The Seaside

Want to know the best present nature could ever give me? An Indian Summer in October. The weather here has been SO nice. England experienced the hottest day in October since 1985. 86 degrees baby! So what did we do? Head to the seaside of course (aka the beach in the states. lol)! Andy and I doubted that it would actually be warm enough to play at the beach but boy were we wrong. We put the kids in their swimming suits and wished we had worn ours too! They had so much fun collecting shells and splashing in the sea. Nothing like a lazy sunny day with sand between your toes to renew your spirits!

Wells Next the Sea

Digging

Splashing

Crab Hunting

 There were a bunch of Adorable beach huts lining the shore in the most fun colors!

A prefect day!

School days

Trying to decide where Avery was going to go to school was a bit of a challenge. There are pluses and minuses to attending the base school as well as to attending the British school. But, after much contemplation we decided to put her into the british school by our house, Lakenheath Community Primary School. It is a very charming old building.So far is has proven to be a good choice. She really likes it and says that she never wants to go to an American school again. lol. Her favorite part is that they get to take a bus to a local pool and go swimming every Thursday. Things are a bit different in the british school system so she has some catching up to do, but her teacher, Ms. Arnold, says she is doing "brilliantly" and should be caught up by December. In the states she would be in first grade, but here it is called Year 2. She has already started to pick up a little accent and to use British vocabulary. It is pretty cute! 

Best Friends Avery and Remi ready for Year 2 at their new school

The girls grabbed hands and held on tight to each other  as they walked in

2 Years old already??

Man, that was fast!! I can't believe my baby is 2!! This little girl melts my heart ( and her daddy's too)!!! She can put a smile on my face faster than anything and I can't imagine life without her. I had been collecting ideas for her party all year, not realizing that we would be just moving into our house and not have any of our stuff when the big day came around. The theme was going to be "cute as a button" so just use your imagination because she was lucky to even have a cake. :) But, she was as happy as could be on her birthday. I wish I could have bottled her sweet little excitement up and put it on a shelf. The day before her birthday she kept asking me to make her a birthday cake for her party. it was so cute. Drew kept teasing her and saying it was his birthday and she would look at him sternly and say "No Drew, it Livi's birthday". It made me laugh.
She LOVES muffins, or as she says, "mussins" so we started the celebration with a candle in some breakfast muffins. She was so happy. After Church we had a few friends over to have cake and open presents. The only way I can describe the day is to say she was seriously just so sweet and happy, grinning from ear to ear. She knew it was her special day. Nothing fancy, but it was the best day ever to her.

A few fun facts about Livi

Her favorite colors are pink and yellow
She loves happy faces and makes me draw them on paper all day long
She loves the song "if your happy and you know it" and makes me sing it ALL day long over and over again

She still adores babies
She is a parrot and repeats everything we say
She loves to draw
She loves dancing to music
Her favorite food is cheese and tacos(aka taquitos)
She is talking so much and speaks in 4 word sentences most of the time
She loves to get her brother in trouble

Adores her big "sissy"

She pretty much potty trained herself at 22 months
She is fiesty yet oh so sweet

She weighs a whopping 23 pounds
She still has the craziest hair ever. i swear I brush it, but you would never know it

Livi is a goofball and brings so much joy to our lives! Happy Birthday Baby girl!!! We love you!

Drewism

I haven't been very good about recording Drew's funny sayings this year, but here are 2 that I want to remember.

This may be TMI but Drew goes number 2 about 5 times a day, and he can't wipe his own bum. It gets old REALLY fast. Andy and I "argue" about who's turn it is to wipe his bum. Sometimes we leave him sitting there for a while before we go and rescue him (cruel I know). It is not uncommon to hear "Come wipe my bum" echoing off of our walls on a regular basis. One time he had been sitting there for a few minutes and I hear him yell "Mom, I'm not getting any younger in here!!" I laughed so hard!! He thought he was pretty clever too. He likes to remind me of the time he yelled that from the bathroom.

