And Off We Go...

Goodbye England......

Hello America.....

We'll Miss You, England

I remember sitting in my front yard 3 years ago, watching movers load everything we owned onto a truck to have it shipped overseas. And I remember feeling like I could cry. We were leaving the place we had called home for 9 years, plus all of our family and friends, to move to a new country. All I could think was "What the hell are we doing? What if it all goes terribly wrong?! What am I going to do without a Target just 5 minutes away?!"

How did 3 years go by already? Can I tell you that I'm not really prepared to go back to living in the States? Europe (England included) is just so different, with a different way of living, and I've become so accustomed to it that moving back feels strange. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to miss being here, at least a little. Living in a foreign country has taught me a lot - like how to politely take up multiple parking spaces with my minivan so that I can easily leave a store. It does change you though - living so far away from home. You're away from everyone you love, out of your comfort zone, and without the things you're used to.

I can't even believe how much the kids have grown here. It's crazy to look back at the pictures and see how young they were...how different their personalities were. Living here has changed them too.

3 years appart...They changed so much

There's a part of me that wishes we could have waited to come overseas until they were a little bit older. But at the same time, I'm glad we came when we did because the Mister and I have been able to show them so many things. And who am I kidding? I've been able to cross a lot off my own bucket list --

Like seeing Stonehenge...

And the Eiffel Tower...

And really old castles...

Trying new foods...

And getting my ass broken by a boulder...

Ok, so that wasn't actually on my bucket list, but I will remember it for a very long time. So maybe it counts. (And can I tell you that every time I say the word "boulder" I can't help but hear Eddie Murphy say "That is a NICE boulder!" Lol)

Seriously though, there are so many things that I'm going to miss. Like the church down the street from our house. When we first moved here I absolutely hated listening to the church bells. They were so loud. But after 3 years, I barely noticed them most of the time, and when I did hear them it was really beautiful. And I'm going to miss all of our neighbor's chickens. They're actually really fun to listen to. I'm going to miss the food, and pubs, and the markets. I'm going to miss our friends. Oh I'm going to miss their cat! She is the funniest cat I've ever met.

That's her. She scratched on the door. Looked through the side window. And scratched on the door some more until we opened the door. She comes running any time we're outside, and has basically made our yard her 2nd home. The day our movers came she tried to jump in our kitchen window, so maybe she's going to miss us too.

I'm going to miss the beautiful countryside, the really old buildings, and the cathedrals. I'm going to miss getting to use fun words like trolley, and lorry, and loo. And sometimes I wonder if I'll still say chips instead of french fries when we're in the States. And I'll miss really fun driving adventures like taking the minivan on super tiny roads that it was never meant to be on. Like this one...

That was absolutely a 2-lane road, except that van took up the whole thing. Passing someone was insane. And there were a few times I felt like I might have had a few years shaved off my life when we passed another large vehicle on this road.

It's been such a crazy ride these last few years. We've all been through a lot - individually, and together. I'm so glad we came here (for better or worse). Living in a foreign country teaches you a lot about yourself - what you can tolerate, and what you can't. You learn that there are things more beautiful than you could imagine, and people who are more kind and generous than you thought possible. You learn what is important.

So thanks for having us, England. It's been great. We should do this again sometime.

It's a Sock-tastrophe!

I think it's fair to tell you that I am, by no means, a morning person. I'm the exact opposite of a morning person. I'm the one that purposely sets my alarm for 45 minutes before I need to wake up, sets a second alarm for 20 minutes before I need to wake up, and then continues to hit snooze until, yes I do actually need to get out of bed. And then I lay there. I stare at the screen on my phone, using my fake time-manipulation powers to will the clock to go back about an hour so I can sleep longer. It never works and so I get up. (Stupid fake powers.)

I'm great about getting the kids up on time, if by great you mean I open their doors and say "get up". Sure, I wish I could be one of those awesome moms that goes in their rooms and does all kinds of cute, sweet stuff to wake them up nice and slowly. That's not me though. No one is functioning enough for that crap.

