lohnerlicious: the first few weeks....

O.k. I am finally biting the bullet and contributing to the blog. The girls can make fun of me all they want, but I actually have important things to do around here! I understand that the blog is important. Our connection to the world. That's why I'm taking this very seriously and getting involved. Here are the, as Corinne puts it, pages of stuff I have been writing.....

week one:

Well, we have been in England exactly a week now and we still haven't received our shipment with our clothes and things. It's a little bit hard to get dressed every morning in a cold climate when all of our clothing is made for Texas heat! We keep crossing our fingers that everything will come soon.

Our move started off with a bang! We arrived in London to no shipments, which meant no bedding, clothing, dishes, etc, the ovens didn't work, Mike received a parking ticket (totally undeserved) and I had my wallet stolen--all credit cards, bank cards (US and UK) temple recommend, and drivers license. After all of that, we sat down to a totally unhealthy fried dinner of fish and chips and just laughed. There was nothing else we could do. Mike informed us that no one had died and things could only get better, to which Chandler quipped, "ya never know dad, one of us might get hit by a double-decker bus tomorrow!".

We took off and spent the weekend in the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds are gorgeous! It basically felt like we were frolicking in a fairy land full of old castles, churches and fields dotted with little lambs. Seriously, Corinne even had a bleating competition with Hercules, a lamb the girls named during our visit. It was heaven! We stayed in a little cottage with the name of Wychwood in Bruern Stable Cottages. I'm wondering why Americans are so lame? Our homes need names. I didn't know it could sound so cool to have a name for your house!

This is Hercules

This is Corinne and Chandler at Gloucester Cathedral in the hallway where parts of Harry Potter were filmed. We all felt the magnitude of this important event.

One of my favorite moments was when we went to the Bourton-on-the-water miniature village. There was a fantastic replica of their Cotswold village. It was amazing! But as we were walking and admiring the village, we saw a sign that posted, "Don't walk on the grass" (not a small sign, a full-sized one), which we all found extremely funny since everything was tiny. So Corinne and Chandler pull out their walking fingers and proceed to 'walk' on everything---from the grass to the roof-tops. Here is a nice photo of Corinne totally breaking their tiny village laws!

But we are now back to London and reality. We are trying to sign the girls up for school and get into a routine. Mike got me a car today, but I have come to realize that driving in London will be scary as all get out! The streets are teeny and there isn't any rhyme or reason to how things are laid out and no one seems to have any problem driving two inches away from another car or parking in a space that only looks big enough for a child's bike. I'm taking my friend, Tasha Siebach's advice and getting up at 5 am to try it out. My total experience so far was moving the car to a new parking space and I ended up a block and a half away from our house!

By the way, our house is great. The girls were surprised by the size and said that the pictures they had seen of the place were deceiving! :)

Week two:
The girls and I are adjusting to life here. We finally received our shipment last Friday and were able to unpack and start making our house feel like our home. It's amazing what a few familiar pictures and chotchkis can do for your morale! It finally seems like it belongs to us.

There are things I really love about the place...and things that are less than desirable. Here's some random facts about our life here:

-Our front walk is made up of black and white checked tiles and it leads to a door which has great stained glass windows.
-We have window boxes on a bunch of our windows--I need to work on those a bit
-We have three floors in our house. So when I walk from the kitchen to my bedroom I have to go up 37 stairs. I am going to have a really toned tush when this year's up!
-I don't have a cookie sheet small enough to fit into my teeny ovens
-We have three refrigerators, and still don't have as much space as our fridge at home
-I have to go to three rooms to get ready every morning since there isn't enough closet/drawer space in any given room for our clothes
-Our garden has tomatoes and herbs--love this!
-We have a different set of keys for the front door (which has three locks), the back door (three locks, two keysq), the front shed, the back shed, the back gate, and other random things. It's almost humorous
-We have to walk 10-15 minutes to get anywhere...the grocery store, the tube station, the bus stop...pretty much anything. This is probably my biggest challenge right now. I'm having a hard time getting used to this. For example: the girls and I left an hour and a half before their dance class so we would have time to walk to the tube station, take a tube to Earl's Crossing, change tubes and ride to Covent Garden, and then walk to dance. You have to allow time for traffic, rain and a myriad of things. People just allow a lot more time to get everywhere. Mike's office is less than three miles away from our house, but it has taken him an hour to get home because of traffic. Crazy!
-We are enjoying observing our neighbors. Everyone walks everywhere so you observe a lot. One neighbor has an awesome VW van that is bright yellow with heart stickers on the sides.
-there are tons of small children on scooters and bikes riding around town. Sometimes they have little baby dolls in backpacks or on the back of their bikes. And I adore hearing them talk with an English accent!
-no one, and I mean NO ONE, has convenient stores like the ones in the states. But I have been able to buy Dr. Pepper zero in bottles at a couple of places. Dad, I'm sure you feel my pain!
-I'm learning how to drive on the wrong side of the road. Mike bought me this amazing navigation system which tells me everything to do. She tells me how fast I'm going, if there is a camera taking pictures of speeding cars, if there is a lot of traffic and I need to take an alternate route, etc. I couldn't get anywhere without her! I say "her" because it is the voice of some lady with an English accent. She and I are becoming quite attached.

I'll tell you more things later. I'm also totally entertained by all of the names here. I've started a running list. Here are a few:

Duke's Head
Slug and lettuce (the girls and I ate lunch here)
Nag's head
The Bitter and Twisted
Porcupine
Goat in Boots
Tooting--we have people in our ward that live here and I chuckle every time I hear it :)
Wagamama
We received a flyer for a restaurant giving out free poppodoms and chutneys (what ARE poppodoms?)
Rocket--some kind of lettuce used on many things

Biggest pain of the week:
Right now I have to go outside every single day and move our car to another neighborhood (between 9:30-10:30am) because we don't have a permit for our street yet.

Week Three:
Well, the girls and I had a big break through this week. In the last 48 hours we have had not one, but TWO people who have stopped us on the street and asked us directions. What? We might actually look like we know where we are going now!

This past weekend we went to The National Gallery twice. The first time we went with Mike and ran out of time. Since it is huge and we love love LOVE it, we went back to see more on Monday. We saw so much good stuff (Boticelli, Michaelangelo, Renior, Rembrandt, Watteau...just to name a few) and it still feels like we've barely scratched the surface, but the cool thing is....we can go back.

This was a copy of a Van Gogh painting which was outside the museum---it was made out of live plants and was HUGE!

Corinne, Chandler and I head to Covent Garden almost daily to dance at PIneapple Studio. It's located in a pretty fun and happening location, which is great for me because there is lots to see and do while the girls are dancing. The other day I tried to take the girls to see some cool sights after dance and it was a bank holiday so many things were shut down. But alas, the day was not a total loss as we were able to witness this totally cool alien bottle man.