Rainy Day

We woke up to rain!  Surprise, surprise!  I know it looks like the sun is pouring in the windows, but it was still raining pretty hard.  The kids and I stayed inside this morning because of all the rain, while Chad headed to Leeds to meet with a lady about his project.  Here are some pictures of the kids eating lunch and watching "Milkshake" which is the kids' channel.  

The little pink dude in the 3rd picture is Doodle.  We got him when we were in York to give the kids something to play with while riding in the stroller.  Tucker had a yellow one but lost it in the first 5 minutes.  I feel certain that he threw it out of the stroller.  The 4th picture is of Caroline showing me her "monies."  Chad got her some Roman coins at the museum in York and she loves them.  Tucker just likes to eat them.

Tucker spent a good bit of time this morning walking around Caroline trying to irritate her.  It didn't work as she was too excited about her monies.  Finally, you can see that maybe Tucker is the child that prefers the hair bows!  It was a fun game for him.  He wanted me to put the bow in his hair, then walk away, laugh, pull it out and come back to do it all over again.

Lazy Wednesday

Caroline likes to visit the chickens and hens each day on our way to the refectory.  She thinks they are stinky and need a shower!  (Her words exactly!)

Chad had to make a local phone call today after lunch.  Caroline enjoyed being in the phone booth with him.

Here are the slow pokes on our way to the park.  Tucker and I were ready to go play!

We finally had a mostly sunny day with just one quick rain shower!  We decided to take the kids to play before lunch.

Tuck was so proud of himself for climbing to the top!

Things I've Learned (Part 2)

Things I’ve learned…

26-Toilets don’t have lids.  This is especially problematic for us, as Tucker loves to put things in the toilet.  Tonight he dropped my OLD cell phone in it.  Yesterday he threw Caroline’s glasses in, and this morning the sippy cup was the winner.  You may be wondering why we don’t just close the bathroom door.  We do and he pushes it open.  It doesn’t close firmly so with a gentle push it opens just for him. 

27-The toilets here are taller (at least in our flat).  That makes it very difficult for Caroline to go to the bathroom by herself.  A minor inconvenience, I know, but she was starting to get good at going without needing help.

28-A small, lukewarm glass of water is the drink of choice. 

29-The co-op (aka grocery store) sells Pampers.  This makes me very happy!

30-The bleu cheese is way yummy.  This has been our afternoon snack.

31-It rains a lot.  Again, I definitely knew this, but it leads me to wonder…how are clothes supposed to dry on the “wash line” if it rains all the time?  On a side note, we do have a washer!  I discovered that the double stroller doubles (no pun intended!) nicely as a drying rack.

32-High Tea doesn’t necessarily involve tea.  Tonight we had “high tea” but actually it was quiche, salad (no dressing) and boiled potatoes.  This was our dinner in the refectory.  No tea in sight!

33-A large car in the UK is not so large.  Gordon, a seminarian picked us up from the airport.  We were told he would be there with a large car that would fit all of our bags.  Well, he did arrive with a “large” car.  We crammed our 3 bags, double stroller and 3 carry-on bags into his Peugot.  It was a tight fit! 

34-I can watch more old American reruns than I ever thought.  We have a tv that has about 5 channels.  It is better than nothing!

35-The double decker bus is more fun than a roller coaster ride.  Caroline is a BIG fan!

36- Jeans take about 2 full days to completely dry.  However, they are so stiff once they finally dry that you have to steam iron them so you don’t feel like you are wearing cardboard.

37- Thomas the Train yogurt doesn’t taste like strawberries, it tastes like Thomas.  This is according to Caroline.  Tucker must agree because he loves it.

38- Black pudding is not something I will ever even try.  Chad and Caroline went to the co-op to pick up some dinner.  They came home with spaghetti for dinner and black pudding for Chad.  Looking at it is all I can do.

39- We buy a lot less at the grocery store because we have to carry it home.  This is a great strategy for saving money and only buying what you need.  Trust me, you will really think about what you can’t live without when are the one carrying the bags on the 15-20 minute walk home!

40- Coke tastes the same!! Last time we were in Europe the cokes did not taste like what we are used to in the States.  This time around they taste the same.  The M&M’s however, do NOT taste the same!  The kids don’t seem to notice.

41-The paper towels are smaller.  OK, so most everything is on a smaller scale.  However, the paper towels are the perfect size for us.  Rarely do we need an entire paper towel to wipe up the usual kid messes (the smaller ones, anyway).

