Neglected

I have not forgotten about you, dear blog-reading friends! In fact, sometimes I compose snippets of posts in my head while I'm brushing my teeth or washing the dishes...or spacing out while staring at the piles of clutter in various places around our house.

*Cringe*

It's the thought that counts, right? :)

I'm pleased to say that I have officially unpacked every box...as of Wednesday, I believe...just shy of one week from when it was delivered!  Unfortunately, the moving company is not able to pick up the unpacked boxes/mounds of paper until Tuesday...so it's sitting stacks, literally to the ceiling, in our entry way:

...and behind the door in the study.

It was even worse when we had all the FMO furniture to deal with, too. This was after only 2 days of unpacking...and you can't see all the boxes blocking all the hallways. :)

This means we can't put up shelves in the entry way...which means I have nowhere to put the mounds of stuff cluttering the floors.  This is frustrating to me, but I'm surviving. :) Truthfully, I'm pretty pleased with how quickly things have gone...AND we have managed to keep up with school at the same time! Yes, be amazed! In all honesty, if I hadn't been able to finish the unpacking this past week, something would have HAD to give; there is no way I could've kept up that pace without dying.

The kids are doing UH-MAZINGLY well. The girls, especially, have been a big help. They are motivated to work quickly, partly so they can be done in time to watch "Clone Wars," which comes on AFN at 3:30 Monday-Thursday, and partly so they can be the one to help Ian read the instructions on his worksheets. (Who could've guessed that THAT would be so inspiring?!)

The weather? Well, overall, I kinda think it's crummy. We went over a week without seeing the sun...at ALL. In fact, for at least 4 days (maybe 5?), it was foggy. THE. ENTIRE. TIME. (For 4-5 days straight.) I am not accustomed to this.

The sun must've peeked out near the horizon the other evening, because we were treated to an absolutely dazzling sunset, one that even Kansas would be hard-pressed to rival:

This was just taken with my phone, and it doesn't do it justice. Some of the little bubbles of cloud hanging down, the parts that are the brightest pink, looked almost within reach...almost like neon cotton candy.

But it still doesn't offer quite the same refreshement as having some brightness during the day.

So today, when I got up and there were SHADOWS outside, I had to get my camera!

It is truly amazing what a little sunshine can do for a person.

And it really was a LITTLE sunshine. It didn't last long...

Taken less than 10 minues after my sunny picture

It was also COLD, hovering just a degree or two above freezing. With cold, damp weather like this, as you can imagine, the kids aren't spending too much time outside these days. Instead, they've been doing a lot of reading and a lot of coloring.

This is one of Ian's masterpieces. Don't I look lovely with my two luxurious strands of hair? :) Sweet boy.

I'm excited to get to launch into our next art activity this coming week. (More to come in another post!)

In other news, Emily lost a tooth the other night. The Tooth Fairy visits our kids.

Our Tooth Fairy forgot. Two nights in a row! :( So last night, I decided to try my hand at some Tooth Fairy politics:

Scott slipped it under her pillow with a 2Ł coin, and I dreamed of what an awesome response we'd wake up to in the morning.

But this morning, we woke up to Emily knowing.  Turns out, Scott woke her up when he went to retrieve the tooth...and his sly coverup didn't work for our ultra-smart 9-year-old. It was time. So, we had 'the talk' with her, and she cried (and I tried not to cry), but then she lit up because she gets to be "in" on the secret now.

At THAT point, she confessed that she couldn't read the letter from Twila Sparklefang because the font was too small, and she didn't have her glasses. Once she read it, she totally cracked up! I'm still counting it as a win, even though I really am kinda sad to have the "magic" be over for her.

And now...I have to go. Scott made some jalepeño poppers (the frozen TGI Friday's kind from the commissary) and we have a movie to watch.
TTFN...Ta-ta for now! :)

Cambridge!

Our family took our first trip into Cambridge today. It seems like such a huge city, even though it's only about a quarter of the size of Wichita. There are huge, double-decker buses everywhere, and the streets and sidewalks were packed with people! And this was on a Thursday afternoon! I can't imagine what it must be like on Saturdays or market days! (...if there is an outdoor market there??)

