York

Dave and I love an excuse to visit York. It is such a great city, one that we have come to love already. So we spent the day their when my family was here. Hilde was at school and we dropped Enoch off at daycare so we could do as much walking as we wanted and spend more time doing things that little kids don't really have the attention span for. The first step is always York Minster.



Mom and I had fun looking at everything and catching up. And on that note - HAPPY BIRTHDAY mom!! I hope that you have a fabulous day and a Happy New Year. The kids miss you already and keep asking when we are going to go play in Grandma Margo's hot tub. I think Hilde did that once in her whole life, but that is what she wants to do now! And who can blame her, it is very cold and windy here these days.
It took a while to get Isaac to a point where he wasn't bored, but here he was enthralled as they were lowering these huge candelabras from the very high ceilings and the priest was talking to a bunch of school children from the school across the street.

After the Minster we all walked over to Clifford's Tower. It is all that is left of what used to be York Castle - built by William the Conqueror. It was very small, but you could walk up to the top and get an awesome view of York. And, there is a lot of history tied to it. In 1190 Jewish citizens took refuge in the tower. Many committed mass suicide and those who attempted to leave were massacred. All of them died.

Are you my mother?

My little girl is growing up. Tonight she read me all 63 pages of Are You My Mother? with almost entirely no help. It helps that I have read it to her several times, but still, she is adorable. What more could I ask for?

Thanksgiving Dinner

We went back and forth about whether to do a Turkey or goose this year. After all, we are in England and we wanted to spice things up a little bit. However, I hate fat and grease, and goose is loaded with both, so we eventually ruled it out. Maybe next year though. Of course the Brits don't celebrate Thanksgiving, so in the morning I dropped Hilde off at school. We cooked and spent time together until it was time to pick her up from school. Then we ate Thanksgiving dinner at around 4:00. We had Turkey, cranberry sauce, fresh bread we picked up that morning (none of the stores are closed of course - that part was nice), mashed potatoes, an amazing fruit salad that included cactus fruit, bananas, strawberries, apples, and many others, and stuffing. For dessert we had apple pie and banana cream pie. Or if you are Hilde, you just had whipped cream. Here are some pictures of the festivities.
Isaac tried really hard to avoid pictures, but we did catch him a few times.
Once Enoch crawled out from under the table we snapped a quick pic.
What a cute couple. And my dad is actually smiling...I think.
Dave expertly carves the Turkey.
Hilde counts down the seconds....

Thanksgiving 2008

Time to start the installments to catch up on our recent exploits with our visitors, my mom and dad, brother Matt and his son Isaac. After flights from Seattle to LA to London, my parents arrived at Heathrow airport. Matt and Isaac met up with them there, they were on separate flights. Then they took an eventful train ride up to our house. The train got stuck several times due to downed trees and other unforeseen circumstances, it was crazy. But finally, they made it to visit us. Our first trip was Knaresborough, site of this summer's bed races. This time it was cold and chilly, and we went to see the ruins of the town's castle.
Here is my family checking out the ruins. Notice how cold my mom looks? It was really nippy out there. Enoch is wearing my gloves for this outing since he refused to bring his and then once we got there immediately realized the mistake he made.
Beautiful Knaresborough. I still sometimes can't believe that we live here. But we do, and have for almost 9 months now!
Enoch loved spending time with Grandpa Ron.

Oh Christmas Tree - Lessons Learned

Lessons learned from our Christmas tree adventure a couple of weekends ago:

