November 2016

November was a quiet month for us in England. With no major undertakings and no major holidays we are finally getting into the swing of things and feeling more comfortable here. It was strange to have no Thanksgiving celebration this year, just another day at school for the kids. But we do find that people start Christmas celebrations and Christmas shopping much earlier here so November is still a very festive month.

We're starting to discover the footpath network which is very extensive in the UK. There are footpaths everywhere! They are like hiking trails but normally lead through fields and woods (and to pubs) instead of up a mountain. We found one near our house where we went out for a walk one day and came upon some horses in a fenced-in field along the way. This is very common here, the footpaths are set up with 'stiles' to walk through so animals stay in their enclosure but people can come and go.

In early November we headed into London on the train for a day to get some great pictures of the kids by the Thames (Christmas cards) and also to see the show Matilda. Its based on the Roald Dahl book and it was an excellent show. We all loved it!

Carson is playing rugby at his school and also practicing some soccer ("football") in preparation for the winter football season. Here are some shots of him and his teammates.

While we were investigating nurseries for Christmas trees we were introduced to a real reindeer named Cloudy. Fortunately she wasn't camera shy. 

October 2016

October already! This month we celebrated Rachel's 11th birthday and the kids had their "half-term break" which means the last two weeks of October they had a break from school. We thought about going somewhere in Europe for their break but since our furniture finally arrived at the beginning of October we decided to stay home and get the house unpacked and settled. We discovered an IKEA not too far away and since we now have a car we were able to get the furniture we needed. October was furniture assembly month in our house!

The car gives us the freedom to venture out a bit and find new places. One night the kids were craving cheeseburgers (happens almost every night) so we looked up the closest Five Guys restaurant online and used our 'Sat Nav' (i.e. GPS) to get us there. Took us a little while to figure out parking and such, but we finally made it and those cheeseburgers were a delicious taste of home!

Rachel and Carson love to cook. Especially sweets! Here they are making chocolate cookies.

For Rachel's birthday celebration the kids took a cooking class at Jamie Oliver Cookery School in London. They learned to make pasta and ravioli from scratch, even used a pasta roller to roll out their own pasta! We took the Tube into London and here are some typical images of the kids and Daddy playing during the Tube ride. 

After the cookery school we ventured into Hamley's Toy Store which has a Build-A-Bear on the third floor. Rachel LOVES Build-A-Bear because she loves stuffed pets. She found this dog and knew it was the right one for her.

Cake time!

The second week of the kids school break we got out to see some local attractions. Below is a model village in a nearby town. It really is amazing, a HUGE village done on a small scale. 

We also visited a place called Kidzania in London. Its designed for kids to try out lots of different careers for a short time. Rachel and Carson both wanted to work in the grocery store. They also tried out the ice-cream making and the chocolate factory. Hair nets were mandatory!

One day we went for a walk in some fields and had lunch at one of the oldest pubs in England (www.rsoe.co.uk). We came upon a herd of ponies during our walk and the kids had fun feeding them some grass.

There is a great National Trust site not too far from us called Cliveden where we spent one Sunday afternoon. The gardens on the grounds are just amazing and there is an old castle that overlooks the Thames River Valley. There was a Halloween activity going on for kids, below the kids each made their own broomstick out of twigs they found.

Lots of people celebrate Halloween here in the UK but its not quite as big as it is in the US. Fortunately the American Women's Club hosted a trunk-or-treat for Americans like us that are used to more of a celebration. The kids had a great time dressing up and going to all the different trunks to collect candy. We also went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood on Halloween night, but it was slim pickins, only about a dozen houses in our area were handing out candy.

September 2016

September was a crazy month of moving into our rental house and trying to get settled before the kids started school. Our furniture didn't arrive until late September so we were sleeping on mattress pads for about a month. Fortunately our landlord left us a table and chairs so we had a place to eat. We were basically camping in our house for our first month!