This morning though. Oh, this morning was really bad. Two weeks on an air mattress and my mornings are becoming gradually more sluggish day by day. I got the kids up, made them the greatest cereal breakfast ever, and then sat down. Huge mistake. I had to physically force myself to stay awake. I was just sitting there like "ok, don't fall asleep. Seriously. Stop it. You can't go back to sleep. They have to go to school. OMG! You just nodded off! Get up now before you fall asleep and no one goes to school and they're all stuck at home with you!" I was a mess. Eyes half-open, feet barely leaving the ground when I walked. An absolute mess.

So when my youngest came running into the living room and threw herself at me, headbutting me in the stomach, I was not prepared. She was in complete panic mode - her minion socks were missing. There were tears, and super-fast talking in a language that didn't sound like English, and arms waving everywhere. Shit just got real.

We argued about these socks for 10 minutes. Ten. And she swore up and down that she left them on the table, and now they're gone, and her crossing her heart that "oh yes, mama they did grow legs and walk off because I put them right here. I just know it." And then her getting mad at me because I was still not awake and was not giving the missing sock catastrophe the correct amount of attention. Because that's how I need to start my morning - arguing about missing socks that grew legs and walked off. And the fact that I, as her mother, have failed her and will be adding to her therapy bills later in life by not freaking out about these missing socks.

She took matters into her own hands.

"Missing minion socks. If found please return to ME for a fist bump, or a hug!"

She hung these in the house so everyone knew about the tragedy of her minion socks having run away. (Why didn't I think of that?)

I'll go ahead and let you know that I eventually did find the socks and they were not anywhere near that table at all. They were in the bathroom sink. Because that's where we keep our socks now apparently. And when I picked her up after school with the wonderful news that she could call off the manhunt on her socks, she wasn't even excited. Nope, not a tiny bit. I found them in the coloring bin 30 minutes later.

So now when she freaks out again tomorrow about the minion socks and how they have run off to live with unicorns and fairies in some unknown land, I'll know where they are. And I even changed my phone screen to a note reminding me so that when I stare it for an unmentionable amount of time tomorrow morning, I'll remember too.

Baby, It's Cold in Here

Funny story. Ok more unexpected & ridiculous than ha-ha funny. But whatever.

We've lived in this house for almost 3 years - like we'll be moving out exactly at the 3 year mark. And the day we moved in, we picked up the keys, let ourselves into our new home and the first thing the Mister and I said was "damn it's really cold in here". After a lot of searching and figuring things out we realized that our boiler was broken. It was 34 degrees outside and we had no heat at all. I'll save you the long story here, but the short version is that I stood in front of the oven with all the burners on to keep warm.

Now, here we are in the last few weeks in the house...and the boiler is broken. Again. No heat, no hot water, for going on 3 days now.

There aren't many conversations as absurd as the one when the repairman says "well, yeah, so it's broken like you thought. But I'm not qualified to fix it so you're going to have to wait for the guy who is and it may be awhile". Especially when said repair will fix a broken boiler. And I was all "so, uh, yeah, I called you 2 days ago and said 'hey the boiler's broken'. And they send you to come out and poke it with a screwdriver for 5 minutes to tell me that....oh, it's broken." And then he's all "so, the guy who can fix it is sick so it may be a day or two, but here's a space heater in the meantime." Gee. Thanks, guy.

Yeah. It's winter and we have no heat. No hot water. It totally rocks around here!

And of course, I wouldn't be me, if I didn't drive my daughter crazy while we wait not-so-patiently for the magic boiler-fixing-man to come and give us heat again. After we ate breakfast this morning, I should have been working on her science lesson with her. You know, responsibilities and all. But no. I was all "hey let's go to the store instead...even though we were just there yesterday". Why? Because the grocery store has heat. (She looked at me like I was nuts.)

And I'll go ahead and tell you that whoever decided to spread that rumor that ice cold showers in the morning are "refreshing" has lied to you. They aren't refreshing. They're cold. But it is a great way to wake yourself up. Who needs an coffee when you're standing under freezing cold water, right? Ok, yeah. I still want my caffeine. I couldn't give it up that easily.

