A double-decker bus day

OK, so my new plan is to inundate you with blog posts, just to annoy you all.  But seriously if I don't get some of this written down, I will forget it all!  

Two weekends ago we did a more proper London trip, since all we saw on the first trip in was the Red Bull Air Races!  We bought tickets on a double decker bus tour of the city.  We figured it would be an easy way to see lots of sights with the boys, and we were mostly right!

We started out the day by loading in the Jetta, then driving an hour to the closest tube stop, then after another hour long ride on the subway, we were in Piccadilly Circus where we got on our bus.  We were tired before we even started!  But both boys were pretty happy once we got on the bus.  

After riding around for a while and taking in some sights... yes, that's Westminster Abbey and Parliament, we got off and let the boys play for a while.  Nice view huh?  

Then it was back on the bus to drive over London Bridge, and then Tower Bridge.  So cool.  We got off the bus at the Tower of London and walked around for a while.  How cool is that?  We're at the Tower of London, and not on vacation!

Part of our ticket price included a boat ride down the Thames, so how could we resist?  On the boat we got this awesome view of the Tower Bridge.  It might be my favorite structure in London so far. 

After the boat ride we headed for dinner... the boys were pretty frazzled by this point, so a fancy dinner was out of the question.  Mmmm, McD's to the rescue!  Some things are the same the world over!  We then pushed our luck and took one more bus tour.  We drove by the famous Harrod's department store.  We were experiencing complete melt-down by this point, (can you say ear plug?) so going in was going to have to wait for another day.  

All in all it was a great day.  We spent about 12 hours in cars, trains, buses, and a boat, so we were all a little pooped, but it was well worth it.  We're willing to do it again when you all come to visit!

At last... a back yard!

So we have not had a back yard since 2003... well before we had little boys.  I don't need to tell those of you with small kids how important a yard is, so a yard was a definite must on our house hunting list.  So without further ado... here it is.  Our back yard.  We love it, the kitchen opens right up into it, and when it's not raining (ha!) you can find the boys out there quite a bit.  Notice the barbed wire fence... ah, feel the charm.  

A family here was giving away two wonderful play structures, so the boys have something to climb on.  We added to the fun with a toy car that requires a lot of sharing... You can usually find one boy inside and the other pushing him around the yard, complete with squeals of delight, or anger... if the sharing isn't going so well.  

We also got N his first tricycle.  He loves it, and can even ride all the way to our local park.  When did he get so big?

But the best part is our back door neigh-bors.  Get it?  "Neigh"bors.  Ha.  I'm so funny, I know.  Seriously, these are right outside our back door.  We're trying to learn their names.  This one is Little Sham, and he took a liking to little e right away!  

We do live in a great little neighborhood.  I can walk to everything on base, and I can walk N to his preschool which starts next week.  We have a little park, and there are a zillion kids running around outside all the time.  Most of them are school aged, or high schoolers, but hey, that means baby sitters, right?  

I'm back!

Yes, still alive.  We now have internet at our house.  Just hooked up tonight.  I never thought I would be so excited about internet.  But as my only contact to the outside world for the past three weeks has been AFN... well, you can only imagine.  Anyway, I'm using much will power to not tell you all everything that has happened in the last few weeks right now... but I need to get some sleep.  Photos and stories will come... I promise!

British word of the day...

OK, so I am still alive. Just no internet. None. Could be another couple of weeks, so I managed to get online at the community center today, and thought I would let you know that we are still alive...

And yes, Jon, a people carrier is a minivan. I had grand plans of posting a picture of our new British spec, right hand drive, people carrier, but alas... no internet. So, soon there will be pictures of our new house, new people carrier, new yard with play structure, new bunk beds for the boys, new play room... ah life is good. If only we had internet, we'd be set!

Seriously, we're doing really well here and have our small shipment all unpacked. No idea where the other 9/10 of our stuff is going to go... but we'll deal with that when it gets here. Hope you are all well!

British word of the day...

So an American cooler is a full sized fridge.  Many older British kitchens have little mini fridges under the countertops, and that's it!  However, we noticed that many of the newer houses had space for a full-sized fridge in their kitchen, or even had them built in so they blended right in with the cabinets.  I can't imagine only having a mini fridge in my kitchen... I couldn't even fit all my milk in that!  I will have a full American cooler in my base kitchen, so I'm very excited.  