Part of September was searching for furniture to fit in our rental house. Houses here have very little closets - our house had a closet in the master bedroom but not in any of the other bedrooms. And when our furniture finally arrived some of it didn't fit up our narrow staircase!

We started our furniture search for desks at John Lewis, our favorite department store in London. We also found time to walk down by the Thames for some pictures!

Sphinx at the base of Cleopatra's Needle

Thames River and Big Ben in the background

The school uniforms are much more formal here - skirt for Rachel and tie for Carson every day. And blazers too! And even a hat for Rachel. Wow, don't they look 'brilliant'!

Since I was terrified to drive on the left side of the road, we lived our first month of school without a car. We sure got in great shape walking back and forth to school each day (about a mile each way). With the nice weather it wasn't so bad. By the end of September I took some driving lessons and we finally bought a car. Its a Nissan Qashqai, a family car by UK standards but it would be considered tiny in the US. Its nice to have transportation to get around! Here we are taking scooters to school, hoping it would be faster then walking but not really.

The kids school pictures came out great!

Our rental house has a jungle gym outside including swings, a slide, a climbing wall and a picnic table next to the swings. We had some warm days before school started and a few evenings we took our dinner out to the picnic table. We discovered that as soon as the sun goes down the mosquitos come out! We felt very lucky to have such a warm summer, several Brits have told me this was the warmest summer they can remember for years.

 A park nearby with fun things to climb on.

August 2016

After much searching, we found a house to rent in a town that we like very much. As much as we like London, we decided to live outside the city where we could afford a bigger house and a yard for the kids to play in. The public transportation is so great here that our home is only just a 20 minute train ride into London. The only drawback to our rental house is that its not available until August 20, so we will stay in our hotel until then. Fortunately schools start in early September here so we will still have time to unpack before school starts.

We also spent time visiting schools for the kids in our new town and found schools that we are happy with. Carson will be going to a co-ed primary school for ages 3-11. He will be playing rugby in the fall, 'football' (i.e. soccer) in the winter, and cricket in the spring. Rachel chose an all-girls school for ages 3-18 that she just loves. Normally children here change schools at age 11, but since her school goes all the way to high school she won't have to change schools during our stay in the UK.

In between our trips out to our new town finding housing and schools, we were able to do a little bit more exploring in London. We had a day at the London Zoo in Regents Park, a great zoo that we really enjoyed. Here is the entrance to Regents Park, a typical park entrance here in London. Very lavish and decorative gates are everywhere here!

Penguin Feeding

Bird Show

Carson's first haircut in the UK was at a place called 'Jack the Clipper'.

Prices are in British Pounds, that's 1.3 times a dollar!

We visited Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in Piccadilly Circus. Here are the kids standing next to the replica of the world's tallest man.

We found a great playground in Mayfair with a tire swing and a see saw. I guess playground equipment is universal, very similar to what you might find in the states. Great fun for the kids and a great way to get out some of their energy. Very handy when you are living in a small hotel room for several weeks!

Trafalgar Square seems to attract local artists that often use chalk to create artwork right on the sidewalk. We were amazed at the picture of the woman below rendered in chalk, just incredible!

We ventured out to Greenwich one day, accompanied by Aunt Ginie who happened to be visiting London during our stay at the hotel! What a great coincidence! We had a tour of the Cutty Sark ship and the kids learned all about what it was like to live on a ship for a long period of time.

We had lunch at Byron's Burgers, an American-style burger and fry restaurant. Their Byron sauce is the closest thing we've found to fry sauce in the UK.

Greenwich is famous for the Prime Meridian, longitude 0°, which goes right through Greenwich. Since there was a queue (that's UK speak for a line) a mile long to get a photo at the Prime Meridian, we settled for a picture just 5 yards away near a big clock.

Our first show in London was a kids musical of Scooby Doo! It was great fun, the kids loved seeing their favorite cartoon characters on stage. And luckily there was a Five Guys Burgers & Fries restaurant right next to the theater, YUM! A little taste of America!