Loni's Argyle Socks

Sweetest Almost Laughs

2011-10-04T00:51:00.001-07:00

For a little while now, Leila's been looking at me when I laugh almost like she's jealous. She tries to mimic me, but just can't seem to do it. When I tickle her, her eyes get wide and she fidgets and then usually coughs or something. I have been so amused with her not being able to laugh! But as you can see in this video, it's coming along. I'm sure she'll be giggling in no time. This was the first time she's responded to Peek-a-boo.

Leila "Talking"

2011-09-30T14:00:00.003-07:00

This is probably just a boring baby video for most everyone except me, Brent and the Grandparents, but that's exactly who I've posted it for.

Leila is 2 months and 4 days. I don't remember exactly when she started "talking" and interacting like this, but I remember when I took the video I was glad that I finally got it on camera for Brent. She's even more interactive now. In fact, she LOVES to watch this video of herself. She gets really excited and smiles and talks to the baby on the screen:) It's so sweet!

Baby Announcements

2011-09-01T01:31:00.001-07:00

So, after ordering a few baby announcement for Leila to send to some extended family, I started thinking about how we never did any for Zariah. We were poor as dirt college students and the only reason we got a pic as good as the one below is because one of my best friends is an amazing photographer and just felt like taking some pictures of us while we were visiting in her kitchen. So, I started messing around and decided to get an announcement for Zariah too. If we had done announcements for Zariah, what's shown below is what they would have looked like. This one will just go in her baby book.

Stationery card

2011-09-01T01:09:00.003-07:00

Misty Pink Birth Announcement

Shutterfly has 100's of personalized baby announcements.

View the entire collection of cards.

Stationery card

2011-08-15T17:56:00.001-07:00

Sweet Scribbles Girl Birth Announcement

Click here to browse Shutterfly birth announcement designs.

View the entire collection of cards.

Lovely Holiday

2009-12-29T20:24:00.004-07:00

Wow, we had such a good Holiday. I can not tell you how much fun we had, it was like a party every single day! The only problem was it was far too short. Far, far too short. I feel so overwhelmingly blessed with such amazing family and friends who are just like family.

We stopped at the Grand Canyon last night, which was not a very good idea. When we got to the rim we were hit in the face with a wind that was so strong and icy that we could hardly look. Afterwards, we decided to stay in Tusayan right outside the park. We expected pricey hotels staying near a National Park like that, but $3.19 for a normally 50 cent cup of Yoplait Yogurt, $17 for a med 1-topping pizza at Pizza Hut, $3.59 for a gallon of gas when the average price elsewhere is $2.50. I've never seen price gouging like anywhere!

Funny enough about 20 minutes south of Tusayan we had the exact opposite experiance. We stopped at a quirky place called BedRock City to go to Fred's Diner this morning for breakfast. It was a very welcomed suprise. Ghetto though the place seemed at first, there was a roaring fire inside and lots of friendly locals. The food was decent (Denny's quality and portions) and half the price! Our breakfasts were an average of $3 each. Next time, we'll know where to go!

Were home now, settling in and discovering what we left behind, oops.

Food Exchange

2009-11-25T00:41:00.003-07:00

I am excited for Thanksgiving. I am roasting my very first Turkey and making gravy and cranberry sauce from scratch.

I love experimenting in the Kitchen. I get bored so easily with making the same old menu items. I think experimenting with new foods is my way of introducing adventure and self-expression into everyday life.

I've been having fun lately with Middle Eastern Flavored Dishes. I am drawn to them particularly because they have so much flavor and nutrition.

Z is sick, so we won't be having our neighbors over for Thanksgiving like planned. Instead we are going to do a food exchange, making all the same dishes we divvied up in the first place and exchanging portions of them. Not ideal, but Z has a virus and they have a newborn so what do you do? This way we'll all still have a good meal.

I deleted all my sidebar info. Not purposefully, but I don't know anything about html and I either had to keep the last template (which I did not like) or erase my stuff. I suppose it's motivation to get a new blog. I've been thinking about that for ages, we'll see if it ever happens.

6 Years...

2009-11-24T22:54:00.002-07:00

I had a fantastic Anniversary celebration recently. Hubby did so good. He hates surprises and I love them. Let me re-phrase that. He hates surprises when he knows that a surprise is coming. When he doesn't know it's coming, he loves it.

So what usually ends up happening is; I surprise him all the time and he surprises me...never. Even when he has previously tried to surprise me and he has made really great efforts, something always happens to ruin it.

So this year I told him it was his turn to plan something for us to do. He kept it a secret until the morning of and told me that we were going to a very chic restaurant and then hiking up to some hot springs. I thought that sounded fun and he did keep it a secret until the day of.

That night after an incredible dinner, we started walking downtown chatting away. I thought it was strange to be walking downtown, but I just said "I assume you know where you're going." Then he said "Well, it's kinda cold for the hot springs don't you thing? Would you be mad if we didn't go?" I told him that was okay and asked him what he wanted to do instead. He said "Oh, I don't know, I wonder what these people are doing" referring to a crowd gathering near the town hall, "Maybe we could do whatever they're doing."

I looked up and in a split-second a bunch of tiny little thoughts pieced together perfectly and I realized that he did it! He finally, really, truly surprised me! He had planned all along to take me on the City Ghost Tour, which was something I really wanted to do, but didn't think we ever could because it's too late for Z. I was so pleased with his surprise and so proud that he actually pulled it off!

Inspired by a friend who recently had her anniversary, I wanted to post some photos.This first one was one of our engagement photos. (by Brenda Manookin)

This was one of my fun Bridals. I did have a more normal photo taken in my dress by Brent's sister, and it was gorgeous, but other than a few low-quality scans, I lost all her pics when our computer crashed a few years ago. (by Brenda Manookin)
(by Emily Daley)
The morning outside the Temple. (by Emily Daley)
The museum where we had our reception. (by Brenda Manookin)
I Loved our cake! (by Brenda Manookin)
It's just a snapshot, but I love this photo of my father and I. (by Karen Stauffer)
(by Karen Stauffer)
(by Brenda Manookin)

Same Page

2009-11-09T19:25:00.000-07:00

In Church yesterday, one of the speakers started off by telling a little about themselves and their history. Their family had lived in Norway, Germany, Italy, England, South Korea and six different states. (and I think I even missed a country) Brent and I were stunned and simultaneously whispered "Wow" to each other. Then Brent added "I am so jealous". I nodded with a smile and whispered "And I so married the right man."

Later that night, the speakers of the day came up again and Brent said "I want to live out of the country again so badly I can hardly stand it." Hearing him say that was like music to my ears. I think somehow it makes me feel better knowing that he shares the exact same sentiment on the subject that I do and that it is not just me somehow dragging him along. Not that I ever thought it was, but it's just good to know that we are on the same page. Exactly the same page.

My family moved a great deal when I was younger and I remember being envious of people who had lived in the same house their whole life, grown-up with the same people. They never had to worry about saying goodbye and leaving people behind. They never had to worry about being the new kid and making new friends. They could walk around their home and be in the same place where so many, many memories were made. What a wonderful thing that would be. I think about my life and in some ways I envy those who have now what I envied then. It would be nice to be settled. To not have to worry about what's happening next. To have a yard! There are many reasons why that would be so nice. And I am certain that if that was the path our lives had taken I would be happy about all of those things and we would be content as a family because we were together.

At the same time however, when I really think about it, I can also see living life on that road as extremely challenging for me. I think at times I would be downright miserable because of it. At this point in my life I find that I thrive on adventure and change. Three years sounds like the perfect amount of time to live in one place. I love meeting new people and I think exploring a place I've never been might just be my favorite thing in the whole wide world. I too want to live outside the country again so badly I can hardly stand it. I'm sure a time will come when I am fed up and just want to settle down, but I hope that until that time comes we can stay on a path in life that leads us to many different places and many different people.

Camera Magically Working Again

2009-10-31T21:37:00.000-07:00

We got our camera working. I got some pictures of the blossoms before they all fell off.

This is our new truck.
This is our amazingly adorable, extremely enthusiastic little trick-or-treater.
This is the first time I have ever gotten Brent to "Dress Up". He was E-Male and I was his Attachment.
I know the shadows are bad, but this is our apartment.
Our Balcony.
Coming in the front door.
Looking back on the living room.
The Kitchen.
Bathroom.
Other side of the bathroom and laundry closet.
Z's room.

That's all I've got for now. The only room that isn't really in there is our room because it is still not entirely unpacked and not much to see anyway. I've had a lot of requests for pictures, so I hope you've enjoyed them.

Blossoms in October?

2009-10-23T09:03:00.000-07:00

I am so bummed that we don't have a camera right now. When we arrived at the beginning of the month, the bushes that line our apartments were green. In the past week or so they have transformed. Not in the typical autumn way; losing their leaves or changing colors, but they are now covered in lovely purple blossoms! Don't things normally bloom in spring? Maybe this particular bush blossoms multiple times throughout the year. I'm not sure, and I don't care, I LOVE seeing blossoms in October!

There are so many things I would take pictures of if I had a camera, but I don't so here are some pictures of what we've been up to over the last while.

These two were taken on Z's special day/swim day at her pre-school.

Brenda came to town just a few days before Brent left. We hung out a lot, it took the edge off of the initial sting of having Brent gone.Allie came down to visit and Mish came out too.

Z and I got to meet Milo for the first time. If you can't tell, Z loved him.
Seriously? You did this with a tootsie roll?I used to go camping and backpacking all the time, but Z put a little kink in the works when she constantly tried to drown herself in lakes and rivers or give me regular heart attacks by getting lost in the slightest mili-second. She was finally old enough to take camping, so we had fun with that this summer.

We drove out to Georgia for a month to see Brent, spend time with family out there, and be there for Brent's graduation. We stayed with my Aunt Cynthia. She pulled out some old Playmobil's and completely sold me on them. Playmobil's are so awesome, even I had fun playing with them and Z loved them too of course.
Cynthia has one dog, two cats and was babysitting her son's kitten. Z fell in love with all the animals. I think the best part for her was no longer being at the bottom of the totem pole. She had so much fun taking responsibility for feeding, walking, or letting them outside to go to the bathroom. It really made me want to get some sort of a pet for her, but not enough to actually do it...yet.

She wanted to go to sleep in her make-shift "Cat house".

Playing "Bears" with Aunt Cynthia in their cave.

Brent in his ACU's (Army Combat Uniform).
We had just pinned Brent's officer bars on his uniform following his graduation.

Aunt Cynthia is on the left, I don't know what I would have done without her. I couldn't even begin to name the things she has done for me, and how much I love and appreciate her for it.

Arizona

2009-10-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a song that you just LOVED? You loved it so much that you could just not stop listening to it. Sometimes 3, 4, 5 times in a row. You listen to it often, in fact, so often that suddenly you find yourself sick of it and you don't want to listen to it anymore.

I think that is what happened to me and blogging. I think. I don't know, I just suddenly didn't want to write anymore. Maybe it was that. It might have been some other things too. I have wondered if it was the emotional difficulty of Brent being gone. It also might have been (I think I mentioned something like this before) the feeling of stagnation that I unfortunately allowed to penetrate other area's of my life. I don't know what it was, but I'm not over it yet. Although, I did want to write a little catch up.

Brent left for Basic Training in April. In June I had a wonderful, yet entirely too short weekend with him where I was able to see his Basic graduation and then drive him from Ft. Jackson, S.C. to Ft. Benning, Georgia.

In August, I packed up my daughter and spent 6 days on the road with her out to Georgia to stay with my Wonderful Aunt Cynthia who lives near Ft. Benning for the last three weeks of Brent's Officer Candidate School (OCS). I was able to go to a few social events with Brent and attend his graduation which was very nice. Much more like an actual graduation than his Basic graduation. Then we drove back to Utah just in the nick of time (we left one day before all the flooding and closed freeways).

We have been spending time with family and friends around Utah and taking care of business and preparing for our move to Arizona.

The news of Arizona was somewhat anti-climatic. We were pretty sure that we would be in Arizona for Brent's training, but we were anxiously awaiting Brent's Orders to see where we would be after his training. Most of the other soldiers in Brent's class had their permanent station on their orders, but we got zilch. All we know is that we will be in Arizona for Brent's training until August of next year. 10 months ahead of time is pretty good, and it normally wouldn't bother me, it's just that we were expecting to discover where our permanent station will be and were severly disappointed.

Part of the problem is that although I have desperately tried not to get my hopes up, it has been in vain, because I cannot stop thinking that we will go somewhere overseas. I keep trying to get myself pumped up for some miserable Fort in Middle of Nowhere, USA, but it's just not working. I was hoping that getting Brent's orders would put me out of my misery as I wait to see if it's going to happen, but they didn't.

Oh well, I am focusing on contenting myself with the present and I really am looking forward to our time in Arizona.

"Hope of Intellectual Transformation in Africa"

2009-06-06T20:14:00.000-07:00

This post is a request to everyone who reads it for ideas. Does anyone know of a charity or other organization or resource that could help a South African student finish his education? Please help me network and re-post this on your blog or ask those around you for ideas. Any help in this endeavor would be greatly appreciated.

Some of you may remember a post I wrote a while ago called "Sheltered". It was about a man named Michael who has become a dear friend. My last post about him was my expression of shock over his relation of life as a Black Man in South Africa, and the extraordinary ways in which he has overcome his circumstances. He has an amazing disposition and outlook on life. He has worked so hard and sacrificed so much to get where he is. He funded his first College diploma using all the money he earned while working at a vegetable market and surviving on rotten or damaged vegetables given to him by his employer. He and his wife had to leave their two children 6 and 2 with family in order to come out for his studies in England. At times they were surviving on one slice of bread per day. Yet they never complained, and I didn't even know about the extreme difficulties they endured until months afterward when they had finally come out of them.

In 2007, he was recognized by the Nelson Mandela Foundation as a promising teacher and scholar. As the Headmaster of the school where he works, this extraordinary man is an example both to the students of his school as well as many others around him. He is trying to show his children, his students and his community that education is a priority and the catalyst for change. He is now and will continue to make significant contributions to the African educational system. He is in his second year of a Post Graduate Degree in Education and has run into trouble with funding. He has had to put his degree on hold. He wrote me an email requesting help in researching potential resources in the U.S. that could assist him in finishing his degree. I've been looking, but everything I seem to find is designed for students studying here in the States.

So again, if you know of any avenues that I can look into that might be able to help him, please let me know.

I recommend following the link at the top, to my other post and reading more about Michael.

**Note: He does not qualify for the Perpetual Education Fund.

In Case You Were Wondering

2009-05-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

I was grateful that this five month separation timed out to be over the summer, because there is a lot to do here in the summer. I also decided to help things along and signed Z up for a new community class every month. This month she is in tumbling, next month she has a martial arts class, in July it's swimming and for August, I bought passes to a place called Jumping Jacks, so we can just go whenever.

I have also been keeping a very close eye on community events. Yesterday there was free admission and half price passes to Jumping Jacks with free food and stuff. Today at the library, they had a book festival with puppet shows, readings, face painting, crafts, workshops, book signings and a free book for every child there.

The Farmer's Market is 4 blocks from my parents house. Last week they had a May Pole with live fiddling to dance around it as we untied the ribbons. (I've always wondered exactly what a May Pole entailed) It was so festive.

I've decided that I really love Provo. There are loads of things to do around here if you're looking for them. It's a college town, but it is a unique college town because a higher percentage of the students have started families, so it is also extremely family friendly. There are lots of trees, majestic mountains, old neighborhoods filled with homes full of character. I love Center Street. Academy Square, The Tabernacle and City Hall are all beautiful buildings. I could go on, but in short, I am glad I am here for now.

I set out to be extremely busy and that is exactly what I am. Almost too much sometimes, there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day. It's gets a little annoying sometimes, but that is what I wanted and I am grateful. I would much rather be too busy than not busy enough. Whenever things slow down my thoughts turn to Brent.

Being busy helps, but my Faith has helps even more. I had a very interesting experience the day Brent left. Up until that point, whenever I thought about Brent leaving, I was overwhelmed with tears. Early in the morning of the day he left, we went to the Temple. As we were driving home from the Temple I felt so incredibly peaceful and happy. It was strange for me because I knew in a matter of hours that he would be leaving me. I knew this event would be the beginning of a very difficult period of my life. I knew I would miss him to the point of physical pain. But despite all that, I was happy.

That is probably the best description of what it has been like since he has left. It has been EXTREMELY challenging, but I am happy. As I have focused on my dedication to the lord, my burdens have been made light. Not that they are taken away, or made any less difficult, but I have received strength and peace so that I may bear them well.

Brent has also been doing well. I am envious of all the new skills and information he is acquiring. It sounds fascinating to me and I can't wait until we have time to really talk so I can hear more about it. I get to talk to him once a week for about 2 to 5 minutes. As you can imagine, I don't get much information out of him in that amount of time. But he said that Basic Training is pretty much what he expected. He got into shape before he went and the physical demands have not been much of a challenge for him. He said he got into trouble a few weeks ago for showering early. He was afraid he had made the drill sergeant's trouble list, but the very next week he was given the privilege of being Platoon Leader. He also said he was amazed that they could be so busy and yet still spend so much time waiting around for things. I definitely don't envy that.

I bought a ticket to South Carolina for his Basic Graduation at the end of June. I will fly in on Wednesday night. Thursday is Family Day where I go to a bunch of Army programs designed to show families what their soldier has experienced. Then I get to spend the rest of the day with Brent on post. The next day, his graduation is at 9am and we should have the rest of the day together on or off post. He will probably ship out Saturday morning, but I purchased a ticket that won't bring me home until late Saturday night just in case I can see him on Saturday too. If not, I'll spend the day exploring Columbia or Greensville. I CAN'T WAIT. It is nice that we can break up his time away with a visit. It gives me a short-term goal to look forward to.

5 favorites

2009-05-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

Rachel over at Life In Pictures tagged me for this ages ago, and I completely forgot, but I'm bored and waiting for something so here we go.

5 favorite TV Shows

1. The Office
2. Chuck
3. My Name is Earl
4. 30 Rock
5. George Lopez (cheezy, but funny and reminds me of growing up in Southern California)

5 things I did yesterday

1. Went to the Gym
2. Did Babysitting/Temple trade off with my sister-in-law
3. Bought a recommended Allergy remedy from the health food store
4. Came home to a fantastic dinner courtesy of my father
5. Wrote Brent an extremely long letter

5 favorite restaurants

(I don't really have a favorite, I really prefer to go to a new restaurant every time we go out. Below is a list of places with food I find myself craving.)

1. The Bombay House
2. Thai Chili Pepper
3. Zupas
4. Wingers (I can't get enough of their sauce)
5. Bajios

5 things on my wish list (at the moment)

1. Brent
2. Corrective Laser Eye Surgery
3. A New Wardrobe
4. New Cameras (Video and Still)
5. A new perfume that I LOVE. (I have a hard time finding scents that I like. Any suggestions?)

If you feel like doing this, then you're tagged.

New Family Picture

2009-04-16T21:36:00.000-07:00

We had a monumentally busy extended weekend, leading up to Monday when we dropped Brent off at a hotel in SLC to fly out from there for Basic. Contemplating it all enough to write about it is not something I care to do right now, but I felt like I should say something.

I've been pretty exhausted for most of this week. I am quitting my job, which is an unexpected relief. Unexpected because it's been a great job and I'm leaving (for several reasons) a lot sooner than I actually expected. But I'm relieved and actually kinda trunky; now that I know I'm leaving I'm ready to be done and move on. I am going to enroll Zariah in a bunch of summer community classes and take her hiking and maybe even camping this summer as much as I can. I just want to do TONS of fun Utah summer stuff to keep us busy.

In other really good news; Brenda is in town! Yea! She has Fabulous timing to boot. She came just in time to catch Brent and get us a new family picture! Woohoo! She is so awesome in so many ways, and I'm so glad she's here.

It's Official

2009-03-08T18:56:00.000-07:00

The last six months have been one big roller coaster ride. I know I've only hinted at what sort of jobs we've been looking into, but after two experiences of counting our eggs before they're hatched, I promised myself I wouldn't tell anyone about any more jobs until it was official. Well, something finally happened and now it's official. But first, a short run down of the last six months.

September: Accept job in Taiwan, discover they lied about salary, turn job down. Start turning in applications everywhere.

October: Continue turning in applications to any and every job we can find. Find a fantastic position with the Utah State Legislature where Brent had his internship before we left for England that he absolutely LOVED. He already knew the people he would be working with and had an extremely positive response from the Legislator in charge of hiring. He was even more qualified than they were asking for and was a shoe in for the position.

November: I start working at a nearby office. We discover that due to budget cuts nobody will be hired for awesome job with Legislature. Brent starts vigorously pursuing applications with the Border Patrol and Air Force as well as continuing to submit applications everywhere else.

Late November: Brent picks up a seasonal job to hold us over. Air Force isn't looking like a possibility because the time line wouldn't have Brent into training, until August 2009 and we can't wait that long!!! The Border Patrol is looking like our only option.

December: Brent decides to talk to an Army Recruiter. We feel surprisingly good about the Army option and decide to pursue it and see what happens.

January: Brent turns down a job with the Border Patrol with my blessing (don't get me started)

Late January: Brent applies to become an Army Officer and is turned down. (Two of the three members of the Officer Board said "yes" one was unsure and left his recommendation blank)

February: One can only apply to become an Officer twice, ever. The whole month is spent going back and forth between; "Should we just go enlisted now and apply again later with a different Officer Board?" or "Should we take our chances at winning over the third board member?" After going back and forth on the issue all month, as well as encountering several minor hold ups, we decided to take our chances with the Board on March 4th and see what happens.

March 4th: Brent goes before the Officer Board and after seeing improvement in is Physical test scores and asking about three questions, he is approved.

March 5th: I accompany Brent to SLC for the day as he goes through paperwork, signs the contract and is sworn into the United States Army.

Another reason I didn't write about any of this is because we had no idea what was going to happen until the day before it actually happened. Now to address why we decided to go ahead with the Army in the first place despite some obvious drawbacks.

First and foremost, when Brent came home after talking to an Army recruiter for the first time and told me about the options within the Army, I felt really good about it. Unexpectedly and surprisingly good about it. I don't take those feelings lightly.

Other strong benefits to the Army:

Brent will go in as an Officer, meaning right off the bat he will receive three months of intensive leadership training and secret clearance. Both of which will be valuable in future career goals. Going Officer also means, from what we've heard, significantly better treatment, significantly better pay, better housing, and all around better life for all of us. It is also a professional work experience which is something he is lacking and something that everyone wants.
The Army will pay off up to $65,000 in student loans which we desperately need. With the Officer pay and the CLRP (College Loan Repayment Program), we should be completely debt free in 4 to 5 years. When we would have normally been paying on our current debts for anywhere from 20-35 years.
On top of Salary we get a housing and food stipend and will be completely covered as far as insurance and retirement goes.
There are a limited number of overseas bases or we might have put all 10 of our desired locations overseas. We submitted our top five desired locations as; Belgium, Italy, Germany, Japan and Korea. Of those five the most likely place we would go is Korea, but we would be thrilled to go to any of them. We would like to continue to live in other countries, but doing it through the Army who will take care of travel and moving arrangements is way better than cramming all our stuff into 6 suitcases or paying through the nose to have it transported. Not to mention being able to live in a completely foreign country on or near an American community with American conveniences close by sounds ideal.

There are strong down-sides of course beginning with a 5 month separation while he is in training, eventual deployment and the risks involved with that. We had some lengthy discussions about that up front. We came to terms with the risks and trials involved with Brent's joining the Army. We will deal with them as they come.

