I thought I would put this video on a new post cause a lot of people have already looked at the other one and might not go back to see the updated version. Here is the address to the tour of our house on Google Video.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=2515696414913700707&hl=en-GB
Enjoy,
Cheers
Hi everyone,
It’s my (Luke) turn on this blog thing.
The B&B we stayed in for the first 4 nights was a pretty neat old farm house from the 16th century (pictured). Hilarie was sure it was the jet lag but the first night there I swore it was actually swaying in the wind, I actually started getting a little sea sick! The chandelier was totally swaying, Deanne was there to attest to it, of course she was jet lagged too. We spent most of our time at the B&B resting and trying to find a car. Hilarie’s dad Steve and his wife Deanne were such a great help to us, especially during our 1-4 am parties with the kids. We all really got to see sides of each other that we don’t normally get to.
The farm the B&B is on was beautiful. There were tons of big fat pheasants in the fields and they even had a John Deere tractor. We had traditional English breakfast each day consisting of bacon, fry-bread, sausage, mushrooms, eggs, and, of course, tea. Andrew, our host, even said that I could come back with my friends to “rough shoot” which is apparently a sophisticated way of saying what my friends and I called “if it flies it dies” or shoot anything that moves. Unfortunately, I have since learned that this is not possible as you have to have extensive licensing to even carry a shotgun. We do plan to go shoot clays with the blokes on the shooting club at the school though.
Our biggest necessity once we were finally able to stay awake was to get a car. Hilarie, our resident EBay expert, searched her little heart out and found us a great deal on an Audi (pictured). We drove right over and bought it and have loved it. It actually only cost 450 pounds!! Cars are relatively cheap to buy here but insanely expensive to drive. Gas is about $8 per gallon. We have liked our car and feel that how well it worked out for us is directly linked to the promises of the blessing Gaylen gave me before we left that things would “fall into place”. It truly has been a blessing cause 2 of the other 4 couples still don’t have cars and have had a real hard time adjusting and getting around. It would just not have done for us to be dependant on another couple to get around with 2 kids.
After getting our car we soon drove it stacked with luggage to our new home, the Tupenny Cottage. It is much smaller than we expected but very homey and comfortable (see video). We have settled in nicely and have realized that you don’t need much space when all your possessions fit into a few little suitcases. It is very quiet and nice on the Old Mill Farm and it is only 4.5 miles from the school. Maddy just loves her “England Home”. It has been really good for her to have a home base and when she gets overwhelmed by all the newness we are glad that she wants to go back to the England home.
The day after we moved in we were able to go to our new ward in Stroud. There are about 75 attending members. They were very welcoming and there is even a little girl Maddy’s age, Megan. Megan’s mom Rebecca has really helped us with Maddy. From brining a box full of toys to helping Hilarie organize a play group and getting Maddy into a preschool class with her daughter, she has been a wonderful friend already. Maddy went to her first day of preschool today and loved it. It’s cute too that Megan looks so much like Maddy. They have almost the exact same hair curl, color and all. There is even a guy in the ward that has spent a ton of time in Bluffdale at Camp Williams and knows a lot of the old farm families from Bluffdale.
From as far as we can tell Craig is loving it here too. Aside from having a nasty smokers cough and the few days of fever, the cold wind taking his breath away every time we step outside, and his sister loving him too much, he is just happy. He is starting to eat “real” food and wants to be a part of everything we do (see video and pics). He is still not sleeping very well though but we are optimistic that someday he will.
I am really enjoying attending the Royal Agricultural College or RAC (pictured). It is so neat to attend a school that is dedicated exclusively to agriculture. The whole library is nothing but books on agriculture, heaven!!! Although there are a few very nutty English professors one of which spent a whole class period talking about Jaffa Cakes (you’ll have to look those up online when you get extremely bored, they are tea cakes by the way), there are quite a few professors that are very involved in international agriculture and are globally well known as some of the very best in their field. I am loving the new perspective they bring of agriculture in this part of the world. Something I didn’t foresee was how much they talk about African agriculture. I somehow failed to remember how involved England is in Africa from the colonization times. We have a lot of African classmates that are really neat people. There is even a crazy Russian, Oleg, who is teaching us English swear words I have never even heard before. He is pretty foul mouthed but a very nice kid and actually seems to know a lot about agriculture worldwide. Our other classmates are from Ecuador and China.
Here is your English language lesson for the week: Lories = semi-trucks, cheers = thank you, your welcome, hey, see ya, etc., module = class, boot = trunk, bonnet = hood (of car), bits and bobs = odds and ends, doctors office = surgery, and lastly, apparently the “F” word is an intelligent term that very educated college students must use extensively to prepare them for their future distinguished careers J. Maddy is settling in very well to this distinguished society. Our evidence of this is her new extensive use of the word Mother. Gone are the days of Mommy and Momma. Hilarie is now her “Mother”, but I’m still Daddy.
Here are some pictures for you to enjoy. Also some videos. The only way I know so far to do this is to paste the addresses into your address bar. It then sends you to google video where I have them uploaded. Let me know if this works out for you.
