Category: family

My Parents’ Last Day in America

for awhile.   They are flying to Italy for a 3-year job assignment tomorrow night.  Yes, they are going, even with the ash floating around, and not by Royal Navy ship, either.  🙂   More like an American Navy flight.

How amazing would it be to fly from America to Italy to live for 3 years?    I keep pressing Ian to move to France for several months, but “no go” so far.

Anyway, they’re off to Italy, and it doesn’t really seem so far away.   Maybe 2 years ago, I would have thought that… but my world has opened up quite a bit since then.

It’s odd to think my parents could meet up with my family-in-law much quicker than we could.

I think my dad may have to change the name of his blog.  🙂

A Year Ago Tomorrow

.. was when I was leaving the UK to come home and file our fiance visa. Somehow, 1/2 an Ambien and knowing Ian was coming to America to stay made leaving a bit easier.

April 1 is the anniversary of our filing of the fiance visa. Gathering all the information together was a nightmare, especially while we were 6 hours apart. It really helped that Ian and I were together last March.. filling out forms, digging up supporting evidence of various things and photocopying what we needed. It would have been a long, drawn-out nightmare otherwise.

And here we are… married, legal residents, just filed our taxes and able to do stuff together after a long 7-month separation.

It’s happy and symbiotic.

Swimming Gone Swimmingly

TLK started swimming lessons again this morning after around a year hiatus.  She’s in level 4, where she has to swim required strokes the whole length of the pool.

I was worried at first.   I mean, she IS a fish, but all those summer days in the sparkling pools didn’t actually require too much work on her strokes… just a lot of  jumping in the pool and diving to the bottom of the pool for various things.

Some of her classmates struggled with the first stroke: the crawl stroke.   They stopped 1/4 of the way down the lane for help with the stroke, but they were doing what I would expect a person to do after being off lessons for 6 months.

TLK’s turn came up and she was down the lane in a matter of seconds.  We were so excited.  I was so pleased, I cried a bit.  I’m soppy that way.

She can’t wait to use the diving boards.   I have a suspicion she may actually have to dive off one instead of jumping off.   That will be exciting, too.  🙂

Highlights of the March Get-A-Way to England

I arrived at 6:40 am last Friday in Heathrow Airport.   The flight across the pond wasn’t remarkable, really, except for the usual “Are we there yet?” voices playing in my head.   3 or 4 hours into the flight, I am silently urging the tail wind on… “Push, dammit, push!”

I envision Ian standing there in the airport.  I know he’ll be there at least an hour early.  Waiting.

The plane landed unexpectedly.   It was because I was zoned out when we got near Heathrow and I didn’t realize we were THAT close to the ground.   This is a little frightening, really.   Big noise; not expecting to be that chose to the ground…

We went home and took shower, took a nap, went out to eat at a lovely Indian/Mexican/Thai restaurant in the Theater District.    We trekked through the MK mall, where the jet lag started to upset my stomach.   We went home to lounge around for awhile and then, much later, ate curry and watched a Greek film.

The next day, after a walk in the market and Ian shoving me out of the market (I was in shopping mode), we headed to St. Ives to visit Jane and Fletch.   Lovely conversation, watching rugby at the pub, eating chinese, drinking Guiness and random drinks along with way, and talking about the future ensued.

In the morning, Ian and I woke up to a full English Breakfast (quite yummy… even the blood pudding) which was ready to eat (this is excellent service, innit?)    Then it was off to see Ian’s mum, sister and nephew for mum’s day.  We bought plants and a stuffed fox and had a really nice lunch.   I love spending time with Ian’s family.

Then, it was off to Warwick to see a castle and listen to poets do their thing.  It was fun to meet the poets finally.  They’re a fun group of people, really and I was so excited to be watching them in person!  There were moments of laughter and uncertainty (Mark wrote a new poem which we thought he might strip completely down for).  lol  We drove Danni home and I listened to poets talk about their art form, which was quite interesting.   Everyone did such a wonderful job presenting their poems.

Monday was spent mostly lounging around, after having driven all over England the day before.

Tuesday, it was out to Cromer after picking up Ian’s dad and girlfriend.   We had a fab time wandering through shops and going down to the sea.    The North Sea is so much COLDER than any sea I’ve been around, and quite rocky.   I loved it!   We had fish and chips, which were wonderful, and a dressed crab which was really fresh and yummy.

Then it was off to a proper English pub to hear Darren’s band play.    It was fun to meet Ian’s close friend an

the band was excellent.   And wine was good.   It had been ages since I’d been in a pub listening to bands.   It was SO much fun!

Wednesday, we took off to Jane’s house for several hours just for a chat, some biscuits and gravy and some hamster annoyance (this is a sport, people).

Thursday, day of photocopying stuff, visiting Willin Lake and playing like kids in the playground and laughing SO hard as we whirled around on the playground equipment.

The Economic Fair

My daughter had an “economic fair” at school today.   It was part of the social studies segment in which they study… economics.

Earlier this week, TLK and her friend got together and made valentine chocolate lollipops.   I’ve never seen candy made before, so it was interesting to watch (and really easy).