I am also working really hard not to have any expectations besides Brent's Salary and the CLRP. We don't know exactly what job they will give him within the Army. We may never go overseas. The initial 5 months could be longer. Who knows how long is deployment will be. In the end we decided that even if all we gain from the Army is work experience, leadership experience and a sound financial situation, we'll be happy.

So, we are excited and happy with our decision. Brent ships out mid-April to Ft. Jackson South Carolina. From there he will go on to Ft. Benning, Georgia. I am hoping I'll be able to work out seeing him at least once in both places. Meanwhile, Zariah and I will continue to stay with my parents and join him in August/September. By that time it will have been almost a year of living with my parents. I don't think this next 6 months will be nearly as frustrating as the first 6, simply because there is an end in sight. We are now officially moving toward a goal instead of floating in limbo. That makes it easier already to relish the time we have to spend here.

So there you have it. I would love to hear your response.

Checkin in

2009-01-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

So I've obviously been taking a break from the Blogging world. Like I mentioned before, I've been a little uninspired because of the whole waiting thing. Most all of my extra time, thoughts and energy are diverted to what is going to happen next. But on top of that I've also started a job which means less time and because I'm in front of a computer the whole time I'm at work, I've kind of lost the desire to be on the computer as much at home.

I'll still write once in a while. In fact Brent is pretty close to getting a job we've been working on for a few months. So I'll post all about that once it's certain.

Just checkin in.

Baby's Gotta Go

2008-12-19T20:37:00.001-07:00

For weeks whenever anyone asked Zoe what she wanted for Christmas she would exclaim "A PEE-PEE TRAINING DOLL!". She had, of course, seen a commercial for this doll. After quite a bit of discussion, Brent and I decided not to buy it for her because although she would be really excited at first, I have to wonder how long it would keep her entertained. There are also a lot of small pieces that I didn't think would be very fun to keep track of.

When my mother began asking what Zariah might like for Christmas I told her about several toys I thought she might enjoy, but my mother had already seen how much she wanted it and asked if it was okay to buy her the "Pee-Pee Training Doll". I figured, who am I to deny my mother the kind of reaction that she knows she will get when my little girl opens this particular present on Christmas Morning?

You've got to check out the commercial for this thing. It's hilarious, in a kinda messed up way.

Now that I think about it, I am almost just as interested to see my Grandmother's reaction to this doll. She has always had a HUGE collection of dolls. She particularly loves dolls with personality. If there's one thing this doll has, it's personality!

Now You Tell Us!

2008-12-19T20:36:00.001-07:00

The other day there was a story in the news; "If your a student, you had probably better stay in school." Yeah, tell me about it. It's still a little hard not to get frustrated sometimes, but I just remind myself that we have so much to be grateful for I can't complain.

Every night when it's time for bed and I take Zoe in to say good night to my parents, my dad plays a game with her where he tries to keep her from giving him a kiss. She laughs and laughs and it makes me so unbelievably happy.

We finally bought a car. It's been about a year and four months too long that we've had to rely on public transit and the kindness of others to get around. It is so incredibly nice to have our own car again. It's a 2000 Chevy Prizm in a deep pretty blue color that reminds me of evening twilight, so we named her Twyla.

It has been interesting working again. I am extremely fortunate to have found a job that is so close and is such a nice little company to work for. Brent's seasonal job is working him extra hard during the holidays (of course) and it has been interesting trying to juggle our schedules. Thank goodness for wonderful family that has been so very helpful when we have schedule conflicts.

To Clarify

2008-12-19T20:34:00.001-07:00

Just a little clarification about my last post. I was particularly addressing the claim of "I hate Christmas because it's so fake". My arguments were not attempting to claim that everyone should love Christmas like I do. I'm sure there are perfectly legitimate reasons why some people hate Christmas. As for us, Brent and I have always had very fond memories of Christmas. We both have wonderful relationships with our family. Nothing tragic has ever happened at that time of year for me and I can't even imagine how my feelings might change if something ever did. I wish that everyone could experience the same joy and happiness that I do over the Holidays, but I know that's not possible.

Speaking of Christmas, I really love being a mooch at this point in time. Staying with my parents makes memories of childhood Christmas' even more vivid and I love sharing my daughter and her excitement with my parents and watching them enjoy her as much as we do.

The day my dad put up the Christmas Tree. Zariah kept asking if we could hold hands and sing around the tree when it was up. How could I deny a request like that? We sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" She was swaying and everything, it was so funny. Then it was time for me to go to work. When I came home Zariah saw me and screamed "LOOOOOK!" as she ran into the Living Room. Then she bounced up and down pointing at the tree screaming "Look, Look, Look, Look" until I gave her a satisfying response of amazement.

"Christmas Is Sooo Fake"

2008-12-02T23:24:00.000-07:00

I've had several people express their distaste of the holidays to me lately. Their complaints are complaints I have heard before. It all comes down to one basic claim; "Christmas is Fake".

Some of these complaints focus around a perceived Scrooge Effect. It makes them sick to see people who are jerks most of the year, suddenly become angelic because it's Christmas. My first response is that whoever makes this argument watches too many movies. I have never seen the Scrooge Effect happen anywhere but in Christmas stories and folklore.

Even if the Scrooge Effect was a real and regular occurrence, they must be assuming that the person is insincere because I fail to comprehend the sickness that accompanies observing an event that prompts someone to get in touch with their humanity and become more Christ-like. I imagine it would be a beautiful thing to witness. If the person was insincere, something so drastic wouldn't be happening in the first place.

Another angle to the "Christmas is Fake" argument is that it is too commercialized. Well of course it is. Everything is commercialized these days. Just don't get caught up in it. Just because there are some people who have lost sight of what Christmas is about doesn't mean that everyone else has. And even if everyone else has, it doesn't mean you have to. That would be my response for the other similar argument that Christmas has lost it's meaning.

I'm sure there are many legitimate reasons why some people dislike Christmas, but when people talk about disliking Christmas because it's "so Fake", i just don't buy it. In my opinion, it's only fake if you allow it to be or make it that way.

Five years ago...

2008-11-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

Five years ago tomorrow, I made the best decision I have ever made in my entire life. Since then my life has been happier beyond anything I ever imagined. I can't get over how I ever came to be so lucky or deserving of the man I married. He is perfect for me in every possible sense of the word. We are going back to the Salt Lake City Temple tomorrow for the first time since we were married there five years ago.
There was a blizzard the day of our wedding. It was magical day in a winter wonderland. I am thrilled to celebrate our anniversary of it.

New Job

2008-11-15T17:53:00.000-07:00

I guess it's about time I put some argyle up on the background. My sis sent me a link for this, and I couldn't resist.

So in case you haven't noticed, I've been continuously posting less and less. I guess I kind of feel uninspired in our state of stagnation. NOTHING has changed as far as a permanent job for hubby goes. The job at the state legislature responded and let us know that due to budget cuts, they wouldn't be hiring for the position at all. I guess it's a bad time to be a recent graduate with no experience looking for a job. Oh well. Something will come.

Meanwhile, I am actually working. I got a part-time job with the most awesome schedule! I work 5 days a week from 12 to 4. I think it is the closest I could ever get to being a stay at home mom while still working. I'm in an office doing customer service and data entry. It is a very small company and the people I work with make it enjoyable. Brent also got a temporary job for the holidays. I want to post about a few permanent possibilities we're working on, but I've decided not to because I don't want there to be any chance whatsoever, that someone might stumble across my blog and have it affect his chances at obtaining a position. I know the chances of that are next to impossible, but still.

So I guess that's it for now. My lips are dry and I gotta go.

Will You Help Me Find My Bed?

2008-10-28T03:53:00.000-07:00

It is 5a.m. and I've been laying in bed, trying to sleep for the last hour. I give up. I was awoken at 4a.m. by a very distraught little girl with the most heart breaking cries. I welcomed her into my bed to soothe her and the first thing she said when she climbed in was "Mommy, I want to sleep in my own bed." I figured she didn't really know what she was talking about and if I could just get here to lay down she would calm down and fall asleep. But she resisted all efforts to coax her into laying down, repeating "I want to sleep in my own bed Mommy" in between sobs. Finally I said "Okay, go back to bed" and her response was clearly traumatic. As she related the following, her little voice got higher and higher until the last word she said was so high it broke and sobbing ensued "Will you help me find it? I-got-out-of-bed-and-I-coul-dn't-find-it." Papa came to the rescue on this and scooped her up promising to help her find her bed.

So here I am. I haven't written much lately. Nothing has changed as far as the Job situation is concerned and I guess I just feel like life is at a stand still. I am trying to get out of that frame of mind that just because we're not moving forward in that one area, doesn't mean we can't be productive or progressing in other areas. But it's been difficult. It really seems like there isn't much that we can do. We can't even really unpack completely.

Brent got on with a temp service that worked him to the bone the first few weeks and hasn't had any work since. He has been keeping busy studying for a few government positions that require exams and keeping up an intense job search. I am quickly realizing however, that we've got to have work and we've got to have it now. So we've been applying for several random positions to tide us over. I have my first interview today. I always hated the new job/interview jitters.

As far as the professional job hunt goes, every single position he has applied for has been a government position and unfortunately, at least in our limited experience, the government takes FOREVER to hire. So we are not completely discouraged by the literal silence on the other end, just frustrated that we have been on the edge of our seats for so long.

Positive things about my life right now:
-I LOVE spending so much time with hubby
-I am very happy to be here with and able to support family
-I am thrilled that Zoe is developing strong relationships with family
-Brent and I have been exercising a lot together
-I am getting a fantastic lesson in developing patience
-I learned how to make some really amazing whole wheat bread
-We've been able to see friends and extended family we wouldn't have been able to see given less time
-The weather has been outstanding, better than our wildest expectations. We have been taking the fullest advantage.
-It is the beginning of the Holiday Season
-We get to celebrate Halloween this year! Zoe has already been to one party, we carved pumpkins for family home evening yesterday and she has two more parties this week and then Halloween night!

Book Club

2008-10-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

While I was in England I started reading a lot more than I have in a very long time. I really enjoyed myself too. I signed up to a cool little site called GoodReads and have had fun keeping track of and reviewing the books I have read as well as keeping up a list of the books I want to read.

I really want to continue reading, but I want to make sure that if I'm reading something, that it is going to be good. I don't want to waste my time on anything ill-written, depressing or trashy. If I am going to invest my time, I want to be laughing, enlightened, educated or in short, anything but disappointed that I just wasted a certain number of hours of my life reading a book, only to find out that I hated it.

I ended up started a group/book club on the GoodReads website called Let's Read Something Good. I started the group a few months ago, but that's all I did. I didn't really think about it again until the other day someone I don't even know asked if they could join my group. She's inspired me to get moving on this, so here I am writing this post. If any of you want to do this with me I would LOVE it! All you have to do is click on the link above to join my group. If you aren't already on GoodReads you have to sign up for the website, but it's pretty painless.

There will only be one book every other month or maybe even every three months, so there is no pressure. The book can be read at leisure and readers can join in the discussion whenever they are finished.

So yeah, come join my group and read with me.

2 Options

2008-10-01T20:40:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a little while again, but that is really because there just hasn't been much to write about. At the moment (and this, of course, is always subject to change) we are hanging on two main possibilities. The first, after a lot of thought and contemplation is actually my favorite, but only by a hair. Brent applied for a job with the state legislature. He actually has a really good chance of getting this job. He had an internship there a year or so ago and one of his fellow interns has is working there now in the same capacity as the job he has applied for. We don't know how much the pay would be, but we are pretty sure it would be enough. Barely enough, but enough and the benefits would be good. We would live downtown. It is stable and actually a job that if he stuck with, he could make a career out of. I don't think he would make this job his career, but we would plan on him staying there for quite some time and it is comforting to know that he could. One of the biggest gold stars for this job is the fact that Brent LOVED his internship there and we are pretty sure he would love this job just the same. He used to come home so happy and that, of course, made me happy.

Option 2 is still Taiwan. Brent would definitely get a job in November. There are still a lot of good things about going to Taiwan. I kind of see it as an extension of Brent's education. In fact I'm pretty sure that if we moved to Taiwan and he was able to learn Mandarin and gain experience in that culture, he would have more job opportunities available to him than he would if he got a PhD. However, this option is definitely more risky and unstable. When we were finished there we would go through what we are going through now all over again. A period of time spent applying for job after job after job, never knowing what's going to happen next. Possibly having to stay with one of our parents again for a time while we get things sorted. But it would also be an adventure and the chance of a lifetime.

We are considering quite a few other options and I don't even know how many jobs Brent has applied for. We are anxious for something to happen and are working hard to develop patience even though we fail time and time again. Despite all that, I should mention that I am EXTREMELY grateful to be here, particularly with my parents at this moment in time. They experienced an incredible hardship recently that is not my business to share on here, but ohhhh, I am so glad that I was here when it happened. I might have had a nervous breakdown just thinking about it if I was away and unable to be here. I am so grateful to be exactly where I am. I know that sometimes there are reasons for things, including our having to wait on the edge of our seats for so long. I just need to keep reminding myself of that.

Road to Kabul

2008-09-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

I have been blessed with the rare fortune of having been close to the same circle of friends for officially (as of last month) more than half of my life. This post is in honor of one of them.

I decided to take a summer job in California one year and upon telling Brenda, she said "I want to go too!" We spent the summer living and working in San Jose. It was a great summer, but we had our ups and downs. One night I told her I wasn't feeling particularly well, which was only partially true. I had a small headache, but really, I was just feeling grouchy. I laid down and Brenda sat next to me on the bed and asked if there was something she could do. I said no. But she continued with suggestions. "Would it help if I....", "What about....". I kept telling her no, waiting for her to leave me alone. Then she simply said "If there anything in the whole wide world I could do or get for you that would make you feel better, just say the word and I will do my best."

Now, it's not that what she said that struck me in that moment, it was how she said it. I knew that she meant it 100%. She is just that kind of person. I smiled and told her I would let her know, and then I laid there stunned, contemplating our friendship. She was such an amazing friend and I wondered what I had ever done to deserve her friendship, then I started realizing that the answer was-nothing. At least that was how I felt. She inspired me that night to be a better friend and a better person. I am so grateful for her.

Brenda has recently graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography and she is AMAZING! Her skill and talent is breath-taking. I have three links to her websites in my blog roll that you should defintely check out; "New Leaf Photography", "Brenda Manookin Photography" and a brand-spanking new one called "Road to Kabul". She is leaving tomorrow for Afghanistan with her co-worker John to shoot a Documentary and they will be blogging about the whole thing online. Well, at least that is their intention. I'm not going to be too disappointed if they are too busy to blog everything, but I'll still be following along.

Anyway, Brenda & John, Here's to you! Good Luck!

Imagine

2008-09-15T18:50:00.000-07:00

Imagine that your family's future is completely up in the air. It's been months and you are having a difficult time not agonizing over the unknown. The suspense is killing you as you do everything you possibly can, but are always brought back to that same place where there is nothing you can do but wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait.

After what seems like an eternity of waiting, suddenly a bolt of lightning strikes out of the blue with the perfect path for your family. Everyone is very excited and you happily start down this new path together. The most tremendous weight is lifted from your shoulders. You finally know what's going to happen next! You can now make specific plans and day dream about this new exciting adventure. You don't feel useless or stagnant anymore. Life is finally moving forward!!!!

Then the rug is pulled out from under you and your back where you started from. That's where I am now. We are not going to Taiwan. There was a "miscommunication" on their end about the contract they offered us. We heard from them last night apologizing about the mistake. They offered us a contract "C" in our dream location, which is exactly what we wanted. But it is actually a contract "A" which would not be enough hours and therefore pay.

So we are back at square one, even more clueless than we were before. I guess it could have been worse. I am so grateful that we didn't already pay for the flight! We were planning on doing that this morning. I'm pretty well over it by now, but man that was a hard blow.

This has been an extreme test of my patience. I want to do what Heavenly Father wants us to do and in his time, but it is so difficult not to rush things forward. This is definitely a learning experience.

Taiwan!

2008-09-12T18:03:00.000-07:00

We are moving to Taiwan! As long as we can get all our paperwork taken care of in the next two weeks. I'll write more about it later.

Part 2 Chocolate Comparison

2008-09-09T09:42:00.001-07:00

As well as plain British chocolate we also brought home quite a few candy bars that they have here in the states as well, to compare back to back. It's taken us a while because, well, that's a lot of chocolate. So this is what we compared:

1)Mars/Milky way

2)Snickers

3)Bounty/Almond Joy

4)Malteasers/Whoppers

5)Kit Kat

6)Twix

7)Starbursts

1) The British have a Milky way but it is more like the American 3 musketeers. And I think Americans had a Mars bar once upon a time... but British Mars bar and American Milky way consist of pretty much the same stuff. But when it comes to flavor, I was amazed at the difference. The milky way is more sugary, but has less flavor, if that even makes sense. The Mars was just so much more enjoyable. I didn't even want to finish the milky way because it was just so flavorless in comparison.

2) We actually had a hard time telling the difference. This tasted pretty much the same.

3) Bounty has better chocolate for sure, but the coconut is a bit dry in comparison to the Almond Joy. All in all, this is entirely unfair, but I choose Almond Joy because Almonds make everything better! (I didn't compare it to Mounds because it's Dark chocolate)

4)British version hands down! Not even a question. If you're a fan of Whoppers, you'll never want to go back after you've had the british version.

5)Ditto of #4. I couldn't believe the difference. When I inspected the packaging a little further, I noticed that Hersheys makes Kit Kat in the States and Nestles makes Kit Kat in the UK. Interesting.

6)The two are very similar, but American Twix is better.

7)The first time I had British Starbursts, it really weirded me out. The texture reminded me of a very sugary gum that you swallow. My recent comparison of them back to back, didn't seem as bad so I have to say I am neutral on this. They do have some cool flavors. Their regular flavors are Strawberry, Lemon-Lime, Black currant and Orange. They have a package that I'm not sure if I've seen in the States where every flavor is Strawberry mixed with something else like passion fruit or mango. Those were awesome.

Good Day

2008-09-05T20:52:00.001-07:00

I think the finality of our recent move has just struck me and I don't like it. I just went to a friend's blog and saw the title of her latest blog "English Picnic" and I got so homesick I almost cried. Well, maybe not almost. Brent and I have both been missing England in a lot of different ways.

On a happier note, we got together with some very good friends of ours today and had a wonderful time with them. One of my best-est friends is coming into town tomorrow and I'm trying to convince another one that she needs to evacuate her new southern Florida residence to come see me.

The weather has cooled off a little bit, making it much more bearable to go out and enjoy the sunshine past the first few hours of the day. On our walk to the park today we saw a little swimming pool someone had in their yard that they were giving away and picked it up for Zoe because all of the outdoor swimming pools are now absurdly closed.

Best news of the whole day? Zoe overcame a year-long, deathly fear of playing on the playground. She went on the slide and swings for the first time in a year with out being forced to and without flipping out and crying. I was so happy because I missed seeing her get such a thrill out of them like I did during her extreme, dare devil, thrill-seeker days.

Wastin No Time

2008-08-27T08:10:00.001-07:00

We're home. The trip was....well were home and I don't really want to get into it. The demons certainly made an appearance, but it wasn't as bad as last year. It was exhausting and long and frustrating at times, but it's over and I don't want to think about it anymore.

So let's see....

Shocks from being back home/in the States:

-I can't believe how many trucks there are!
-The Sun, I swear it's a different sun out here, hot, bright and full.
-I always knew this was desert, but even after all my time spent in lush, green parts of the east coast, I still couldn't see it like I can see it now.
-The dry climate made me feel like I was a fish out of water, shrivelling up in the heat. I couldn't drink enough water to save my life!
-I can hear more of an accent from people here now.
-As much as I didn't think I had gotten used to a driving system on the other side of the road, now I am looking the wrong way and getting into the wrong side of the car in America!
-My home has extended itself to the entire country. We had two layovers, one in Philly and one in Denver and I was amazed by how much I felt at home just because I was in the States.
-The very unique experience of being somewhere that is intimately familiar and yet foreign at the same time.

Best things about being home/in the States (so far):
-FAMILY
-Mountains, campfires, smores (I haven't wasted any time)
-Sun, glorious sun.
-That familiar, comfortable, "at home" feeling.
-BBQ's (didn't waste any time there either)
-Fresh corn
-Orange juice (it's just better here)
-Claussen Baby dill pickles
-California Black olives
-Almond snickers
-Dryers, although I maintain that I still prefer hang drying for most things, I was excited to realize I would wash my clothes and wear them within and hour and a half if I wanted.

Things I miss already:
-People
-Accent
-Words
-Moss
-Libraries
-Being so close to the city
-"Cheers"
-Hula hoops, kebab, chocolate, cordial, fish & chips with curry sauce(I could go on and on)
-Indian food so readily available
-Being so close to amazing countryside

I can't even tell you how much fun Zariah has been having with so many cousins and family members to pay attention to her! It makes me so happy to see her developing relationships with people that are so dear to me.

We brought home with us lots of different brands of plain British milk chocolate. Then once here, I purchased several brands of plain milk chocolate and we conducted blind taste tests with both of our families. It was a lot of fun. Everyone was surprised at how vastly different they all were. These are the chocolates we compared:

British:
Heaven
Galaxy
Thorntons
Cadbury
Asda

American:
Dove
Hersheys
Symphony
Cadbury

I wish I had thrown in some Ghirardelli or another nicer American brand, but I couldn't get my hands on any before the scheduled taste tests. The reason I brought the Asda is because I was curious how even a generic British chocolate would stand up. We just did it for fun so there are no official results, but here were some of the general opinions.

As far as Cadbury goes, some liked the American better and some like the British better. The American version is sweeter, the British version is smoother. Nobody really liked the flavor of the Asda or Hersheys, if fact, Hersheys ended up being the last one I tried, and I was so surprised by the bad taste I had to try another sample just to get rid of the flavor. Symphony seemed to be the smoothest and nicest flavor of the American chocolates, but it couldn't stand up to Nestles Heaven or Galaxy. Those two were by far the most favored chocolates of all. I thought Galaxy was my favorite, but it turns out it is an extremely close second to Heaven. Heaven is a little more delicate. Thorntons was by far the biggest shock. For being such a posh, expensive British chocolate, almost nobody liked it. Everybody thought it was American. It was pretty close to the Dove in texture. At least one person chose Dove as their overall favorite because of the flavor. However, I think most were surprised (including myself) how waxy it was. So here are my personal rankings.

1.Heaven
2.Galaxy
3.British Cadbury
4.Symphony
5.American Cadbury
6.Dove
7.Thorntons
8.Asda
9.Hersheys

I might switch the American Cadbury and dove if we were going on flavor, but I just still can't get over how waxy the dove was and the American Cadbury was smoother.

Prawn Cocktail

2008-08-09T13:54:00.000-07:00

Okay so one of the biggest shocks during my time spent here in England has been......Prawn Cocktail Potato crisps. And what about it was shocking? Well the first shock was that they had Prawn Cocktail flavored crisps. How disgusting does that sound? The next shock was that they were not disgusting. As weird as that may be. They don't taste a thing like prawns, apparently they taste like Prawn Cocktail Sauce, which still sounds disgusting, but they're not.

