Carsington Water

This past Saturday, we went to a local water reservoir called Carsington Water.  There are no natural lakes in Derbyshire, all that exist have been manufactured by damming water to collect in Reservoirs.  This reservoir has a nice biking/walking path around it and also serves as a wildlife preserve for birds in the area. There were several outposts to quietly watch birds.  My kids really loved watching dozens of these small birds eating at a birdfeeder.  I can't believe how quiet they were!

  We saw a few sheep and this ram as well, not uncommon in Derbyshire.

At the end of our walk, we found a picnic table outside the visitor centre to eat our lunch at.  Tangy Cheese Doritos and yummy peanut butter and jelly...a sandwich that British people would never eat!  They're not big on peanut butter here.





Life with Cooper

Cooper's still settling in just fine.  He really loves going for walks, whether in nature or around town. This has been a great motivator for me to get out walking more as well.  Here he is looking across one of the big fields near our house.

One of Cooper's favorite things in America is laying by the wood stove...either at our house or my parent's house.  Here in England, we'll occasionally fire up the gas fireplace (not nearly as often as in New York), and it didn't take long for Cooper to find his heavenly spot in front of the heat.

Iron Bridge

This past Saturday we took a day trip to Iron Bridge Gorge.  The bridge here in Coalbrookdale over the River Severn is the World's first iron bridge and the area is considered to be "the birthplace of industry."  The surrounding area has 10 museums to see, we really only made it to 2, so we will have to return to see the rest.  We spent most of our time at a childrens science museum called "Enginuity," where the kids learned a lot about building, engineering, pulleys, energy etc. 

The kids could have spent all day playing with this huge hydro power demonstration table, opening and closing valves, playing with the boats.  We had to tear them away to see the rest of the museum.

Building an arch bridge was challenging but fun!

Avery moved a train engine with the help of a series of pulleys.

After Enginuity we found some authentic fish and chips, served in a paper cone and then found our way to the China Museum.   The kids got to explore some old china and also paint their own china roses.

We'll definitely have to return to Iron Bridge to explore some more.  They say you can see all the museums in a day, but that doesn't seem possibe if you want to really enjoy each museum. 

Though site-seeing is fun, we are discovering that the kids really do appreciate their days at home just relaxing.  We have to be careful to not do too many day trips.  They work so hard all week and Avery even has lots of homework on weekends, so we're finding that there really aren't many large chunks of free time for the kids to just relax and play at home.  We also need to remember that the long school days are very exhausting for them, especially since it takes extra brain power when people talk differently than you do.  I'm also missing the occasional days off...Martin Luther King Day, half days, snow days that we have in the States.  Yes, we have more breaks here, but once the term begins, there really aren't any extra days off until the half term break. Sometimes even just a slight break in the routine can be really beneficial.  It's an intense 6 weeks....4 weeks to go by the way...I'm definitely counting.

Cooper

After 4 months apart, Cooper is finally back with us.  The UK had a law that dogs weren't allowed into the country until 7 months after they've received a new Rabies vaccine.  Since we only found out that we were coming to the UK in the spring of 2011, not enough time had passed for Cooper to move with us in August.  Cooper spent 4 months living with our parents and at Christmas we were finally able to reunite with him and bring him with us back to the UK.

Cooper is settling in just fine.  I'm sure the plane ride was traumatic for him, but once he saw us he was happy again.  Since he sleeps so much anyway, I don't think the jet lag was a problem for him.  He's been enjoying a relaxed life here with some adventure in the walks that we take.  In the picture above, he is partaking in one of his favorite pastimes, listening to Mia read.  When Cooper was a puppy, Mia used to read to him when he was in his crate.  And now, almost 4 years later he still loves to be near her when she reads.

Happy New Year Everyone!

For the first time we watched the London New Year celebration exactly 5 hours before our friends and family in New York.  It was quite spectacular with fireworks shooting out of the Big Ben Clock Tower and from the London Eye Ferris Wheel.  Here's a youtube video of the celebration:

We hope you all have a wonderful new year!