South Shields

As I mentioned in my previous blog, my grandmother (my mother's mom) was born in a coastal town about an hour and 45 minutes away from here called South Shields. My grandmother was born there in 1905, and moved to America with her family when she was two. My mother had always wanted to visit South Shields, so she brought the actual address where my grandmother was born, as well as a few other names and addresses from my grandmother's hand-written address book.

I typed in my grandmother's birth address (yes, she was born in her family's house) into my GPS. The GPS couldn't find Regent Street, but it did find a Regent Court. We thought we'd give it a try. The GPS led us beautifully from my driveway, all the way to Regent Court, South Shields. From the look of the buildings on the street, it looked like we were in newer development. There was no 55 Regent Court, but we found number 54, and took a picture of my mom in front of it. On the way out, we noticed that where #55 would have been, there was now a horse stable. So, the on-going story will forever be that my grandmother was born in a stable!

We then put another address into the GPS from Granny's address book that my mom believed were friends or relatives of hers (the Holts). When we reached the address, we found a woman gardening out front. My mom struck up a conversation with her asking if she knew the Holts, and the woman said that she did know them, but the last that she had heard, they were living in a nursing home. We were still quite satisfied that we found a person, who knew some people, who knew my mom's mom!

We spent some more time in South Shields in the town center. We found the South Shields museum, and learned more about the city. We then walked along a pedestrian walkway with shops and even a flea-market. You can imagine my delight when I found this shop:That's right... Pound World... the British equivalent of the Dollar Store!!! I went in with Maddie and let her pick out any one thing she wanted. It's nice to know that it exists over here.

We really had a lovely day. We didn't quite know what to expect, but we suspect that Granny Ethel would have been proud of us for taking the time to explore around her home town.

They're Here!

My parents are here! Yipee!!

They arrived early this morning. Their flight landed at 6:17am (1:17am their time) in Manchester. Unfortunately, we had some traffic on the way home from the airport (rush hour and then a few tractors), but now they are in Tim's bed sleeping peacefully!

It's wonderful to have them here. They will get to see Tim play in a t-ball game, and Maddie has a ballet recital this weekend, too! We also hope to visit a town on the eastern coast called South Shields while they're here. That's where my mom's mother was born (my mom has the actual address of the house she was born in!). I was unable to find any relatives still in the area, but it should still be an interesting day trip.

I'll be sure to blog about our time together soon.

Happy Mother's Day!

Hello, and Happy Mother's Day to all of you "mums" out there! Actually, the British celebrated "Mothering Day" about a month or so ago. We decided to wait for the American calendar, and I'm so glad we did.

I had the most amazing Mother's Day! First of all, the weather around here has been gorgeous for the past week. We've been spending as much time as we can outside, and have even been wearing short-sleeves!!! Yesterday's weather was perhaps the nicest day of all that we've had in England so far (a high of 22 degrees Celsius!).

My day started out with the kids climbing into bed to cuddle (which happens every morning). But the real treat was that they actually slept! The four of us "slept in" until 7:45! Just glorious. I was then able to relax and have a leisurely shower as I awaited a nice pancake breakfast. I got to read my wonderful Mother's Day cards, and received a box of truffles from my hubby (he knows me so well). Tim's card for me was so cute! It had a picture of the two of us playing Connect Four. The best part was that he told me, "...and I let you win!" In his picture, you could see that I indeed had 4 checkers in a row. What a kid!

After a nice morning at church, we came home for lunch (leftover bbq chicken pizza, yum!), and even got a nice nap in.

Then in the afternoon, we decided to go to a local village called Knaresborough. It's less than a 15 minute drive away, and I had heard that it was fun to walk along the river there. Well, it was just beautiful. When we arrived, we were first greeted by Knaresborough Castle (or what was left of it).
As we continued walking, we looked out over an amazing view of the village alongside the River Nidd. The view was breathtaking!
We decided to head down to the river and rent a boat. Ethan was kind enough to row us around for about 45 minutes or so, while I steered (we only crashed a few times!).
We topped off our time there with an ice-cream, and then headed into Harrogate for a nice meal. It really was an incredible Mother's Day.

Jacket Potatoes

On Sunday, our church had a fellowship lunch they entitled, "Spuds and Puds!" Spuds stands for jacket potatoes (which we Americans know as baked potatoes), and puds is short for pudding, which is used synonymously with dessert around here (as in, "Would you like some pudding?" "Sure, I'd love some cake.").

Anyway, back to the spuds. The British love their jacket potatoes. It's on just about every menu we've seen around here. They also like to pile them high with toppings... toppings such as baked beans, coronation chicken, prawns (like shrimp), tuna & sweetcorn, chili, or bolognese sauce.












I didn't really feel that adventurous on Sunday with my spud. I went for the standard sour cream, cheddar cheese, and bacon. I know... I'm not following the rule of "When in Rome..."