Anyway, so something funny about being an American in England, since I'm on the subject. A very large majority of people I meet assume I'm from Canada when they hear my accent. They either assume it silently and I find out later, or they simply say "What part of Canada are you from?" I find it amusing that the thought that I am from the US never even occurs to them. I assume it never occurred to them because when I say "No, I'm from the US", they are shocked every time. Especially when they find out that I'm living here. "Well, that's unusual" they all say and then produce some sort of comment about Americans never leaving America.

Then come the questions, and if they are male, it is almost certain that even if they don't ask this one, they're thinking it. "So...I've heard" they begin tentative, but daring "that women in America....that they...ehh... really like the British accent." They're not coming on to me, (at least I don't think so) what they're basically asking every time is if the rumors are true and if I think they might get lucky in America just because of their accent. What do I tell them? Well I don't lie to them, although maybe I should. But there's no point, the secret is out. They know they have an extra special power over American women and they are willing to use it to their advantage.

Artillery

2008-08-06T12:58:00.001-07:00

I have been planning menus that strategically use up all the food in our cupboards. I am addressing my calendar almost everyday as we plan rendezvous with all the people around us so we can do just one last thing. I am working on downloading all our cd's scanning in copies of pictures, so that we can get rid of some dead weight. I am stocking up on supplies and artillery for the three days of travel that we have planned with a 3 year old. Yes I did say three days of travel with a 3 year old. The first day will be spent on the train and ferry. Then a flight with two layovers, one of them overnight. Doesn't sound too bad, but the scheduled times could easily spell disaster.

We decided on two new toys as part of our artillery and below is what I've purchased. But here's the deal, I am always afraid of picking something out that she won't like or won't play with for some reason. She loves new toys (what kid doesn't?) and will play with anything for a little while, but I can never tell what she will really like enough to play with for a long time. As well as I know her, that is always hit and miss. So both of these purchases are still in a returnable state, and I guess in a small way I am still trying to make up my mind.

So first is a My Little Ponies Birthday party with two baby ponies, mini slices of cake, pizza, ice cream, lollies, present boxes that actually open, two tier birthday cake, punch bowl with ladle and two cups.
My mother sent her a mini princess doll for her Birthday and she can't get enough of it. She also got a tea set for her birthday which she also loved and she likes to play birthday and is obsessed with presents (I love that these present boxes actually open). So I am hoping that this will appeal to her on the levels of "mini-ness", "birthday-ness" and "pretend food-ness". A small level of concern enters in over two facts. One, she is not very familiar with My Little Ponies and doesn't show much interest in playing with toy animals. However, I could just show her My Little Ponies episodes on youtube for the next two weeks and take care of that. The second concern is with the little circle in the bottom left corner of this picture that has a "4+" in it. Is there an element of this that just won't appeal to her until she's four? It isn't because the parts are so small because I've seen a lot of "3+" with pieces just as small. So what is it that made them deem this particular toy "4+"?

Moving on. I desperately wish that our life was not so topsy turvy to the point that I could get her a big beautiful doll house. There are two places that we've been that had doll houses she could play with and both times it turned out to be the longest I have ever seen her entertained, ever. This seems like the ideal alternative for us right? Well, I am really hoping so. It's just that she does have one other magnetic toy that I really thought she would like, and it doesn't hold her attention at all. But it's Mickey at the Zoo. While she loves Mickey, the Zoo is just not as familiar of an environment. So are the magnets gonna work? Will she like this as much as a real doll house? If I remember correctly this one was at least was ranked age appropriate.

The other concern that I have with both of these is that they both contain LOTS of small little pieces. But that will probably be an aspect of them she will like, but am I doing myself in?

I know it might seem like I am worrying too much, but the last time we made this flight it was a nightmare. I am just praying that she has matured enough to make things a little easier. However, the problem I fear may not lie in level of maturity, but with the number of demons (see Sept 14th) that take hold of my child.

Peas

2008-07-31T13:04:00.000-07:00

Whenever I take the bag of peas out of my freezer and see that they have melted a little and then in the process of freezing again formed a hard solid block, I pound it against the counter to loosen them all up and in the background of my mind I hear my 8 month old daughter's laughter. When she was about eight months old I discovered that nothing in the whole wide world could make her laugh harder than when I pounded the bag of peas against the counter. Pounding a frozen bag of peas against the counter is one of my favorite things.

Going Home

2008-07-25T14:52:00.000-07:00

We bought our plane tickets last night for all three of us to fly to Home at the end of August. I am very excited. We haven't really been home-sick much since we've been out here. I think it's because we have a phone plan that allows us to call home whenever we want, and we video chat regularly with family. But I am suddenly very excited to see family, and even more excited for Zariah to see family.

We still aren't sure what's going to happen next. I have spent hours and hours researching possibilities, and one in particular; finding a job in Taiwan teaching English, but nothing is certain yet. Yes, that's what all the big mysterious research was about. I know it's kind of a let down. It wouldn't be if I could say, "We're moving to Taiwan!". But I can't, so sorry. Everything is still up in the air. There is a company we have applied for and they said they want to hire us, but it may be a couple of months before they can match us up with a position. We have continued to apply for other positions in Taiwan as well as positions closer to Brent's chosen field. I'll keep you posted.

I am still without a computer most of the time, so my posts will continue to be sporadic.

Picture Catch Up

2008-07-09T04:57:00.000-07:00

Zariah turned three quite some time ago. We had a Dora picnic at the park across the street. She didn't get to blow out any candles because the wind was so incredibly strong, but it was still fun.

We were able to arrange a web cam "party" with one at least one set of grandparents. They got to help sing happy birthday and watch her blow out the candles, eat cake and open a few presents. That was really neat.
One of her presents was a little ceramic fairy with paint. When she was done I told her to go look in the mirror so she could see the paint on her cheek. When she saw it, she got a big smile on her face and started laughing. It was three days before we could get her to let us wash the paint off. I guess I wasn't very motivated, it was just so cute that she liked it so much.
Brent's sister was in London with her husband and his family. I know I already told you about this, but I promised I'd post pics. So this one is on the balcony of the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square.
Guess.

Bath.
Roman Baths exterior.

Some friends of ours took us to a place called Portmeirion. We started off in the town, then moved down to the beach.

Then took a walk through the woods.
Then we hiked up a little way to a Temple with an amazing view of the village, beach and mountains beyond that.
I love that moss grows on EVERYTHING here.

We found a stump with a bunch of coins stuck into it like this. So we decided to add a few.
Our wonderful friend shown here. Took some amazing photographs of our day out. WAY better than what you see here. She put a few up on her blog, and I'm sorry, but if you're reading this, you have to go see it. She has two shots at the end of her post of my daughter that I can't get enough of.
We've been to Wales several times by now and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves each time, but this time was it, we officially fell in love. I very rarely buy souvenirs, but I just had to. They are so cool with the Welsh on it and the dragon from their flag.
One last thing. These aren't very good pictures, but I just had to share. A few of Zariah's friends were visiting.
John was trying to blow up a balloon. His mother and I couldn't stop laughing, just look at his face! This picture doesn't do it justice, it was so funny.

Corn Tortillas

2008-07-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

My research is currently at a stand still, but I still haven't had much time to blog since our second computer decided it didn't want to work anymore. Brent is in the process of writing his dissertation and has the computer with him at school every day from 8-5. I finally have a few minutes of alone time with our laptop. So here are a few things I've been wanting to write about.

First, corn tortillas. A few months ago, I was in the grocery store, walking down the international aisle toward the tortillas. As I came closer I noticed a new package on the shelf and my heart fluttered. It said "Corn Tortillas"! I knew it would only be a matter of time. From the sound of it, most Brits love what they've had of Mexican food and are dying for more. I snapped up the package to get a closer look and my heart sank. These were not corn tortillas. After staring at them for a few moments, I felt myself erupt in laughter. They were flour tortillas with flecks of corn meal cooked into them! Not long after, my lovely parents sent me some real corn tortillas, and I decided to do a side-by-side comparison. So here you are.

Sorry I don't have an extreme close up so you can see the cornmeal specks, but these are funny enough. Corn and Flour tortillas are so distinctly different in look, texture and taste, it was just so amusing to me that they were attempting to pass one off as the other with a little handful of cornmeal.

Well I've run out of time, so I guess that's it for now. Ta ta.

Research

2008-06-26T12:15:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks I have completely ignored the blogger world. I haven't really read any (sorry) and I certainly haven't written much. I know a few weeks isn't that long, but I'm just writing a quick hello to mention that it will probably continue for a little while. Why you may ask? Well, I've traded my blogging hours in favor of devoting my every waking moment to research. More on that another time.

Not too much going on. Zariah broke her collar bone last night when she fell out of bed. We spent the better part of the day at the hospital for that. I've decided that the ER or A&E (Accident & Emergency as it's known here) is one of my least favorite places on the face of the planet.

We lost one of our laptops this week. Thankfully I had most of my info backed up, but it had been a few months and I lost a few recent projects and some of the most recent pictures. Ugh. That's twice for us in about a year with different computers! What are the chances right? Learn from my misfortune. Don't let any of that precious information or those priceless photos get lost because you didn't have them backed up.

London & Bath

2008-06-16T01:20:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to write about a little excursion we had last week. I don't have pictures right now, but I will post some when I do. Brent's sister was in London with her husband and his family, and we decided to drive down and see them. So we went to London for the first time. It was a very short trip, but we saw Big Ben, the exterior of Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliment. Then we went to The National Gallery and The British Museum. Both amazing, but I must say that the highlight for me was getting to see the Rosetta Stone. I was also able to see Les Miserables in the Theatre District. It was incredible and I throughly enjoyed it, but it would have been much better if Brent could have come with me. He pretty much made me go. Does anyone actually believe that? Well, it's true, sort of. Of course I wanted to see it, but I knew I wouldn't enjoy it as much without him there, and it just seemed entirely unfair for just one of us to go, so I was contented to spend the evening together in our hotel room. But anyone who knows my husband understands why that didn't happen.

There was so much we didn't get to see. Like a really cool exhibition called "Psycho Buildings" and London Bridge(which I thought was relocated to Arizona, but it is still listed as a tourist attraction here). But even though I know we didn't see enough of London, there wasn't that magic, falling in love feeling there. I really enjoyed myself, but I didn't fall in love with London. I'm not sure why that is. I wonder if it is because we were here so long without seeing it. I remember the first week we were here in Manchester, we just walked around downtown and kept poking each other in the ribs to "Look at that building!" or "Look at that street!". And London is similar to Manchester, just much larger and on a much grander scale, so maybe we've just absorbed that British ambiance to the point that we also saw how big, loud and dirty the city is. I'm not saying I didn't like it and there are parts that are quite lovely and I really do enjoy big, loud and dirty cities, but I guess in the end it was just a bit of a let down.

After London we decided to make a whole day out of traveling home. We drove out to Stonehenge. Also a bit of a let down. It's pretty cool being there in the presence of a formation that is 4500 years old, but all you do is just stand there an look at them. It might have been more enjoyable if we had been able to listen to the recorded HeadSet they have available, but Zariah wouldn't have been very interested in that. It was cool and I am glad we saw it, but also a bit of a let down.

After Stonehenge we drove out to Bath. The road to Bath was under construction so we went a different way, and boy am I glad we did. The scenery in and out of the city was exquisite. Then there Bath itself. I don't know exactly how to tell you about it. Brent wants to live in the country in the middle of nowhere and I want to live in a city. Bath is the first city that we both immediately agreed, "I want to live here!" It is a fairly big city. It was originally built by the romans to take advantage of the natural springs which were rumored to have healing properties. Ill people from all over the country were sent there to recover. After the romans pulled out, it became the social capital of all England (Jane Austen's time). Then the social capital was moved and things died down and there was just Bath. A gorgeous city with an incredible history.

Almost all the building are built with Bath Stone, even the new ones, to maintain congruency. The whole city maintains a certain feel of peace and beauty, and it's easy to find a quiet place to sit in thought or people-watch or enjoy crowded areas of town. We just fell in Love. We first walked around the Roman baths, the Abbey and all through the downtown area. We went to The Jane Austen Centre and upstairs to the Regency Tea Room. We had Tea with crumpets and scones. We took a tour around the city and finished off our day with visiting Sally Lunn’s, for one of her famous buns and some lemon curd.

On the way out of the city there was again some of the most incredible scenery which made for an great ending to our little excursion. We really did enjoy ourselves the whole time, but traveling is so much better when you have no expectations.

American Accent

2008-06-04T06:11:00.000-07:00

In my last post I wrote that I was singing a song with my daughter called "Wind the Bobby Knob". It is a song I had never heard before coming here. I learned it at the first mother-toddler group I went to and I asked them to articulate the words three times saying "Wind the what?" and they kept saying "bobby knob". I had no idea what a "bobby knob" was and they said that the song had originated from the factories because they used to wind the bobby knob.

After a comment from Lizza asking about the song, I started looking online for examples of it. During the first little while my search rendered nothing so I decided to search for a line from the lyrics. I found the song, only it was "Wind the Bobbin Up", not "Wind the Bobby Knob"! Hahaha. Wow. Now I could have kept this on the DL and not embarrassed myself, but I wanted to share this excellent example of the very slight language barrier between Brits and Americans. When I say "bobbin" or "bobbin up" there is absolutely no hint of a Y sound, but obviously the person who taught me the song pronounced it that way. She must have been pronouncing the "in" a bit like the "een" in sheen. I think this must be particular only to a few northern accents because when I was looking for examples of the song, I came accross a few on youtube where they are clearly british, but there is no hint of a Y sound in their bobbin.

Sorry if this is boring for any of you, it's just that I find it all utterly fascinating. Especially how the British can pick apart an accent and tell where someone is from with what seems to me the slightest variance of the way something is said. Have I mentioned before that there is even a North Manchester accent and a South Manchester accent? It's like every twenty miles you travel in this country, there's a new accent.

Speaking of accents and slight language barriers. I figured out why people couldn't understand me sometimes. Before I thought it was because I was speaking too fast. But a few months ago I was talking to someone and they asked me to repeat myself four times! I realized that by the fourth time I was speaking very slowly and clearly, but they still couldn't understand me. Then I pronounced the T in the word I was saying and the light bulb went on. Since then, I have noticed that every time someone says "huh", it is because I didn't pronounce my T.

So I started making a little more effort to pronounce my T's. Then the other day, I called an automated system in the U.S. to take care of some financial business. It instructed me to say "representative" if I wanted to speak to a "representative". So I said it and the computer voice came on with "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that". I had to think for a moment, then I tried pronouncing it again, purposefully leaving out the first T, so it was "represenative" and it said "Okay, I'll transfer you". Geez, I can't seem to win on this one.

I used to think that it was only the really lazy rural accent that didn't pronounce their T's, but since I have been paying more attention, I have found that it is just the American Accent in general.

Speaking of the American accent (I know, will this post ever end? Soon, I promise) Being all of a sudden exposed to so many different accents within one small country has made me think about the accents in the US. This is not something I have thought of often, I don't think Americans ever really think much about their accents. America is just so big, and you have to go such a long way(in most cases) to encounter a noticeably different accent, we just talk like the people around us and never give it a second thought.

I've heard of Brits who have been offended by being pegged as Australian or vice versa. But to them I say; don't fret, most of us just simply can't tell. To us, the English, Australian, New Zealand and South African accent are all pretty much the same. If we were hearing the accents right next to each other then we would probably be able to discern differences, but otherwise, we just haven't been exposed to the accents enough to know the difference. On another note, for some reason we can tell the difference between those four and the Scottish/Irish accent, but we generally have difficulty telling the difference between the Scottish and Irish accent. Our ears have not been as finely tuned and frankly most probably don't think on it much.

But my living here has brought me to think of it often. My ear is developing. Slowly, but surely. I would love to compare the English, Australian, New Zealand and South African accents all side by side and see how I do now, but I still couldn't make any guarantees.

If you want to try your hand at picking out the American accent, check out the little quiz I found

Pictures

2008-06-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

After a recent conversation with a friend I realized that it has been ages since I have posted pictures of us on here. The most recent pictures of us that I have available to put up on here are from our trip with Brent's parents.

This is in front of the Manchester Cathedral where Brent's Great, great....grandfather was married before immigrating to the U.S. Brent's mother had copies of his journal and read the entries involving his preparation and travels. It was a very interesting experience.

This, if you don't recognize it is Chatsworth aka Pemberly, Mr. Darcy's home of residence in the 2005 Pride & Prejudice.

In front of the Edinburgh Castle.

Different view of the castle.

On the main street in Chester.

In front of the Legacy Sculpture placed on the Albert Docks in Liverpool by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in memorial to all the immigrants who left from that very place.

There was a little construction going on, but here's a better view of the area.

On the top floor of the Wellington Inn (our favorite restaurant/pub here) singing Wind the Bobby Knob.

Just plain cute.

Heeding the Call of Nature

2008-05-31T12:40:00.000-07:00

So the weather has been pretty fair for the last month and within that month I have encountered three separate incidents of people relieving themselves in public. The most recent was while I was on a walk with Zariah. A father was helping his son whizz on the grass right out in the open. Before that, I looked out the window one day and saw a grown man using a tree as a urinal, again in plain sight.

My first witness was while I was walking through the park across the street and saw a mother bent over, holding her child under the knees, with their back leaning against her and their pants around their ankles. While holding her child like this she was encouraging their bowel movement right there on the grass! After my initial astonishment, I admit I had a moment of understanding because Zariah is still not potty trained and I have really stressed about potty training her when we don't have a car. There are few public toilets about and sometimes it's twenty minutes to get where we are walking to. So I have stressed a little about what I might do in a situation like that. But that's where my understanding ended, because the thought to drop my daughter's pants in a public place and encourage her to do her business right there in the open, would have NEVER occurred to me! I would have just hurried to wherever we were going and if she messed her pants I would deal with it.

What the heck?! It is funny and dumbfounding and funny and astonishing and funny and not funny. I don't know what else to say.

Asia

2008-05-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

Usually when we are out and about, things just go smoother if we can find a way to motivate Zariah to behave instead of just enforcing consequences when she misbehaves. We have used several methods of "motivation" unfortunately including treats and "chicken & fries" in extreme circumstances. But I try to tell myself that it's not bribery because instead of giving them to her when she is misbehaving, I tell her that she can earn them with good behavior. Recently she has developed a fascination with coins, and I've decided to take advantage. So we are now officially bribing our child with money.

Zariah turned three on Monday. We had a party for her the Saturday before. It was a Dora The Explorer picnic at the park. It was really nice. On her birthday, I was able to find movie tickets for only 1.50, so we took her to see her first film at the cinema. It was "Horton Hears a Who". We were a little hesitant, not sure if she would sit through the whole thing, but she cruised through like an angel and asked for "more Horton" when the credits came on.

She has been endlessly playing with her new toys and especially loving her baby doll set and tea set, of course.

We have been putting in job applications as well as looking for possible funding for a PhD. At the same time we have been doing some serious brainstorming about what other options we have available to us. We've been trying to develop a plan B. As we've been thinking about it, we keep leaning toward what was actually our plan C about 1 year ago. That would be teaching English as a foreign language. We are thinking about this again because it would give Brent more international experience as well as the opportunity to learn a foreign language, which could very well tip the scales toward a favorable job when we are done. There are only a few countries that seem feasible enough to consider; South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and United Arab Emirates. But yeah, I guess we'll see.

Sales-jerk

2008-05-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

I read through the letter that just came in the mail from our power company with confusion. It said, "We're sorry to see you go" and "These are all the reasons why you should stay..." when I had not taken any action to leave our current power provider.

The last time I had even thought about our power company was when a salesman came to my door asking if I wanted to switch to a company called npower. He gave me a quick schpeal about their special offer. They were going to "guarantee" that we would save money if we switched to them and if they didn't they would "pay us 100 pounds".

I told him we might be moving outside the country soon and I wasn't sure if I wanted to mix things up. He responded with "You want to save money right?" he waited for an answer as I resentfully provided him with a "yes" to his idiotic question. He continued, "NPower guarantees to save you money, it's that simple". All you have to do is sign right here which gives us permission to call Eon and take over as your provider (which seems to be how all the utility companies work around here).

He was a friendly, likable guy and I have to admit that I was tempted. It really did sound like a good deal. So I told him that I might be interested, but I wasn't going to sign anything without talking to my husband and reading the fine print. I also told him that I respect the fact that he probably works off of commission and that if I did decide to sign up, I would like to have his name so that I could make sure he got commission for the sale. He interrupted me saying that he didn't think of his job as a sales job, he thought of it as a service job, because he knew he was saving people money and that's why he did it. (Ummmm, no retard, you are not walking around in this FREEZING cold weather because you like to serve people. You and I both know it, so don't try to tell me anything else) I looked at him awkwardly for a moment and then asked him again if I could have his name. He took one of the pamphlets he gave me during his schpeal, wrote his name on it and asked if he could stop by another time. I said that would be fine and he left.

Later that night as I read through the fine print, it explained to me that if I had signed what he was asking me to, I would have locked myself into a 12 month contract with NPower. The jerk didn't say a thing about the contract even after I told him we might be leaving the country withing 6 months. I also read more about the "guarantee" and all the terms and conditions that make it impossible to hold them to it. I was disgusted and threw away all the materials just after noticing that when he wrote his name, he started to write "O" then crossed it out and wrote "Anthony". Hmmm, how often do you start writing your name with the wrong letter?

Now I was looking at a letter from Eon thinking "No way". I called Eon and they confirmed exactly what I suspected. They said they have been having a lot of trouble with NPower salesmen signing for people without their permission for commission! That scuzz-bucket signed us up anyway! I specifically told him no and he took the liberty of switching my power companies for me! Ugh! 'What was that again? It's not really a sales job because you're in it for the service? Oh, is that why you're cheating your company out of commission and illegally switching peoples power companies? Yeah, real "service"-oriented.'

Thankfully it didn't take too long to clear up over the phone, but I still just can't believe the nerve of that sales-jerk.

Geography

2008-05-19T05:20:00.000-07:00

There is so much going on in our world. I don't ever really plan on being completely on top of it all, I don't have that kind of time. But I found it really bothered me when I put up a new world map in our living room and found several countries I had never even heard of before. So I have been wanting to make myself more aware. I have been making more of an effort to keep up with world news and recently, after being inspired by a friend of mine who issued this challenge, I have been homeschooling myself in Geography. I have been studying and memorizing maps.

I started with countries. And since I'm in Europe right now and always seem to be at a loss when it comes to the location of eastern European countries, I started there.

Now, after a week, if given a blank map of Europe or South America I can fill all the countries easily. It has been fun, and I’m tackling Asia & The Middle East next.

I know there are new things to learn everyday, and I have been learning, but it's been two and a half years since I was in school and it just feels good to be learning in that way again.

Yaaaa-Hoooo!

2008-05-15T13:22:00.000-07:00

This morning the first stirrings we heard from Zariah were of her yelling in her loudest possible 3 year old voice "Yaaaaaa-Hoooooo!". Upon entering her room I saw that she had opened her window and was directing this exclamation at all the nicely dressed business people walking to their offices downtown.

I LOVE my daughter.

Summer Solstice

2008-05-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

It's mid-may, 9:00pm and still light outside. Weird. I've heard on summer solstice it is light till past 10:00. I guess that makes up for the sun setting at 3:45 mid-winter, but I still wish the times were a little more evenly distributed. Geez.

Demotivators

2008-05-15T02:33:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been contemplating motivation. As in what motivates me and why and how I can use that to succeed in areas that I have not been successful in before, but maybe I'll bore you with my thoughts and conclusions about that some other time. For now I am just going to share with you something I found a while ago called Demotivators. They really inspired (lol)me so I just thought I would share.

