Day 25- Outside clean-up/ Home made yummies!

It was a busy day.  Mathew rode his bike while I cleaned up the outside of the house.  Mat worked. Paige played. We cleaned up inside the house.  Then the kids and I cooked up a yummy dessert. We made dinner, ate, and then off to bed.

I woke up to a beautiful sight.  Every morning before the Economy 7 ends of the night, I try to do a load of laundry.  Here is England, the reward you for not using Electricity throughout the day.  If you do your household things that pull a lot of electricity during the 7 hour period at night, electricity is cheaper.  Woo hoo.. LOL.  The hours are not the best to be doing things unless you are a night owl or early bird.  The hours start at 1:30 and end at 8:30.  Since I have to be in bed before 1:30 I set the dishwasher to run around 2am and wake up early to do laundry in the morning.  I can delay the washing machine if I needed to but I find it easy to just get up at 6:30 and run a load and dry another.  Well I woke up and headed to the Utility room and caught a glimpse of the sunrise... and to my surprise there was a hot air balloon rising up.. then another...and another...a total of 9 appeared as I watched.  They were so pretty with the sunrise.  

Finally Mathew got some Lucky Charms!

After laundry, the kiddos had breakfast and then Mathew wanted to head outside to ride his bike.  His mind never gets off things that move.  So he headed out and came back inside soon after that to ask me to come outside to see his stunts.  He had taken his ramp and set up the pieces around the house to jump his bike.  While I was out there watching him, I decided it was time to cut the shrubs that were hanging over the pathway around the house.  So off I went to get the hedge trimmers... hand held ones.  It was a lot of work trying to get them clipped.  It would have been easier to use Electric Hedge Trimmers, but ours are not for the UK.  So I did not want to try it.  Today, I wish I had.  I woke up with my hands sore and achy.  Mathew  picked some more apples from the apple tree and placed them into buckets.

After trimming up outside, we came inside had some lunch  and moved on to cleaning up the house inside.  The kids helped by sweeping the floors, cleaning up their stuff and wiping down the kitchen table.  I scrubbed the floors and swept up the rest of the house.  I put away the photos and other items that were scattered on the pool table waiting to be hung up.  Unfortunately until we get paint on the walls, I am not hanging anything up.  So they were put away from now.  

Before     ................................................During

After

After cleaning up, the kids and I decided to make home made apple sauce for dessert.  We peeled and cored the apples using my pampered chef peeler and then placed them into a pan with some water, cinnamon and sugar.  I let them boil down for about 20 minutes.  Then I mashed them.  We stored them in a container that I had already at the house.  It is amazing that 10 apples ( yes they were small) made only 1/2 jar off apple sauce.  I guess we will just have to pick more and start cooking them up.  We are going to try to do apple pie next!

The kids went on to play.  Mathew went back outside and Paige upstairs.  After a bit of free time, we cleaned up from the day and waited for Mat to come home.  I did my best to clean the HUGE windows in the back of the house but I need to break out a ladder for that!  I can't believe how black the cloth was though after wiping them down.  I guess since the other windows in the house were really dirty, I should not expect the biggest on in the house to be clean!  But I also did not expect a black cloth when I was finished doing one of them.  

Once Mat got home, it was time to start dinner. The kids played Mat in some pool while I cooked up some food.  They love spending time with their dad and it is nice to have them not at my feet when I am trying to get things done.  It makes for an easier end of the day!

We ate dinner and then it was time to try our dessert.  The kids enjoyed it a lot.  Mathew ( who does not like apple sauce) loved it.  We all decided that we would use that recipe for the apple pie but I think we will make the sauce and then add it to the pie crust and make mini apple pies in cupcake pans.  We just need some vanilla ice cream!

After dinner and dessert, the kids went upstairs and played until bedtime.  Then we made a bed in the playroom for them to have movie time together.  These are special nights because we have not had movies at bedtime since we left Ohio.  It makes this rule easy with no TVs in the bedrooms!

The kids got ready for bed and brushed teeth.  I went down and then up and took my first bath in the claw foot bathtub...Mat went to sleep.. and finally after a busy day, I laid down in my bed and tried to fall asleep.  Not an easy task at 9pm!

