First Day of School

Today is the girls' first day of school at Merton House. I think they are the cutest things I've ever seen in their uniforms!

The headmaster greeted us as we walked up to the building and still remembered the girls' names from the one meeting we had when we first got here, so that was comforting...to me anyway.

The students here didn't finish school until the first week in July so Peanut and Princess have been on vacation a lot longer than most kids. They were so ready to start!

Both of their teachers seemed really nice, but I was a little sad that we didn't have Meet the Teacher night like we do in the states. I look forward to getting to know them better.

Princess was a little hesitent at first and wouldn't let go of me, which of course made me choke up and want to stay with her all day long. But her teacher asked to help her with a project and she decided that maybe it would be okay. I think deep down she was excited to be with her teacher and new potential friends.

Peanut was off doing work in her classroom before I even knew what was happening and I had to go find her just to take this picture. She has always loved school and I'm so glad she's back.

After school the girls told me about all the fun stuff they did. Princess is reading books like crazy (which she had NO interest in doing before) and Peanut is already calling someone her BFF and was really bummed that today is Saturday and she didn't get to go to school.

Here's a picture of day 2, which they loved just as much as the first day =)

Merton House Prayer

Thank you for the yellow sun, the blue sky and the green grass.
For the fun we have with our friends and our family.
For our health so we can play and for our brains so we can work.

Help us to aim high and succeed where we can without being selfish.
Help us to be kind and caring and to help others when they need it.

Thank you for all the people and love in Merton House.

Amen.

Our Piece of Chester

Welcome to Chester! We arrived in town after a short 4 hour drive from London. While getting out of London was one of the biggest automotive challenges we've ever faced, the rest of the drive was much like any American highway drive. Once we got to Chester we phoned our leasing agent and no one answered, we figured since it was the lunch hour that they'd taken a short break. However, when we phoned the agent appointed to us by MDH's company we were told that the owners of the leasing company had taken all the clients' money and skipped town. Not only does this mean we lost our deposit, but the keys to the apartment were also inside the leasing office. To make things even more exciting, Drew had been allowed to put all the luggage that he travelled with originally in the apartment and the owner was on vacation until August 20th. Woohoo! After everyone pulling some fast strings, the owner's mother-in-law drove the spare set of keys to a friend, who met our agent, who brought them back to us and we were finally allowed in our apartment. A huge thank you to the owner who was kind enough to let us in even without any official paperwork...
The girls in our new living room...

Our kitchen...I'm sure you all recognize the oven, but what you can't see it that the next cabinet opens as a dishwasher and the one beside that is the washer/dryer =)

The washer/dryer as one unit with no actual words on it to direct me really scared me at first but I think I've got the hang of it now. And after standing in the laundry soap aisle at the store for 20 minutes I've found something that gets our clothes clean and doesn't irritate anyone's skin =) However, it holds about 1/4 of the amount of clothes as our American washer so I do laundry A LOT. But I can only do warm and hot load in the morning before we lose all the hot water because our hot water heater only reheats at night.

This is the master bedroom before we put sheets on and before all of our stuff was delievered to cover every inch of the floor except for a path to my and MDH's sides of the bed.

This is the park just across the street from our house. It also has a playground and lots of open space to play catch or turn cartwheels or whatever. I don't know what I would do without it, we go there everyday.

This is the train that runs around the park. It only costs 75p for the kids to ride and it's actually pretty fun!

Here is the teeter-totter at the playground, neither girls weighs enough to make it go so I have to help.

In front of our apartment building...

Our trip to the Chester Zoo. The monkeys were the best part. We saw the biggest, hairiest ape I've ever seen. I wish I had been fast enough to get a picture of it.

This is our upper balcony. It's the 4th floor of the building so it has a pretty good view of our part of the city. The weather has been so nice lately we've been able to sit up there quite a bit.

That's our little part of Chester. The next time I go into the heart of the city I will bring my camera and show you around town. Cheers!

Here We Are

Alright, after much anticipation here is my first blog from Jolly Old England! Our first two days we spent in London while MDH worked out of the Harlow office. Our first dinner was at a Mexican restaurant...I use the term "Mexican" very loosely.
Since our hotel room was about the size of our closet in Texas, the girls and I tried to keep ourselves busy out of it, which turned out not to be too difficult. The first thing we did was buy a ticket for the tube. Since our hotel was on the west side of London we took the train all the way to the east side to see the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. We got to see some demonstrations about the weapons they used way back when and Peanut thought these were very cool. Princess was more interested in the Crown Jewels.