Speaking of milk, we have the Korea milk problem here, the largest container you can buy is a half gallon... sort of.  Actually we buy a 2 liter jug of milk.  One of the things that I find strangest about England is everything is in metric except for miles.  They still list their distances in miles and speed in miles per hour, even though weight is in kilograms and they sell 2 liters of milk.  Go figure.

That leads us to today's word.  People carrier.  As in, a people carrier has to follow speed limits in miles per hour, not kilometers per hour!

Local sights

Last week we took a bus tour to a nearby town, just to get to know the area a little better.  It is actually the town we almost rented the wonderful house in, and I'm hesitant to show you these pictures because you will see what a wonderful town it really is and think we're even more crazy!  However, it is only a half hour drive away from our new house, so we will be going there often, I'm sure!

Here we are outside the pub we had lunch in.  We have discovered the only thing cheap in England is beer... it is usually the same price as a soda!  

The Abbey.  Amazing.  They took us on this detailed tour of the inside, but with two little boys at nap time, we took a quick run through and then headed outside.  

Just a little more scenic than the Red Bull air races, wouldn't you say?

The new abbey is much smaller than the old one, and it's ruins are still visible.  They have made an amazing park in the ruin area.  They are right there, no fences or anything.  This picture was taken from the playground in the park.  It is a really neat area.  

One thing that has really struck me about being here after Korea, is that almost all of Korea was destroyed, and then rebuilt after the Korean conflict.  Here, even though there has been war as well, there are still tons of old churches and buildings around.  It's just a refreshing change.  As our tour guide put it, it wouldn't be an English town without a medieval church!

Here are the boys making friends with a little girl on the playground.  Oh, they're going to have an English accent before we know it!

Are we irresponsible parents for letting our three-year old push our one-year old on the swing?  I'd like to think of us as resourceful.  Hey, they're both happy aren't they... well maybe e is a little scared!


Have we convinced you to come visit yet?!

Our first London trip!

Well, we did it.  We took our first day trip to London.  How cool is that.  A day trip to London!  You might think we went to some amazing cultural sight.  Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, or the London Eye perhaps.  However, that is what a normal family would do upon arriving in a foreign county.  No, we didn't go to the Tower Bridge or London Tower, but instead our first trip was too... the Red Bull air races!  Yes, this was my husband's idea (I know you're all surprised), and he had this trip planned long before even arriving here.  Go on laugh.

So we got in our car.  Yes, the Jetta made it all the way from Korea.  We think somewhere along the way a forklift was dropped on it.  There is a rather large dent in the trunk... I mean, the boot, that will need repair, along with many scratches... but alas, that's another subject matter.  We drove the hour to the closest tube stop and headed towards downtown on the tube.  N was really, really excited to be on a choo choo! 

Then we arrived at the races.  The Red Bull air races are an obstacle course of sorts for these aerobatic airplanes to fly through.  Apparently there is a season, including several races all over the world.  Sort of a NASCAR for pilots, but with a much higher budget!  (And as far as I can tell, more reserved fans, or maybe that's just the British.) 

Here the course was set up on the Thames River.  Yes, the Thames River.  The pilots have to fly through the blue cones horizontally, and the red ones vertically.  I have to admit, it was really fun to watch!  I found myself cheering for the crowd favorite British pilots, just because everyone else was.  I'm not secure enough in my loud Americanism yet to cheer for the American pilots... don't yell at me!

This is one of the crowd favorite British pilots flying E's favorite plane.  I know it's hard to read, but that is the Breitling plane.  Yes, it's BRET's mother ship.

Here is the Red Bull plane flying through the blue cones that were right in front of us.  Pretty cool.  

The boys really enjoyed it as well.  After a week of house hunting, I think they were happy to be out of the car and watching a good show!  They're too cute with their raisins. 

Here we are watching.  You can see the yellow towers of the Millennium Dome in the back ground.  At least we saw one semi-famous London sight!

Ah, like father, like son!  Maybe another pilot in the making.

By the end of the day little e was beginning to lose interest in the planes flying, but those folding chairs... they are quite fascinating!  Did we lose anything down there buddy?

After the races were over I tried to get a picture of the three boys with the course in the background.  The boys were beyond squirmy, so this was the best I could do.  But you can see the river and the cones that the planes flew through.  Yes, through... not over.  It was pretty cool!

From there we hopped back onto the tube and headed back to our car.  On our way home we stopped at the quaintest McDonald's I've ever seen.  It was the cheapest dinner we could find (still equivalent to $23... ouch!) and had a play place.  Perfect for little boys who had been in bleacher seats all day long.  It was a great outing, and the first of many.  Maybe next time we will go to something slight more... historic!