1) Don't expect to see your Christmas tree until it is in your house. All of the trees at the Christmas tree place we went to were already wrapped in plastic. The "helpful" lady told us that people always pick their trees out by picking out which top they like....
2) Don't expect a variety of tree types. There is only one. Dave would have to tell you what type ours is.
3) Don't have HIGH hopes. The tallest tree they were selling was 7 feet.
4) Don't forget to bring rope. When Dave asked them if they could tie the tree to the top of the car, they looked at him like he had three heads. Apparently nobody does that around here. We looked around us and saw that every other customer was shoving their trees inside their trunks or inside their cars. No more need for the evergreen car freshener, just use nature!
5) Don't expect them to carry a proper tree stand. Bucket anyone? Only one left and it is ours.
6) When you finally get home, and unwrap your tree, and hold it up to put it in the bucket, don't expect that the tree farm cut the base in a way that will actually make the tree fit into the bucket holder you bought from them.
7) Make sure you have a hand saw, you will have to go buy one after a frustrating morning if you don't. And while you are at the hardware store, pick up some rocks to fill up the bucket.
8) THIS ONE IS VERY IMPORTANT- When you get home and cut the tree, and secure the tree in the bucket, and fill the bucket up with rocks, and then add water, DO NOT EXPECT THAT THE BUCKET WILL NOT LEAK. Have your husband lift up the tree, stand and all while you mop up and put down a plastic bag.
9) When you pull out the IKEA ornaments to decorate the tree, don't expect that they will have hangers. In fact, they will have little tiny pieces of fishing wire )that are impossible to tie so they don't slip right off), waiting in a packet for you to attach, and re-attach, and re-attach until you want to cry.
10) Two days after the tree is decorated and the trauma is behind you, expect that you will find that the tree leaking solution has failed and you have to move the tree to prevent mold. While your husband lifts up the tree yet again, expect the bucket to fall off, rocks and water to go everywhere, and you have to start the whole process over again.

This is when your husband asks if it is OK if we don't have a tree this year and you wholeheartedly support tossing it out. I mean really, who NEEDS a tree, not us, we can do without. You can't avoid the looks on the kids faces though, and you end up moving, re-potting and redecorating the tree. And even after all of this, you say to yourselves that you are never getting a fake tree. So, you write down the lessons learned and make a gameplan for success next year.

Commercial Madness

Since we moved here and started watching British TV, we are constantly surprised at who we see in commercials here. For some reason there is a stigma of being in commercials in the US, but overseas is fair game. Just the last couple of nights I have seen the following people featured in commercials: Brad Pitt, Nicole Kidman, George Clooney, Hilary Swank, Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaghey, Anne Hathaway, Andie Macdowell, Penelope Cruz, Reese Witherspoon and countless others. Almost all of them are advertising perfumes. So my question is, are any of these commercials airing in the States? And, who knew there were so many types of perfumes around??

On my sister's advice, I just finished reading All Creatures Great and Small. It was written by a Veterinarian that practiced in North Yorkshire, which is where we live. I loved it. There was a lot of gory vet stuff, but the people, places, and animals were all what we have come to see and expect here. Highly recommended for light reading. Short, easy chapters for those of us who can only string together a few minutes of reading at a time!

Finally an Answer

First - apologize for the complete silence around here. With my family in town for a couple of weeks and the Holidays approaching there was/is a lot going on. So slowly but surely I will catch up. Things may not come in a coherent order, but that is part of my life right now and I kind of like it - even if you guys don't!

Anyway, over a year ago we took Enoch to the eye doctor in the States because his left eye was rolling around and it was freaking us out. They told us he would grow out of it. Lots of outdoor time practicing on focusing on things close and far away. A year later, he is still doing it and now it is something he can do upon request. So I took him to the local equivalent to Lenscrafters here - SpecSavers. The nice lady there somehow didn't see his eye in action, although I was watching him do it at the same time she was supposedly NOT seeing him do it. But she said that she would refer me to the Opthalmologist at the hospital if I wanted for further tests. I responded - please do. A month later, yesterday, Enoch and I headed into Harrogate District Hospital for some eye tests.

I gotta say, they were fabulous. They had all of these great tests for kids Enoch's age and had him diagnosed in a few minutes. They ran more tests and continually confirmed the diagnosis. He has a birth defect, called Duane's syndrome. It is where the nerves in your eyes are miswired. Enoch's left eye is perfectly normal, but his right eye doesn't move much at all. So when he tracks things with his left eye, his right eye stays staring straight ahead. I was so concerned about the red herring of his left eye, I never noticed the right eye's lack of movement. Anyway, his vision is completely unaffected, in fact, he has better vision than most kids his age. The only thing is that in order to see things out of the periphery of his right eye, he has to turn his head. It isn't something you can correct, and actually there is no real need to correct it. The optometrist said that it will be his party trick for life, and you know, he had a lot of fun showing her his trick. So, score one for socialized medicine!