First Day of School

Yesterday was a very busy first day of school.  The girls are going to Derby High School and Avery is going to Derby Grammar School (an all boy school).  Don't they look so smart in their uniforms?  Just adorable. 

We were a little worried that Avery wasn't going to make it  to school.  He's been battling some kind of illness with a cough and extreme tiredness for the last few days, and on top of that - a lot of nerves.  But he woke up after a long night of sleep feeling alright, though his nerves were evident.  We were very positive with him to get him excited to go to school and he did go.  I knew that first day would be the hardest but we had to get it behind us. 

All the kids made it through the day wonderfully.  It's a long day for them.  I drop them off around 8am and pick them up between 3:30 and 4.  So there's more time in school, but no time on a bus.  It looks like Alexa will be in Year 1 (which is the Kindergarten equivalent), Mia will be in Year 3 (which is the 2nd grade equivalent) and Avery will be in Year 5 (which is the 4th grade equivalent).  Avery really should be in Year 4 based on his age, but unfortunately his school doesn't have room for him in that grade.  There are only 8 boys right now in Year 5 and there are some openings for him to take Math with the Year 4 boys, so we're hoping that it will work out for him.  The biggest challenge will be his reading and writing level, but we're praying that with some extra work at home, he will be able to catch up. 

In general, all of the children will need some extra work at home.  In England, most of the students start school a year earlier, so even though the girls are placed with the right age group, they will also be behind on the reading and writing.  They should all fit in just fine with their Math skills though.  I'm just hoping that the children respond well to this and it improves them academically for when they return to the states.  I'm already encouraged that Avery brought home 3 books from the school library today and actually was excited to start reading them, I haven't seen him that excited about reading in a while. 

I got home yesterday and got a phone call from the school...they were excited to tell me that one of his classmates wanted to invite him to a birthday party, which is today after school.  I think this will be a big deal for Avery, for him to really get to know the boys in his class...I know it's going to make the adjustment a lot easier for him.  In addition, Avery's school has a sort of field day Saturday morning.  I guess this is a great opportunity for the boys and parents to get to know each other. 

Remember how I said how nice it was that I didn't have to worry about school supplies, just uniforms? WRONG!  We just got the list of school supplies for Avery yesterday, and I failed to find Mia's school supply list in the handbook.  I'm still not sure if Alexa needs any supplies.  I guess it wasn't a big deal that they didn't have their supplies...most kids didn't have everything they were supposed to, so I shouldn't feel too bad.  Oh well, so after a long day at school, we made the day even longer by going to the store last night to get all their supplies. 

Oh, and Avery keeps reminding me that he needs a mouth guard by next week..."Mom, don't forget the mouth guard, Mom, don't forget the mouth guard"......they start playing Rugby on Wednesday :-)

Home Away from Home

I'm excited to say that we are now moved into our house! We arrived yesterday morning and our air shipment did as well. We have most of our clothes, many of the kids' toys and some of my kitchen stuff. We'll be eating off of paper plates until our sea shipment arrives, but it's worth it to have a real home. I can't even put into words how great it felt yesterday to have a full house to live in again.  It was so exciting, I can't wait to show this house to those of you who will visit.  I'm ready...who's going to be the first to come for tea? I'll do my best to look for travel deals and pass those along.


The kids start school tomorrow, so I have lots to do today to get ready....we still have uniform stuff to get.  It's my first time with uniforms so it's an adjustment for me.  But at least I don't have to buy other school supplies on top of expensive uniforms.

I gotta run, but here's a few photos of the house...

Avery in heis new room.  They're all pretty feminine rooms, this is the least femine and one of the bigger rooms as well.

 The girls had lot's of fun decorating their room yesterday.  Stuffed animals completely cover the windowsill.

 Here's the kitchen.  I love the side table...the plan right now is for the side table to be our "office" so I can use the office as my craft room.

Here's the living room with a new TV that Sean requested.  The furniture is really comfy.

Warwick Castle

We went to our first castle together this past Saturday...Warwick Castle.  This castle property dates back to as early as 914 A.D. as a wood and dirt castle, the stone castle was built later in the 12 th century. We had a nice day, dodging brief showers here and there with bursts of warm sun in between.  Warwick Castle is now a bit of a themed amusement park with warrior duels, bird shows, period vendors, museums, a princess tower, catapult demonstrations, and jousting events.  It has an interesting, but complicated history that includes Henry VIII a very noteworthy character in English history.  

 Above is a view of the castle from the outside.

 Above is a view of the inside of the castle walls.  You can climb staircases from within the walls to the top and walk around the tops of the walls and climb to the tops of the towers.  We climbed a lot of stairs on Saturday and captured some amazing views.

 A picture of what's called "the mound" from the inside of the castle.

 Here's Alexa in the Great Hall next to an exhibit of a "knight in shining armor."

As a mother of 3 children who at times can be difficult, I wonder how many mothers would like to have one of these in their homes for those difficult times :-).