Day 24- "Home Schooling"

Day 24 was a typical day.  Up at 6:30 before the kids,  a load of laundry started and dishes put away from the day before.  Got my shower and cleaned up the bathroom and bedroom.  I am enjoying getting things done early so it does not feel like I am cleaning the whole house all day long.  

The kids woke up soon after that and we had breakfast and watched a little TV.  The weather started out ok but throughout the day we were hit with spurts of rain.  The house seemed cold because of the dark skies.  

After breakfast we moved away from the TV.  I had the kids get books and we started by reading some of these.  Paige read a few books to us and I read some to the kids.  Mathew does not like to sit down and do anything constructive.  He would rather sit and stare at the TV all day or be outside riding his bike.  It is a fight to get him to do much in the way of school work for me.  He needs someone that is not his parent to set structure with him for learning.  

After reading, I broke out the notebook.  I had him practicing writing the letters F-M in upper and lower case.  I think it is important to refresh his brain with some of the things he learned last year especially since they are going to be starting school after the other kids here in England.  Paige worked on some more Math work.

Then we moved onto something more fun.  We played the learning bingo.  This is the kind of learning Mathew likes.  Hands on.  He does best this way.  Paige of course is always up for anything so it is never a problem with her.  We played 4 different games of bingo and the kids both won multiple games.  

After bingo, we made lunch.  The kids decided they want soup and for some reason our hand can opener did not get shipped to England.  So it has been a chore to open things as I keep forgetting to grab one each time we go to the store.  Instead of using a can opener, I used a bottle/ juice opener.  Not the easiest thing to do but Hey, it worked!  Of course it open just enough to get the juice out and then it took some shaking and prying to get the noodles out of the can.

The kids then were sent outside before it started to rain for some fresh air.  Paige went on a scavenger hunt and found some neat rocks and some empty snail shells.  We have been finding snails around the apple tree and the bushes in the back yard and a few empty shells. Mathew went straight to his bike and started riding around the perimeter of the house.  He could do this hundreds of times and not get bored with it.  While they were outside I sat in the conservatory and watched them.  You could hear the rain start falling onto the top of the conservatory but you could barely see it falling onto the kids or onto the back deck.  It is amazing how much noise a little rain can cause.  But soon it turned into more rain and so it was time to come in.  

Once inside we started with History lessons.  I had Paige look up Queen Elizabeth and read about her a little but then she wanted to look up something else so I told her to look up the Heroes of Troy.  Another thing she will be learning about in school here.  She was much more interested in this because she found a website that told the story to music and pictures.  If you know Paige, if it has to do with singing she is all about it!  

Soon after this Mat was on his way home.  The kids picked up the house and did what they wanted until dinner was ready and when Mat came home, we all sat down and ate. One good thing about Mat's schedule is that he is home for dinner each night.  He might be gone 12 hours a day or more but with his early schedule it makes it nice to be able to sit down with the kids, say prayers together, and have a nice conversation over dinner.  

After dinner, we had our nightly snuggle and movie on the couch before everyone headed to bed.  Paige settled in with one of her books that she has been reading each night and Mathew and I snuggled in with a few books to read, "In a People House", "God Made Me", and "Bears on Wheels."  Once we read these I tucked him in with his favorite book " The King, The Mice, and The Cheese." Both kids had a few more minutes to read so I left their lights on and headed downstairs for a bit.  Mat was already in bed when I came back down.  After cleaning up from dinner, I went and turned lights off. 

All in all it was a pretty normal day.  Nothing fabulous or exciting, just an everyday kind of day!

Day 22-23 Hello Satellite TV in B&W

Monday, Mat went to work and the kids and I did a little picking up around the house.  We also had a little but of school time here at the house. Then we went fishing with Mat once he came home from work.

Mat woke up and left for work and the kids and I got up around 7.  We had breakfast and then started picking up.  The play room was one of the rooms we started with. It was destroyed from the camp out the kids had planned to have a couple nights ago and they had been sent to up there to clean it up several times but it never seemed to get cleaned.  So I sat in there while they cleaned it up and put things away.  Mathew has a hard time with this because he thinks it just takes too much energy to move and put anything away even after playing with them for hours.