Today, they set up booths and sold their items.    The parents were invited.   Upon entering the classroom, we were all handed loads of fake money.    We went around to various tables and asked the kids how much their items were.   Some of them were quite the sales people.   While I was buying a chocolate lollipop, the boy at the next booth said, “I have bookmarks.  I had help making them.  They’re only 3 tickets.”

How could I resist?

I ended up with quite a stash of popcorn, cookies, chocolate lollies, a clay dinosaur and a bookmark.

This was a brilliant plan!   😀

With their profits, the kids were allowed to go shopping amongst the leftover items for sale.  I’m interested to see what TLK comes home with.

My Dad’s Birthday – Yay!

It is my dad’s birthday!  If I was closer than 1300 miles away, I would make my dad this:

 

Ten Cool Things About My Dad

  1. He knows the answers to all sorts of random things.  🙂
  2. He cooks awesome Chinese food and popcorn.
  3. He can drive patiently behind a city bus.  And like it. (ok, maybe not)
  4. He was late for work more times than I can count (when I was in junior high) because I had to get my hair just right in the morning and missed my bus.
  5. He’s very diplomatic.
  6. He builds cool cars and lets me drive them (even though when I was 15, I attempted to “pick up mail” by driving very close to the mailboxes).
  7. He speed reads, which means he always needs books (for easy gift-giving)  🙂
  8. He notices people needing help (like homeless people in need of a meal whilst his company is having a picnic) and gives it to them if he can.
  9. He plays electric guitar (and likes Guns & Roses)
  10. He’s an engineer, so he can build just about anything, including furniture and dresses (evidently)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

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What I Did During My Christmas Vacation

It was an AMAZING holiday.     Ian arrived in Omaha on Christmas Eve (this was the short trip for him, in the end!).    The arrivals board said the plane was on time, yet no plane.   After 1/2 hour, I was getting a little worried curious about where the plane was.   I was less concerned when I googled the flight from my phone and saw the flight was running a little late.  🙂

The flight arrived.   People from it started trickling into the terminal.   I watched as some greeters ran hysterically up to the people they were meeting, and thought about what Ian said before:   “The arrivals lounge is the happiest place in the world.”

I spotted Ian approaching the exit from the terminal into the arrivals lounge.    I’m not sure what happened after that… one minute he was not here and the next, we were hugging each other.  

After finding his luggage and the car, we headed off to… Taco Bell (one of the few restaurants open on Christmas Eve).   He has decided he likes chalupas.

Other things:

  • We opened loads of presents.   I got a lot of art supplies (pencils, paint, pads, etc), a curry book, a CD, a couple of drawing books and loads of other things. Spoiled?  Yes!
  • Harassed FedEx for a special food packet from my brother.  🙂
  • We went to Kansas City to visit my brother, SIL, niece and nephew.    We went through downtown Kansas City, ate barbeque (required in Kansas City) and had a big dog wash.   Also, my nephew decided the contour of Ian’s head was just perfect for driving his truck over, especially his eye.    🙂    Too cute!
  • I made pancakes.   We ate a bunch of them.
  • Ian drove on the Interstate.  We’d warned everyone else to stay off the Interstate, but it was really not necessary.  He’s mastered US highways, and even a few exit/entry ramps.   It was nice to have someone else drive, and he seemed to really enjoy it.
  • We spent 5 HOURS at the zoo.   Ian speaks to animals.  They talk back to him.   It was fun to watch his reaction to the zoo.     It was so much fun, and we were terribly exhausted by the end of the day.
  • We watched the Queen’s Christmas Message with great interest.
  • We went to the Joslyn Art museum, where we spotted plenty of American Indian statues and paintings.    At the end were a few famous works, like Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (Petite Danseuse de quatorze ans) (Degas), Small Country Farm at Bordighera (Un coin de ferme à Bordighera) (Monet), and even a Renoir.
  • Visited the Whole Foods Market, where I became a little worried that Ian was seriously contemplating taking up permanent residence within the store.   I love this place, too.   🙂   We ate a panini stuffed with roast beef and gorgonzola and drank coffee and looked around at various grocery items.  It was lovely.
  • We toured the Old Market, ate lunch here (thai salad, nom), and went to the mall, which was not so different from the mall in Milton Keynes.
  • We cooked lots of wonderful food:  Christmas dinner, English breakfasts, chicken enchiladas, curry… all sorts.   It was all good.    I was mostly the prep cook, but hey, I did a meal or two here and there. 🙂
  • We played with dogs (who really enjoy Ian’s dog-friendliness) and snuggled up on the sofa.
  • We went ice skating!
  • We visited my work, where he received the seal of approval from my friends/coworkers
  • Ian and TLK got along famously.
  • We taste-tested several types of beer.    I even got to have a Leffe.
  • One very jet-lagged Ian returned to the UK, after what seemed like 2 days of travel (thanks to the 5 hour layover in Cincinnati)

I wouldn’t have traded this week for anything in the world.  It was perfect.   It went entirely too quickly.  

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