42- It can be sunny and beautiful one minute and then rainy and dreary the next.  This is what we have consistently experienced this far.  It is day 5.

43-Never ask a monk how to work the washer.  One of the Brothers came by to see how we were doing on Friday.  I told him that we were doing well, but we did not know how to work the washing machine. After giving it a once over, he said he had no idea because he washed his clothes by hand.  I felt like an idiot.

44-The rain doesn’t keep anyone at home.  The city streets were full yesterday even as it rained and rained.  We have noticed that people will wait in a store until the rain stops and then venture into the crowded streets.  If we stayed at home when it rained then we would never go out!

45- Cars park on either side of the road.  It doesn’t matter if the car is facing the wrong direction.  Crazy!

Off to York We Go!

Hi ho, Hi ho, it's off to York we go!  Here are Chad and the kids waiting at the Mirfield train stop.  It was about a 25 minute walk from our flat.

Caroline was very excited to ride on the train.  This was a first for her and she loved every minute of it.  We had a great time looking out the window at all the farm animals in the English countryside.  It was beautiful.  (The bow stayed in her hair for about 30 minutes...she's getting better about it!)

Tucker enjoyed the train, too!  We had a 30 minute ride to Leeds where we switched trains.  It was about another 30 minutes to York.

I'm not sure what river this is, but it was nice to see some water.  This is in York.

Another pub for Caroline!  Thank goodness most places serve chicken nuggets.  Tucker enjoyed the fish, but Caroline preferred the "chickens and tries and dip."  Don't be fooled by the peas on her plate...she didn't even eat one!

Here is York Minster.  I think Chad said it was one of the largest churches in England.  It was indeed very large and beautiful.  Thankfully we all got in for free since Chad is a seminarian.  Finally, a perk!!

This is the inside of the church.  The stained glass windows were amazing.  They were not so colorful, but extremely detailed and large.  Caroline kept saying (loudly) as we were walking through, "I don't want to go to church!"  I tried and tried to explain that we were not going to a church service, just walking through.  Meanwhile, Tucker was making loud noises because he liked to hear his voice echo.  He smiled every time he heard the echo.  It was cute.

We met Carolyn as she worked on this needlepoint.  It was beautiful!  I think she said it would be three times as big as the piece she has completed thus far.  I asked her how long it had taken her to complete this much, but she said she didn't know because she doesn't keep track.  (And I thought the bread ministry was a lot of work!)

I have no idea what this is...it just looked like something I should take a picture of.

Tuck and Caroline having a snack before we enter to Jorvick Museum.  This is also know as the "viking museum."  We expected to see vikings on ships...not so much!  This was more of what we would think of as early settlers, like in Jamestown.  It was a really neat museum.  We rode through the museum on a pod-like thing.  It was nice because we didn't have to walk.  Both kids were really intrigued, so no complaints here!

This was also in the museum after the ride part.  Caroline was searching for artifacts.

Next, we headed to a museum called "The Dig."  It was an archeological museum geared for kids.  Caroline was excited because she got to "dig for dinosaur bones" like at the Discovery Museum in Chattanooga.  No dinosaur bones here, just pieces of pottery and skeleton bones.

Tucker enjoyed this as well!  However, we had to pull him out once he hit another kid in the head with the shovel.  Fortunately, no one was hurt!

Yes, that is Tucker you see climbing into the bucket.  He thought he would see what he could find in there.  

I know this is weird.  Can anyone guess what this is?  It is the lid on the toilet in the museum.  I usually do not make it a habit to take pictures of toilets, but I had never seen this before.  It had bones, pottery, shells, etc in it...very strange, but picture-worthy.

This is the second part of the dig.  Caroline found sea shells and cows' teeth.  

Here is a picture of one of the streets in York.  It is a large city, yet still very quaint and manageable for newbies like us.  We enjoyed it!

Bye, bye train station...until next time!

To the Park

Today we stayed close to home and went to the park that is right around the corner.  At 11 a.m. we went to the refectory for coffee.  They served coffee, several kinds of cakes and biscuits.  I had a really good cinnamon bun and the kids had biscuits, while Chad enjoyed the coffee.  At 1:15 we went back for lunch.  I am not sure what we had for lunch.  It was some sort of rice and peas and a few other veggies.  After lunch, the kids went down for a nap and Chad took the bus to Halifax to meet the vicar of his field education parish.  He is not back yet, so we will report at a later date what that was like.