Hehehe

Are You A Noisemaker?

2008-05-11T11:22:00.000-07:00

My daughter loves to make noises. She has always been extremely vocal. I will never forget the first time we put her in the baby swing at a park, so we could push her really high. I think she was 10 or 11 months old. She laughed and giggled and squealed uninterrupted for a half hour straight. It was so funny Brent and I had to take turns pushing because we were both laughing so hard. At one point I remember having to sit on the floor, because my laughter at her laughter rendered my legs utterly useless.

Ever since, I have noticed that she cannot enjoy herself silently. I always figured she was pretty average in this until I started getting comments from other moms on how funny she is about it. From pouring glitter on some glue with a shriek and a giggle to simply jumping over a puddle accompanied by a high-pitched "Woo", that's the first step...."Hoooooo", and that's the actual jump.

After the first comment, I started thinking "Where does she get this from?" Then the next time I played with her at the park I started noticing that I was making all sorts of noises. I am where she gets it from! I had no idea I make so many unconscious noises. I don't do it alone, (at least I don't think I do!) just when I'm playing with her, like she and I need some sort of sound effects to play to.

So yeah, apparently it's rubbing off.

Urban Awakening

2008-05-05T06:53:00.000-07:00

Lately I find myself surrounded by one of my favorite color combinations; the dark brown weathered bark of trees contrasted with the bright, beautiful yellowish green of fresh new leaves. The rain has changed. It is no longer the blustery pelts of cold water that I work to protect myself from. It is now the kind of rain that makes me want to shed all protection from it and lift my face toward the heavens, letting the gentle raindrops trickle down my face.

It is not just the earth that is awakening around here, the city is coming alive. Each time I go downtown there are more and more people there. It seems like each group of people we pass on the sidewalk is speaking a different language than the last one. There are brighter, prettier flowers at the farmer's market. People are playing in the fountains. The grass everywhere is covered with an array of dandelions and daisies. The park across the street is frequented more and more by picnickers and practicing football teams. The playground is full of children. The Canal Tours and the Sightseeing buses begin running this month too. I am so excited to see all of these things happening. This and other images here

Today we went to the Urbis. It is an exhibition centre about city life. Their latest exhibits are "How Manga took over the world" "Urban Gardens" and "Mathew Williamson: 10 years in fashion". It was so much fun. We loved the Manga exhibit, being so bright, fun and colorful. I wish I had photos of the Urban Gardens exhibit. They had a mock kitchen and lounge to illustrate unique ways to incorporate foliage into decor. My favorite part by far was the section devoted to urban architecture that incorporates vegetation. The last exhibit was basically a mannequin fashion show with Matthew Williamson's most iconic designs. Zoe had fun looking at the dresses, of course.

Wrapping Up

2008-05-04T06:53:00.000-07:00

I know it's taking me ages to finish telling about our time with Brent's parents. I've been a little ill and haven't felt like writing, so I'm going to wrap this up right now.

The next day we drove to St. Andrews, about an hour north of Edinburgh on the coast. There I had another fabulous surprise. St. Andrews is not like any other beach town I've ever seen, yet at the same time it is exactly how I would picture and old Scottish town on the coast. I don't know if that makes any sense, but that's the only way I can think to describe it. It was a good sized town. Downtown had some grand architecture for a small town. As we made our way through the town toward the coast, we found a lot of the homes were built with stone in a lovely old cottage style. There were mossy stone steps leading up to the front door running parallel to the house. When we got to the beach we found the ruins of an Abbey and a Castle right on the edge of it making for a unique and stunning view from every angle.

This and some more neat pictures on Wikipedia

We also went to Stirling which is famous for one of William Wallace's first and most famous battles took place. We knew there was a monument there for him and wanted to see it since he is a distant relative and the man that began Brent's obsession with the UK, ultimately bringing us here in the first place. We thought it was just going to be a statue with a nice plaque that we could have our picture taken next to. Boy were we wrong!

The monument is a massive tower atop the biggest hill in Sterling. The monument can be seen for miles in any direction. After you climb the short steep trail to the tower, you continue to climb up the tower, to four different levels of rooms completely devoted to William Wallace. Then at the very top is the most magnificent view of the beautiful Scottish landscape.

Also on Wikipedia

The next day we explored a bit more in Manchester and took it easy because we were all starting to get worn out.

Then on Saturday we drove south to Chester. Chester is a beautiful old Roman town with the Roman wall still intact. We explored downtown in the beautiful Tudor and cobblestone shopping district. We looked around the Abbey and the Town Hall. Then we discovered an amazing bakery called Chatwins. We had a lovely steak pie and I discovered my new favorite pastry dessert. It is called a Copenhagen Slice. It's similar to a Neapolitan, but amazingly enough, even better.

Neapolitan

Afterward, we drove north again to go home through Liverpool. We stopped and walked through beautiful downtown out to the docks to see the monument placed there by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Then Sunday we went to church and rested. I said my farewells to Brent's parents that evening and they left early Monday morning.

We had so much fun. It was by far the best time we have had since we've been here. It was so nice to spend time with family and to actually go out and see this amazing country we are living in.

Edinburgh

2008-04-24T06:50:00.001-07:00

When we were done in the Lake District, we continued northward toward Edinburgh. We checked into our hotel just north of the city. The next morning we caught a train into town. Edinburgh is another place that everyone said we had to see and could describe it only as beautiful and nothing else. So once again, I had no idea what to expect. This complete ignorance of what Edinburgh would be like, led to my favorite moment of the entire week.

We arrived in an old underground train station. As we began walking up into the city I heard some soft, distant, bagpipe music. As we got closer to the upper level of the street the music gradually became more audible and slowly, the view of the most beautiful city I have ever seen unfolded before my eyes. I was in complete awe. Downtown Edinburgh completely caught me off guard. We all stood there a few moments just absorbing our exquisite surroundings. Brilliant examples Gothic, Renissance, Romanesque and who know how many other beautiful styles of architecture all blended together perfectly for the most striking of settings. I fell in LOVE!

We decided to take the city bus tour because we knew it would get us to all the places we wanted to go and save our feet some very long walks. I am really loving the city bus tours around here. It is probably the most tourist-y thing you can do, but it is so nice to have someone else drive you around a city (especially one you've never been to) and give you lots of fun and interesting little facts and stop at all the most interesting places. The tickets are good for 24 hours and you can get on and off as many times as you want to go see the things they are telling you about. We took the city tour for Manchester when we first got here to help ourselves get oriented. They are great.

So we just took the bus around all day and explored. I really did fall in love with Edinburgh. Not only is it beautiful, but all the people were so friendly and warm. I wouldn't mind living there at all.

Where I found this

The next day....

The Lake District

2008-04-24T02:45:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard of the Lake District? I certainly had. It seems like everyone I talk to around here has said "You have to see the Lake District". When I ask why, the simple reply comes "Oh, it's beautiful". Beautiful. That didn't tell me anything, but that seems to be all that people could say to describe it. The Lake District is the Area that Beatrix Potter spent her summers in and later settled and preserved many of the surrounding farms. I had also heard of the Lake District from Pride and Prejudice; Elizabeth is scheduled to go there with her aunt and uncle. The poet William Wordsworth also brought a lot of fame to the area. He lived and died there and was also instrumental in preserving much of the area. I think he deemed the town of Grasmere the fairest place on earth.

So on Tuesday the Lake District was our destination. It was just over an hour away to get to the start of the lakes. Once we hit the first lake, we wound our way up along side it on a teeny, tiny British road. Now something must be said about this road. It was small yes, but not much smaller than many roads I've encountered in the mountains at home. In fact I must say that I have seen smaller, but this road was quite small. I had been warned about small British roads, but as we began driving on this road I thought, "Aww, this is nothing". That is until we passed our first native whizzing past us 50+ mph. Now in the US, a road this small road would be given a speed limit of 20 mph. Most people would probably drive it at 30 mph with very few even coming close to 40 and considerate persons would still slow down when encountering a vehicle coming from the other direction to ensure safe passage without side-swiping each other. But nobody slowed down, even when we came to bridges that cinched the road even smaller, or when a giant I-don't-know-what-kind-of-Van passed us that was so big it encroached on our side of the teeny-tiny road, or when it started hail/snowing (it fell like hail, but stuck like snow). Many people who know me know that I don't panic or freak out easily in the car, no matter who's driving, but I must say this drive was a bit unnerving. I'm just glad Brent was handling the driving, and handle it he did despite the unsettling speed and close proximity cars were coming at him in the opposite direction in bad weather! Geez! Now I know what they were warning me about, it's not the road itself, it's how the British drive on the road. Lol, it finally clarifies a funny experience I had years ago in the Catskills with a British driver, but that's another story.

So we made it to Windermere, the most popular of the Lake District destinations. We explored a little and went to "The World of Beatrix Potter". Zariah had an wonderful time there. With all of Beatrix Potter's stories made into exhibits as close to real life as it gets. It was even fun for the grown ups to see such elaborate and detailed displays.

Afterward we drove up to Grasmere. Windermere was nice and probably more fun as far as lake activities go, but Grasmere was far more charming. The town was made up of beautiful old stone buildings in the middle of a gorgeous valley. We had also heard that you can find the best Gingerbread in the world in a little shop there, but we didn't know exactly where to go. We tried two places. Both were very nice, but we discovered it was the second one with the world renowned reputation. It was very tasty if I do say so myself and I discovered that they ship worldwide, so if you're curious check out their website.

We also went to see the grave of William Wordsworth in a beautiful graveyard next to a stone path that runs along the river, which winds out into the beautiful green valley just beyond the town. It was a beautiful, peaceful place.

When we were done in the Lake District, we continued northward toward Edinburgh....To Be Continued.

Chatsworth Sites

2008-04-22T16:09:00.000-07:00

I don't know what's going on with the pictures and I'm dead tired, so I'm just going to link to other people's pictures.

This site has TONS of pictures of the house and grounds

This is a link to the official website and it has a 360 degree virtual tour of three of the rooms. It's very cool.

Another cool site.

I think my favorite room was the library. As amazing and ornate and beautiful as it all was, the library was the only room (that I actually saw) that I would want to own. Only a portion of the house is open for the tour. I was actually quite unsatisfied with the house tour because I knew there was so much more to see. I was so fascinated with the 24 rooms I was able to see, it really ended up being a teaser and just left me wanting more. Now I wanted to see EVERYTHING.

I also failed to mention that they did the filming for the new film "The Duchess" at Chatsworth because it was the Duchess's actual home.

Chatsworth

2008-04-21T14:56:00.000-07:00

So for the past week Brent's parents have generously let us tag along with them through England and Scotland. Zariah was amazing, for a two year old that is. She has had such a fabulous time with double the size of her normal audience. Brent and I had a fabulous time with double the resources to keep her safe, happy, distracted, entertained, restrained, quieted, or whatever the occasion called for. There is so much to tell, I suppose it best to start at the beginning.

They arrived Sunday morning and came straight off the plane to church with us, jet-lagged and all! Afterwards, John and Avril invited us over for dinner where we had a wonderful British Roast Dinner. That evening we took a walk downtown specifically to see the Manchester Cathedral where Brent's great, great, great...grandfather was married before immigrating to the US. Although this picture isn't of the entire building, I love the detail it shows.

The next day we headed out to Chatsworth, the amazing estate has been the seat of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire for centuries. Whatever that means. I'm pretty sure it basically means it's their home as long as they are the duke. For example when the last Duke of Devonshire passed away, his wife, the Duchess had her title changed and moved out so that her son and daughter-in-law, the new Duke and Duchess of Devonshire could move in. It was also featured as Pemberly in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice. The Drive out there was amazing with the most incredible views of untouched British countryside.

Here is a view of the first half of the house. Seriously doesn't that look like a painted backdrop?

The second half of the house.

This is a snip-it of the extensive rock garden blending into the rest of the gardens. The landscaper was knighted for the work he did on the estate.

They actually had a maze! I have always wanted to go through a REAL maze!

This is the staircase in the main hallway inside the house.

The dining room.

The library.

The statue gallery, of course with the bust of Mr. Darcy still intact.

There is also a large farm and playground we went to afterward. The weather was very on and off. One moment the sun was glaring in our eyes and maybe 10 minutes later we were being pelted with hail. After the hail we happened into a shop for some hot chocolate to go with our packed lunches. We were bombarded by the warm smell of Cornish Pastries and Sausage Rolls wafting through the air. They were wonderful.

I'm going to leave it here tonight. I'll post about the rest of the week later.

Contrast of Emotion

2008-04-20T13:38:00.000-07:00

Brent's parents just left not 10 minutes ago. I am experiencing such a contrast of emotion. I am sad. Part of me wants to cry. However, I find that I am so happy and full of gratitude I simply can't. I am overwhelmed by their sacrifice and generosity. It has been an amazing, wonderful, whirl-wind, adventure of a week. We had such a wonderful time exploring the country. We had an equally wonderful time enjoying each other.

I am so grateful we are here. I am grateful for the friends we have made and all of our new experiences. I am grateful for our family and friends at home and for the technology that enables us to communicate with them so easily.

It is difficult sometimes to think on the possibility that Brent's career may lead us to spend a significant portion of our life away from the people we cherish most. But it is comforting knowing that our family is eternal. I am not afraid of where we will go and what we will do. I am not afraid of the uncertainty surrounding what will become of us in five months. I am not afraid. I know that every experience I have had, wonderful and wretched, has made me who I am and I am so grateful. I am grateful for a heavenly father who knows me, who is aware of all that I am and who loves me. I know he guides me. How could I know that and be afraid?

So yes, I'm back. We have had a wonderful time this past week and trust me, there will be much more about it to come.

Disappointed

2008-04-12T06:48:00.000-07:00

Brent's parents were supposed to get here this morning. We were all very excited. Zoe had been practicing waving and saying "Hi Grandma, Hi Grandpa" from the window seat. We had plans for the whole day, but their departure was delayed which meant they missed their connection in Chicago and that airline only flies out once a day. So we missed out on a whole 24 hours with them:(.

One consolation is that when Michael and Sylvia found out that our evening was free, they invited us over for Michael's birthday dinner. Sylvia said she is making his favorite South African dish, so I am excited to try that. I had also helped Sylvia make a cake for him and I was curious how it would turn out, but now I can try a little piece and find out.

Speaking of cakes, that's another funny thing, I may have mentioned before, but they have no cake mixes here. Well a few, but hardly any. And I have two little recipe books entitled "101 things to do with a cake mix" and "101 more things to do with a cake mix" Nerdy right, but they have some really amazing recipes in there, that are so dang easy to make and get RAVE reviews every time. But I haven't been able to make any of them. I tried making a cake from scratch, and was supremely disappointed. Then Sylvia asked me to help her make a cake and I was determined to find a way to help her make a yummy cake. One of the few cake mixes they do have here is chocolate, but Michael hates chocolate, so that was out.

So I thought about it for a long time and decided that instead of looking for a recipe for a cake, I would look for a recipe for a cake mix so that I could use recipes in my little books. I ended up finding one and that's what we did. I tasted a little of it before the frosting went on and it seemed tasty. I'll have to see tonight when I get a real taste. If it's good, I'll post the recipe on here.

That's about all that's going on right now. We're pretty bummed about not seeing Grandma & Grandpa today. I won't be online much for the next week, but I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures when I come back.

The Nearest Book

2008-04-09T04:38:00.000-07:00

Book Tag

1. Pick up the nearest book (at least 123 pages).
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Find the 5th sentence
4. Post the 5th sentence on your blog.
5. Tag 5 people.

Nearest Book: Uncle Tom's Cabin

5th sentence of the 123rd page:

"He was not a remarkably fluent reader, and was in the habit of reading in a sort of recitative half-aloud, by way of calling in his ears to verify the deductions of his eyes."

So I tag whoever reads this. If you feel like it.

By the way, I know most of you probably read Uncle Tom's Cabin when you were in school, but I was not so privileged. It has proven to be a very slow read for me; partially because I have been so busy lately and partially because I am relishing this literary masterpiece, and partially because I have to read aloud some of the conversations to understand what on earth they are saying.

Sentences like this have me reading them 3 or 4 times and then finally aloud 'by way of calling into my ears to verify the deductions of my eyes'(lol):

"La sakes!" she would say, "I can't see; one jis good as turry,- poetry suthin good, anyhow;" so poetry Chloe continued to call it.

The word that really stumped me and honestly continues to do so is "turry". Reading it in context brings me to believe it would be translated as "the other"; but how they get that out of "turry" is beyond me.

But reading slowly has it's advantages sometimes. Harriet Beecher Stowe has me in awe as I read how beautifully she details the lives of her characters and the destinies she has assigned them.

Oreos

2008-04-05T07:23:00.001-07:00

We were in the store yesterday and I saw Oreo cookies! That was a bit of a shock; apparently they are newly introduced over here. They were on sale for 37p too. It was a small package, so we popped it in the basket.

On the way home, I thought I would stop by a pretty part of the canal so the missis could look at the water and we could sit and enjoy a few cookies. When we got there we saw a goose, which had little miss thrilled! The goose came right up to the edge of the water, even better. I took out the Oreos and stared to open them and the goose got anxious. It flew up onto the bank and started pecking it's neck and advancing toward little miss. It kinda freaked me out because it was just as tall as my daughter and apparently starving. I don't know what it would have done, if anything, but it was weird, so I tossed her into the stroller and left quickly.

I let her eat her oreos in the stroller on the way home. This is what she looked like when we got home.

She looked so cute in these pictures I couldn't decide which one to post, but it's my blog, so I decided on all. But seriously, how difficult is it to eat a cookie? You put it in your mouth and bite. I have no idea what sort of natural phenomena could occur to result in a ring like this around her mouth. This is also after I tried wiping it off several times. What's in there, glue?

I was also found the packaging mildly interesting, so here you are.

Chocolate flavored sandwich biscuits.

Northern Wales Again

2008-03-25T06:24:00.000-07:00

We made another trip to Northern Wales on Saturday. This is going to be a picture post, but our camera isn't working so all our pictures lately are coming from our video camera and the quality just isn't very good. But hey, they're pictures...

This time we went with some friends of ours. Unfortunately I didn't think about getting a picture of all of us together, so this is the closest thing I've got to a group shot. Here we are all walking up to Conway Castle. Just ahead of Brent on the left is John, then Avril who was pushing the stroller with Otto and Anya's (the two figures on the right half of the photo) twins in it.

Zariah had a blast running all over the place and peeking through all the windows.

This is me making up some story to get her excited about leaving the area behind me which was a very long drop down a tower without very much protection. They posted a some signs upon entering the castle that it was very dangerous and warning you that the risk was all ours. Great. They weren't kidding. For a little one like Zoe, there were hundreds of ways she could have met her doom.

There was beautiful scenery to each side of the castle. On one side there were green rolling hills dotted with sheep. The other side was a view of the harbor.

Zariah found this little nook and decided it was a pulpit. She stood in front of it giving a very powerful speech about how she was a "Big Girl!" You can see how passionate she was in this picture, but I was very disappointed to not get a shot with her arms in the air. It was so hilarious. Then to top it all off, when she was done, she looked at me (her only steady audience member) and said "Mommy, clap your hands!"

Afterward we went for a walk around the town within the castle walls. So many cool buildings and awesome little streets.

Afterwards we walked down to the waterfront for a winter picnic. Avril and John brought jacket potatoes(baked potatoes). We opened the tin foil, stuffed a little cheese into it and just ate it. I had never thought about eating potatoes like that before, but it was great winter picnic food. We also had some hot chocolate, sandwiches and fruit. Mmmmm, tasty. We also saw this. The sign says "The Smallest House In Great Britain". It was actually occupied by a little old woman for quite some time. It is waterfront property I guess...

Zoe got really tired after running around the castle. The added walk around town and down to the water transformed the tired to ornery. John and Avril suggested popping in a sweets shop. So here we are bribing her with candy.

This isn't the best shot, but the scenery was so beautiful I couldn't resist. It is also the time of year when lambs are born so there were sheep and little baby lambs everywhere! If you look really closely you can see quite a few little white blurs in this picture.

In Northern Wales Welsh is the first language.

A bridge in Betws-y-coed.

The next two images were not taken by me, but they did the area justice. The first is a different view of the same bridge in the last picture.

The next picture is just a better image of the area we were traveling in.

After leaving Betws-y-coed we went to Llandundo, a Victorian town on the coast. It was much as one would imagine an old, highly trafficked, English/Welsh coastal town to be. I never paid much attention to how much theme parks imitate the old Victorian style, but it felt like I was walking around in parts of Disneyland or Lagoon. It was really nice and it topped off a gorgeous day!

American Food?

2008-03-17T16:14:00.000-07:00

We had dinner with our South Korean Neighbors last week. The last time we had dinner together, Sunhee made us an incredible Korean meal. I thought since I was cooking for them this time, it would be fun to introduce them to some American foods they may not have had before, but I was hard pressed for an idea as to what I should make. What is American food? Hamburgers and French Fries? That's probably what the rest of the world thinks thanks to the world wide McDonald's phenomenon, but we have more right?

It seems in most cases American food is really just American-ized food. One would be hard pressed to find something similar to Pizza Hut's deep dish in Italy or Panda Express orange chicken in China. And as for Mexican food, well I'll just stop right there. I personally like Pizza Hut, Panda Express and Ameri-Mex, but what is plain old American Food like?

After thinking long and hard, our menu ended up consisting of Philly Cheese Steaks, a tortellini pasta salad, chips, fruit and Key Lime Pie. They Loved it. Woohoo!

A brief discussion of the American Food that I made, prompted a discussion of British Food. Now I have encountered a lot of differences in the food here, but on a world wide scale, British Food is pretty similar to ours. Most of the new things we have tried have been quite enjoyable. When we asked them what they thought about it they made a bit of a face and said it was very plain and bland. They also expressed their surprise at the fact that so many of the vegetables served are just simply cooked and served plain!

I had to laugh at that. I have been curious to hear an extreme outside opinion of American food, and a British or American Roast dinner is essentially meat, potatoes, gravy and a few other vegetables. There are all sorts of variations, but the core of the meal, to them, was plain and bland.

Thankfully, because America is so huge, there are a lot of other foods in our country that can be claim. I've been thinking a lot about what those other foods are and this is what I have so far.

Crackers-I haven't been able to find many snack crackers here. No saltines, no goldfish, wheat thins or triscuits.
Beef Jerky
Ranch
peanut butter
Cereal-Certain Breakfast cereals are extremely American like Fruit Loops, Lucky Charms and Trix. In fact I heard of a place where I could get some for 7 pounds, which for us would be 14 dollars per box!
Skillet Meals- Hamburger helper or chicken in some sort of sauce poured over rice, pasta or baked potatoes (at least that is what I found in the small "American Food" section of the International Foods aisle).
Casseroles
New England Clam Chowder
Philly Cheese Steaks
Key Lime Pie
Hamburgers
Hot Dogs
Chili
Fried Chicken and other southern originated foods
Corn on the Cob
BBQ- pulled pork, carolina bbq, any sort of grilled bbq
Salads-all the jello and pasta salads that would usually accompany a nice sunny day in the back yard with a grill
Navajo tacos
*New additions*
PB&J
burritos

Can you think of anything else?

Rambo Fairy Princess

2008-03-13T04:08:00.000-07:00

I'm just sad you can't see the wings.

