Hello April!

Ahhhh...April is just around the corner! Spring time is always such a wonderful time of the year for me. The improved temperatures, the green trees and flowers in bloom. This year, the added bonus of weekend hours spent outdoors with my family.

Mike

Michael had a fabulous first week at school. He loves his teacher and he has made many friends. The walk to school and back is pleasant, and even managable in the rain, which we had to endure several times. He has no homework throughout the week, only on Friday, and this Friday he did not have any at all. I imagine this is due to it being the final week before spring break. Today he received many birthday cards from his classmates in Highlands Elementary. That was a very nice surprise for him.

HOUSE

What better time to do major house work than spring? I started reorganizing the downstairs living areas with fantastic results. I would say that the house is about 50% done at this point, as the entire upstairs still needs sorting out. Adding two additional people into a household happens to create quite a bit of chaos I have learned!

Crochet

My sweater is coming along...not without a bit of confusion though. I am completely at a loss regarding the shoulder instructions and decided to move on to the sleeves and complete them in the hopes that it will give me enough of the the completed puzzle to peice together the shoulder mystery. I am still pleased with the progress though, and I have found several other crochet projects that I would like to work on, mostly market bags, and I would like to design my own bag that can be either a tote, messenger, or backpack, and on top of that, fold conveniently away. We will see how far along I get with that!

Gardening

We have started the garden beds and picked out a few of the plants that will live in our garden. An American climbing rose, Earnest Markam Clematis, Crown Imperial, and two Bleeding Hearts in the garden bed, and two grass varieties for under the pine tree that we plan on cutting down. We were also so happy to discover this morning that three of our seedlings have broken the soil! We now have three tiny Brussel Sprouts plants!

Cooking
I found a few nice recipes this past week. The unsweetened applesauce was necessary for the oatmeal and cranberry cookies. I quite enjoyed making the applesauce and did make a sweeted batch as well. We also had a Coca-cola roast with roasted potatos, carrots and mushrooms which was quite tasty as well.

Out and About

We have been enjoying our Brighton trips. We went again Saturday, to collect the playtest cards for the game we have been working on, then made a person at the Lego store before meeting up with Rod and wandering around the Marina.

On Friday I met up with a friend and we went to Reigate market and afterwards had a pub lunch before picking Michael up and finally getting the opportunity to introduce him to Laura and Charlotte. It was nice to catch up and we will be going later this week to Croydon.

We joined the library and checked out our first set of books. Mike chose a few good readers, and among my books was a UK driving practice test.

I finally had the chance to try driving! It was BAD. VERY BAD! Okay, well not as bad as it could have been, but pretty darned bad! :p

Okay, off I go! Til Next time!

Weekend No. 1 - UK

Mike and I are finally home! The usual level of needless hassle at the airport. Security screened LEAVING the U.S. I was not amused...

Saturday was busy. We packed things away, mostly focusing on getting Michael in order. His room looks fantastic and Mike likes it. We ran to Tesco to get dinner things and some Plimsoles, which we did not find in Michaels size, Neil took Mike to the playground across the street where Mike met some of the neighborhood children, we had ribeye for dinner and at some point passed out.

Sunday was Mothering Sunday. We can thank Woodlands Jr. Kent School for this wonderful explanation of the day and the facts surrounding it! http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/easter/mothers.htm My guys bought a card for me, and a gardening magazine that had two packs of seeds included. One pack of poppys and one pack of sunflowers.

We ate breakfast and then headed to Brighton to get Michael's hair cut in Hove, which is on the English Channel. http://tourism.brighton.co.uk/maps/

Then to the comic store and the Lego shop where we met Neil's brother, Rod. The four of us roamed around Brighton, Mike and Rod enjoyed the teacup ride together, Mike doing the bumper cars, almost getting pooped on by a seagull during a meltdown, and just about the most insane lunch at Giraffe, with a brutally honest waiter that had no problem at all telling us to not order certain things on the menu because they were awful, and Rod getting a random meal he did not order, they had really cool colored plastic giraffes in the drinks. Very cute:)

We met Steve and Shelly, who let Rod's flat in Hove, and when we got back to the house I dug into the compost (read straight-dung) and finally got the seeds started for the garden. They may, or may not, take off. My original plan was to keep them indoors at steady temperature, but the compost is so noxious that I ruled that option out and they are now slightly chilled on the patio. I threw all of the bulbs that should have been planted at the end of January in a window box and once again, we will see what becomes of them. I will transplant the lucky survivors. I also started the sunflowers and poppys and scrubbed and hosed down the patio furniture. Now we wait!

Today Mike tours his new school, and his first full day is tomorrow. How exciting! He is telling me now that he "has nothing to do" and I can only blame myself for my liberal allowance of video games during our three month transition. I just suggested he play with his Lego figures and was told "but they don't DO anything!" To which I replied, "They did before you started playing video games." His little voice trailed "yeah........" and now I believe he is playing with his toys....or maybe.. he is sneaking in Nintendo DS! I will now creep upstairs and spy on him like any good mother would do! (awww...he was playing Lego!)

I have given up coffee (except as a weekend treat) and replaced it with tea, like a good transplant, I have taken up Yoga, and if you are someone who has ever wanted to give it a try, a good place to start is Yoga Zone- Sunrise Sunset, which are two 20 minute routines that are very basic. Also, try finding anything with Alan Finger, who is pretty damned non-annoying for a yoga person. I have always found the whole idea of Yoga pretty hokie, but I have to admit, it has made a huge difference with my back issues and I am becoming quite addicted to it. Thanks for that Sue! ;P

I finished my crocheted pot holders (imagine that!) and took on my first sweater project. I honestly don't expect it to be a work of art, but it will be nice for chilly morning gardening I hope! I am done with the back and started with the front now.

We will update pictures as soon as humanly possible. I took loads of pictures before leaving Sue's house, only to realize that I didn't have the memory card in the camera...doh! We took pictures over the weekend, so I will get Neil's camera pics uploaded soon.

Flickr

http://flickr.com/photos/the_meyers/show/