Our Apartment

I never did show you all where we are living right now.  This is Birchover apartments. The most interesting room is the kitchen.  You may look at this kitchen and say, "wow, look at all those cupboards."  But no, everything on the left side of the kitchen is an appliance.  From left to to right is our freezer, refrigerator, and washer/"dryer".  I'll explain later why I put the dryer in quotations.  Anyway, it's a rather functional kitchen, only lacking in a dishwasher.  But since we don't have many dishes, that's not a big deal. 

The dining/living room is attached to the kitchen.  Here, Avery and Mia are working on their first email letters to friends in the States. 

Our living room is shown below, 2 love seats and a coffee table, TV, etc.  It works fine for us.  You'll notice the clothes drying on a rack in the background.  That's because the dryer part of the Washer/Dryer doesn't work.  And apparently, that's no mistake.  Dryers in England are condensing dryers, there's no hot air and minimal heat applied during the "drying" process...mainly spinning.  So I could run the dryer for 2 full hours and my clothes come out wetter than they would be at home with my high efficiency washer.  So all of our clothes are hung to dry...and we are learning to wear our clothes many more times than normal before washing.  I'm told that the dryer in the rental house does work better, but it's still nothing like dryers in the states.  I guess it must have something to do with homes not being wired with the power capacity that American dryers consume.

We have 2 bedrooms, this one below is ours.  The kids share a bedroom that is the same size, with a cot on the end of the bed for Avery.  We couldn't get the kids to go to sleep on time when they were all in the same room together, so for now, one child sleeps in our bed until when we go to bed and then we move him/her into the kids room.  Both rooms have what they call an "en suite" which means attached bathroom.

So that's where we are living until next Tuesday.  We just got word yesterday that it looks like our air shipment will be delivered to our rental house on 8/30 so that's moving day for us.  I am very excited to be living in a house again!

Being Brave

Today is our first completely rainy day here.  Being in a strange city, by myself with 3 kids, it's really scary for me to venture out.  Walking to the park, I can handle.  Even driving to the grocery store I've managed, so long as I have the GPS.  But I have yet to drive into downtown Derby, even with Sean.  I forgot to mention that when we picked up the rental car last week they had given our reserved automatic car to someone else so ours is a manual transmission.  Yay!  Fortunately, I drove a standard vehicle about 9 years ago for a few years when Avery was born.  So I'm not totally new to it...but I'm now driving on the left side of the road, with the steering wheel on the right side of the car with the shifter on my left...in a city with absolutely ridiculous road signs.  So far it seems like you hardly ever find a road that is marked with its name...only a sign that tells you which towns are in the direction that the road goes...FUN!

So you see, it would be easy for me to just stay home today.  Cuddle up in the apartment, watch a movie, read some books, let the kids play and eventually go stir crazy.  But then I discovered that this is the last day that the SMURFS movie is playing in the cinema at the mall downtown.  I've been promising the kids that I'd take them to see the movie before school starts.  I was excited to see that the cinema was showing the movie at 10am this morning, so we scrambled to get out of the house by 9:15.  Armed with my GPS, we ventured into downtown Derby which is only a couple miles away.  Unfortunately the GPS doesn't tell you how to get into the parking garage (they call it a Car Park here), so I actually had to use my brain to find it.  We eventually did, and then found our way into the mall...making a special effort to not forget where we were parked.

We found the mall and made it to our seats in the cinema with 5 minutes to spare.  The theater was really nice and we really enjoyed the movie.  We got out a little later than I expected because there was about 25 minutes of TV commercials and previews before the movie even started.  So we needed to get home for lunch, and Alexa was on the verge of a tantrum because she wanted to eat in the mall.  Thankfully, I was able to keep her calm enough to pay for the parking (which has to be done in the mall), and make it back to the car.  We did a few loops around Derby city due to me taking wrong turns, but eventually we did make it back home to the apartment.  Ahhhh....now I can relax.

The whole trip was a bit stressful for me, but I knew I needed to do it.  I'm never going to be comfortable here unless I force myself to be uncomfortable for a while.

Cheers!

While "Cheers" is a word that we Americans use on occasion when sharing a drink or making a toast...it's used very differently here.  So far, what I've noticed is that people say "Cheers" when they are saying good-bye or thank you.  You hold the door open for someone, they say "cheers". You sign off on a phone call, you say "cheers".  You part ways with a friend, you say "Cheers." Kind of neat, I'm sure I'll pick it up soon and then have to break the habit when we return.

Cheers!

Breakfast with a Diva

Yesterday morning I got up and made some eggs for Alexa and myself.  Mia had Alexa in her "salon" before breakfast so I got to have breakfast with a diva this morning.  As Alexa would say...she was so "fashion." 

After getting groceries in the morning (I found sliced cheese by the way!) , we headed over to the park again for some fun.  The nice think about weather here, is that when it says it's going to be a rainy day, that usually means that it may rain or sprinkle for a short period of time and then the rest of the day is fine.  So though the hourly forcast showed an icon for rain every hour, we only had a few sprinkles when we went to the grocery store in the morning and then the afternoon was quite nice.  We even had some really warm sun at times. 

This time at the park, the kids tried the little cars and motorcycle go carts.  These are little electric cars that the kids are allowed to drive by themselves around a track.  They had a great time.