and her family do - remembering the great times.

The new People Carrier

If you read my blog regularly, you may recall that one of the perks of hubby’s job was a new company car that we got to pick out and order. We had picked a people carrier (minivan) and ordered it back when hubby started working in January. JANUARY. When did we get this car, you ask? YESTERDAY, JUNE 22nd. Yes, you read that right, yesterday. The reason they gave us for it being so long? We ordered an automatic. They just don’t have very many of them here in England. I can envision a bunch of guys in the manufacturing plant huddled around manuals trying to figure out how to make an automatic and cursing the American girl that ordered it. I was so nervous about trying to drive a stick shift while also learning my way around and driving on the left side of the street while sitting on the right side of the car. To those wondering, yes, we have had a car this whole time, actually even an automatic car, thankfully. Hubby’s company gave him a loaner that was a stick shift, so our friends who had an automatic switched with us to make things easier for me, and I truly appreciated it. But I was anxious to get our minivan and have the extra room and convenience- and to not worry about wrecking someone else’s car while trying to drive in this crazy country. In any case – I am glad it is here. People carriers are actually a lot different here than our minivans are in the US – they don’t have sliding doors and they are much smaller, but with the road and parking space sizes, any bigger and I would have a different set of problems. We took a journey in the new car last night so that I could get used to driving it and headed straight for…..McDonald’s.

Doing it the hard (England) way

I am convinced sometimes that people in England just like doing things the hard way. I have read other blogs by other expats and this seems to be a universal theme. Everything in England....is just more difficult. It's almost like they just have not advanced in ways that you would think they should have by now. A lot of it may be their lack of space here (see previous posting on how small everything is). I guess it is the conveniences that I miss the most. Drive through restaurants and coffee places? Nope. Drive through banks and ATM's? Nope. Even parking at the actual restaurant, store, bank, coffee places - no way, no how. There is just not any parking at these places. The towns all just have a random car park somewhere in town that you pay to park in and then you walk to your destination. I don't mind the exercise, it is the lack of time that I think makes this hard. With two kids in two different schools, work, taking care of the house and daily life, who has time for this? It's not convenient when you have a toddler in a stroller and dry cleaning to pick up. As for gas stations - there are not very many of them, only one in our entire town and pay at the pump? They have never heard of that here. No school buses and not very many fast food places. The only ones I have actually seen are few and far between and are all American restaurants that have spilled across the pond like McDonald's, KFC and Subway. There are no outlets in bathrooms, something about the power wattage being so high, so getting ready in the morning is always an ordeal. Hubby plugs the hair dryer in behind the bed and stands in the middle of the room, I use my curling iron at the desk down stairs where there is also fortunately a mirror. I have tried to adjust to the slower life, walking my children to school, making my own coffee, cooking healthier foods and have tried to enjoy it. Some days it is fine, and I would do those things even back home, but not having any of the conveniences on the days you really need them, well...mostly, it just annoys me. (Believe me, I know how that sounds, but if you are a parent to one or more small children, think about what you have done in a given work/school day and then tell me that you have the extra time in your schedule to walk a mile to get cash out of an ATM or go to a post office.) I know I get to spend weekends in cool places like London and Edinburgh, and honestly, those are the things that make these little difficult inconveniences worth being here. I have said from the beginning of our stay here - the travel and the things we have seen have been worth it. And I truly think people in England just like doing things the hard, slow and what we would consider the inconvenient way. Nothing wrong with that if you are used to the slower paced life of this country, but coming from America - where everything is about convenience and being faster, it is a difficult adjustment. Right or wrong, I miss my Tim Horton's drive through coffee every morning.

Happy Father's Day!

Today, I would like to wish all the fabulous father's out there a happy, wonderful day. Specifically my dad, my grandpa, my father-in-law and most of all, my husband -an amazing father to our children.
Dear hubby - you are the most wonderful father that our little girls could ever wish for. I can tell when they look at you with their big brown eyes so full of love for you, when they lay their heads on your shoulder and sigh in contentment, when you are tickling them and they are laughing so hard they are almost crying, when they are sick and you rub their head and kiss their foreheads....that you are their hero. You are the most important man in their life and a role model for what they will look for in their own husband. You will help guide and teach them through life. You always want the best for them and always want to make them happy. Yesterday when Gerbie came up to you at Starbucks with her hand out, batting her eyes and asking you for money, we laughed that our 2 year old was doing this, but you started digging through your pockets for change so that she was not disappointed (that is probably only the beginning of them asking us for money-ha!) Thank you for being a wonderful husband and father - we don't know what we would do without you. We hope you have a Happy Father's Day!

