Signs of the Times

My favorite sign in Harrogate is the I Love DY sign.  And yes, I have a tee shirt and a post card with that on it for obvious reasons.  The restaurant is Damn Yankee, and we had to teach our kids that it was OK to say its name.  The food there is supposed to be American.  They are obviously marketing towards the Americans - and some of the food is American inspired.  Chicken and Sweet corn burritos anyone? 

 Then there are the old churches dotting every street.  This one had a Sunday School building.

 Here we have a plaque commemorating the planting of a tree celebrating peace in South Africa. 

 And Hilde found this shop to be charming.  Unfortunately we were never there when it was open and we had time to go in.  Better luck next time?

 And although technically this doesn't have a sign, the door and the layout of this tiny church was perfect.  I loved walking past it, and I think it was for sale.....any takers?

Downtown Harrogate

 Harrogate is an amazing town.  It has some fantastic food, people and sights.  And I love that we could walk into town whenever we wanted, suburban America has nothing on the European set-up.  One thing we really tried to do in England was avoid anything "American".  However, living in a Flat and eating out for every meal gets old, so when the kids begged to go to Subway, we relented. And it was pretty much awesome.

Afterward we walked around town and got some ice cream from Thornton's chocolate shop and did some shopping, or in Hilde's case, dancing. 

Then we walked over to the Stray and played for a while.  It was sunny and warm - really rare for there, so we soaked up as much as we could. 

Flat Living

 At the end of June we moved out of our lovely house and into a Flat.  Our flat was in the middle of town, but on the opposite side than where we had lived, next to some really great old churches and surrounded by a lot of buildings with character.  It was a two bedroom flat and one of the bedrooms had 2 sets of bunk beds in it.  The room was so small, that you could just barely open up the wardrobe without hitting the first set of bunkbeds, and if you pushed the other set all the way against the far wall you could just barely put a pack and play in between the two sets.  Hilde and Enoch were thrilled to both have a top bunk to themselves and despite our fears, Phinn actually slept pretty well in the pack and play.  The worst was just that the sun didn't set until 9:30 or 10 and the curtains didn't keep much light out, so bedtime was not always as scheduled.  Other than that, the Flat met our needs.  After a few trials and errors, we figured out the washing machine/dryer combo and as long as we remembered to run a load every day while we were out of the house we could keep up on laundry.  This was important because a) every load sounded like an airplane taking flight in your living room and b) we timed it and it took 4 hours to run.  Even then, the clothes came out mostly damp half of the time and you would have to hang all your laundry up to dry overnight.  Lovely.

 The kids learned to get by in a tight space without a whole lot to do.  We got a coloring book and some washable markers and they went to town.  Notice the fruit bowl in the pictures?  Despite our best efforts we couldn't keep that thing full.  Our kids were fruit destroyers - eating all fruit within sight. 

 One of the things I am going to miss about Harrogate are all the gorgeous flowers everywhere.  This is just a random flower patch that we passed whenever we walked into town to get dinner.  The roses were taller than us, and just so beautiful.  Old English gardens can't be beat, even regular English citizens know how to make a garden look effortless and posh all at the same time.

I am definitely NOT going to miss the lumpy, small, uncomfortable couches in the flat.  Man, they were awful!

Back at last

This week I am finally at a point where I can start to breathe.  We are mostly settled in, internet is functioning, pictures are being downloaded, and things are not quite so crazy (who am I kidding, things are still crazy around here).  I want to catch up on all the events that have been going on before Baby Y arrives.  The past few months were life changing in so many ways that I don't want to lose those memories.  I want to capture the moments that I can, and remember how I felt.  So, if you are interested in following our journey, my goal is to do one post a day until I am caught up.  Come along for the ride.  And because I know that the real reason anyone ever checks this are for pictures, here are some of the boys playing in the park across the street from the Flat we lived in after we moved out of our house in Harrogate.

Our Crazy Life - Part 2

As if our life wasn't crazy enough, we are expecting a new little Younce on 4 December.  Here is the proof:

I promise more blogposts in the near future.  I just have to find the time, the energy, and the nausea free moment!

Our Crazy Life

The next 4 months are going to be crazy busy for us, but we keep telling ourselves that in 6 months, it will ALL be over:

Big trip to the island of Rhodes in Greece
11th Wedding Anniversary
My birthday
Pack out of house
Ship car
Phinn's birthday
Enoch's birthday
School year ends
Fly to Seattle - have fun with the High's
Fly to Virginia - see new house for the first time
Hilde's birthday and baptism
Younce family reunion
Move into house
Start kids at new school

Dave's birthday
Somewhere in there go to work, decorate house, buy new furniture, buy new car, etc.

So yes, we are going to be BUSY.

The Deep

We went to the Deep one last time on our way back from Bruges.  The kids love aquariums and Phinn has recently developed a huge fondness for Bish! (fish).  In fact, he had such a great time that when we got home I introduced him to Finding Nemo, surprise, he loved it - at least the 30 minutes that we watched.

 The first real preference Phinn communicated to us was his love for the show In the Night Garden.  At the Deep there was a little ride with one of the characters, IgglePiggle.  Phinn climbed up and gave IgglePiggle a kiss and played next to him for a while, super cute.

How fast time flies.  The first time we went to the Deep was the month after we arrived in England.  Look at how much the kids have grown (and of course the addition of Phinn) since then.