Sheltered

2008-03-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

Last night some friends of ours came over to visit. We started talking about South Africa which is where they are from. We have known Michael and Sylvia for some time now. They had to leave their two children aged 2 and 6 in order to come here, which breaks my heart every time I think about what they must be going through on that account. Michael is here working on a PhD in Education, with hopes of working toward transformation of the South African educational system. We have occasionally talked about what life was like in South Africa for them, but none of our previous conversations even remotely prepared me for the discussion we had about life in South Africa last night.

I don't know that I'll be able to remember all the details of what Michael told us, and even if I did there isn't room enough to tell it all. The discussion centered on the treatment of himself and Blacks in general in South Africa. He said when he was a child, at meal times, the white people sat down and ate first. Then all that was left over was thrown into a big bowl and set outside for his dinner because they were not allowed in the house. If they ever did come into the house, they had to take off their shoes and not touch anything. He said he never would have been allowed to sit up at the table with white people like he was doing with us. He said that they were not allowed to eat off dishes or use cutlery or glasses. If they did use any dishes, they were usually taken away from the dogs and filled with whatever they were giving to him, unwashed.

The white people lived in town and the black people lived in a township. They were not citizens of South Africa and they were all issued passes that they had to have with them at all times that were primarily used for employment records but were also used to keep track of them and where they were. If he visited family in another township, he had to visit the authority there and show them his pass to let them know he was there.

Michael is an extraordinary man and has overcome great obstacles. He graduated from high school right about the time apartheid ended and was fortunate enough to be sponsored to go to school and become a lawyer. However, it was discovered who was sponsoring him and the company was bought and liquidated.

Many years and obstacles later he found himself as the black Headmaster of a white school with employees and students who would say and do unspeakable things to him. He told us that he had decided never to retaliate or let them make him angry.

He asked for leave to pursue his education here in England. But since he has been out here they have made serious efforts to professionally punish him. They have tried to have him demoted and cut the funds he has been counting on for his degree. He said in South Africa, if you want to be educated, it creates problems because people accuse you of arrogance and conceit. Then they try to punish and persecute you in effort to put you in your place.

I think what added to my astonishment at his relation of all these circumstances to me was the fact that I am in the middle of reading "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Much of what he described to me is extremely similar and in some cases, exactly the same as the conditions that existed for blacks in America pre-Civil War!

It was honestly surreal for me to have a friend of mine sitting at my table and revealing all of these experiences to me that I have only read about in history books. He almost had me in tears, but he tried to keep the conversation light by laughing at my shock and dismay.

He related one experience where he was given the chance to speak to a large group of women about his experiences and how they can prepare their children to be successful in the post-apartheid South Africa. He said that he was able to gain their sympathies and achieve understanding. Sometime later he ran into the husband of a woman who had attended the meeting. The man recognized who he was and mentioned that he was clever to win over so many women, but that he couldn't be fooled, Michael would never be his equal. Michael responded in a manner that showed his obvious superiority to that man in every conceivable way.

It absolutely blows my mind that people like that exist. I know they are usually taught those attitudes in the environment they are brought up in, so I guess I can understand how they came to be like that, but that will never make it okay. It grieves my soul to hear of such atrocities. I have never felt that way toward another human being and have never witnessed those circumstances first-hand. Somehow in my head, even though I knew the truth to be contrary, I thought that the world was past such drastic, degrading bigotry. I guess I need to wake up to the reality that this is much more common than I would ever wish to acknowledge. At times, I have thought myself unsheltered from the world and the sort of things that go on in it, but I was very foolish and naive. I have led a greatly sheltered life. Sheltered from the true extent of sacrifice, suffering, and atrocity experienced by so many others.

British Chocolate

2008-03-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

So I've changed my mind about all those little things in the side bar and decided that I'll just post them even if I end up posting a couple sentences. And if you are interested in what I'm reading or want to compare books or reviews, you can join me on Goodreads.

Today we were in the Manchester Arndale aka the Mall. We were in the elevator and Zariah was smiling one of the guys in the elevator with us. He smiled back. She blew him a kiss and then put her finger to her lips and said "Shhhhhhhh". She had the whole elevator laughing.

There is an area of the mall that they have dedicated as a market where you can get fresh meat and fish, cheese, fruit, or find little booths/shops from quite a few different countries. One of the shops had several shelves of Turkish Delight. I was surprised because up until today the only two encounters I have had with Turkish Delight have been in "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" and the Cadbury Turkish Delight, which is basically a rose flavored jelly covered in Cadbury Chocolate. It's gross. So curiosity stopped me and I picked out several pieces to try. It was all very good. One was like a dense marshmallow covered in pistachios. They had several flavors, including rose, cover in coconut. The strawberry and coconut was really good. So yeah, not all Turkish Delight is gross. lol. I have always been curious about the way it was portrayed in "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" because it didn't look like what I had experienced, but it makes sense now because apparently REAL Turkish Delight is nothing like the stuff marketed by Cadbury.

Which brings me to another point. I know the British are extremely proud of their chocolate and for the most part they should be. Most of their chocolate far exceeds what you find in America. It has taken me a while to come to this conclusion, but I will never fully understand their love of Cadbury. Granted, Cadbury quality is better than Hersheys, but there is something about the taste that I could never love like they do. I mean in the end, it's chocolate. I love chocolate and I do enjoy Cadbury, but just not to the point that I could understand why it is almost revered the way it is here. I enjoy their other brands of chocolate much more.

So I have heard that some other European countries have even better chocolate than they do here. I have had some pretty AMAZING chocolate since we've been here and I would really look forward to finding some chocolate that is better than this. Mmmmm.

Am I an SWC?

2008-03-03T14:31:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I started reading a book called "You Can't Make Me, But I Can Be Persuaded" by Cynthia Ulrich Tobias. Unfortunately I sometimes trail off easily when it comes to non-fiction, but I was recently re-motivated in my reading of it and I finished the book last night.

I originally picked up this book because I had read James Dobson's "The Strong-Willed Child" and had seen little miss exhibiting some SWC behaviors. Little miss had me at my wits end with constant power struggles and I was seeking further guidance as to how I might direct her strong will without breaking it.

I have always lovingly and teasingly blamed my husband for our daughter's strong will. I once asked my mother-in-law if hubby was a SWC and she laughed out loud and exclaimed "Is the Pope Catholic?" Where in direct contrast to that, I never really gave my parents any trouble or argued with them, even during tumultuous teenage years. My mother has said that I was her easiest child to raise. She said I even potty-trained myself, that sounds like sainthood to me.

Since reading this book however, I realized there are a lot of behaviors I've exhibited throughout my life that are classic SWC behaviors. On a scale from 1 to 10 I am probably a 5 or 6. My parents, specifically my mother, were perfect to handle a SWC like myself. Never demanding of unquestioned, unwavering or unreasonable obedience. There was always a reason behind what I was asked to do and I knew it. They exercised parental authority, taught me things and disciplined me when the rare occasion called for it, but I always felt equipped to make decisions and exercise my agency.

When it came to other adults, like teachers and other leaders I was equally pleasant and compliant when they respected me and my agency. But nothing infuriated me more than rules with no reasons behind them, or authority figures who demanded complete obedience just because they were in charge.

There was one time I walked into a new classroom for the first time and a girl standing behind a video camera exclaimed "Stop! Now stand of that mark." I asked why and she just said impatiently "Just stand on that mark." I said no and walked to a seat. She issued me a command and I do not respond well to commands especially when they are issued with no explanation. She annoyingly turned to the teacher and said something like "Mr. So and so, she won't stand on the mark." He looked at me and thankfully said "let it be". The same teacher also had a very strict, unforgiving policy on tardiness. I remember I used to make it a point to be late. If I ever got there on time, I would wait outside the classroom until the bell rang and then walk in.

Another example of my strong-willed tendencies occurred at a girls camp I used to attend every summer. There was a lake at this camp that we went canoing in. Each year they overly stressed the fact that we were not allowed to swim in the lake and that tipping over the canoes was a very serious transgression. If we tipped over our canoes(which I never would have even thought about doing had they not suggested it and made such a big deal out of it), we would not be allowed on the lake the rest of the week and we would have to scrub every canoe with a toothbrush. The only reason they ever gave for why we were not allowed to tip the canoe or swim was a rumor that there were leeches in the lake. So here I was, presented with a rule that normally wouldn't have been a big deal if they had A) given me a logical reason behind it even if it was some stupid legality and B) not made such a big deal out of it in the first place. However, because they made such a huge deal out of it and denied me logical reasoning, every year I had to strongly fight the urge to tip over the canoe.

One year I decided I was going to tip over my canoe and I found a friend who agreed to do it with me. I thought about the action I was going to take and the consequences involved. If I tipped the canoe, I might possibly get a leech on me and I would have to scrub down all the canoes. I decided these consequences were completely acceptable for an opportunity to exercise my agency. So we tipped over the canoe. Well, really, I tipped over the canoe. My friend chickened out at the last minute and tried to steady the boat, but I insisted. Woo hoo, big deal, I tipped a canoe over. I got no leeches on me and we scrubbed down all the canoes.

One might say that I was just being a rebellious teenager, but I still see examples of my strong-willed nature even now. A few months ago I was with hubby in the kitchen. I can't remember the exact details, but I think I had a cup of water and was pretending to dump it on the floor. Then he made the mistake of saying something like "Don't you Dare!" Well of course I wasn't going to, but then he unintentionally issued the command/challenge. After he said that I couldn't help myself, I held his gaze and slowly poured the water out onto the floor. His initially astonished face broke into howling laughter as he said "I can't believe you did that! Why would you do that?" I grabbed a rag and soaked up the water while I laughed at myself. Why did I do things like that?

A few weeks ago I was talking to someone very dear to me. I won't get into the details, but during the course of the conversation they said "Don't you dare____" and "Promise me you will never ____". The thing we were talking about is something I NEVER intended of even thinking about doing, but just because of those statements, I had a really hard time responding. I had to force myself to say something like "Don't worry" through gritted teeth, when all I really wanted to do is yell, "And what if I did? Huh? HUH?"

I know that after reading some of the above examples, it might be easy to think I'm just a stubborn, rebellious, brat who is inclined to make rash decisions, but it is really not so. One of the things I found that I could relate to the most is that SWC don't expect to escape consequences. They consider them carefully and in fact will lose respect for those who don't enforce the consequences. I have never committed a brazen act solely to exercise my agency without first deciding whether or not I found the exchange worthwhile.

Another section of the book I found extremely interesting is where they address SWC and religion. It intrigued me because honestly, if someone is obsessed with not being told what to do, it seems like they would be completely incompatible for a relationship with a God who give commandments. Yet, I am religious. Part of me was wondering if those who are a strong-willed 10 at the far end of the scale, were just unable to have a religious element in their lives. But the more I thought about it and the more I read I realized that God is the greatest respecter of agency ever.
Duh. Which is really all an SWC really wants, respect for their agency to do whatever they want and a knowledge that they will be loved despite their seemingly thoughtless and bold actions.

I also found the book's discussion on what motivates SWC's to be religious particularly interesting because in a way it applies to all my relationships, religious or not. It said the primary motivator was the opportunity for a relationship with god and what that offers, not the punishment that can be avoided or the glory that can be received. I have always felt this way even to the point where I am sometimes uncomfortable discussing the promised blessings for certain actions. I do what I do for the sake of my relationship with god and the intensity with which I value that. If I had ever been taught or actually believed that there was a point where god wouldn't love me anymore, I would immediately not want a relationship with him. The relationship would have lost all value and meaning and the resentment might even carry me to be anti-religious. I would rather spend and eternity in hell than take part in a conditional relationship like that with a supreme being. Conditional relationships are just another way of exercising control over someone. Thankfully that is not the way it is. I don't really want to go to hell.

I am going to end this incredibly long post, but if anyone reading this suspects that they or someone they are close to is a SWC, I highly recommend this book.

Speaking of which, I have been meaning to issue a general invitation to join me on a new site called GoodReads. It's a fun book site where you can compare, review and keep track of the books you read. I've been having enjoying it. If your interested, let me know and I'll send you an invite or let you know how to find me.

Earthquake

2008-02-27T04:38:00.000-07:00

There was an earthquake here last night. It was a 5.5. Big enough to be fun, but not scary. I slept right through it and so did Brent. I am so bummed out. When I was a kid in California, I LOVED earthquakes. I used to be really disappointed when I slept through them then too. Which prompts me to wonder, why do I care? Is it the thrill seeker in me that this bothers so much? On September 11th, I had been home from New York for a week and a half, but originally I was going to be in Manhattan with a flight scheduled for the 12th. I experienced the utmost disappointment when I realized that I would have been able to experience being there during it and in the aftermath of it all.

It's not like I want to put myself in harms way, but I think it's the experience of the human reaction and the range of emotions that can be experienced as a result of such events that fascinates me. I remember feeling surprise and excitement during the earthquakes I felt as a child but it was more than that even if I didn't realize it at the time. It was the experience of encountering something so much bigger than myself. In an earthquake I can actually feel the earth move like it has come to life, when I normally don't pay much attention to the ground I walk on. On September 11th they experienced an extreme example of the law of gravity and the effect of parochial fanaticism; as well as an intense array of emotions that accompanied those experiences. I wanted to experience it myself, but almost more so to just be up close and observe the effects on others.

Spring

2008-02-22T14:05:00.000-07:00

Not much has been happening lately. We've had a spell of lovely weather. February is one of the months with the least amount of rain here. We just finished up two weeks of mostly sunshine and 45 to 55 degree weather. Flowers and trees are beginning to bloom. It was said that this winter was supposed to be a harsh one, but it was fortunately mild and is flowing nicely into spring. It's been hard the last two days however, because it has suddenly turned cloudy and cold again. But the flowers are still there and that makes me happy because I know spring is quickly approaching. I really look forward to seeing leaves on the trees again.

So if you haven't noticed, I've been messing around with my side bar adding fun little things I like to tell people about, but don't necessarily want to write a whole blog about.

Yeah, that's about it.

Catherine Cookson?

2008-02-15T05:54:00.000-07:00

Has anyone heard of Catherine Cookson? I never had, but she is the favorite author of a friend of mine here and I have found her and her novels very interesting. She is the most widely read novelist in the UK. She started writing in her mid-forties and cranked out over 100 novels before she died at 92 in 1998. She writes chick drama and I am not always a fan of chick drama because it has a strong tendency to be stupid, vapid and shallow. But it was said she always resented the fact that her novels were labeled as "romance" because she considered all her novels historical, based on the fact that they were all written about people and conditions she knew growing up in the early 1900's.

Anyway, her stories are complex and intriguing and I have really enjoyed that she gives her novels that added historical base. It has given me insight into what things were like here in the early 1900's, which I had no idea how drastically different it was from the early 1900's in America.

So yes, I was just wondering if she was really only popular in the UK or if any of you have heard of her or read any of her books.

You Know You're Poor

2008-02-13T06:21:00.000-07:00

You know you're poor when your laundry detergent looks like this

More so when it actually says this

"Cleans, no added promises!" I get such a kick out of this brand. Everything I buy in this brand has the same design and colors on the outside, and half of it says something refreshingly honest on the front of the label. It's actually kind of nice to not be affronted on every side by product marketing. Of course I'm sure there is still a marketing strategy in place, but instead of the same old strategy of trying to get me to think a product is better than it really is or better than all the rest, all they are trying to get across here is; "This product is cheap. It is the cheapest one you will ever find. If you want cheap, this is as cheap as it gets, so buy it!"

It's great too because, really, that's all I want. Honest and cheap.

Quirks

2008-02-07T02:34:00.000-07:00

Tiecen tagged me for this blog.

So here we go, six unimportant things/habits/quirks about myself.

1.I have issues with throwing things away, but I despise having clutter, knick knacks or anything that's useless. This is a constant battle I fight with myself. The worst is when I am traveling. When I go into a souvenir shop I am tempted to buy everything in there despite the fact that it is all useless junk. I just have to remind myself of the predicament I would put myself in if I bought any of it; always wanting to throw it away but not being able to because it's a souvenir.

2.I love large groups of people or crowds. I don't know what it is, I thrive in places with lots of people. It's not even necessarily that I like interacting with them. I really just like being in a crowd. I think I like to "get lost in the crowd" I also really enjoy people watching in large crowds.

3.I have recently discovered that I prefer hang-drying to a tumble dryer for everything except towels. I will never use a dryer for all my clothes again.

4.I hate eating salad with a fork. I have to use chopsticks if I'm going to enjoy it. A friend once told me she thought salad was more satisfying with chopsticks. I thought she was crazy, until I realized she was right!

5.I LOVE the sound of seagulls. It's like every time I really hear them I am transported to the beach. I can then feel the sun on my back and I just relax all over.

6.I walk like a model and I'm really insecure about it. I know that's a weird and funny statement, but it's true, I've seen myself in reflections. My friends discovered and pointed it out to me when I was 15 years old and have lovingly teased me about it ever since. There are a couple of reasons that I'm insecure about it. One, when people notice it, I just get insecure because I know they are watching me. The other reason is because I know that people sometimes think I am doing it on purpose to draw attention to myself. One of many examples: I was walking into a gas station and some annoying woman at a stop light honked her horn and leaned out the window to yell "Shake it, don't break it honey!" I turned around to see who she was yelling at and she was nodding and pointing at me! I know she was just being stupid, but it's just weird to have someone notice something like that and think that I'm doing it on purpose when it is completely unconscious.

So there you have it. Now I am tagging Summer, Katie, Mish, Ree, Becky, and Jen.

Here are the rules:
* Link to the person that tagged you.
* Post the rules on your blog.
* Share 6 non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
* Tag 6 random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
* Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Why can't I argue?

2008-02-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

I think that most every argument that I have had with my husband since we have been married has pretty much been based on the fact that I don't like to debate and my husband loves it. My husband actually told me once that the only thing he would ever really change about me if he could would be that I would argue with him more. Seriously, how many husbands say something like that!

I think the problem arises in the fact that I love to discuss things and he loves to debate things. When a conversation of such a nature arises "debate" and "discuss" seem to be the same thing, so we get going on conversation without realizing that we are on different pages with different expectations of the conversation. In the end we realize just how different "debate" and "discuss" really are when we are both speechless from frustration. Ugh.

The stupidest thing about it is that whenever we get into a argument like this, it always seems like it is over the most ridiculous stuff. But in reality it is always the same old problem that we are just not argumentatively compatible. Lol, in fact, we are so argumentatively incompatible and communicate in such drastically different ways that there have been times where after experiencing complete frustration with each other, we realize that we were actually making the same point!

Funny Zoe

2008-02-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

Zariah has started referring to herself as princess. This other day when Brent was leaving for school, I told her to say 'goodbye papa'. She did and then instructed Brent to say 'goodbye princess'. Brent laughed and followed her instuction.

Later that night at the dinner table she had a little conversation with herself that went like this:

"Would you like some bread princess?"
"Yes"
"Oh, okay"

Then she helped herself to a slice of bread.

In other funny news, we have run into a problem with the way that Zoe says 'peanuts'. It unfortunately sounds very much like a male body part. We discovered this a few weeks ago during our church sacrament meeting when she very loudly continued saying; "I want my peanuts. I want my peanuts. Mommy, I want my peanuts." At first I was shocked and couldn't figure out what she was saying, then after a moment I quickly realized and said loudly so the people sitting around us could hear my translation, "No Zoe, we don't have any peanuts today."

Then last week when I was sitting on the stand and Brent was down with Zoe, she started asking for a snack and I heard her loud and clear as if she were sitting next to me. I didn't realize her voice carried so well in this chapel. Great. Everyone in the entire congregation must have been able to hear her when she was referring to her peanuts.

Boy Crazy Two Year Old

2008-01-29T06:33:00.000-07:00

I have a boy crazy two year old. The other day I walked into my room and she was sitting on my bed, leaning over the dresser and kissing the picture on my new Joseph Smith Manual!

The other day when we told her the missionaries were coming over for dinner she immediately said "Mommy, where's my dress! Mommy, I need to find my dress!" I told her she couldn't wear a dress and the next thing I know she's completely undressed trying to pull her dress down from the hanger in the wardrobe anyway. I told her she couldn't wear it and she then got a new idea. She said "Mommy, I want to wear my night gown". She wouldn't put up with anything less than her pretty pink one. Then she came to me with a brush and made me do her hair! And she had to top it all off with her pink slippers, or as she calls them, her glass slippers. Then she went to wait in the window seat watching for them!

Oh man are we in trouble!

I purposefully decided that I didn't want to own any Disney princess movies because I don't like the way they portray women and "true love". I didn't want to be a tyrant about it and I didn't care too much if she saw them, I just didn't want to own them. Despite the small efforts we have made in that respect, we have probably countered them in other respects and she has nonetheless developed a complete obsession with princesses, true love and boys!

I know she's only two years old. I'm not really too worried, it's mostly just funny.

What do you think about this? Were any of you like this as children? Do any of you have children like this? Do you think we're in trouble? What do you think about the disney princess movies?

I mentioned once before, but I changed the settings on here so that anyone who reads this can leave a comment if they enter their email address. So yes, if you are reading this and you have anything to say, please share.

They Finally Got Me

2008-01-28T08:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I had this posted for a while without an explanation, when I thought I had included it. It probably didn't make much sense especially with the title, just delving right into it like that. Here is what I thought I had written in the beginning:

I have gone for 12 years without speaking in Church, but they finally pegged me down for it. I chose to use a lot of personal experiences in my talk and because of that I decided to add it to my blog which is my only type of journal for the time being.

I didn’t plan on getting married. I didn’t plan on not getting married, but I just figured since marriage is not always foreseen, that I would just make plans and live my life until the opportunity arose. Well that’s just what I did. I was very adventurous, I did a lot of solo traveling. I met lots of new people and new made friends. I had many wonderful opportunities to serve others and my heavenly father, but at the end of the day, it was just me. I was the only person I truly had to worry about. I never really got lonely, I quite liked it, but I began to notice that I was growing selfish. I didn’t want to be selfish so I began praying for help to become unselfish.

What happened next I believe was the very unexpected answer to that prayer. I’m not sure why I didn’t expect it, but I didn’t. I started dating Brent. We both started off the relationship somewhat unattached. I knew he wanted a serious relationship and he new that I would soon again be moving. We called things off after about 2 months and I was off again, this time to California. I had been gone for less than a week when I got my first phone call from Brent and from that point on we talked almost every night for 3 months. It was pretty obvious where we were heading. Only, the direction in which we were heading had me absolutely terrified.

This is where my original plan got me into a bit of trouble. Now one can definitely think and plan for marriage too much, but my problem was that I didn’t plan or think on it at all. I was enjoying most everything there was to enjoy about being single and when suddenly faced with the prospect of marriage, I just didn’t know what to do. I wanted to continue enjoying myself and carrying on with my plans into which marriage just didn’t fit at the time. I was also afraid of the way the world refers to marriage as “settling down”. I loved Brent very much, but I just couldn’t bring myself to feel ready for such a step and I was at a loss as to what I should do.

Well you all obviously know the ending of the story, but I am going to suspend how that ending came about for a few moments while I deliver the rest of my talk.

The subject I was asked to speak on is “The Blessings of Raising a Family”. There are all sorts of blessings to be experienced through raising a family like those that come from sacrifice, perseverance, missionary work and fulfilling and magnifying our callings. One great blessing to be had is of increased spiritual development. Having a family creates an environment that fosters spiritual growth and progression like nothing else can.

But there are other blessings too, blessings that I can’t quite characterize. I know personally that having and raising my little girl is very rewarding and brings me great joy, but when i think of why that is, I just can’t seem to list the reasons much beyond her smiles. But then trying to tell someone that cleaning dirty diapers, spit up, and all other sorts of unimaginable messes, dealing with depravation of sleep and even your own thoughts, handling monumental tantrums, public embarrassment, struggling to teach a child when all they seem to want to do is defy you in every possible way, is worth it because she smiles at me. It all makes me sound a bit looney.