After cleaning up the playroom both kids picked up their rooms and then we came down and picked up the items they had gotten out the day before that they had not put away before.

Once that was done, Paige got her Multiplication book and Mathew his note book.  Paige was to practice her multiplication with her 5 minute time tests.  Mathew was to write the letters A-E as well as the numbers 1-5.  We are working on learning upper case vs lower case since he has all the upper case mastered.  We then used the letters he practiced to make words.  He wrote them the way he wanted first (all upper case) and then I had him redo them in lower case letters. Paige was just reviewing what she learned with multiplication last year so that it would be fresh in her memory for school when they start.

Once Mat came home from work, he wanted to go fishing before dinner. So we packed the kids up and walked down to the river in town.  Mat did most of the fishing.  Mathew rode his scooter and Paige took a colouring book to colour in. Mathew tried to go down to where Mat was fishing and hit one of the stinging nettle plants that made his leg welt up and of course tears fall.  Poor guy.  He was pulling at his leg like something was inside but I knew exactly what he had done and felt so bad for him.  It took him at least 5 minutes to start moving around again.  By that time, Mat had caught another fish and the swans were starting to return to the area.  One more cast in and then we were gone.  Mat hooked a fish and Mathew tried to reel it in only to snap the line.  Poor fish got away with a hook and a bobber.

Once home, we made dinner and settled in for the night.

Today, Mathew was up with the sun.  Mat had to be up by 3am so I never heard him get up but I felt a little boy come into my bed.  He kept messing with me and so I guess it was time to get up.  We went out and made the biggest pancakes ever.  He loved it.  It was bigger than his head LOL.  Paige came our soon after I got his finished and wanted the same thing so we had two huge pancakes.  The kids went to play while I did things around the house, picking up and putting things away, laundry, dishes, etc.

We had some lunch and then the guy for the Satellite came to install.  He had to drill holes and add some things to try to make it work.  Unfortunately, he was not able to make the living room TV work.  He said it was because we had an american TV and that was causing the issues we were having.  boo!!!  Once he left I messed around with the cords some.  I added an old school Red/White/ Yellow cable and POW!!  Black and White TV! HAHA.  Nothing like being back in the no color TV days again!  But hey we had sound and we have a picture.  I fudged around some more and got an even better black and white picture but no color.  Come to find out we need a converter box that takes PAL signals and turns them into NTSC signals.  More money out the door, but at least it is less that purchasing a new TV.

While the guy was installing the Satellite, the kids each completed an art project using their hands as trees and changing the colors of the leaves to show the seasons.  They each got their run at using my stickers to add some character to each of their pictures.  They did a great job.  Now I have some artwork to go in their study area!

Once Mat got home and checked out the TV, we ate dinner and we all watched Popper's Penguins of course in Black and White.  The kids went to bed quite easily tonight and so all in all we had a pretty good day with little fighting!

Day 17-21 House and Village Area

Good morning England Fog and Sunrise! 

Day 17

It was a busy day.  Cleaning Bedrooms and playrooms.  Emptying boxes in Conservatory. Finishing the dish packs in the dining room. Dinner.

There was a lot of getting things out of boxes and getting the kids rooms all done. I helped Paige in her room first.  She had done a pretty good job of putting things where they needed to go but she has way too many clothes!  After we got her room situated, Mathew and I went to the play room to organize that.  There are some things that need to be hung on wall but most of it has a spot to go and once the shelves are hung, there will be plenty of room for everything.  I am impressed that we fit all the toys from the basement into that little room.  But hopefully the smaller space will keep the kids cleaning up.
  

The kids and I had some lunch and then soon after that Mat came home. In hand he had my pear grabber. Nice jester but I NEED A BROOM!  LOL... oh yeah 2 minutes later, he brings in 2 brooms!  OOPPSS... love that man!

Mat had to find all his gear for work and of course all his stuff was packed so we had to go through it all and try to find it.  So from the bedrooms we moved on to the conservatory.  We destroyed the house again opening boxes and trying to find things.  It seems like every box = an hour of work.  We get rid of boxes one by one but then it is dealing with putting the contents of the box away and finding the right rooms for them all.  Going from a basement to having no basement has been a bit harder than we thought but luckily there are enough rooms in this house to take care of not having the basement and maybe this way we will keep things less in storage and more in the rooms.  That is the plan anyhow!