Then we headed over to Westminster - "look kids, Big Ben, Parliament" and this cool new farris wheel that I guess is a fancy restaurant-type thing.

We also went to see Westminster Abbey which Princess was very excited about because I told her the Prince and Princess got married there. However, since I spent a ridiculous amount of money getting into the Tower I didn't have enough left over to pay for the Abbey (which, seeing as it's a church and all, I expected to be free...my mistake).

We then climbed on the lions at Trafalgar Square and ate the best fish and chips I've ever had.
Day 2 - we are now pros at riding the tube and we're headed toward the National Gallery. I love art so I'm very excited about this. However, the girls' idea of looking at art and mine differ vastly. Whereas I like to study and ponder, they're more casual observers. The best part was that Peanut got to see the original "Sunflowers" by Van Gogh which she painted and had entered into an art show last year.
We tried to get into Buckingham Palace at 4:30 but apparently they stop selling tickets for the current day at 3:45. So we walked down the street to Marks & Spencer and bought a delicious picnic lunch to eat in Hyde Park. We found a bunch of kids sliding down some sort of marble stucture and it looked like fun so the girls had a go.

It wasn't until about an hour later that I saw this...
My apologies to the residents of Canada.

Then we were on our way to Chester...but that's a whole other blog =)

Since I now have a job and run into funny people and read a lot more books I am hoping I will actually come up with interesting things to talk about. So I want to establish myself firmly in my blogging community…even though there are only 2 people who read it so far. But anyway, let the introductions begin.First and foremost I would like to introduce my children, since they are the center of my world. For internet purposes, they will be known to all as Peanut – 5 and Princess – 4.
This is Peanut. She got that name because she is my firstborn and that’s why my dad used to call me. She will also answer to Monkey because she climbs on EVERYTHING. She’s super coordinated and has her daddy’s everything…natural athletic ability, hair, eyes, tendency to negotiate, everything. She just started soccer last fall and loved it. She can tell you exactly how many goals she scores in each game even though they’re not supposed to keep score. She is a genius (and I’m not just saying that because I’m her mother) and loves going to her private kindergarten class and bringing home homework! Who wants to bet that won’t last? She is very sensitive and a little Type A, which can be a rough combination. But all in all, she is my angel and I wouldn’t change a single thing about her.

This is Princess. We call her that because, very simply, she is a princess. She truly believes she is a princess and she acts like one. This can be very cute, like when she comes down the stairs holding her dress so you can see her “slippers”, or very aggravating, like when I tell her to do something and she replies, “Princesses don’t do that.” She is the girliest of the girly-girls, which is fine by me because I am too. She is the spitting image of me when I was that age. She loves all things pink and sparkly and got her ears pierced for her 4th birthday. She wants to take ballet and I have high hopes that one day, we will get to watch her on a show like Dancing With the Stars. This child is beautiful (and I’m not just saying that because I’m her mother either!) but she is also beautiful inside. And even though she can be one stubborn little mule, she has a very sweet heart and cares about everyone.

So those are two of my babies. Baby #3 we will call MDH. He is quite a catch! He’s smart, good-looking and works very hard to provide for our family. There is nothing he loves more than his girls and they know it! He went to college on a soccer scholarship and there is no sport that he is bad at. Tennis, bowling, basketball, baseball, soccer, swimming, badminton…it doesn’t matter. If he tries it, he will be better than most. He says it makes him embarrassed when people point this out, but I think he secretly likes it =)

Last but not lease is baby Dixie. She joined our family two years ago after being abandoned on the side of the road and picked up by the local animal shelter. She was a little spastic and chewed up a lot of shoes at first, but now she can run outside and comes back when she’s called and sleeps right between MDH and I every night. She has truly become a part of our family.

So that’s all of us. I hope you enjoy reading about our adventures (and misadventures) and my random thoughts. I would love to get responses and be able to correspond with a wide variety of people, so feel free to leave me a message or two!