I had an experience that illustrates this perfectly only a few weeks ago. But before I get into it, let me preface it with telling you that my pregnancy with Zariah was awful. It was by far the most miserable experience of my life. Since then I have always said that I definitely want more children, but I never, ever want to be pregnant again. So a few weeks ago my husband and I were reading about a very controversial growing trend in India. It is the “outsourcing of wombs”. Now I believe that being a surrogate mother for a woman who cannot carry a child herself is an incredible, selfless service. But this is a little different, people have found that for a fee, they can forego the pains and inconvenience of pregnancy and provide in some cases a lifetime’s worth of wages for a woman in India who is willing to rent her womb through IVF for nine months. This would basically be the perfect solution to my desire to have more children and yet not be pregnant again. But instead of being excited by the prospect, I was overwhelmed by a great sense of loss at the thought of unnecessarily giving up that experience. I was a little surprised by my reaction, but it only brought me to realize that the small rewards like the early developments of my relationship with her by feeling Zariah’s first movements and knowing that she could hear my voice made 9 months of sickness and pain worthwhile.

The Blessings of raising a family are not always as obvious as some of the shallow-natured disadvantages, but they run deeper, feel of such intensity, purity and joy as be to be at times, beyond all description.

In a talk by Jeffery R. Holland entitled “Because she is a Mother”. He says “One young mother wrote to me recently that her anxiety tended to come on three fronts. One was that whenever she heard talks on LDS motherhood, she worried because she felt she didn’t measure up or somehow wasn’t going to be equal to the task. Secondly, she felt like the world expected her to teach her children reading, writing, interior design, Latin, calculus, and the Internet—all before the baby said something terribly ordinary, like “goo goo.” Thirdly, she often felt people were sometimes patronizing, almost always without meaning to be, because the advice she got or even the compliments she received seemed to reflect nothing of the mental investment, the spiritual and emotional exertion, the long-night, long-day, stretched-to-the-limit demands that sometimes are required in trying to be and wanting to be the mother God hopes she will be.

But one thing, she said, keeps her going: ‘Through the thick and the thin of this, and through the occasional tears of it all, I know deep down inside I am doing God’s work’.

Now if you ask me this mother is a little overly stressed about being a mother, but I do know where she’s coming from and her simple statement is what it comes down to for me. The number one greatest blessing that I have experienced is the complete peace and joy that I have in knowing that I am doing God’s work. I don’t think there is a greater peace or joy to be had than that which is experienced when one has the perfect knowledge that they are right with god and about their father’s business.

Now back to how I chose to marry Brent. At this critical juncture I remembered a lesson I once had in Young Women’s. It was all about sacrificing something we want now for something we want more. I loved this lesson because it always helped me to keep an eternal perspective. When I thought about all the things that were making me shy away from marriage I realized that they were all things I wanted “now” or in that moment. When I thought about the things that were enticing me to marriage, I realized that they were all the things I wanted more. And among those things was what has always been the deepest desire of my heart; to be doing whatever it is the lord would have me do. The lord wanted me to have a family.

The lord wants us all to have families just as he always has. In “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” it says, “The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force.”

In an article in the Liahona giving insight into the proclamation it says “Bringing children into the world is certainly not convenient. Most often it involves physical pain followed by great sacrifice and selflessness. But the blessings of keeping God’s command to rear children are some of the sweetest blessings He offers. Indeed, in many ways parenthood gives us a foretaste of godhood.”

Choosing to get married and start a family with Brent is the best decision I have ever made and by choosing to do so the lord has blessed me beyond anything I ever imagined. I am so grateful for my family and for the potential I have to be with them forever.

My Daddy

2008-01-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

Today is my daddy's birthday. I am a daddy's girl and I'm not afraid to admit it. To me my father is undoubtedly one of the greatest men on the face of the planet. Because it is his birthday, I've decided to share one of my favorite memories about my father.

I was 18 years old and out running some errands when I got a flat tire. It was my third flat tire in less than three months. There was a problem with my jack at the time, so I could not fix it on my own. Even worse, I was still riding on my full size spare because I hadn't had the time to fix the last flat tire. So, for the third time in three months I called my dad and sheepishly told him what had happened. I felt awful for bothering him again with something I should have already taken care of. He was able to take some time out of his work day to come help me. When he arrived he popped off the most recent flat tire and grabbed the other one while he was at it and threw them both into the back of his truck. Then we climbed into the cab and took the tires to be patched.

I remember being really upset that this had happened again. It had ruined my day, made me late for work and forced me to trouble my father again. I told my dad for probably the third time that I was sorry to have troubled him and made him come so far out of his way to come get me. He stopped, looked at me and said "Loni, I'll always come get you."

To this day, I cannot relate that experience without my eyes watering. I know he will always be there to rescue me if it is ever needed and I love him for it beyond description.

Northern Wales

2008-01-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

We made a trip to Northern Wales recently. It was WONDERFUL! One of the best parts was to be able to get away in a car of our own. I can't help but feeling couped up sometimes, not being able to go hardly anywhere farther than I can walk with a two year old in tow. I am not at all complaining about our area or location, but knowing that there is amazing countryside 15 minutes away in any direction and not being able to see or explore it makes me feel a little couped up.

So yes to have a car for 24 hours and being able to take a very long drive as a family was a very welcomed event. We just took the day easy and enjoyed the drive. We went out to Caernarfon (pronounced sort of like ka-nar-von). Which is a city and a castle with the walls that enclose the surrounding village still intact as well. It was amazing.

This is me and little miss at the castle entrance.

Brent and Zoe in the castle.

Here is a better view of the inner part of the castle.

The exterior.

I don't have any pictures of the interior the castle, that was neat too. After an afternoon of exploring the Castle and village, we hopped in the car, passed throught this town: llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch and then drove out to Holyhead in hopes of catching this view of the Irish Sea at sunset.

Well our view wasn't quite as peaceful as it is in this picture. There was a storm and the winds were incredibly strong and cold, but it was still breath-taking and worth the little hike through some stormy weather.

'Can't Cook, Can't Clean'

2008-01-04T12:49:00.000-07:00

'She can't cook and she can't clean'. This, among other things is what my father told Brent when he asked permission to marry me. Truth be told, he had good reason to tell Brent that. For two or three years before we got married I was living out of boxes and suitcases whenever I was home and no matter how much I tried, it was never as organized as I wanted. As for the cooking, even I didn't know I could cook until I got married.

When I got married, I started cooking more often and actually having fun with it. Without realizing it however, I seemed to have kept within a certain comfort zone. I never really felt like I knew how to cook. I couldn't even bake bread, roast meat or make a proper roux.

Since we've been here however, I've been stepping outside of my comfort zone quite a bit and feel like my skills are increasing all the time. Among other things I have worked on precisely the three things listed above. I can actually make a roux now. I am working on the bread thing. I think my expectations are a bit too high. I want to learn to make bread like they do at a good bakery. I have been consoled upon learning that several of the breads I would like to make require specific types of ovens and would therefore be impossible for me to achieve with my mini hob. I have discovered an amazing recipe for dinner rolls, which makes me happy. Brent and all six missionaries can't seem to get enough.

I've roasted a few chickens now. That one I did on New Years Eve almost felt like an initiation of sorts. Like an invisible fairy was floating over me dubbing me with a wand or something saying "You are now a cook". Ridiculous I know, but I was so proud of myself. For the first time I felt comfortable saying 'I know how to cook'. A little. Actually, just having written that, it still feels funny. It's still really more like 'I know how to follow a recipe' and that's pretty much it.

Whenever I am cooking, I never really feel entirely responsible for it when the dish turns out good, if I didn't make it up. Almost like I'm tracing the work of a famous artist. It's like I'm a copy cat. I guess I just feel almost like I'm cheating because all I'm really doing is copying what someone else has done. But then again, isn't that how some artists develop their talents; by copying the work of master painters? So I guess if you think of it that way, I'm just a cook in training and by continuing to follow good recipes I am learning from the "masters".

Whether I'm a real cook or not, I have been having fun stepping outside my comfort zone and I am getting better which makes me happy.

Oh yeah, and my Father really isn't a jerk. When my father asked my grandfather's permission to marry my mom. My grandfather sat him down and said "Alright, I'm going to tell you all the bad things about her and if you still want to marry her, you have my permission." My Dad thought he would do Brent the same favor. He said she can't cook, she can't clean and something else that both Brent and I have forgotten over the past few years. He could have said other things that Brent still hasn't told me, but if that's the case I probably don't want to know anyway.

I don't know if these revelations were given before or after the threats issued while he was polishing his guns. Wait that makes my dad sound like a bit of a jerk again. He's really not. Anyone who knows my father knows that his threats to hunt Brent down if needed, were done with a secret sort of glee as one of the most awesome jokes he would ever get to play. Simultaneously acknowledging that if Brent ever gave him a reason, the joke would suddenly become deadly serious. Thankfully Brent recognized my father's good nature and while not doubting his being serious if the occasion called for it, mentioned to me afterward that he had a hard time keeping a straight face through it all.

New Years Cooking Experiments

2008-01-01T04:41:00.000-07:00

New Years crept up on me and it didn't hit me that it was New Years Eve until the morning of. We didn't have any plans and there was no way I was going to ask someone to babysit on a holiday at the last minute; no matter how much I wanted to go out and see how Manchester celebrates New Years. I knew we would end up staying in and watching movies, but to make the night special I decided to mix it up and get creative with dinner. Instead of making spaghetti, I chose to roast chicken for the first time. I have never roasted any kind of meat before. I wasn't even sure I knew how, but I decided to figure it out. I brought out a recipe I had been wanting to try for a while and set to work.

For dinner we had Honey curried roasted chicken with roasted potatoes, onions, carrots and apples served over rice. Wow, it was spectacular. It was just what I wanted to set the night apart. After dinner we put Zoe down, washed up and then decided to experiment again. I haven't been able to make my favorite cookie recipe because it calls for a very specific ingredient that I can't find here. So we have been hunting for a new recipe. We have made cookies twice since we've been here and both times I have been sorely disappointed. Last night however, I discovered that This recipe will do just fine. I'm not sure if I like it better or not, but it is pretty amazing. It is definitely the best recipe I've used outside of my regular one. They are very vanilla-y (michelle, I know that will sell you right there). They are great right out of the oven and if kept in a ziplock they are fantastic the next day too.

After we made the cookies we watched a few movies. At about 11:30 we brought out some crackers and cheese along with a yummy non-alcoholic wine. At midnight we sat in the window seat to watch the fireworks over the city. We could hear people cheering and waahoo-ing in the city center. My inclination toward people and parties made me long to be out in a crowd, but at the same time I was completely satisfied being in the window seat with my sweetheart to ring in the New Year.

Happy New Year everyone!

A to Zed

2007-12-30T11:48:00.000-07:00

On Sunday's I teach a class at church with a small group of kids between 5 and 7. Today I decided to do a review of topics from the year. I made puzzles and then asked them different questions about the topic of the puzzle. At the end we played Hangman again with topics from the year. It was a very strange, unexpected experience.

As we played Hangman and they were guessing letters, they pronounced all their letters in the soft form. 'ah', 'eh', 'kuh', 'puh'...what?! A few of the letters they said were in hard form, I don't remember which ones. Almost every time they made a guess, I had to look at them for a second before I realized what they were saying. It was so weird.

The only real difference in our alphabets that I knew of before this is that Z is pronounced 'zed' instead of 'zee'. That one is weird, instead of A to Z, it is A to 'Zed'. People get really confused when I pronounce it 'zee'.

The weirdest part was when I finally stopped and explained why I was looking at them so funny every time they guessed a letter, I told them that in America we pronounce our alphabet differently. I gave them some examples and they stared at me blankly until one of them said "that's what we say here". I just looked at her utterly confused, then moved on with the game speechless. I think these kids are more clever than they let on and are messing with my head:)

Oh yeah tonight Brent called my cooking a curse! Only he could mean that as a compliment. (He meant a curse for his middle, awww)

Our First English Christmas

2007-12-27T05:47:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful Christmas. It was so much fun because this year Zariah was aware of what was going on. There were presents under the tree that she knew could not be opened until Christmas Day. We also found this really cool website with a huge list of classic Christmas movies as well as certain Christmas episodes that you could view online for free. She watched the Smurfs, Garfield, Charlie Brown, Rudolph, Mickey, Donald Duck, and quite a few other characters enjoy Christmas and she knew it was coming for her too. These Christmas videos taught her all about Santa without us ever having to say a word. One night when she was looking at the presents under the tree and pointing out who they belonged to. She looked up at Brent and I and got a smile on her face and said "Santa's coming to my house." I was honestly somewhat relieved. I wasn't quite sure how I felt about the idea of actually teaching her about a fictional character and convincing her to believe in him. This way I'm just letting her believe in something for a while instead of dispelling it right away. I'm sure that's what happens for most people I just never realized it before.

We did a chocolate and a scripture advent this year. It was very nice and a tradition I would definitely like to continue. Each night after dinner, we all took a chocolate and a scripture from an advent calendar and then enjoyed our chocolate while reading about the Savior's birth. It was nice to have that reminder each evening of what the Christmas Season is all about.

Zoe really hit the jackpot this year. One of the mother-toddler groups we go to gave all the mothers at least 30 quid worth of stuff. Then the Relief Society President rang up and told me that her daughter had been clearing out all the clothes and toys her daughter had outgrown to make room for the new ones. She had all this stuff that was just right for Zoe and asked us if we wanted it for Zoe's Christmas. I of course said yes, and she brought over two big bags filled with clothes, a bunch of puzzles, legos, books, a fairy princess outfit, a stuffed puppy with a grooming kit, a bike with training wheels and a bunch of other miscellaneous toys. It was all used, but in great condition! I couldn't believe it. We hardly bought Zoe anything and yet on Christmas Eve we had so much stuff for her that we ended up putting some of it in a trash bag and hiding it under the bed for later!

Christmas morning was awesome!

A 3-D picture of girraffes (Zoe's favorite) from Great Grandma.

Zoe's new "plilano".

Her new fairy princess outfit.

She's a fairy princess about to go out in the snow.

We convinced her to stay in and have some hot chocolate.

Then we watched some new movies.

After hanging out and playing with Zoe, we went to dinner with a family in our ward. It was so nice to be in a house full of people and experience a traditional British Christmas dinner. Wow, it was fun and very good. After the appetizers, everyone broke open their Christmas Crackers, put on their paper crowns, and told their joke. For dinner they had Turkey, Beef, Lamb, sausages, bacon wrapped dates, brussel sprouts with chestnuts, yorkshire pudding, stuffing balls, whole roasted red onions, and then of course mash, roast potatoes, and a few other vegetables.

The next day was Boxing day. Traditionally Christmas is spent with family, then on Boxing day everyone boxes up treats and presents and goes visiting friends, neighbors and extended family. It was actually really nice to break up the holiday celebrations into two days. After all the craziness that goes along with getting ready for Christmas day, it's almost like you get a little more time to enjoy the fruits of your labors. Not to mention a little more time to rest.

For Boxing day we went to Avril and John's for dinner. Below is Brent, the Missionaries and John.

This is Avril.

We all got some lovely presents. Among my favorite however is this;

Bethany got it for us. I had told her over a month ago that I really wanted to find a British ornament. We get a new ornament every year and I thought it would be nice to have one as a remembrance of our first English Christmas. I looked everywhere and couldn't find a single ornament I liked. I finally gave up. But honestly, I couldn't have picked out a better one myself. This was EXACTLY what I was looking for!

Answers

2007-12-23T14:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know I've been promising the answer to my 'Seven truths and a Lie' Post for a while. Here it is.

1. My first appearance on television was on the Ricki Lake Show. TRUE

I was with a friend walking around in Manhattan and ran into some other friends who were on their way to the show. One of them knew the producer and insisted that we come with them. We got prime seats with lots of face time and interaction with the men. That particular show was "Ricki's International Hunt for the Worlds Hottest Man!" It was beyond ridiculous, but that was part of the fun.

2. I have been through an automatic car wash with out a car. TRUE

Several times. I used to do this with friends in the summer when I was bored.

3. I once scared off a bear when I was hiking alone. TRUE

I was hiking in Shenandoah and Ran into a bear cub on the trail. I was about twenty feet away from it and turned to retreat as quietly as possible. It didn't see me at first but then without knowing it began following me. When it finally did notice me it got scared and ran away. Thank goodness. I have heard bears in Shenandoah are pretty friendly, but I've also heard that they are never far from their cubs and they can be really aggressive when their cubs are involved. I'm just glad it ran away, when it first started following me I was nervous that it might be sniffing out the trail mix in my backpack.

4. My first anniversary was spent doped up in the ER. TRUE

Yeah, I was pregnant and was having a REALLY hard time with extreme headaches. Loratabs couldn't even touch the pain. The pain was so bad it was also accompanied by an intense nausea to the point that a sip of water would throw me into violent heaves. It just so happened that on my Anniversary, it got really bad and it was a Sunday, so we called the on-call nurse at my doctor's office for help. She just told us to go to the ER. It was awful.

5. I have been bungee jumping, hang gliding and sky diving. False

I have been bungee jumping and hang gliding, but not sky diving yet.

6. I lived in my tent for two months. TRUE

7. I spent a summer as a counselor at a youth 'fat camp'. TRUE

8. I am a descendant of Katrina Van Tassel on the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. TRUE

The Author Washington Irving lived in the old Van Tassel home and was very interested in the Van Tassel family history. He named some of his characters after the family. I'm pretty sure everything else was entirely fictional.

So there you have it. Hooray for Summer and Alison for getting it right!

Seven Truths and a Lie

2007-12-12T14:56:00.001-07:00

I got tagged a while ago to write a blog with six things you may not know about me. I have decided however to make things a little more interesting and combine this blog with a game of seven truths and a lie

You get to guess what the lie is:

1. My first appearance on television was on the Ricki Lake Show.

2. I have been through an automatic car wash with out a car.

3. I once scared off a bear when I was hiking alone.

4. My first anniversary was spent doped up in the ER.

5. I have been bungee jumping, hang gliding and sky diving.

6. I lived in my tent for two months.

7. I spent a summer as a counselor at a youth 'fat camp'.

8. I am a descendant of Katrina Van Tassel on the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Have fun! I changed the settings so that anyone reading this can leave comments, just please leave you name so I know who you are.

P.S. I decided to modify this post a little. If you noticed, then I guess that just means you get a freebee.

The Look

2007-12-12T14:36:00.000-07:00

I have recently noticed a look reoccurring in photographs of Zoe.

This ones just funny.

No matter how fast she grows she'll always be my baby girl.

Getting up to date

2007-12-06T12:50:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while. Let me fill you in...

Thanksgiving was nice. It was my first time being the sole cook for a Thanksgiving dinner. We had all the basics, but chicken instead of turkey and pumpkin pie made from carrots because you can't get pumpkin here. We invited over a family from Afghanistan that lives in our building. When I was making the dinner, the thought came to mind and struck me as almost funny, that these classic traditional foods like mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, roasted vegetables and possibly even the rolls were just foreign to them. At least in the way we prepare them. When they came it was as I expected. They were a little hesitant with many of the foods, but they LOVED my carrot-pumpkin pie. It was a very nice Thanksgiving and we had a lovely time visiting with them and enjoying a "full house".

I have been called to teach in the primary at church. The last two weeks have provided at least one child sobbing over something before the end. We'll see how next week goes.

I went to a book club with Bethany. As I was sitting there in a room full of British women who love to read, it came out that I've never read anything by Jane Austen! They all gasped and then stared at me in a moment of silence and disbelief. Then broke the silence with resolve to remedy that quite quickly.

Brent trimmed his beard! Brenda and I had decided he looked like a mixture of Paul Bunion and an Orthodox Jew (he wears his scarf over his head when it's raining like a lot of people do here, but for some reason on him, it looks like a prayer shawl). He always gets so excited when he is in a position that doesn't restrict facial hair. It was getting a bit too long though. I don't really mind him getting it out of his system, but it just doesn't look good when it gets past a certain length. So he finally trimmed it and I'm happy that my husband looks like himself again.

Zoe went to a Christmas party at one of the mother-toddler groups we go to. They had Father Christmas come in. At first she was terrified of him. We were sitting across the room at a considerable distance. I kept asking her if she wanted to go say hello. She couldn't take her eyes off him, but shook her head and quietly said "no". This of course started to wear off as she saw him pulling out presents.

Her present came second to last out of twenty children. The anticipation was killing her and I was worried maybe they had forgotten her. She literally screamed in delight when they called out her name and I put her down with permission to go get her present. She got down and giggled all the way over to some kid, grabbed his toy and started bringing it back to me. She was protested when I took it away, but then she noticed that I was directing her toward a wrapped present in Santa's outstretched hand. When she unwrapped it she discovered a Little Mermaid Ariel doll. She recognized Ariel from one of her books. From that moment on, she talked to this doll like it was a celebrity. It wasn't just "Are you cold?" like it is with the rest of her dolls, but now it was "Are you cold Ariel? Do you hear that Ariel? We're almost home Ariel." And a bunch of other conversations with her that I couldn't make out.

For some reason she kept referring to Santa as a she. Finally I said "Look he has a beard like papa". She chewed on that for a while. Then later at home she kept proclaiming "Santa's my papa!" She is of course right on the money, but if she keeps it up everyone is gonna think we're poor sports.

Oh I just remembered that tomorrow we are going to another Christmas party where they are having Mother Christmas instead of Father Christmas. Now she's really gonna be confused.

We have a very small Christmas tree up in the living room that I love. It's our only Christmas decoration, but it is enough. We got a chocolate advent calendar and I also found a scripture advent calendar. So each night after dinner we have a small chocolate and read a scripture about the Savior's birth. It's been really nice and a tradition I would definitely like to keep.

I have discovered that my daughter is developing a great sense of humor. Up until now I have mostly just laughed at her because she is so funny, but more and more I find myself giggling with her like I would with one of my close friends. Each day she becomes more playful and more talkative.

British differences of the week:

I had a package of something that said "No little Nasties" written on it as an enticement to buy it. I don't know exactly what it meant, but I found it amusing. They don't really have marshmallows here. They have them, but they are flavored and marketed as candy. No Rice Crispies this year:(

Cheers

Perfect time of year for an Anniversary

2007-11-22T15:33:00.001-07:00

We had so much fun for our Anniversary. We went to the Manchester Christmas markets. I didn't know anything about them except that everyone we've met says "Oh, you have to go to the Christmas Markets".

It was fun to see the city all decorated and lit up. The town square is transformed into a little conglomerate European village market. All the vendors are set up in a their own cabin selling European trinkets, toys, chocolates, cheeses, marionettes, nutcrackers, and all sorts of other things. It's very cold outside but the markets are warmed with crowds of people and wonderful scents that fill the air as you walk around. We went in the day with Zoe and then again in the evening on our way to dinner. For lunch we shared some bratwurst. I didn't think I'd like it much, because I thought it would be kind of like a hot dog or a polish sausage. But it was so much better and instead of a regular bun, it was served in this warm crusty bread. It was delicious. On the way home that evening we stopped for some hot chocolate, which I must say is possibly some of the best hot chocolate I've ever had.