Well, how about you? Do any of these topping sound good to you?

Maddie's Parade and Tim's First Game

We had two exciting events happen this week.

On Wednesday, Maddie's preschool had a parade! Maddie made a flag of streamers, and a hat decorated with feathers. Then, she and her classmates walked around a part of the base, following a fire truck, and shaking their streamers and musical instruments. It was pretty cute. The second picture shows Maddie walking with her teacher, Miss Hannah.

Yesterday was opening day for baseball for Timothy! The base sponsors different sports throughout the year, including baseball. We really enjoyed having Tim in t-ball back in Joppatowne, so we were so glad to hear that they played baseball here on base. (The British don't play baseball really... only a game called "round-about", a precursor to baseball, and cricket, of course.)

Ethan volunteered to help out with the season, and found out just a week ago that he was the coach of Tim's team. We found this out the day before the team's first practice. Yikes! So far, he's doing an incredible job.

Here are a few shots of Tim's first game.

Thornton Hall Farm Country Park

Tim had the day off from school yesterday, so I thought we could find something fun to do. A friend of mine recommended a place called Thornton Hall Farm Country Park that was about a 40 minute drive away. She had gone there with her sons on a class trip, and said that they had a great time. What really sold me on it, is that she said there was a lot to do indoors. The way the weather has been lately (sunny, rainy, sunny, rainy,...), that was a necessity.

Anyway, we did have a lot of fun. The main barn had a huge slide that the kids both loved. There were so many animals, and they were all so cute! We saw baby goats (the picture makes it look a lot bigger than it really was),

bunnies, goats, llamas,and of course, baby lambs.
Some other highlights included seeing a new baby calf standing with his mama.
(Pardon the big pile of poo!)
And, I'm not sure why, but the farm had wallabies. It was so exciting spotting the joey in his mama's pouch!
However, the highlight of our day was when Tim got to feed a baby goat and a few baby lambs! It was a great day at the farm!

British TV

When we first moved here and lived in our apartment, we were quickly indoctrinated into British TV via our "Freeview" box and three BBC channels. We watched some football (soccer), rugby, and some news shows (where the anchors are not required to meet the same attractiveness standards as anchors in the US-- can we say orthodontist, anyone?). There were some interesting documentaries, including one I liked about Ewan MacGregor and his mate (friend) riding their motorcycles around the world, and another one called "America Unchained" where a British guy tried to make it across the US eating, sleeping, and gassing up only at non-chain establishments. And of course, there were the comedy shows. We watched the British version of "Thank God You're Here!" and a few other improv kinds of shows. To be quite honest, a lot of these shows were really funny, but there were also some that were pretty vulgar. Let's just say that they don't have the same restrictions as the US for TV in terms of language and nudity. (There's even a show called, "How to Look Good Naked" where the host actually helps middle aged women find ways to well.... you get it). Of course, when we first got here, we were missing the US, too. Thankfully, the Brits love American shows, especially Friends. It seemed to be on all the time.

When we moved into our house, we decided to get not one, but two satellite systems (which means we have not one, but two satellite dishes on the side of the house). We chose SKY TV, because we heard that it had a lot of American shows including Lost, which I am a fan of. SKY has a ton of channels, and with all the selection, I do tend to watch American shows more than British ones. I can watch Lost, Dancing with the Stars, and Barefoot Contessa (of course). The kids have found a lot of shows that they like; again, mostly American shows. They love Scooby Doo, Tom & Jerry, and a lot of Nick Jr. shows. What I love, is that the characters from Lazy Town, Wonder Pets, and Backyardigans, all speak in British accents! They also like one British show called In the Night Garden. You can tell that it was made by the creators of Tele-Tubbies, but it isn't quite as annoying.

Our second cable system is the AFN- Armed Forces Network. It doesn't have a ton of channels, but it does have American sports. This way Ethan can watch his Yanks every once in a while. The AFN also has American sitcoms, movies, and late-night shows like Letterman. The best part about watching the AFN is the "commercials." They aren't advertising anything... they're more like promotions of Armed Forces propaganda. There are commercials reminding you to always be on the alert, to report suspicious behavior, to remember to vote.... they're pretty cheesy. If you copy and paste these web addresses, you can see a few on YouTube (or on YouTube, simply type "AFN commercials").

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bNrrQ7xhyQ&feature=related
www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Q-eTJWt_I&feature=related

So, with all of these channel choices, you'd think we'd be watching cable all the time. The truth is, we also signed up for Netflix, and have been pouring through the DVDs for season one of Heroes. Are there any other Heroes fans out there? We finally watched the season finale the other night, and will soon get to watch season two on one of our channels. We had better make the best of it - we had to pay a $270 licensing fee just for the privilege of owning a television in the U.K. (and this is an annual fee!!)