We tried to plan our outing, but being totally unfamiliar with the place and how public transportation works here, well...it was just a good learning opportunity. We intentionally decided to go light on the sight-seeing this time, only aiming to visit one museum. We were successful in that, and we figured out the "Park and Ride" that's most convenient for us and learned some valuable lessons in navigating the crowded streets.

Here are some pictures from our outing, most of which are from the museum because I was too busy trying to keep up with kids and not getting pushed into the street to take many outdoor pics.

We parked our car just outside Cambridge and took the double-decker bus into town. The kids thought it was awesome each time, but especially when we rode on the top level at the end of the day.

It was cold, gray, and drizzly the whole time, but it was still really crowded. You can't tell much from this picture, but just take my word for it.

The entrance to the courtyard by the museums

We let the kids pick which one to go to...we only had time for one. They picked the Sedgwick...after coming from Wichita, who could resist that name? (Or the picture of the dino skeleton?) 

More of the courtyard

The stairway up to the front door 

Right inside

Emily with some aquatic specimens. :)

In front of the Plesiosaur fossils

This flipper was bigger than Collin

For all our hunter friends :)

Lots of this guy's work around...most is really interesting. Some...well...

Some of Darwin's stuff

Statue of Adam Sedgwick, who began the museum and acquired a good number of the artifacts 

"Raindrops on roses" pretty flowers :)

Next time, now that we know how the bus system works and have figured out how to navigate the roads a little better, we plan to go to a more kid friendly place. The museum was cool, but it's not really geared for people without a paleontology background...most of the signs/labels on things were in latin (I think?), so we didn't even know what we were looking at in many cases. Still, it was neat to see all the fossils, browse the mineral room (not pictured...but lots of pretty crystals and gems in there), and the collection of meteorites! The kids enjoyed the fossilized land carnivores the most, I think:

We also found a couple of large malls (4 stories, and one of them had an additional 4 levels of parking above that) and some nifty little shops downtown. There are some large, open parks that we hope to explore, too...but maybe not until it gets a little warmer. I'll try to get more pics of the town itself then.

Progress

This afternoon, I drove that same route from our house to RAF Mildenhall. No shaking, no crying, and only a few moments of white-knuckling!!

Hooray! Progress feels awesome. :)

God is good. Please keep praying. :)

Random Stuff to Share

Playing "Four Corners"
That's Collin with the blanket over his head, and Ian zooming to a new corner

Also, I realized that I'd shared this on Facebook, but not here on the blog. So, for those of you who haven't already seen the weirdness that are British commercials, I give you:

That is all.

Have a great day/night! :)

Homesick

I guess I've been a little homesick this weekend. That seems to cover the generally wistful, somewhat blue demeanor I've been sporting in spurts over the last couple of days.

I really don't want to sound like I am complaining about things here. We like it a lot, and we see God's hand of provision, leading, and protection daily in so many ways. We feel incredibly blessed to have found vehicles, a house, and people to connect with so quickly. School, although we are only one week into it, has been an absolute blessing rather than a taxing chore. The children have repeatedly warmed my heart by their sweet thoughtfulness, diligent work ethic, and tender sensitivity in every situation they have encountered. They truly are resilient and courageous, and many days, I reel back, amazed at the 5 little blessings the Lord has entrusted to my care.

Since I already wrote a lengthy post about it, I won't go into more detail about the driving issue...but I do think it's one of the biggest catalysts to my feeling so...foreign here. I miss my home, my church, my friends, my (extended) family. I miss everything being accessible, and I miss knowing how/where to find whatever I need. (Does anyone know where I can make photocopies here? Or get polymer clay? Or find a critter keeper?) I miss the comfort of having all my things. All my baking stuff would be handy with this cold, wet weather; I'd love to curl up on MY couch (which is actually soft and comfy) with a blanket and some hot tea; I want to organize our school books onto shelves instead of having piles all over the floor...and I want actual BOOKS for Ian to start reading...because he is ready. This is from our first day of school:

This morning, the kids and I tuned in to last week's sermon from our Kansas church. (I chickened out driving to church here today. It was pretty foggy...Scott even called from work and said he wouldn't take me out driving in this, which actually made me feel a little better and less wussy.) I miss our church, though. I miss the teaching, the Sunday School, the Bible studies, the classes and programs and friends for the kids... I just miss home.