Once the kids woke up we went to the park which is about a 2 minute walk from our house.  You can see from the pictures that we finally had more sunshine than rain today, so we thought it would be a good day to check out the playground.  Caroline insisted that Zoe come with us and not just stay in the stroller, but really play with us!  I could really tell that Caroline misses all her friends.  When I told her we were going to play she said "I don't have any friends."  When we got there, there were a couple girls hanging out, but they were probably 12  or so.  They left and Caroline started to follow them.  She cried when I made her come back and she kept asking me "where'd the girls go?"  We definitely miss all our Sewanee buddies!  Enjoy the pictures!

Another Exciting Day

This morning we decided today was the day to venture over to Leeds.  We headed out to the bus stop and waited.  After waiting in the cold for about 10 minutes we came back in our house and did some research online to see when the next bus was coming.  We should have (and will in the future!) done this so we are not waiting long.  We had about 20 minutes until the next bus so we went to visit the chickens and hens.  This was Caroline's request as she loves to look at them and ask me what they are doing.  After we visited the chickens, we went back to the bus stop, as we had about 1o minutes.  I took a few pictures, walked with Caroline for a minute, and then heard the dreaded words: "Mama, I need to go pee pee."  Chad and Caroline ran back to our flat because we only had about 4 minutes.  I think they may have done this in record time!

   

The bus finally came!  We were excited, but Caroline was disappointed because it was not a double decker bus.  She kept telling me that she wanted to go upstairs.  Thankfully the bus had "polky dot" seats so I distracted her by talking about the colors on the seats.  It took over an hour to get to Leeds which was much longer than we expected.  I think people had told us it was about 30 minutes away.  Wrong!  The kids did well on the bus.  Chad and I were the ones getting antsy as we had not had lunch.  I usually give the kids a peanut butter sandwich before we leave so they are not starving in case we get delayed.  Next time Chad and I will have one, too!

   

Leeds is a big city (keep in mind we live in Sewanee)!  First on our agenda was food.  We found a small pub on a side street and decided that was the place!  Tucker was asleep and Caroline acted like she had been to pubs all her life.  She really enjoyed it.  We sat at a small round table and Caroline had her own barstool and thought she was hot stuff drinking my coke and eating her chips and dip.  After a yummy lunch we explored the big city.  Tucker and Chad went into a bookstore and Caroline and I walked around.  Guess what we found...a TK Maxx!  It is just like the American version, TJ Maxx.  Caroline and Tucker got a "football" and Chad and I had fun just being in the store.

  

It was getting late in the afternoon and Caroline was on the verge of a meltdown since she had not napped.  Chad insisted that we hit the Starbucks on our way out of town so he could get some real coffee.  He and Tucker did the Starbucks while Caroline and I helped out the street vendors and bought 2 pashminas.  She also spent some time chasing the pigeons.  It was time to head back to the bus station.  This was about a 15 minute walk in the rain.  We are fitting right in, as the rain doesn't really phase us anymore.  We just know it is going to happen.  Again, our bus was short...no double decker.  About halfway into our ride home Caroline said she need to go potty.  She was out of luck.  Fortunately, she had a "dora" aka pull up on so I knew it was ok if she had an accident.  She kept saying "I need go pee pee" louder and louder followed by cries.  We calmly explained to her than she could go in her dora and she would not get wet.  She then shouted, "I don't want to go pee pee in my pants!"  I really felt bad for her and told her it was ok to go in her dora this time.  This continued for about 20 minutes and then she looked down at her pants and said "Ahhhh...that's better."  I think we all know how this one ended!

***Zoom in on picture #9 where Caroline is chasing the pigeons.  The giraffe in the store window is really cool!  The green patches on it are broken pieces of glass from wine bottles.  You can also see the wine bottles lined up in the window.  They also had an alligator made of all metal recycled pieces, and a cougar made of wood scraps.  Really cool!

FYI

Today I posted (not counting this one) 8, count them 8 blog updates.  The new ones start with pictures of us on the airplane.  I will try to post everyday to let you know what we are doing since we do not have a cell phone, therefore we can't talk to anyone.  Hope you enjoy the postings!  

We miss everyone! 

      Love,  

           Mary, Chad, Caroline & Tucker