Andy's family has this "endearing" ways of saying how much they like something. They use the term "medium".  If you ask them how a movie was or dinner, or an event, they will say "it was medium." When I first heard it, I thought it was a little strange, but I have now become accustomed to it and find myself using it every once in a while too. Well, Andrew has picked up on this Ingersoll terminology and started using it also. Except he has added Small and Large to the mix. For example, the other day we tried canned apricots and he said "Mom, I like real apricots Large, but canned ones are just medium." It is So funny to me. It makes me laugh.

Cheers mate!

*note- this was written back in August*

Well, we made it! We are starting our new adventure in England! I'm still not sure what to think of it all. It is a lot to take in, and things have been stressful, but I think once we get settled things will be great. We have lived in 3 different hotels since July 30. I can't wait to get in to our house and to try to get back to normal and establish a routine again. Even better will be when our stuff arrives in October. It will be like Christmas!! I can't wait! The kids have been awesome all things considered. They have their best friends living on the floor above us in the hotel so they are carrying on as normal playing every day. Having the Jones here with us has made the transition so much easier on all of us!

I am finally starting to feel "more comfortable" on the roads. Driving here is kinda freaky. The roads are so narrow and the speed limit is 60 unless you are passing through a village. I think I may have had a heart attack a few times thinking that the on coming cars were going to hit us head on. And, I have yet to go to the right side of the car to get into the drives seat. Old habits are hard to beak. I think someone should follow an American moving to England around with a video camera and do a documentary. it would be quite hilarious. I have felt like such an idiot numerous times. Like when I was driving home from the grocery store and I needed to turn right, so i did. twice. not realizing it was a round about. duh. don't forget to turn on your right blinker to go left around the round about :) I'll get it some day.

Avery was talking to her grandma the other day and telling her all about England. Grandma asked her something about the British accent(which I LOVE by the way). Avery told her that since we are on base, most people speak American. But when we go off base everyone speaks English. :) I thought that was so cute!

We decided to sell both of our cars and just get some junkers to (hopefully) last us for the three years we are here. Which has already proven to be a good idea, mostly. We already got a really bad door ding in our new van which we figured would happen a lot with the narrow parking lots and all. Buying cars here has been a royal pain. Everyone advises not to buy a car within a 30 mile radius of the base because they are pieces of junk. They try to take advantage of the Americans. They do things like fix the car with paper mache and even weld 2 different cars together and make it look new. So we decided to buy a car on ebay. Long story short, it looked great on the outside, but terrible on the inside. We dove 2.5 long hours to go pick it up only to be really disappointed. it had already been a huge ordeal trying to get money transferred to pay for the car, so we were bummed. We decided to stop at a different lot on the way home. We were all tired and ready to be done, so we bought the first car we saw. We welcomed the blue beast into our family.

The last thing that the dealer said before we drove off was don't forget it is a Diesel (Andy was really excited to get a diesel because they get such good as mileage). So we pull up to the first gas station to fill up. I guess in the states all of the diesel handles are green. So Andy sees the green handle, grabs it, and starts to fill up. Luckily, we only had a few pounds on us, so he only put about 6 liters in. As he hangs up the handle he says some choice words as he realizes he put unleaded in the van! oh boy. We are not sure what to do. The squishee machine worker Apu was no help at all. Andy asked a guy who was very helpful and gave us the number to the WRONG FUEL SOLUTIONS company. obviously they must have a problem with this if there is a company who specializes in it. Anyways, we wait around for an hour for the guy to come and drain the gas out of the car. what a day. we were gone from about 7am to 9pm that day. we were glad to get home to our beds!

A midst all the stress and adjusting, we have managed to do a few fun things. One of which was a spontaneous drive to Cambridge. We Loved it. I can't wait to go back. We took a punting tour which takes you down a little river between 7 amazing colleges including Trinity, where Sit Isaac Newton went as well as where the original translation of the bible is held, and Kings college. The history and architecture are so unbelievable. We rowed under the oldest bridge in Cambridge built in the 1600s as well as the only bridge in England where it is still legal to challenge someone to a duel. ha! It was a pretty cool experience. I can't wait to go explore the inside of the colleges next time we go.