After a day of going through everything, we ended the night with dinner.  Mat wanted to try the local pub in our little village so we headed here.  We were there a bit early.  Dinner starts at 6 there and we were there at about 20 til.  We sat down and waited a bit.  We ordered our drinks and chatted with the waiter.  He knew who we were right away.  Talk about SMALL!  Our Landlord had told him that we would probably be down to check it out sometime and gave him a heads up to look for us.  Lee ( the waiter) was very friendly.  He lives above the pub and works almost daily there.  He talked about the local fishing and areas around here that were good for that.  He chatted a bit about the area with us.  It was nice to have time just to get to know people.  I guess a good reason to arrive before everyone else.  The food was good.  Not seasoned like I would have done it but we all liked it.  Mat had steak, Mathew had Scallops, and Sis and I had Lasagne.   

Day 18

   Still cleaning and putting things away but we were able to get out of the house and get some things that we needed.  It seems like every time we turn around we need something else for the house.  We went to Tesco Extra in Hampton (This place is a mini mall).  It has the big Tesco but also has many other shops inside.  It has an huge infant and maternity store as well as a shoe store and several clothing stores.  It also has kiosks in the center with places to buy items.

After getting what we needed, we headed to dinner at a Mexican restaurant.  The food there was yummy.  Mat tried to order sweet tea and they brought him a kettle of HOT tea and mug.  I laughed so hard.  Mathew ordered chicken Nachos, Paige and Mat had Burritos, and I had soft tacos.

Day 19

Friday... Love Friday!!!   Not really this one other than we are closer to getting the little house.  David, our neighbour in the little house, moves out today and housing comes and gets our temporary beds and couches.  But more of unpacking boxes.  Mat worked again today so the kids and I were in charge of getting more boxes out of the house.  We worked on the study area for the kids and got most of the boxes out of there.. I finished up getting the boxes out of the bedroom and linen closet upstairs.  Mat came home and cooked us some Yummy dinner on the grill, we watched a movie and set off to bed.

Day 20

Saturday was full of moving again.  But this time it was into the little house.  Mat started moving stuff as soon as David dropped off the key.  Once David was out we surveyed the house and decided what needed to be done.  First thing to do was get an air freshener... David smoked in the house and it smelled of it.  You can also see it on the walls and ceilings so we will need to paint it.  Once the Air Freshener was in place it was a lot better!  First all the bedroom stuff went out and got set into place then the futon and then finally alllllllll the hunting and fishing stuff.  This cleared the conservatory and also some of the kitchen since we were overflowing with glasses and coffee mugs.

I cleared out the office and threw boxes and boxes of stuff away.  It was nice to purge what we had not gotten to while trying to clear house in NJ.  But it would have been nice to get rid of it all before the move.  But it is what it is.  I still have a lot to go through as we still have paper that needs to be shredded and filed.  So I am sure more things will go to the trash/ recycle than what we have there now!

Mat also cleared the living area of items. This has been the collection point from the bedrooms upstairs and ours.  Plus all the boxes that had been emptied had ended up there so it was nice to see a cleared off floor and couch for a change.

Day 21

Our first day of Church in England.  We made it to 9:30 mass on Alconbury.  At the alter Father was running through a baptism with a family.  Two of their children were to be baptised into the Catholic Church and neither of them were catholic yet.  They both were going to go through the RCIA program this year.  Mass was good.  Some of it was different from our old church in NJ but they all seem a little different with the way they do their music and which parts they do in latin or english.    The homily was good.  Father did a great job breaking down and analysing the readings which I enjoyed. Both of the kids behaved amazingly!  I was so happy to see this.  Mathew had some questions which I answered quietly at appropriate times but other than that, no fussing happened and it was nice.  After church we found out that they were having the fellowship picnic after Mass.. Score for us.  It was nice because we were able to meet some of the people at the church as well as talk with the priest. On top of that we were fed yummy food so we did not have to go back to the house and make lunch.