Well here's hoping the magic broiler-fixing-man calls tomorrow and says "Congratulations! I can give you heat." Or perhaps he will tell us to try again later. Maybe I'll just start hanging out at the grocery store. And if all else fails, maybe I can just start building an igloo in my living room to pass the time.

Procrastination Problem

 I think my procrastination problem may have reached critical level. It's important to admit that you have a problem, right? Well, I'm pretty sure I do.

I knew those movers were coming...the ones I already told you about. We scheduled them like three weeks ago, so I knew they were coming to pick up our furniture. I sat and thought about it. Thought about how much I needed to do to get ready to ship our stuff. I thought about how insane it was going to be if I didn't do anything to get ready. I thought about all of it between watching episodes of Sons of Anarchy and binge reading a pile of books.

Yeah, I didn't get ready for the movers. Ok, wait. I kind of did. I made the kids clean their rooms and separate out their stuff. And I ran around the house sticking post-its on everything. (Literally.)

Because actually moving all the things I didn't want packed somewhere else would have made more sense, right? And my post-it system seemed like just the right amount of crazy. I'll go ahead and tell you that it didn't help that much, in case you're thinking of doing it yourself one day. All I heard for about an hour or two was "Excuse me, miss?", "Hey Dondi?", "Um, ma'am?" as I ran up and down the stairs, cursing the empty coffee pot. Eventually, I just grabbed a book and some blankets and hid in the corner of the living room where no one could see me. Another awesome decision, right? I just sat there and watched as they barricaded me in with piles of my stuff, and rarely ever noticed I was sitting there. (Yes, that plan does work. You should try it.)

That was my vantage point as they kept filling the room around me. It was kind of like watching a movie, only not.

Now most of my things are gone. And every day I go try to find something only to discover it was packed and is on it's way to my new home. Including a bunch of my clothes. Because, dammit, I forgot to set those aside and didn't mark them with a post-it. And because I sat around for three weeks thinking about maybe, possibly getting up and getting ready for movers but not actually doing it.

I will mention that I saved my makeup from the movers. In a mad-dash of insanity, I ran into my room all "hey there! No no no no no! You can't pack that! Post-it!! I need those!" and pulled it all back out of the box. ....I didn't, however, save my clothes. (We all have our priorities.)

We have more movers coming in a few weeks. And, yeah, I know I need to get ready for those too. But I probably won't. So I'd say my procrastination has definitely become a problem. (Procrastinators Anonymous anyone?)

Tick Tock

I can feel the clock ticking down on our move. The packing company will be here before I realize it and I probably won't be ready. And I think I'm going to completely blame this cold weather -- the ice made me do it defense. It will work, right? Ok. Probably not. But I just have no motivation to get ready for them. I've been waiting for this day and now that it's here and I'm kind of just feeling ...eh...

We found out that we were moving a world away from where we are and they said "oh hey, by the way, you need to be ready to leave in 8 weeks." So I was all "A transcontinental move in 8 weeks? Super!! That probably means I need to start getting a lot done, huh?" Well...yeah...about that. How about I make a lot of plans for moving and then just think about them? Does that sound good?

Every day I add to my far-too-long to do list and schedule all of the appointments like the great wife that I think I am. And I sit and stare at the calendar and growing list of things I really (like really, really) need to be doing and just feel exhausted. So I take a nap. That's totally justified, right? Scheduling appointments is hard work. I mean, I'm remembering to pack my kids' lunches every day and pick them up from school, so I kind of feel like I should get a star. Not a gold one or anything. But maybe a red one.

But in all honesty, thinking about having to go through a 3 hour Agricultural Inspection just makes me want to curl up on my couch and watch tv. Ok...I actually did that yesterday. I thought about all of the things I needed to do and then sat on the couch and watched 3 back-to-back Harry Potter movies with my kids in honor of Alan Rickman. Plus we love us some Harry Potter in this house, so I didn't really need an excuse to veg out and binge watch the movies.

What I do need is something to kick my butt into super high gear. Those to do list things aren't going to do themselves, though that would be awesome. I've thought about trying to take up an espresso habit. You know, one every hour or so. But that seems a bit excessive and I'm kind of afraid it might make me a bit neurotic. So I just sit on my couch and think about it...along with all the things I need to be doing.