Street signs

One of the most irritating things about living in England is the street signs, or lack thereof. It is really hard to learn your way around when you have no idea what street you are driving on or what any of the cross roads are. Most roads do not have street signs and the ones that do are not clearly marked and the signs are not easily found. I mean seriously, would you think to look up at the second level of a building 500 yards from the intersection to see what the name of the street is? Not to mention that a lot of places don’t use street numbers in the address– so a lot of times you are given a street name and that is it. We bought a GPS before we came and it has been really helpful, but not always completely accurate. Take today for an example. I received something in the mail a few weeks ago that Gerbie had been scheduled for a 2 ½ year developmental assessment. I found this odd because I didn’t schedule it. She had already had her 2 year check up before we left and was not due for another until she turns 3, but I was a little curious as to what it was all about. I also thought that if I didn’t take her I might get thrown in jail in foreign country for neglecting my kid or something (I have an active imagination). The letter was written on the letterhead of our healthcare clinic and it listed that address in the body of the message as well, so that is where I went. It made sense to me that our primary doctor would be the one to do the assessment, right? Wrong. I went to the clinic and was told that I actually had to go to the Children’s Development Center which was in a different part of town. I asked for the address and guess what? There is no street number address, just a street name. I asked for the post code and put it in the GPS. I followed the directions and it led me to a residential area that I have never been in before and then, the kicker is, the GPS voice said – you have reached your destination on the left hand side of the street. I looked to the left and there was an apartment complex. Looked to the right, another apartment complex. I highly doubt that they do developmental checks in an apartment complex, so clearly; I am in the wrong place. I tried to call the center and there was no answer. I drove up and down the street three times looking for this place and finally found a tiny little sign way off the road and partially blocked by a fence. The center was on the RIGHT hand side of the street about a half a mile from where the GPS took me. At this point, I was late, but I still went in. Apparently in England, the developmental checks are not done by doctors, but rather, by people who are not medically qualified for anything. This woman talked to us for all of 5 minutes before she declared Gerbie developmentally advanced, solely based on what she was hearing Gerbie say. A few more questions and then we left. Quite a waste of our time, but at least now I don’t have to worry about being thrown in jail.

Summer Travel

It should feel like summer, but it really doesn’t. It is the middle of June, schools are out in Ohio and summer has officially started. At home we would have been cooking out, swimming and enjoying the warm weather. But alas, it is still cold here – the average high is in the low 60’s on most days. Bean is still in school and will be until mid-July. It most definitely does not feel like summer in England. However, we are planning a few more trips. One trip will be to Staffordshire, specifically Stoke-on-Trent. There are a lot of places in Stoke-on-Trent on my to-do list, but top of this list is the Trentham Monkey Forest. The description is: “the only place in Britain where you can walk amongst 140 Barbary macaques roaming free in 60 acres of beautiful English Forest. Walking in the park you are transported into a different world through close contact with the monkeys”. How cool is that? I can’t wait to see what the girls think of it. We are also planning a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. I have wanted to see Scotland since we first started talking about moving here. We have not made it there yet because honestly, there is so much to see and do that was closer to us, here in England. But now, I think it is time to finally take a trip there. It is a three hour train ride from where we live to Edinburgh. Our next door neighbors are from Edinburgh so they will be giving us some tips on what to see and do. I am really excited about it – it just might make up for the lack of summer weather here. Well, maybe.

The World Cup

The World Cup is a big deal in England. And I mean a BIG DEAL. I was reading on the BBC yesterday that they anticipated the biggest annual sales for grocery stores, aside from Christmas. The pubs were reporting that they expected 35m in extra sales from beer and pub food before, during and after the game. So were the people in the US planning any big events? Was it as big a day for sales in America? Is this like the super bowl? After all, the USA was the team playing England last night? Eh, not so much. It is not that Americans do not like soccer and I am sure there were some people that were excited, throwing parties and watching it. But it is just not as big a deal as it is here in England. The people in England thought that playing the USA was a slam dunk - and hubby and I were talking about this last night, as we watched the game (when in Rome and all), just because the USA does not make as big a deal about European "football", does not mean that there are not good soccer players in the US. I guess last night proved that. Well....and as my hubby put it last night - that one English goalie is probably going to be hung in central London on Monday, beside the Chipotle.

Piglet

Bean had to dress up for school today as an animal. Specifically, they preferred a woodland animal, but any animal would work. Being in a foreign country and getting an assignment like this, threw me for a loop. What was I supposed to do? I don't have a sewing machine here, or even a needle and thread. I don't know where to buy a costume. So I looked in our dress up box to see if anything we already owned would work. I found a Piglet costume from Halloween last year that Gerbie had worn. It was size 24 months, but I went to work with some scissors and was able to fashion the vest, the tail and the hood/ears. Pink clothes underneath and we had a pig. To make it a woodland animal - we told her she was a wild pig. Done and done.
Also done - our visit with Papa and Ganny. As I write this, they are jetting across the ocean on their way home. We had a great two weeks with them and we are all sad to see them go. Thanks for visiting Papa and Ganny - we miss you already!

One year older, one year wiser?