Videos:
Double Decker Schoobus
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-4978411068171403059&hl=en-GB
Craig’s first meal
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=69132095985505416&hl=en-GB
Tiddly Winkey Woo
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=7473180640964165232&hl=en-GB
Maddy Dancing
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=6741453190879052306&hl=en-GB
The Streets of Small-town England
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-8803891678748161823&hl=en-GB
Tupenny Cottage
Please see the post entitled “Tour of our England Home” for this video.
Well, that’s all for now. I am hoping that Hilarie will also write some of her reflections when she gets over her sleepless nights and we get an internet connection at home, we hope. Hope all is well at home, cheers.
The Petersens in England
The past week or so Craig has been giving what I loosely call kisses. Luke was doubtful, but I am sure that’s what he is trying to do. I ask for a kiss and he gives his slobbery face attack, but it’s still a kiss nonetheless.
We took the car back to the airport today and then rode the “tunnel” or subway into London for a bit to see the Piccadilly Square and let Maddy ride “England’s swings”. She has been singing the Roger Miller song with the first line starting “England swings like a pendulum do… “, which isn’t really taking about real swings, but in her experience the only thing that swings is an actual swing, so she’s been excited to ride the England swings. There was a little amusement park there and she actually chose to ride the merry-go-round instead of the swings (she was too short). We had fun but it’s pretty cold and windy so we didn’t spend too much time outside. But we made the boss (Maddy) happy with the “swings” and seeing the “red school buses” (translation: those double-decker tour buses).
When we got here Steve and Deanne helped us with the luggage and we got two cars, one that Steve had reserved and another that I rented to transport our luggage. We couldn’t fit our 12 bags in even a big car, go figure!! We rented a little “van” that had the seats taken out. I just followed Steve, who had a GPS to guide him, and we did pretty well even driving on the wrong side of the road, well other than hitting a few curbs and driving onto an off ramp on the freeway against traffic. We did so well driving that a surprisingly low amount of people felt the need to give us the one finger salute.
When we got here Steve and Deanne helped us with the luggage and we got two cars, one that Steve had reserved and another that I rented to transport our luggage. We couldn’t fit our 12 bags in even a big car, go figure!! We rented a little “van” that had the seats taken out. I just followed Steve, who had a GPS to guide him, and we did pretty well even driving on the wrong side of the road, well other than hitting a few curbs and driving onto an off ramp on the freeway against traffic. We did so well driving that a surprisingly low amount of people felt the need to give us the one finger salute.
I had just asked Maddy not to play in the cupboards while I was packing them up from our first B&B, she didn’t like that (obviously) and said, “This little girl is getting mad!”
Ever since Craig was born I feel like I have put more responsibility on Maddy to help out, and she has really risen to the challenge. She is always helping him in one way or another. If he’s crying she’ll rock him or do what she can, but she still realizes the limits of her abilities. For example, I had run into drop off our extra luggage and she was in the car with her grandma Deanne and Craig and he was fussing. She said to him (like she often does), “Mommy’s coming… She’s almost here.” That didn’t help so she asked Grandma to tell him, “Craigy, Grandma and Maddy are here.” Then he stopped fussing. I guess she knew he just needed some reassurance from an adult.
Later the same night he was crying again and she was getting frustrated. She went over and rocked him in his infant carrier, and then she told me that he was hungry and I needed to feed him. I was in the middle of doing something and told her to wait. She continued to get more frustrated and said, “Mommy I can’t make him stop crying!” She’s such a helper.
Craig has seemed so much older the past couple of days. We don’t know if he started doing some new things a couple weeks ago, but in the rush to get ready for coming here we just didn’t notice, or if he has just picked up these new developmental milestones the past couple days. Anyway, he has become quite adept at using his hands. He would watch us drink from a water bottle and motion for it. He would then grab it and try to lift it to his face. Another thing he has just done is actually wanting to eat what we are. Right before Christmas I gave him his first animal cracker and maybe that developed that taste and desire for food. But in the Boston airport we were having pizza and he seemed to want to eat it, too. I let him gum the crust and he was quite happy. Its amazing how fast they grow.
So, the plane trip was fairly uneventful. The best parts were that Maddy & Craig slept quite well on both legs of our flight over, and that my dad was there to help us load up, unload, and settle into our new adventures in England. The worst parts were Maddy crying at security checks when they had to send her “night, night” (blanket) through the scanning machine. They took pity on her in Boston and let her hold it through the scanner. We were then “selected” for a random search. This wouldn’t have been so bad except for the other worst was that we had all three of the maximum allowance for carry-ons, a laptop, the stroller, a backpack for Luke, Maddy’s Dora backpack, the boppy, three blankets, my purse, and of course Craig to carry through. So when other people fill up one or two plastic tubs, we had 8 plus each time. I can’t think of doing it any other way, though. Moving with 2 kids for 8 months involves a lot of clothes and supplies. People looked at us strangely, but a little discomfort in loading and unloading was worth having everything we need.
Petersens in England Weblog 