Once lunch was over, we headed back and resumed moving stuff from the big house to the little, cleaning up the kids study area and getting ready for the new week.

Interesting things in England:

Yellow street lights                   and           wedge potatoes at McDonalds

Spelling of Dannon on my new favourite yoghurt (spelling of Yogurt itself!) and skinny milk containers

New types of drinks      and           BIGGG beers!

Day 12/13/14/15/16 :-) - HELLO INTERNET!

Sooooooo many days have past and so much has went on in the last 5 days!

We MOVED!  Yippy!!  I love this house!  There is so much to it and everyone is starting to feel at home. Really... NOT!  We feel like we have come here on vacation and have a gorgeous house to stay in while we are here.  It doesn't feel real and all I keep thinking about it how something just has to go wrong because it is just too perfect.  For some reason I just keep thinking about the movie The Money Pit with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long.  

Entrance way

Living room                and                          office

Dining room                    and                         Kitchen

Dining room - 3 sets of doors to enter into living room

Living room - Wardrobes and pieces left for kids to use- door by the blue shelving is our bedroom and you can see the doors to where you go up to the kids rooms.  That area by the stairs will be their study area.  This also leads to the utility room and half bathroom downstairs.

Conservatory-  Love the natural light in here!

Stairs to the kids rooms

The master bedroom and the stairs to the loft where our bathroom and linen closet is. Love the closet in this room! 

The Good old Money Pit, I am not sure who has or who has not seen it.  I know Mom has and probably many others but for those that have not, the theme of the movie is a couple that buys this big beautiful house for a really good price.  From day one of them moving in everything goes wrong and they have to redo it all.  The movie is a classic.  So I sit here during the day and just think... is this too good to be true like it was for them?  I don't think so and if it were, hey it is not ours, we just rent!

So on Friday we moved house.  We had people coming in and out and met with the landlords who were still completing some of the things that needed to be done before we moved in.  The base did the walk through of the house.  Everything was marked that was knicked, scratched, dented, dirty, etc. to protect us and the owners of the house.  Signed the lease and it was ours for at least the next year!  We went through everything with the landlord.  Learned how the electric worked on a timer with things like the Water Heater and Heating to make electric bills cheaper.  In England they have something called Economy 7 where at night the electric is cheaper so many houses run things during those 7 hours to keep costs down.  After doing some research on this, the hours start at 1:30 or 12:30 depending on daylight savings time or whatever they call it here.  I do not think Ill be staying up until 1:30 to wash and dry clothes!  So Ill be up around 6 after Mat goes to work to do that a few times a week.  

While we were waiting for everyone to come to the house to do all the paperwork, the kids went upstairs and chose which rooms they wanted.  Of course Mathew chose the Blue room to be his!  He was set on that room from the start.  It is the first room you enter when going up the stairs to the kids rooms.  Mat took the second room on the left as a storage room for all his military gear.  I am not sure if all of it will go up there because you never know when you need another room for the plethora of guests we might have coming!  I think Mat talked Paige into taking the room with the Bathroom. So now each kid is in charge of keeping their bathroom clean.  Lets see who loses bathroom privileges first! 

After the signing of the contract, we had some time before the base movers were bringing our items so we went to grab some lunch.  We found a local place called the Sandwich Bar.  We went in ordered some food and sat down.  There were only 3 tables in this little area and a couch to sit on.  We chose to sit at one of the tables and one of the ladies brought us our food.  Mathew and I got the Smokey T while Paige and Mat got some type of Mexican Panini.  Both were delicious!  I still have to adapt to their "Crisps" (Chips) here as they are way different than the states!  Mathew chose a type of chip that tasted like Buggles and bacon.  Not my favourite at all! But that is a place that we definitely will have to revisit!  

We headed back to the house for the delivery of the rental furniture.  That came and they brought us some super stylish couches!  Nothing like floral cushions!  The beds were pretty comfy. The fridge is super small!  It is the size of one side of a side by side fridge.  There is not much you can keep in there at all so that is a big adjustment!

After the delivery, we headed back to base to pick up the rest of the items that we were not able to get on the first go round.  We checked the mail and headed to the stores to get other items we needed for the house. We did our grocery run as well.  Then headed back to the house.