For dinner we went to this amazing little place that was built in the 1550's called The Old Wellington Inn. It's an old Tudor style building, three stories high with old glass windows. I have desperately wanted to go there from the moment I first laid eyes on the exterior of the building. I must say now that I've finally gone, it was better than I ever expected. Wow, if only I could bottle that kind of ambiance. We will definitely be taking anyone who visits us to this place. We ordered Gammon and a "Toad in the Hole" which is sausage in a Yorkshire pudding. Both dishes were very tasty. After dinner we spent an hour enjoying the unusual opportunity to just sit and talk and enjoy each other as we absorbed the atmosphere. It was wonderful.

Afterwards we walked across the street to go up in the Manchester Wheel. Which is pretty much a fancy Ferris wheel. You ride in enclosed capsules up to the top for an amazing view of the city.

I know it's only been four years, but this year's Anniversary takes the cake for best and most memorable celebration. We had such a nice time.

I went online and found a picture of the Wellington. Behind it you can see the tail end of the Manchester Cathedral.

While I was at it I decided to see if I could find some pictures of the markets, so here you go.

Ecstatic

2007-11-20T15:47:00.000-07:00

I am so stinkin happy! It is my 4 year Anniversary tomorrow. Brent is taking the day off from studying and we are going out with Zoe during the day. Then we are coming home, feeding and putting our child to bed and a babysitter is coming over! We have had a lot of fun exploring the city with our daughter, but being two years old she can be, well, shall we say temperamental? Maybe loose cannon or ticking time bomb would be more appropriate. We love our daughter, but tomorrow will be our first time going out without her since we've been here. I am very excited!

The other fabulous thing that has happened is I have discovered a grocery delivery service! I am ecstatic! Do you know what this means? It means no more nightmare shopping trips! It means no more trying to fit a weeks worth of groceries into one measly hand basket. It means no more worrying about whether or not I bundled up my daughter enough to keep her warm during our walk to the store in the increasingly cold, humid weather. It means no more frazzled shopping where I can't even think about what I'm buying. It means no more two year old wiggling out of her buckle and insisting on standing up and attempting to tip the stroller back because she thinks it's funny. It means no more having to invent new and creative ways to get my daughter to not reach back into the hand basket (which is unavoidably accessible to her) and picking things out one by one and throwing them on the floor. It means so much more, but most importantly it means keeping my sanity at least one more day of the week!

Conversational Skills

2007-11-14T05:14:00.000-07:00

My daughter LOVES to talk. She loves to have conversations like mommy and papa do, but she doesn't really know how. Oh, she can talk, but it's just carrying on a conversation that she hasn't quite got down yet. When we are out and about and someone starts talking to her it goes a little something like this;

"What's your name?"
"Name Mommy" as she points to me
"How old are you?"
"Cute dress. Likem Dress?"
"Oh yes, it's lovely"

Then she begins introducing random items of interest.
"It's my purse. It's my chair. It's my door."

She may at this point also begin talking about the invisible tigers that seem to follow us where ever we go or just continue on to speak in a cute little gibberish language which is apparently her impression of what we sound like.

Because of her limited conversation skills, she has begun taking all sorts of phrases from the books and movies she likes and using them in regular conversation. I know this is not an uncommon thing, but it is new to me and I can't stop laughing at some of the things she's been saying and doing lately. What gets me most is how she whips out these lines and fits them perfectly into what's happening at the moment. Below are a few examples.

-From "Shrek II", whenever she's angry at us or doesn't like what we have to say, she looks at us and say "Ogre! RAAAAAAAAR!" Somehow expecting to intimidate us. Some times when she is really upset and is crying really hard, she still tries this but it sounds more like "Og-u-u-u-re, Raa-u-u-u-u-ar! We try not to laugh at her because she's clearly very upset, but it's hard because she's so serious about it.

-This one is from "Aladdin" where princess Jasmine is complaining about not having a life of her own and never even leaving the palace. The other day, Zoe wanted to go outside to play while we were in the middle of dinner. I said no. First she screamed at me and then started obviously fake crying. Then she decided to try something new and in an instant stopped everything and with a flash of anger in her eyes yelled "Never leave-a Palace!"

-This one is also from "Aladdin" after the magic carpet ride when they are watching fireworks Jasmine says "It's all so magical" Zariah and I were walking home from the park while the sun was setting. I stopped and pointed it out to her and she sighed and said "So magical mommy, so magical."

-We were walking somewhere and one of her shoes fell off. She started making a bit of a commotion, but that was nothing new and I was busy talking to Brent. Finally she said, "Mommy! I lost a glass slipper!".(Cinderella of course)

-I was chasing her at the park one day and she started saying between giggles "Run- Run-Run-can't-catch-me" Thats about all she got out.(Gingerbread man)

-On the swings she started shouting "I can fly, I can fly!".(Peter Pan)

It is funniest when she uses these lines injected into our conversations, but sometimes she just runs around the house spouting off different things. Like "Oh no, it's a BIRD!" (Bugs Life) or "Slow down tinker bell, slow down!" Also because she is as girly as they come, she likes to sing. She twirls around the room singing softly and sweetly and then we cover our ears as she ends on a very princess fiona-like shriek because she thinks that is how princesses sing. She is always coming up with something new and it is a hoot!

A Day in York

2007-11-10T14:53:00.000-07:00

Today we spent the day in York. It was so nice to just hang out and explore a new city. We haven't taken very many pictures during the time we've been here in England, so this morning I decided I was going to take pictures of everything. Of course the battery died after the first few hours. These are the few pictures we got.

Our first stop was at York Minster, the largest Medieval Cathedral in Northern Europe. It was amazing inside and 10 times bigger than it seems in this picture.

Next we went to Jorvik which is an archaeological dig site of the viking city of Jorvik about a thousand years ago. Apparently the continuously damp soil preserved the wooden buildings along with bugs and even dead leaves perfectly. Accompanying the site they made this fun, very Disneyland like ride through a recreation of what they've found in the dig. Even the faces on the mannequins were created by computerized regeneration of faces from the skulls they found in the dig. Bet you can't guess what this particular mannequin is doing.

Then we went to Clifford Tower, the remains of a protective castle and moat originally built by William the Conqueror. While we were out front emptying and folding the stroller, Zoe was playing at the base of the steps. Four Asian girls came down the steps and got really excited when they saw Zoe, they started taking pictures of her. I thought it was sweet. Then they started having each of their pictures taken with her like she was a celebrity or a character at Disneyland! One by one, they all traded off so they could have their picture taken with her. It was so bizzare. I was so happy I had whipped out my camera in time to take this shot.

I really wish I knew why. I've got a few suspicions, but I guess I will probably never really know.

There were so many other things I wish I could have taken pictures of. Someone was fiddling beautifully in the town square for money. The main shopping area is so old, the streets are too small to allow cars. The buildings were so cool too, it reminded me of shopping in Harry Potter's Diagon Alley.

Oh yeah, and one of the best parts of the whole day? Zoe stayed in the same dry diaper all day until the bus ride home when there was no way we could get her to a bathroom. But she told me every time she had to go, we found a bathroom and she went!!!!! This is a definite first, it's the longest she's ever stayed in the same diaper. Cross your fingers for me that she will keep this up!

Banks with no Money

2007-11-09T13:46:00.001-07:00

We bought a washing machine!!! It arrived today and I am so thrilled! Illegal outlets have definitely not been the only annoying thing to get used to around here. Doing coin laundry has definitely been the worst. Now we've never owned a washing machine, so we've been doing coin laundry for quite some time and it's always been annoying, but here in England there is an added element of annoyance.

In the US, we just went to the bank and asked for a roll of quarters, no big deal. Here, in order to do one load of laundry you need a one pound coin and five 20 pence coins. We can get one pound coins pretty easy especially since we only need one per load. The 20p coins are a totally different story. When we first moved in we had quite a bit of laundry to do from traveling and staying in hotels. I asked Brent to go to the bank to pick up a roll of 20p coins. He came back that day empty handed. I asked him if he forgot and he said "no, they didn't have any".

"They didn't have any?" I asked in disbelief.
"Well, the guy said he didn't have any he could spare."

He didn't have any he could spare??? Brent was a customer at a bank asking to withdraw a certain form of money, not a bum on the street asking for cigarettes! It's a BANK! Money is their specialty isn't it? I figured that Brent just talked to the wrong person and he was too shy to press the matter. I got some coins at a local market to hold us over until Brent could go back and ask again.

Brent did go back and ask again and again and got the same response. We were dumbfounded. Where do you go to get coins for laundry, if you can't get them from the bank? I started to wonder if we were running into a cultural difference. Like maybe there is a special place at the post office or grocery store that you can go to specifically for coins and we just didn't know about it yet. I started asking around, but everyone I talked to just told me to get them from the Bank. Ugghh!

Meanwhile, I continued to ask at the local market for change in 20p coins to get us by on washing the bare essentials. Finally one day when I asked for extra 20p coins in my change, the clerk said "You need 20p coins?? I need 20p coins!" I was shocked and told him that I understood if he was short on them, I was just asking, it wasn't a big deal. Obviously getting coins from the local market was no longer an option.

Where everyone gets their 20p coins around here remains an unsolved mystery. I'll let you know if I ever find out. So we bought a washing machine, not only to bypass the absurd ordeal that it was to find coins, but also to save money. What we were spending on coin laundry should pay off our washing machine in 3-5 months.

Okay, I know I'm getting nerdy about this with not one but two pictures of our new beloved washing machine. I only put up two so you can see the rest of the kitchen with our weird mini Hob(oven) and mini fridge. I don't know about the Hob, but the mini fridge is really common, in fact milk is put in jugs specifically made to fit in the doors of these fridges. It's been an adjustment, but back to the washing machine. They only have front loading models here, oh yeah and it's in the kitchen! I forgot how shocked I was to see the washers and dryers in the kitchen. Yea! We've had a huge mound of laundry in the corner of our bedroom for the last two months because we couldn't get caught up! I've never been so excited to do laundry in my life!

Illegal Outlets

2007-11-08T06:43:00.000-07:00

Here in Great Britian, it is illegal to have an outlet in the bathroom. I think it may have something to do with the higher voltage they use. Being female, I found that as a bit of a shock. I am very accustomed to doing my hair in the bathroom. Oh well, so I took my hair styling tools into the bedroom. Just one problem, no mirror. So for the past two months, as I have been getting used to the affect that the change in humidity and weather has had on my hair, I have also been doing my hair without a mirror. Well Sort of. As I blow dry and style my hair, I make a trip to the mirror in the bathroom, pick out the area that needs attention and then holding that area, walk back to the bedroom and blindly do what I think needs to be done, getting it right about half the time. Not the most efficient way I've ever done my hair.

We were finally able to find a mirror to put up in the bedroom a few days ago. We brought it home and set it up against the wall. Zariah couldn't get enough of dancing in front of it and talking to herself in it. She was getting a little rough with it and smudging it up all over, so we asked her to stop and took her in the other room to play, but every chance she had, we found her back in our room kissing herself in the mirror! It's been a few days and I've given up on the smudges. She still kisses herself every chance she gets

Looney Loner

2007-10-23T12:25:00.000-07:00

I don't know if any of you will find this funny, but for me, one of the funniest things I have encountered here so far is the pronunciation of my name. My name is Alonna, but many of the people I know call me Loni. I know my names are not very common, but anyone in the US, can say them. I just assumed that anyone who natively spoke English would be able to pronounce my names. I guess that was a little naive.

Before we left I began thinking that I might want to introduce myself as Alonna because I know in England Loni or more so Lonnie is a boys name. When we got here I told a few people that my name was Loni. I was surprised at how different the pronunciation was, but when someone finally pronounced it as 'Looney' that was the end of that.

So my name has been Alonna to everyone since then. But even that isn't safe. A lot of people were pronouncing it 'Alaner'. For quite some time, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why. Then I finally realized, it's MY accent! When they say 'clever' it sounds to me like 'cleva', so their 'er' and 'ah' sounds are very similar. But as I have discovered, they can definitely tell a difference. The way I was pronouncing my name with an 'ah' at the end to them sounded like an 'er'! I even had one person pronounce it 'A-loner'. Brilliant! I'm a 'Looney Loner'!

We've had the same problem with Zariah's name too. It's hilarious. Thankfully Zoe is something they're familiar with.

I'm not writing this to criticize, I just find it so amusing that there is that much of a difference in the way we speak, despite our speaking the same language. It's crazy.

Police searching my flat?

2007-10-19T07:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon, I was making good use of my free time during Zariah's nap when the door phone rang. I picked up,
"Hello?"
"Yes, this is the police can we come up?"
"Ummm, sure...", I trailed off. Wait a second, I wasn't quite sure what to do. I just told them I would let them in, but at the same time, I wasn't about to just buzz in someone who randomly calls up claiming to be the police. What would the police want with me anyway. "I'll come right down" I say quickly so that I can meet them at the door and check things out.

When I got downstairs and the officer was showing her badge, through the glass, so I opened the door. I looked at her and she looked at the man who was standing next to her who flashed some identification. He told me who he was and what organization he was with and then went on to say that there was no television registered and licensed to our flat! "That's because we don't have one" I said shocked and yet wanting to laugh at the same time. "May we come up and check it out?"

Wow, I thought as we made our way up the stairs. I had heard about the television license before we came, and thought it was pretty ridiculous, but this was crazy! I guess having a license for you telly is serious business here. They came into the flat, searched through the rooms and were on their way. Leaving me behind to chuckle at the thought that the police had just searched my flat.

On another note, I began potty training Zariah today. I'm not sure what's wrong with me and why I can't plan things like this. I just got up this morning and knowing that we were going to have to stay in today to wait for a package, figured why not?

I have put this off for a while. Before we moved here I kept thinking that I didn't want to do it right before a big move, because I hear that children revert after big changes like that. So I had planned on planning on it about a month after we moved here and had settled in.

This morning I took off her diaper and told her she didn't have to wear one today. I also explained that when she went on the toilet, that she could have some candy. Then I gave her a cup of juice and let the games begin!

The first time she went, I got her a piece of candy and she was so excited about this little piece of candy that she was giggling so hard she could hardly even eat it. Then for about two hours she went every one to ten minutes. It was exhausting. Unfortunately after the first 10 pieces of candy she got sick of it. Thankfully she kept going for a while. Then she had her first accident on the floor, and let me tell you, that was fun! Of course it wouldn't be the type of accident that was easy to clean up either! Any of you who have been jealous of us moving out here don't need to be jealous anymore.

Spoiled

2007-10-14T14:22:00.000-07:00

I love it here! I heard that people here were very polite, but not as friendly as they are in the US. In my experience so far that is only true for people you see in the street, and well, half the time not even then. Most everyone we have met has been very friendly. I go to a mother toddler group on Friday and a woman there that I've only really met twice invited me to go swimming with her and her friend and their babies. Today was our third Sunday at church and several people gave me hugs when they saw me. And of course there's Bethany who has been so wonderful and sweet to me and Zoe. Today we were invited over to another families house in the ward for yet another fantastic English dinner and wonderful company. Last night the South Korean Family downstairs offered to make us a traditional Korean dinner. Wow! It was so yummy and we had a great time visiting and getting to know them a little better. We are really getting spoiled here.

I really love the area too. Twice it has been mentioned to me that the road I was on was originally built by the Romans in 70's AD. It is so cool being in a place that is so historically documented. I have found it to be an extremely eclectic city. The buildings are the best illustration of that. There are beautiful exquisite structures like the John Rylands library, cathedrals, the main University of Manchester buildings and others. Then there are quite a few old stone buildings especially downtown. There are also some ugly sixties and seventies buildings on the way out of downtown. There are some random plain buildings from the eighties, then starting in the nineties, it seems like they finally started getting creative. In the past ten years everyone has been telling us that Manchester has just exploded with growth. There are a lot of new fun, modern buildings.

That is actually one of the things I liked so much about the area that we are in. Come to find out, we are currently living in what used to be the worst part of the city slums you could find. Then I guess it underwent a massive rebuild, where they tore down a lot of the area and built it all back up. I would have never guessed. It is still, as we are finding out, a somewhat dangerous area, but only at night. I had been making some evening grocery store trips because it was easier to go without Zoe. So Brent was staying home with Zoe and study and I would walk about a half mile to the Store. I told someone what I had been doing and they told me that I was lucky and that I should never go out at night by myself in our area again. I'm not sure what I was thinking anyway. Duh! Not in Kansas anymore. It does seem like a really nice area though and I guess I just got used to the security of Utah Valley. I just needed someone to point out that I was being stupid.

Anyway, we went on a city bus tour on Saturday. I think tourist season is over because we were the only people on this huge double decker bus. It was really fun though and a great way to get an overall view of the area.

What City do I Belong in?

2007-10-13T06:48:00.001-07:00

You Belong in London

A little old fashioned, and a little modern.
A little traditional, and a little bit punk rock.
A unique soul like you needs a city that offers everything.
No wonder you and London will get along so well.

What City Do You Belong In?

I thought this was so funny! I know I'm not actually in London, but the fact that I just moved all the way to England from the Rockies, is pretty close in my book. I also like the description. I've always been a little bit of everything, in every personality test, learning style test, color test, etc., that I could find. I guess that's just me though, a little bit of everything.

So yeah, I thought this little quiz thing was so cool and I decided that I wanted Brent to take the quiz to see what city he belonged in. These were his results:

You Belong in Paris

Stylish and expressive, you were meant for Paris.

The art, the fashion, the wine!

Whether you're enjoying the cafe life or a beautiful park...

You'll love living in the most chic place on earth.

What City Do You Belong In?

We both had a good laugh when his results came up. Any of you who actually know Brent will find this extra amusing.

It's always fun when a dumb little quiz pegs you right on the nose, but this a perfect illustration of how random they really are.

Architecture, Books and Eating Kidneys

2007-10-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

We are so close to the most popular area of downtown and I didn't even know it! I remember looking on a map and seeing that we were really close, but when I went out on foot, I couldn't find it. I figured that the proportions on the map must have been a lot bigger than I realized. What I discovered this week is that I went down the WRONG street! LOL, it's only a few blocks to get to this area and it's taken me three weeks to figure that out! It's funny because behind us is this huge bridge that goes over a large road. Every morning and evening I see people all dressed up in suits and ties or fashionable skirts or whatever, just looking very nice walking over this bridge. I would even see people drive here, park on the street out front of our apartments and go over this bridge, but I couldn't figure out where they were going! Wow, I'm such an idiot!

So it has been a fun week exploring downtown. I found the John Rylands Library. Two of my favorite things are architecture and old books, so it doesn't get much better for me than the combination of a beautiful old gothic church-like building combined with some of the oldest books in the world. The exterior of the building alone is awe inspiring. The entrance is a new one attached to the back of the building. It is owned by the University of Manchester and I was afraid it wouldn't be open to the public. I was also unsure that even if we could go in, I might not be able to see the areas that I had seen in pictures, but we ventured in anyway.

When the doors of the elevator opened it revealed this amazing hallway with beautiful archways and stone work. As we walked down the hall, I was a little disappointed to see that it only led to exhibits. I began walking through the exhibits. As I was in one room I saw a door way that led to another room. I made my way over to the doorway and gasped when I saw inside. There was a lovely soft light shining through a high window that illuminated a room filled with the most beautiful collection of books I have ever seen. I was so awestruck it almost brought me to tears. The room was two stories high and filled with gorgeous wooden shelves that housed these ancient books almost all the way to the ceiling. From that moment on, it only got better. I finished exploring the exhibits on that floor and then asked a member of the staff about the pictures I had seen. They said it was the next floor up.

We got back on the elevator and rode up to one of the most beautiful rooms I have ever been in. It is called the historic reading room and there is a picture of this on my slide show. Wow. That's pretty much all I can say.

I haven't even scratched the surface of exploring this area of downtown! It is actually the part of town the the IRA set off several bombs in a few years ago demolishing a few of the buildings. I don't know if any of you remember that, but I did.

We ate at one of the local pubs. It’s interesting here. In our experience we have come to find that most of the restaurants are actually pubs first and restaurants second. Brent had Fish and Chips with mushy peas. I had Steak and Kidney pie with mash and carrots. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me, I just couldn’t resist the urge to try something new. I probably won’t be ordering that particular dish again. For those who don’t know, Steak and Kidney pie is not steak with kidney beans, it’s real kidney. I think the gravy was actually made from kidney drippings as well. To top it all off it was loaded with mushrooms, and anyone who knows me knows that I believe that mushrooms were placed here on this earth by satan himself. The first few bites actually weren’t that bad, but then it hit me. Kidney is a bit to strong of a flavor for me, at least for now.

This weekend we are going on a city bus tour. We have a few other things planned as well, so I’m sure I will have more to write soon.

Kissing my Daughter's Behind

2007-10-08T13:07:00.000-07:00

When I thought about what it would be like to be a mother, I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would be asked to kiss my daughter's bottom and actually consider it. Today at the tender age of 2, my daughter asked me to kiss her bum and fully expected me to without hesitation.

I don't remember how it started, but I am one of those mothers that has got into the habit of kissing her child's ow-ie's. I think at first it was just a phrase "Do you want me to kiss it better?" But then she started responding with the ceasing of tears and a joyful "All Better" once the deed was done. So "kissing it better" has become a ritual between my daughter and I when she is hurt.

Most of the time it is endearing and sweet. I have found myself even kissing her feet at times, but today when she asked me to kiss the ow-ie on her bum to make it better, I wasn't exactly sure what to do. "Mommy kiss it better", she persisted. My husband stood nearby with a smirk on his face, "Yeah honey, kiss it better. Go on, your daughter's hurt, she needs you to kiss it better". I thought about kissing the outside of the diaper, that wouldn't be too bad, but it would still be me kissing my daughters bum. Groping for ideas, I kissed my fingers and patted them on her bum and proclaimed "All better!" I watched with relief as a satisfied smile appeared across her face and she bounced away into the other room. Whew!

If You Haven't Been Following Along

2007-10-08T12:58:00.000-07:00

If you haven't been reading on myspace, this is a reposting of my blogs about our "moving to England" experiences so far. Have fun catching up.

08 Sep 2007
Going to England update

Today is our official move-out date. Things have been going really well. Everything is out of our apartment except cleaning supplies. We sold or gave away almost everything we owned. Wow. It has all happened so fast. We will be staying with my parents until Tuesday morning.

We found out that if we get our visas in person in LA, that it only takes one day to get them instead of 3 weeks +/- through the mail. It's a good thing too, because we simply ran out of time.

So here's what's happening. Tuesday morning we will hop into our mini-van rental that will hopefully be large enough to house us, six suitcases and three carry-ons; and drive down to LA. Wednesday Brent has an appointment at the British Consulate office. Wednesday morning we spend another 12 hours on a flight and arrive at 8am (1am MST) in Manchester.

You'll never guess how much we got our tickets for. We were really excited about flying out of SLC for $400, but because of visa delays, we couldn't buy tickets and the prices went up to $800. Unfortunately, we had already planned on only $400 a piece. So we decided that Brent would fly out on the 13th and Zariah and I would come a few weeks later when the prices went down. We had already been planning on Brent flying down to LA to get the visas and then coming back and flying to manchester out of SLC. He posed the idea of checking LA to Manchester. I looked on one site and found tickets for $300! We decided that for that price, we could just rent a car and all of us would fly out of LA. But I wanted to check one more site to see if we could get them any cheaper and we found them on Orbitz for $250 bucks! I am still amazed by that! Seriously, $250 from LA to England! That's insane.

So we have three days left to finish cleaning, running errands, visit the dentist, spend time with family and friends and hopefully rest.