My movers are really going to hate me.

And All That Stuff

Part of me is sitting here like "I can't believe I'm doing this right now...blogging...and building a site from the ground up no less...right when so much is going on". Because I'm kind of a masochist like that. Right in the middle of a move across the world (because, yeah) I decide that I need to build this new site now. Like right now. Not in a few months when things have settled down and I've gotten into a good rhythm in the new place. But now. Yesterday even.

I really need to learn some patience.

But here I am. I should have learned my lesson a long time ago - I need blogging like I need new books. (Because that's a lot in case you didn't know. And we won't discuss how many I've bought in the last week.) There are times when my life slightly resembles a circus and for whatever reason blogging seems to help me with that. And yeah we all have our crazy days. But sometimes the crazy starts to out number the not-crazy. Like chicken-chasing days. Have you ever had that? We totally have. We've chased a random neighborhood chicken through our yard for 30 minutes. (And we may or may not have returned it to the wrong neighbor...while they weren't home. I plead the 5th on that one.)

Our mystery chicken. Yeah.

I kind of need this to get the crazy out. To keep me from leaving my house to run errands in my pajamas and slippers, which I did last week in case you were wondering. I even got out of the car and started to go in before I noticed it.

So here I am doing this now. But at least we're in this together, right?

A Very British Halloween

The Beginning of Another Year

Hayden starting 7th grade

Kierstin's 1st day at Witchford Village College, starting 7th Year (a.k.a. 6th grade)

Makenzie starting 6th Year (a.k.a. 5th grade)

It's a Good Exhaustion

So right now you're probably amazed by the fact that I'm back again so soon. (I know. I'm surprised too.) But I had a few free moments so here I am. ((Yay! Don't you feel loved?!)) I kind of still feel like I'm recovering from our Scotland trip, but I think it's the end of summer exhaustion that's getting to me. Well, that and the fact that we had a super busy weekend. Maybe it's some kind of combination of all of it. 

Brian and I realized last Saturday that we had some free time that day and rather than sitting around, we all hopped in the car and took the kids out to a local farm. It's probably the most amazing farm ever created...just so you know. And it is like kid paradise! I really wasn't sure we were ever going to convince ours to leave. I was pretty sure they were going try to quit school and just go live on this farm because it was that amazing. Lol

Having fun with Grandpa!! I don't know why Miss M looks so upset here. 

She really did have a great time...despite the look on her face there.

They got to feed pygmy goats...which are completely adorable, by the way. So freakin tiny!! 

There were these go-carts that weren't really go-carts. Whatever they were, they were excellent for getting kids to use up some extra energy. Going 5 laps around that track had the girls wiped out....for about 10 minutes.

I'm pretty sure Hayden found his calling in life -- cheating at mini golf. It was hilarious to watch, but he was so proud of himself. Lol 

And of course...my favorite part. The corn maze! There's this huge (like seriously, huge!) corn maze that we went through. And yes, Brian and I were making Children of the Corn jokes very loudly. We're obnoxious like that.

Being obnoxious in a corn maze...and getting photobombed by a shirtless kid.

Thanks kid. That sure does make it memorable!

Sunday might have been even more awesome than Saturday. (You know, if you can really top the corn maze.) We spent the afternoon in Cambridge which is always awesome. But we also went punting - Yay!! 

You're probably wondering what punting is, right? I know. Before we came here, I thought punting had something to do with kicking a football. Turns out, in the UK it means riding on a these flat-ish boats down a river. (Like gondolas in Venice, except we were in England and not in a gondola.)

Punting!!

My boys!! I just love these two!

These are 2 of our most favorite people ever sitting with me -- Amy and Mani. 

And I'm so glad they came with us. Punting would not have been the same without them.

All in all, it was a superb weekend. Exhausting, but so great. Actually, remind me another time to tell you the story about my nap on a London tour bus because I was so exhausted. But it was a good exhausted. If you're ever thinking about coming to England, do it. Sure there's all the normal touristy stuff. But there's also punting. And a corn maze.