Before bed, we went outside and the kids picked apples from the apple tree behind the house and also some  pears.  We are going to try our best to make some Apple pie with these and see how they turn out.  I am hoping that we will be able to make something very yummy!

The house was pretty cold due to the windows and doors being open most of the day.  It was a good thing that we picked up some nice warm soft blankets to go on all the beds or we would have been super cold!  The kids rooms were not too bad since they are on the upper level but our room was quite a bit chillier than the rest of the house.  That night we all climbed into bed, kids with movies and mom and dad with a movie and we all slept quite well!

Saturday we had a lot of running to do to get things for the house.  We were in and out all day and barely stopped.  We did find time to go to Frankie and Benny's which had Wi-Fi so that we could talk with Mom on her Birthday. The connection was not the greatest but we were able to sing twice and see everyone even if we could not really have much of a conversation due to the noise level at the eatery.  

Sunday we stared at the walls again, did some running, and visited a lake that Mat wanted to see about Trout fishing in.  It was very pretty and large.  Mat and Mathew were in Heaven!  But he needed to find the ins and outs of it all.  In England you have to have a Fishing License but also every bit of water is owned by someone so you have to have an additional permit to fish.  So it can get expensive.

On our way home from the fishing hole, we turned a corner and saw a man's car sticking out of the brush.  He had rounded the corner and went head first into the brush on the side of the road.  OF COURSE... Mat had to stop being the helpful citizen he is... Make sure the guy was alright.. he was... and then try to get the car towed out of the ditch and brush.  He hooked up one of his 5,000lb tow straps and tried once and the strap broke.  That car was wedged in there.  By this time, there was a line of traffic in both directions.  Everyone was getting out of their cars and watching as Mat tried to rig up another way to tow the guy out.  Another Englishman came up and showed him an area on the car that you could hook a strap to that was used for that very reason... Good to know.  Another Man came up and was commenting on the truck and could not believe that the truck had not gotten it out yet... not the trucks fault if the strap would have held it would have worked.  He was a funny man and only wanted some Fish and Chips... but he got his show before dinnertime. Mathew did not understand why the traffic did not just go in the field next to us and drive around.  The first car to stop was an Audi... Not sure they were going to drive that through a field!  Mat gave it another try and scared me because now the strap was really short and the car not too far away from our back end.  But he slowly pulled it out and placed it back on the street.  He said it did not look too bad in the front but you could see fluid coming out.  Right after we finished, we packed it up and left to get home.  

Monday, our things came!  Woohoo!  Boxes galore... and things everywhere!  The start of the madness began!  Some of the things we had got broke or lost.  The organ lost a key and a half on the journey over.  They decided to pack the tree stand onto of the organ.  SMART!  Many of our boxes were wrapped with Customs tape.  Many of those boxes had items that had gotten broken.

                 Truck #1                               Gotta Love Customs!

I started with the kitchen and emptied many of the boxes out... I was able to place things in the cupboards and finally we had everything we needed to make food!  The thing that stinks the most is that almost all of our things are 110 and not 220.  So that means I can not use them to make things without a transformer box.  

The kitchen was a mess by the end of the day.  I did what I could to get everything on the counters cleaned up and then moved on Tuesday to the Dining room.  I had to search between the boxes to make sure the shot glasses and all Mat's other glasses did not get opened as they are staying in boxes until we move into our final home back in the states.  Mat went to work while the kids and I tried our best to get as much done as possible.  The kids focused on their rooms and the playrooms and got some things done but there is so much more to do!  I am ready for all of this to be done and never to see a box again!  Friday will be a great day when we can move some of this stuff to the other house and get this house all put together.  

Well it is off for now and I have Many Many things to do.  Goal today is to get the kids rooms and playrooms all done.  I was able to apply for their school yesterday so now it is time to get them all ready for the next step in our journey here in England.  

Thoughts so far...

Love the house

Love the area

English folks are nice overall

Hate unpacking boxes

Food in England is pretty yummy

The country of England is big on saving energy

Some things are made more difficult than they need to be

Procrastinating is never a good thing!

= )