13 Sep 2007
California, Visas, Beach

We're in Cali tonight. We rented a car and drove down yesterday. We got a hotel a 5 minute walk from the British consulate office and Brent got our visas this morning. The people I kept talking to made it sound so difficult to get the visas. They had me so paranoid. Brent said they looked at the paperwork for no more than 5 minutes, asked him a couple questions and then approved us. wow I am so relieved!

We are also only 2 miles from the beach and Santa Monica Pier. So we went to the beach and got ice cream on the pier. It was fun. When we were about to leave though, Zariah decided she didn't want to go and started going limp to try and get me to let go of her. She did something to her wrist and has been whimpering ever since. Even now in the hotel room as she is asleep she keeps waking up and crying a little and then going back to sleep. I feel so bad for her. The same thing happened at the end of the day when we went to Disneyland in March. We took her to the first aid office and they said there wasn't much we could do except put ice on it and wait until it pops back into place. It popped back into place the next morning and that was that. Hopefully, it won't be long before it pops back in this time.

I am actually kind of glad we have experience with this happening before because if we didn't, we might have taken her to the hospital and paid a bunch of money for them to tell us there is nothing they can do.

Wow, we fly out tomorrow morning. I still can't believe we are moving to England. It is starting to register though.

14 Sep 2007
The Demons

What an ordeal! Um, we are definitely not coming home for Christmas. I don't want to do all that again for a very long time. I would like to take a moment and express my deepest gratitude to inventors of candy. I honestly don't think I would have made it here if it weren't for candy. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Now let's see, where do I start. During the last 24 hours a bunch of little demons possessed the body of our two year old child. Our wonderful, beautiful, sweet daughter literally almost bit off my finger. I am dead serious, it's been over 24 hours and it's still sore. She bit and pulled with her sharp little teeth like it was a piece of tough meat. This is why every child should have two parents; so when the demons come, one parent can take them so that the other is not hauled off to jail for trying to strangle them out of their child.

Let's see, what else. The demons made her scream at the top of her lungs every time something was our idea and not hers. Things like boarding the plane, or pushing the stroller, or eating food, or reading books. The demons also decided that our child was not going to be happy unless her feet were somehow pushing on or kicking the seat in front of her. Our extreme, consistent efforts to keep her from doing so, only made the demons want to do it more. Thankfully the seat belonged to a very understanding sweet gentleman who had been in our shoes before. Even more thankfully, Zariah did eventually fall asleep so everyone could get some rest.

For those of you who have children, I'm sure you are acquainted with these demons and what they can do. For those who are not around children often, it may just sound like my daughter is a snot-nosed brat. While that is definitely the case when she is possessed (aka severely sleep deprived), it is quite the contrary when she is well rested, as is the case with most all children. She is actually compliant and sweet. She loves to talk to people. She would sing and dance for you and give you hugs and kisses if you but ask. There were moments when Zariah was able to overcome the demons and was quite the charmer who provided a reprieve and mild entertainment for weary airport patrons and passengers. Those moments, however, were not enough to counter the overall experience the demons created for us during the last 24 hours.

15 Sep 2007
Our arrival

Today is our second day in Manchester. We are seven hours ahead of MST. It is about 3pm. Zariah is down for a nap, Brent is at an orientation seminar and I finally have some more time to write. If you read my last blog, you know in a nutshell how the flight went. It wasn't all bad, but it was bad enough.

I took the brunt of things with Zoe and Brent took the brunt of carrying all the luggage. We had three carry-ons, a push-chair (or stoller, I'm getting used to the words they use here, it's like I'm speaking a different language if I say stroller), and a large toddler car seat as well as six large suitcases. When we arrived in Manchester, Brent creatively loaded everything except the push-chair onto two carts and then carefully pushed one and pulled the other one behind him. I had to deal with Zariah, who by this time was so dreadfully tired, there was almost nothing we could do to subdue her. She refused to sit in the push-chair and insisted on pushing it herself. Anything short of that resulted in an all out tantrum complete with ear piercing screams.

Brent had arranged to be picked up through the University. They had a booth set up in the pick-up area of the airport by the International Society. The look on their face when the saw us was hilarious. It was very apparent that they had only dealt with single students up to that point who only had two pieces of luggage and one carry-on. That's pretty much all we had, just multiplied by three and topped off with a push-chair and car seat. I'm sure it was a bit overwhelming for them as it was for us. They were very nice though.

We had to wait a while for the shuttle. When the time came to walk out and meet the shuttle, the International Society Rep. told everyone to get their bags and follow him. Brent of course had the two carts that I desperately wanted to help him with, but could not because I was closely following our temperamental daughter who kept wanting to blindly take the push-chair into the street. She couldn't see over it and was walking extremely slow, so much so that we were even falling behind Brent who was significantly behind everyone else. I finally picked her up and pushed the stroller with one hand. This of course prompted the screams and her slapping and scratching my face, so I threw her over my shoulder so she was upside down, still screaming and kicking as much as possible. So much for making a scene.

Once we were all loaded up, I had my first experience with riding on the left side of the road. Before we left I thought, "no big deal, it's just the opposite of everything we do in the States." As we were riding around I figured I would watch closely and see how bad it was. It only took a couple minutes for me to be completely turned around and utterly confused. I don't think I'll be driving much for the next year.

By the time we got to the hotel, I was extremely tired, hungry, super stressed due to my daughter and the previous 15 hours and all I really wanted to do was cry and go hide out in our room. I had this overwhelming feeling of "What did we do!" I didn't pay too much attention to any of those feelings, because we had to go find some food. We found a little market, went back to the hotel and ate some lunch. Brent wanted to get some things done so I let him go off on his own and Zariah and I finally got some sleep.

I don't think I function properly when I am sleep deprived. I say this because when I woke up five hours later, I couldn't believe that I had just felt all those things I described in the paragraph above. All those feelings were replaced with pure excitement! I couldn't wait for Brent to get back so we could all go out and explore together. (I guess that's just one more insight into what life is like for my daughter)

15 Sep 2007
Downtown Manchester

Our hotel is right in the middle of downtown. I know a few people in particular that are going to want me to describe everything in detail, so here you go. In all honesty, I've really never seen anything quite like this place, but I will do my best to tell you about it. Also keep in mind that I've only been here two days.

It is expansive like LA. It's a HUGE city, but it's almost like you can't really tell because you just can't see it all. For example, I didn't even realize how downtown we were until we began exploring and we are about 200 feet from a Picadilly Gardens which is a huge, central downtown, shopping area.

There are not really any sky scrapers. I would say on average the buildings are only 5 to 10 stories high. They get higher and shorter than that, but 5-10 would be the average. It is closed in like Manhattan. Lots of small streets, some of them stone instead of pavement. Lots of brick and mortar buildings.

It is modern. Even just as far as the shops, signs and advertisements go. It's one of my quirks to critique the way businesses appeal to customers through advertisements, signs, store design and location. I even make predictions as to who will do well and who will go out of business because of it. I always enjoy artistic or well done advertising, and it is everywhere here!

I think part of the reason it is so modern because it has an EXTREMELY young population to appeal to. That was another thing that threw me off about being downtown. 80% of the crowd had to be twenty-somethings. It almost felt like a college campus. It was weird.

I don't have a blow-dryer, and have not been able to wear my hair straight yet. I usually gage the humidity by what my hair does when it's straight. Without my hair as my guide however, I would say the humidity is very comparable to San Diego or San Francisco. It's not that bad. The weather has been lovely. It is that wonderful crisp autumn weather where a jacket is nice, but doesn't really matter. It has been overcast, but no rain at least while I've been outside.

So far, Brent and I both love it. As we walked around the city, we kept poking each other in the ribs to "look at that building" or "look at that beautiful street" or just "look at that". Today when I was coming back to the hotel with Zoe, we passed some guys playing music in the street that I actually REALLY liked. I have never, ever encountered street artists that play music of that caliber. It was really difficult for me not to buy their CD, but we've got to be frugal.

So things are great. We will go to church tomorrow and see how that is here and also move into our new apartment in the next few days. I will write more about those things soon.

16 Sep 2007
More details

Brent pointed out that Picadilly Gardens, the area we are closest to has so much shopping, it would basically be like a mall. This had me very relieved because it explained the young population. The more I had to go through Picadilly Gardens, the more annoyed I was getting. The area was still really cool, but the general public was so young they were kind of loud, obnoxious and immature. You know, like a group of boys throwing things at a group of girls, or a boy puffin up his chest as he talks trash to another one and other such lame, social rituals of the young. I'm sure you can imagine how relieved I was when I realized that this was not a representation of entire population of Manchester. *whew* I actually feel kind of silly assuming that it was now that I think about it.

I looked up a census for the area before I left and the statistics on ethnicity for the area didn't seem much different from what you would find in SLC. I have been very relieved to find that it is not that way at all. It is EXTREMELY diverse and I am lovin it!

We went to church today. Zariah has developed a nasty cough so we decided we would only stay for the the first meeting. We had some trouble getting there and arrived late. As we walked in I could hear them all singing in unison with their awesome British accents. The only seats were of course on the very front row. When we opened the door, the missionaries practically catapulted out of their seats. It was so funny as we walked to our seats most EVERYONE was looking at us excitedly. We didn't get too much of a chance to meet people afterward because we had to go, but everyone we did meet was very nice and happy to have us there. Right before we went to leave a woman with a little girl Zoe's age came up to us and asked us is Zoe would be going to nursery. I told her she was sick and that we were about to leave. The little girl looked so sad and the woman explained to me that she was the only one in nursery and during the meeting she had exclaimed "look it's another little girl!" We discovered her name was Nina and I promised her that Zariah would come play with her next week. The building was pretty typical. It is certainly different from the buildings in Utah, but not unusual for an LDS church building.

When Zariah and I were taking a nap, Brent went to pick up the keys to our apartment and he got a quick look at it. When he got back I started asking him all sorts of questions and he wouldn't give me any answers, just sideways nod and a funny look. Finally I looked at him and asked "Is it a dump?" He replied "Sort of". Sort of! Sort of a dump. hmmmm. I guess we're gonna live in sort of a dump for the next year then. lol. Great. I'll tell you more about it when I see it.

Oh yeah and I've got to tell everyone about this stuff we discovered in Santa Monica. Zoe had been sick for a few weeks before we left. Brent and I thought we had dodged it, but on Tuesday Brent said he was starting to feel it. On Wednesday I started to feel sick too. I was pretty upset that we were getting colds just before our plane ride and arrival in Manchester. I went to the store to find some sort of cold remedy. Stuck in there with all the other regular medicines was something I had never seen before. It was called "No time for Colds". It said it relieves major cold symptoms in 24 hours guaranteed or your money back. I was really skeptical, but it was also homeopathic and I liked that. I figured we'd try it out and get something else later if it didn't work. It comes in the form of lemon lozenges that you let dissolve in your mouth. They feel so good when they are dissolving! We followed the directions exactly because if this stuff really worked like it said on the box, I wanted to make sure I was doing it right. A few hours after taking it we felt better and the next day, although we continued to take the lozenges just in case, we felt fine! It's been four days and we are still fine! That stuff is awesome! I also found out that you can get it in Rite Aid or Walgreens. My friends tease me about being a walking commercial, but hey when I find something this awesome, I’m gonna spread the word.

20 Sep 2007
Back online!

Well, we've been offline for a while. We had internet at the hotel but lost it as soon as we moved into our new apartment. Trying to get internet, phone or any public service here has been a joke because in the UK, as we've been told, it's pretty much like we don't exist. Thankfully, my wonderfully smart husband opened a bank account a few hours after getting off the plane. That was a big help. It's been hard getting oriented to the area without the Internet. I don't have a map and can't look up services, but we've just been exploring by foot.

I did write a blog while we were offline, I just didn't post it, so here it is:

I'm sure if you read my last blog, you're probably dying to know if our flat really is a dump. Well.............. yes and no. Brent explained to me that he only got a very brief look and that the previous occupants had just left that day. He said they left the place a mess and there was a cleaning crew in there, but there was junk everywhere. When I finally arrived, I didn't quite know what to think. The first and strongest impression was "It stinks". It was also extremely obvious that the last tenants and probably the tenants before them and so on, took terrible care of this place. Other than that, it's not that bad. It's nothing special, but besides some grime and the smell, it's probably better than our last basement apartment. We're on the third floor in the corner. In our living room, which is in the corner of the building, there is a bay window and a window seat which is kind of fun. We have nice views of the treetops and a bit of the city.

Unfortunately, there is one other major drawback to this flat. It is "furnished" and the furnishings it came with are very socialistically dull and depressing. I am trying to devise some super cheap ways to add some color and make it a little more inviting so we actually want to be here.

I have been scrubbing and trying to get the smell out, but it's hard because I don't know exactly what smells, it just smells. If anyone has any ideas for getting smells out of a house let me know.

I think that the only people who live in these apartments with us are all international students because we were the only ones who couldn't see it before we signed the contract. It's kinda cool though. In the four apartments our entrance leads to, there is a family from South Korea, one from Japan, one from Nigeria and us. The family from Japan has a little girl that's two and a half and the family from South Korea has a little girl who is three and a half. So Zoe will have some kids to play with.

The adjustment is still coming. I am trying to get used to not saying pants (which means panties) or trash, miles, candy, diaper, and dozens of other words. We have mostly been shopping at little markets, but it can be frustrating, because what they have is very limited. It's basically like doing most all of your shopping at a slightly larger than normal convenience store. Unfortunately, the closest thing they have to stores in the U.S. is the local ASDA which is a Walmart. Although I hate going to Walmart, I was just hoping that Brent wouldn't find that out because I really just wanted a store with everything I needed in one shopping trip. But no, as we walked up to the store they had to advertise in a big bold Walmart font "a member of the Walmart family". Thankfully Brent didn't put up much of a fuss, I think he was frustrated with the local markets too.

Shopping was so strange, because I was walking around in a Walmart building, but I hardly recognized anything. I didn't really expect that, but at times I hardly knew what aisle I was in because I wasn't sure what the products were. It didn't help that we couldn’t get everything we needed right then, so we had to make a lot of hard decisions. And then of course Brent isn't a big fan of Walmart or shopping so he was standing behind me rushing me; "hurry", "are we done?", "I don't know just pick one". I hardly had time to think straight, let alone try to figure out what all the merchandise was. It was an interesting trip. We'll probably stick with the market for now, it's closer.

I didn't think I would have any difficulty understanding people, but there is a thicker accent this far north. I can understand people about 95% of the time, but when the accent is really thick it can be kind of hard. They emphasize their "o" and "u" sound quite a bit. The other day I played my 'smile and nod' card, but unfortunately they were asking me a question, so I just embarrassed myself even more instead of saving face. I have been practicing my accent and it's coming along. It's funny with the encouragement of the locals, sometimes the accent just pops out of me even when I'm not expecting it. It makes me laugh. If I keep going at this rate, by the time I get back, it will be second nature.

We had our first political conversation with a Brit the other day. He was actually really excited to meet some Americans and ask them what they thought about what was going on. We of course felt the same way about getting a Brit's opinion. He said that there have been quite a few documentaries aired in the UK about what is going on over there. The conversation wasn't nearly as long as I wanted it to be, but he assured me that it wasn't necessarily Americans that everyone hated, it was just the current administration. He said "everyone knows that the Americans are people just like us, and that there isn't much they can do when there is a dictator in power like Bush." He also compared Bush to Hitler later in the conversation. He said that "Bush basically said 'I'm going to do whatever I want and I don't care if you like it or not' to the rest of the world", and that it has not gone over well. Wow, that was interesting. I was a bit thrown off by "dictator" and "Hitler", but it was basically what I expected. I hope there will be an opportunity to get some political opinions from our neighbors. That would be interesting!

20 Sep 2007
What a beautiful day!

Today was an awesome day! There was nice crisp weather with strong breezes, but no rain. Zariah and I went out to the courtyard to blow bubbles. That was fun, I have never seen bubbles get whipped up so high so quickly without popping. One dip of the wand practically filled the whole courtyard. We met some more neighbors too.

We finally got a working fridge too! I'm thrilled about that! Right now in our kitchen we have a fridge, oven, electric tea kettle (a british staple), a baking sheet and a couple of cooking utensils. We have been eating off of paper goods and just going to the market once or twice a day. We are hoping to get some pots and pans soon.

After Brent got home from school we went to an international society meeting. The meeting was on campus which is downtown. I LOVE going downtown. It makes me so happy. I thrive when I'm in a bustling city or any large crowd for that matter, I don't know why I love it so much, but it makes me so happy. I guess I just love being around people. I like to watch people too, they are so fascinating.

At the meeting we learned a little bit about how socialized medicine works and how to get started. I also found out that the international society does this thing every year that's kind of like a jumble sale (yard sale), except everything is free. International students from previous years leave things they didn't want or need to pack for students the next year! I am very excited about that. Oh yeah, and there is this really cool host program they have. We fill out this request form and mention which part of the country we want to go to and a British family invites us to spend the weekend with them and basically get explore that area and spend time with them and learn a bit about more about british culture. We are thinking about doing that for Christmas, we really wanted to experience a traditional British christmas, and this will be perfect!

I also learned more about the mother's group that meets there every Thursday. They have all sorts of outings around the city. I'm excited for that. I have been hearing about a lot of groups like that all over town. There is one at the local library and one at an Art Centre, which are both only two blocks from our flat.

After the meeting we came home and we were finally able to get connected to the Internet! So yes it has been a great day actually.

I am also liking our flat more and more simply because of the location. We are 1/2 mile to downtown. We are also actually in an area that I was really impressed with when I was searching for housing when they supposedly had no vacancies here. It is definitely a nicer part of town. There is a huge park across the street. On the other side of the park is a market, cafe, Art Centre, Library and a few other businesses. It's awesome!

26 Sep 2007
Saved the day!

The Demons have still not completely left the body of my two year old. She still suffers from some sleep deprivation and it's worse when we're cooped up in our apartment, but I think she's a little weirded out by the shock of all this change and she's probably missing her grandparents and other family and friends back home.

Just because I understand her, unfortunately doesn't make her new Tasmanian devilish personality drive me any less crazy. Yesterday was so frustrating and right at the peak of my frustration, our door phone rang. It was Bethany. She is a really sweet friend I've made. She is the mother of pretty much the only other little girl in the ward, who just happens to be Zoe's age. I met her at church on Sunday and she invited Zariah and I to lunch on Monday and then Tuesday afternoon she came randomly ringing on my door phone. She said the she was just checking to see if I was home and had something in her car that she was going to go grab and she would be right back. She came back and I buzzed her in and went down to meet her on the stairs. She was carrying several bags of all sorts of kitchen supplies and toys she had just bought at the store. I couldn't believe it. A few moments earlier I was on the verge of tears out of sheer frustration with my daughter, and then Bethany showed up and swung my emotions to the opposite extreme and I cried a little anyway. I was overwhelmed and extremely grateful.

She brought just the right things too. Both a ceramic and plastic set of dishes, a set of glasses, eating and cooking utensils, some pans and a few other things as well as some play dough, a baby doll and a stroller for Zoe! A couple of the things she brought we had already acquired just that morning when we walked over to the International Society giveaway, but everything we still needed that I didn't get that morning, she brought over that afternoon. As for the one or two things we have doubles of, I'll just find someone who needs them around here, it won't be hard.

Zoe has had so much fun with the toys too. I brought one of her a baby dolls that for some reason she has refused to play with, but the one that Bethany brought over she can't get enough of. It is hilarious watching her push her stroller around, she just runs and giggles. Bethany literally saved the day!

I posted another blog before this one that got erased, but it was just basically venting frustrations and an actual inability to comprehend how our apartment got this messy. It's taken me 6 days straight to get the mold out in the bathroom. The crazy amounts of grease with dirt and dust accumulated on top of it that is found all over the kitchen is slowly, but surely coming off. I'm finding that with all the grime slowly disappearing I am actually starting to like this flat, it's starting to feel more like a home.

27 Sep 2007
Am I alright? Of course I’m alright!

Before we came here I was extremely curious as to what the differences in culture would actually be. There are a lot of little things I heard about, but many of them seem to be outdated. I have discovered that for the most part, people do actually know what I am talking about if I use the American version of the word. It is helpful to know the UK version, just in case because I have had quizzical expressions when I say certain things, but for the most part, there's not too much need to change vocabulary unless you don't want people to know you are an American. I wonder how much this has to do with American movies that are released here. I have noticed that several of the movies coming out before we left are coming out here too. Maybe it's the movies that have familiarized them with our culture enough to the point that we don't have to worry about little word differences anymore.

One of the biggest things that has thrown me is their use of the common expression "Are you alright?" in place of "How are you?" or even just "Hi". I still haven't quite got used to it yet. This happens with people everywhere that I meet. We see each other and smile and they say "Are you alright?" It throws me every time, for a few seconds thoughts race through my mind; "Why did they ask if I'm alright? do I not look alright? do I look like I've been crying? where's my daughter? is she alright? Do they think there's something wrong with me because I smiled at them? Should I have not smiled at them? WHY DID THEY ASK ME IF I'M ALRIGHT?!" Then I look at them and they are still smiling waiting for a reply as I look at them strangely and say "Umm, yes." Then they nod and go about their business as I am left still stumbling over why they asked me if i was alright.

I guess I am getting used to it a little bit, but I still stumble with my reply because it still throws me off a bit.

30 Sep 2007
Drinking songs and English Dinner

The buildings we live in are right next to a major road that I thought was a freeway, but apparently it's not. When you are out on the grounds, if you walk to the edge there is a fence and at that fence your only about 10 feet away from the cars on the road. Yesterday Zariah and I were out there playing. It was during some traffic and all of a sudden something caught our attention. The was a Minibus on the road filled with about 15 guys and they were all raucously singing a drinking song in unison. It was very amusing. Zariah had noticed the singing too and was looking around for it. I pointed out the minibus to them and she smiled. Apparently the men noticed they had an audience. They started looking at us excitedly and singing louder. We had a bit of a show for a few minutes while they were stuck in traffic. It was quite the sight and it made me laugh. I'm guessing they were a rugby team who had just won their match. It was so funny and enjoyable to listen to it almost made me want to go hang out in a pub, just to hear more.

Today was Sunday. We met quite a few more people at church today. We were invited to dinner with a lovely couple in the ward. We were also joined by another couple from Poland, their twins and some missionaries. It was nice to be in a full house and what was even nicer was our first traditional English meal. It was roast with mash, yorkshire pudding, baked cauliflower and cheese, mashed carrots and sweets and cordial to drink. I'm not sure if the cut of meat was different or not, but the roast was delicious and very unlike anything I've ever had. Yorkshire pudding is a sort of pastry type roll, I don't know why pudding is attached to the name but it is. The cauliflower and cheese sauce was very yummy. It was made with Red Leicester cheese. I guess each region of england has their own cheese. Cheddar comes from down south near the Cheddar Gorge, and is apparently the only one that made it over to the states with the immigrants. A quick side note; British dairy foods are AMAZING! Even the low-fat milks are smooth and creamy and almost sweet. American milk almost tastes sour in comparison. They must give their cows the royal treatment. Back to dinner. I still don't know exactly what sweets are, but it is some type of vegetable that’s not a sweet potato. But it was mashed carrots and sweets together, it was good. And cordial to drink. There are all sorts of cordials. They come in tall bottles with thin necks and all sorts of flavors. It is generally concentrated fruit juices combine with other flavorings. A little bit is poured into the bottom of a pitcher and the rest is filled with water. It was pretty good. It is extremely popular around here. So there you have it. Our first English dinner, it was awesome!