The back side of Kings college

I think this is St. John's college, I can't remember but it is gorgeous!

the bridge of sighs

one of my favorite things in England is the plants that grow on the buildings

King's College

p.s. A few of my new favorite words that I need to incorporate into my vocabulary: lovely, brilliant, smashing, bits and pieces, booty(car trunk), cheers!, and mate

AEGD Graduation

Our time in Nebraska was way too short. We really enjoyed our time here. We met some amazing people and made great friends. Andy was incredibly lucky to have a great group of people to work with. All of the AEGD students were wonderful. Their commanders made comments about them being one of the most tight knit groups ever. Not only did they get along great at work, but we often hung out and had BBQs and such together. Our kids were also very fond of all of them. They were so good to the kids!  We will miss you all so much. Good luck at your next stations.

 Andy and Colonel Gamble

 Chrissy, Amber, and Fran with Drew

The month of April

*written in October 2011


Oh what a month. The month that my world was turned upside down and brought about 6 months of sheer craziness!! The month that we found out that we were moving to England and began the frantic journey to prepare for our adventure overseas (have I mentioned that moving overseas is so incredibly overwhelming and a major pain?!?! although life is getting back to normal now, it has been a LONG 6 months). Preparing for the move kind of took over my life for a bit and I am so glad that is all behind me. I better get back to the month of April before I start going off on a tangent about the move. So during the month of April both Drew and Alivia had surgery. Livi got tubes put  in her ears and Drew had his tonsils/adenoids removed as well as tubes put in his ears. Livi's surgery went smoothly and she was a champ. She was a little sad at first, but mostly because we had to wake her up at 5:00 am to go to the hospital. The nurses all fell in love with her and wanted to keep her. She was super sweet after she woke up. Totally drugged and dazed. :) The nurses said that when she woke up she didn't make a peep. she just grabbed her blanket and layed down with her bum in the air and looked around with her big beautiful eyes. When they brought her back to me the only she wanted to do was play with the stethoscope. It was actually quite comical to watch her in her totally drugged up daze.

Drew's surgery was pretty rough. When the Doctor told me that he needed to be out of school for 2 weeks I kind of shrugged it off  thinking they were being over cautious. Wow, it really was a long 2 weeks of recovery. poor kid. He was miserable! The doctor said that his tonsils were HUGE. After removing them they put them in a plastic cup and the doctor said that his tonsils filled up the whole cup which rarely happens. Bigger tonsils = more surface area that needs to recover. I am So grateful that Andy's mom was able to come and help take care of him. She was an angel. I may have lost it with out her help. One of the side affects of the surgery is really stinky breath. They cauterize the throat as they take out the tonsils and it smells like rotten burned flesh mixed with the worst morning breath for over a week. It was hard to even be in the same room with him because it stunk so bad. But Grandma Cindi has true unconditional love. She snuggled Drew and even let him lick her face while playing dogging without complaining once about the stink! haha. The surgery was successful though because he has stopped snoring and can hear much better now which we are so grateful for.

this is the only picture we got we the phone camera :(

Avery also had her dance recital in April. She had such a good time and loved performing on the big stage.

And then of course there was Easter Sunday

The Easter Bunny brought the kids rain boots for England

Livi enjoying a few treats before breakfast

The kids walking up to the ward Easter egg hunt

And that my friends is April in a nutshell

Be our Guest

The kindergarten class at Bell Elementary proudly presents your dinner! The kids all worked really hard in music class to put together a performance of Beauty and the Beast, complete with singing and dancing. For weeks Avery walked around the house singing All the words to Be our Guest. Avery was so excited to get dressed up for the big night. They did such a good job!

Before the Show

Avery and Ms. Schwisow