If you notice in the “about me” section on the side of the page, I am now listed as being 38 years old. Today is my birthday. On the way to pick Bean up from school the other day, Ganny and I were talking and she made the comment that she is too old to move to a new country. I just laughed and said- I think I am too old also. At 38, I am pretty set in my ways. My good old American ways that is. I am pretty set that driving on the right side of the street is the way it should be done. American food is what I like to eat and living in Ohio for my entire life means that there are four distinct weather seasons. And I love that. I love fall, I love spring, I love summer and I can tolerate the winter because I know it will not last forever. But no, not in England, oh nooo. In England there are two seasons– cold and rainy and colder and rainier. As much as I have loved the travel and what we have experienced here, I am glad that our stay in England is temporary. I can live with temporary. But I also can’t wait to get back “home”. England gave me a birthday present today. It is even colder than it has been for weeks. Thanks England, just what I wanted for my birthday in the middle of June.

The England Sweet Shoppe

This week has been busy so I have not had much of a chance for updates. The kids are back in school, I am back to work, but we are also still trying to do some fun things with Papa and Ganny. Monday we went to Styal Estate and Quarry Mill Bank, yesterday was rainy and cold so hubby took them to Trafford Centre and today turned out fairly nice so we went to Tatton Park. All of these places have been mentioned in previous posts so I won't spend a lot of time recapping them. Today though, we found out that the mansion did not open at Tatton until 1:00 p.m. so we went into Knutsford for lunch, ate at a great Italian restuarant and then, on a whim, walked in The Sweet Shoppe. Sweets are what they call candy in England and we were truly acting like kids in a candy store. We were all giggling and walking from candy display to candy display trying to figure out what to buy. And it doesn't stop there - we were barely out of the store and all four of us were stuffing our faces with our treasured sweets. We would have never let Bean and Gerbie do that but here we all were walking down the streets sampling these treats and sharing with each other and giggling about it. Hopped up on our sugar high - we headed back to Tatton to view the mansion where we saw some beautiful deer - picture above. After walking around the mansion and the grounds and buying some sticky toffee pudding for an after dinner treat tonight, we decided to go back to The Sweet Shoppe (yes, you read that correctly), for more candy. A great time was had by all, but I think we are all coming down from our sugar high now. Oh and by the way - the kids still have not had any of the sweets.

London for the weekend.....again

I know I have posted about London before, but I have to say that London is one really cool city. We have been there three times now since we have lived here and I was there one time with hubby, pre-kids. I love that city. And of course, you have to see the main sites over and over again...it is just not a good trip to London if you don't see Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and various other places. This time, since we were showing Papa and Ganny the sights of the city - we took the double-decker bus tour and actually stayed on for most of the tour. Normally we jump on and off and never really go through the whole tour. This time it was great to sit and listen to the facts that the tour guide spouts off. It also created necessary downtime from a morning filled with walking and Bean even fell asleep on the top level on the bus. After the bus tour we went through the Tower of London and saw the Crown Jewels again. You can just never see these kind of precious gems enough - we all loved it. Then today thoroughly exhausted but ready for more, we went to the Cabinet War Rooms. What we thought would be a one hour tour turned into two as they have added a Winston Churchill museum to the war rooms. We could have spent even more time there, but it was lunch time and we had two impatient kids with us and limited time due to our train schedule. We also had lunch at Chipotle both days for a little of an American favorite. Yes, London is great, no matter how many times you are there. We already can't wait to go back!

Canterbury and Dover

We left on Tuesday morning, expecting a four and a half hour drive. The ride was a lot longer because of traffic and we pulled into the hotel tired and hungry. We grabbed a pizza, the girls went swimming and we all went to bed. The next morning we got up bright and early and started out in Canterbury. We saw the Canterbury Castle, the Cathedral and some of the shops and side streets. We all liked the town of Canterbury and could have spent a few more hours there, but we also wanted to make it to Dover. We drove to the Dover Castle and quickly realized we would be spending the rest of the day there. Dover Castle, located on the English Channel, is huge! We spent hours walking around the grounds, the gardens and the inside of the castle. This was the first castle we have been allowed to walk through and a peek into what it would have been like living back then reminded all of us of the comforts we have now in our homes. We finally made it to the White Cliffs which were a beautiful sight. I have never seen anything so amazing. Another night of swimming for the girls and then the next day we went back to the White Cliffs to see it in the morning light. Again – it was just so amazing. Then we headed off to Chartwell, which is Winston Churchill’s country house. We toured the grounds, the gardens and walked through the house. Bean even got to plant lettuce in the garden. How many 5 year old's can say they planted something in Winston Churchill's garden? What an experience this was! They have preserved the house and grounds as it was when he lived there and this was the highlight of hubby’s week, although nobody liked the back country roads that we had to take on the way there!! They were even more narrow and scary than the regular narrow and scary country roads of England. Overall, we had a lot of fun and really enjoyed our vacation. There were so many pictures to choose from that it was very hard to decide which ones to post. Starting at the top is Chartwell, the White Cliffs, Dover Castle and then finally the cathedral and castle at Canterbury. It was good to get home today but we are already packing again for our weekend in London.