I'm Always Right...I Think

Last night I was reading a book that my sister gave me for Christmas, What I Know Now – Letters to My Younger Self. It is a compilation of letters from strong, accomplished, powerful women to themselves at whatever age they felt they needed the most guidance. So far, I have found most of these letters very wise and insightful. However, after I read the introduction for Senator Barbara Boxer (D – California) and knowing where she’s from and what she stands for, I immediately thought that there is no shred of wisdom this crackpot can impart to me. I think God heard that thought and said, “wanna bet?” Here is what Senator Boxer had to say…

Dear Barbara,

You’re full of fire. You’re passionate about quality education, safe streets, the environment – all of these things. I know you feel these things in your heart and your feel them strongly, but look, you have to understand that the next person may hold their beliefs with the same amount of passion that you have. Don’t be so judgmental about other people. Don’t be so quick to dismiss another human being. Don’t jump to the conclusion that another person just doesn’t get it or isn’t wise enough just because he doesn’t agree with you.

The name of the game in politics is to move forward an issue you deeply believe in. You’re just starting out and young enough to be impatient when people don’t see your point of view. Stop and listen to what you’re saying: I can’t believe you feel that way! And How could you possible think that way? You’ve shut off the potential to learn from that person you’re talking to and you’ll be less of a person for it. In the end, you’ll lose what matters most – the chance to advance an issue you care about.

There’s something else you may not want to face: It’s easier to be judgmental. It’s less work to see everything in black and white. But every single person is as important as you are and has a story to tell, just like you do. Open up your mind to other points of view – and you may not have to experience how losing an election can take you down a peg or two.

Your staunchest supporter,
Senator Boxer

I have never been so quickly corrected or convicted before. I may have even blushed at my harshness when I finished reading. I generally consider myself to be extremely flexible and open-minded. It was a good reminder to me that that quality is a skill that needs to be practiced and it doesn’t come easy.

Heaven, not Harvard

This is an artical my dad gave me to read. I absolutely love what she has to say about the way we push our children today. They only get to be wide-eyed and innocent for so long, why are we trying to take that away from them?

The Joys of Not Competing by Betsy Hart
(Rocky Mountain News - Friday 11/2/07)

I'm not sure when I lost the competitive-parent race. But make no mistake, I lost. Or rather, decided early not to compete.

I'm not sure when it all began. But my kids didn't go to preschool because that seemed rather unnecessary to me, and I wanted them home for those years anyway.

Later my then-second-grade daughter, along with her classmates, was tested as a matter of routine for the "gifted" program, which began in third grade at her public school. I was barely aware of the testing. So I was surprised when I received an e-mail from the teacher to all of the parents, literally begging them to stop barraging her with inquiries about the "cut-off" for the gifted program before she herself had the information.

So, I was more than a little pleased to read "Rush, Little Baby: How the Push for Infant Academics May Actually Be a Waste of Time - or Worse" by Neil Swidey of The Boston Globe. Featured in the recent Sunday Magazine, it was a great profile of parents who push their littlest kids to intellectual extremes. And for what? Several studies released in recent years show that such efforts have no postitve effect on the child's cognitive development. But Swidey says that's just one part of the picture.

Flashcards for babies "might actually be no more extreme than the increasing mania among professional parents to armor their youngsters with every educational enrichment program available...all at the expense of old-fashioned but vitally important unstructured play." I wonder: Just how many parents today would admilt to having a wonderfully average child? Maybe I'm not on that track because of how my parents raised me.

I'm the youngest of five. Yes, there were a few horseback-riding and ballet lessons. But that was about it.

Only, that wasn't "it". Our house was full of books, my mother read to me a lot and pursued an advanced degree and professional success, my father was busy supporting the family, and my parents' friends were interesting and our home was one where ideas were discussed and debated.

My parents' world didn't revolve around me. They wanted their children to become whole people of character. What a difference, I think, from many of thoday's parents who are on the competitive track.

I know that the "competitive parents" love their kids like crazy, too, and want the best for them.

But I also know I want so much more for my kids than a Baby Einstein DVD could give them, even if it worked. When it comes to my children, my ultimate goal for them is heaven, not Harvard. If they go to the latter on their way to heaven, that's great. But if I reverse that equation, I've failed them.

Um...

Okay, so I don't really have a lot to say...ever. But it seems as though i have a million tracks of thought running through my head, so i thought maybe here, i could let them all out.

i have a couple of friends who blog and they always seem to have interesting things to say...i'm hoping this fabulous quality will come with writing more often. besides that fact that i feel like i have nothing to write, i feel like anytime i do want to write something, it is not of interest to the general "blog" population. and i also feel that spilling my guts may turn out to be somewhat negative. which is funny since i always fancied myself to be a delirious optimist.

please...tell me what you think.