I also know this is fleeting. I knew there would be periods of time like this. Moving from Texas to Kansas, only 6 hours drive away, was hard (and it was compounded by me not handling it very well.) I assumed that moving from Kansas to the UK, across a whole ocean from everyone/-thing familiar, would be much harder, so I'm trying really hard not to make the same inward-focused mistakes of perspective that I did before. So far, it's not as hard as I expected...but it's still going to take time, and I need to be patient with the learning curve.

Patience is never one of my strengths, but if this can be used to develop it further in me...well, then praise God! (And may glorifying Him through learning it be my aim!)

And now, I have to chuckle a little. It's just a little after noon, and though it's still foggy, the clouds starting to lift a little and I can see a patch of blue sky clearing. A little sunshine sure can brighten what is dreary. What a nice metaphor for my attitude. :)

...and Frightened Miss Muffet Away!

I think I've said this before, but I am convinced that there is a reason why 94% of all nursery rhymes ever penned in England involve spiders. (That statistic is made up, but it's likely pretty accurate.) :)

Do you know what likes to come out in September???

NOTE: This is not my arm.

GIANT HOUSE SPIDERS!!!

And let me tell you, they ARE giant, y'all!

We have found 3 in our house, and one in the shed. At first, I thought they were just garden spiders...that maybe the kids had unwittingly let them in through an open door. (It's hard to imagine that they could squeeze into the house another way...they're so big, they NEED a door!) But, no.  I have this problem: I have to actually know what the creepy things around me are. Google Images is incredible...and also incredibly horrible. Once I start looking, I cannot look away.

It's like I'm screaming at myself, "Avert your eyes!!!!!"  ...and I can't!

Anyway, the latest one was found in the kids' bathtub, and now they are all boycotting bathing.

On the bright side, they (along with all the other English bugs we've dealt with) die easily. One good bop with a shoe, and these beasts just curl up and twitch a bit...but they don't jump or jerk or do anything overly coronary-inducing. Oh, and they are harmless to people.

My Emily, who is intrigued by spiders, researches them incessantly, and constantly asks to keep them as pets (NO!!), is in spider heaven arachni-phoria. :)

Katy has perfected her scream... ;)

First Trip to Ely

Ely is an incredible little town! We made our first trip as a family yesterday. (Scott had been over once before to pick up some food on my birthday.) There is a huge cathedral there, one that is iconic to the whole country, and we can literally see it sticking up above the trees from just down the street! It's about 5 miles, or a 10 minute's drive from our house...not including the time it takes to find a parking spot on market day. :)

Here are a zillion pictures from the day:

Ely Cathedral 

Do you see the kids and Scott in the front right? They look so tiny!

Zoomed in :) 

Don't know what these are, but they looked like pea-sized red olives, and they were slimy. 

Gargoyles 

Yeah, we live here!

Looking up a tree

I'm not naturally very artsy, but I like how this turned out. In actuality, I just had the camera tilted so I could fit the whole building in the shot. That's my family there on the left. :)

This shot cracks me up. It seems like it should have a Looney Toons-esque caption...

The plaque next to the cannon

Pretty flower

Conked out

I'll admit, I had no idea who Oliver Cromwell was until a few days ago when I saw (in a brochure) that his home was in Ely and I decided to Google him.  Interesting guy! You should totally look him up if you don't know much (or anything) about him...especially the part about what happened to him AFTER he was dead. Ahh, the British...

Oliver Cromwell's house (and museum)...we plan to go back when we're a little fresher and take the tour. They even have activities designed for the kids. :)

It was a really neat, full day. It's so cool to be so close to such a place!