Snow, snow, and more snow!!

Well, it's official. Snow follows us around like the plague. Everywhere we have gone in our many travels this winter 'the worst winter in decades' is sure to follow. Chicago's winter started off pretty rough, then we went to Edmonton and they were in a deep freeze, then we drove through central Alberta in the worst storm system in years, Calgary was next with just as dire a weather report, back to Edmonton and more snow, back to Chicago and 3 blizzards in a row. We get to Oxford and it was simply 'unseasonably cold' which sounded glorious to us because it was the mildest weather we'd seen in months. Now, however, we are in the middle of the worst set of storms in....well you get the idea. London got hit first (well I guess, we flew in there) and they got almost a foot of snow. I know, not much by North American standards, but it shut the city down. Including the underground trains. Now the storm system has settled over Oxford and while it originally was forecast to get the least amount of snow is now getting hit the hardest. The country (that's right, I said country) has run out of salt for the roads. Ugh. And I was so ready for spring. Which, btw, we were assured was just around the corner when we got here. Oh well. That and I found out our stuff only left the states last week and is on a significantly slower boat than was planned and won't get here until March 10, then it's another 10 days to clear customs and actually get delivered to our door. Great, now I have to go out and buy another high chair, there's no way I can wait another month and a half.

Here's the first snow fall, not bad, kind of nice and fluffy and quaint:

Then that completely melted by the next day and another storm moves in to take it's place:

And before that one got a chance to melt completely, we got dumped on again today.  It is still snowing.  Have I mentioned that between the snow and being sick I haven't made it out of the house since Sunday.  Blech.

All that being said, I couldn't leave you with only pictures of misery and dreariness.  So here's one of my little man.  He had a bit of a rough night last night and was so tired this morning.  I tried to keep him awake until his naptime, but here he is, an hour before, literally falling asleep standing up.

Read more...

Asher is 10 months old!

Or at least he was 2 days ago.  I feel like such a terrible mommy-blogger.  Not only did I miss it, but I missed him turning 9 months also.  At least I think I did, I'll have to go back and check now.  I'm pretty sure.  I didn't even wish him a Happy 10-month Day.  I didn't even realize it until after he'd gone to bed.  In my defense I was pretty sick.  Jeff calculates that I was awake for maybe an hour and a half total by 5:30 in the evening.  And yes, he knows this because my wonderful husband stayed home to take care of Asher so I could sleep.  I still feel like crap, not so tired, but definitely crappy.  I woke up last night every time I had to swallow.  Between Asher having a bit of an unsettled hour around 1 am, me clearing my throat all night long, and our pipes snap, crackling, and popping the more than they've ever done since we got here, I'm amazed Jeff got any sleep at all.  I should really go to the doctor, I have a feeling it might be strep but it's just such a pain to get there.  And I can't actually make an appointment until I register with the doctor, which I have to do in person, so that's possibly two trips I have to make, while sick, in the cold, with a 10-month old (like how I just slipped that in there?).  Ugh.  I might see if Jeff can go to work late tomorrow morning and let me try to get down to the clinic early enough that they can register me and maybe see me all at the same time.  I hate the thought of leaving it until tomorrow and going through another night like last night.  I also hate the thought of having to bundle Asher up and take him out and deal with his fussing while I'm finding my way around an entirely new medical system, all while I'm feeling sick already.  Jeff kept saying we should stop in and register and I put it off thinking, "meh, we won't really need a doctor until Asher's next visit at 12 months".  Ya, I'm an idiot.

But on a more sentimental note, I can't believe it's been 10 months already.  And on the other hand I can't believe he's not talking yet and complaining about not being able to stay up late and watch a movie cause it's not even a school night.  I know, be careful what I wish for.  I was flipping through some blogs this morning and came across this one.  Being a fellow Canadian, I read a few posts and found she does letters to both her sons every month.  I of course cried all the way through them wishing I had thought of that and why wasn't I a mom like that.  It feels like a cheesy thing to start after the fact but I suppose how things look shouldn't stop us.  I don't even know how I would get through a letter like that without bawling my face off, getting my keyboard all wet, and frying the circuitry.  And what would I say.  Well I know one thing I would say.  How amazed I was with Asher and how he reacted to a fight Jeff and I had this morning.  It was quite a doozy, not one of my proudest moments.  We ended up upstairs talking it through and even though there was some yelling and mommy was crying and the room was filled with tension at times, Asher was intent on cheering everyone up.  He went back and forth between Jeff and I, not nervous or anxious, but with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye inviting us to play.  And even when we couldn't be brought out of our sorrow and frustration, he didn't give up.  Finding himself on our bed he just rolled back and forth giggling to himself.  I am in awe of my little man, when some children would have been crying or scared, he was calm and confident that his parents loved him and loved each other.  I guess we're doing something right.  Right?

Read more...

Our Last Day in Chicago

Now, obviously we are no longer in Chicago and haven't been for a couple weeks now, but I just want to share the adventure that was...Our Last Day in Chicago.

First let me explain some of the stress that had led up to that day.  Visas.  They are a pain.  All. the. time.  The visas we came into the UK on were ancestory visas thanks to Jeff's Grandparents both being born on this side of the pond.  This offers us a lot of flexibility and allows us to be here for 5 years before we have to worry about anything.  Yay.  However it is quite the ordeal to actually get them.  I talked about the start of it all here.  

After going through all the requirements and crosschecking with our calendar we figured at the latest our visas should be ready by Monday the 12th, Jeff had to be in the office at Oxford by the 16th so we booked out flights for Tuesday night, arriving Wednesday so we would have a couple days to adjust before Jeff had to go off to work.  It sounds like last minute, but we had been told by everyone who had gone through this before that while it said 5 to 10 days (the 10 would have been Monday) it usually went through in 48 - 72 hours. If you're doing the math along with me, that would have left us quite a lot of time.  To relax.

Hah!  What no one told us, in our myriad of conversations with all manner of people supposedly helping us get all our ducks in a row so there would be no problems is that because Asher is an infant and cannot have his biometrics taken (apparently fingerprints for a 9-month old don't hold up in court - ya think?) that it would take considerable longer for him and my visa as his mother would be held up for the same amount of time.  Weeks possibly.  

The problem is, is that we did not find this out until Tuesday.  That's right, the day we were supposed to fly out.  Not that we weren't trying.  When we got no email 6 days in, we sent an email inquiring as to the status.  We received an email the next day saying it would now be 5 - 10 days.  Starting to panic we thought we should try to get a hold of someone.  No phone numbers put us through to the people we needed to reach.  We send another email stating the nature of our panic and receive a simple line stating that they were currently processing requests from Dec. 29th.  Okay, that's not so bad, ours were in the bin for the 30th, we should be able to show up on Monday (the next day they were open) and pick them up.  Not that they've told us that, we just figure if we actually go down there and beat down...er, I mean knock on some doors that they're bound to help us out.  

So we show up Monday to find that anyone that we would need to talk to about such things had left at noon (golly, I'd like those hours).  And no, our visas were not ready.  We could show up at 9am tomorrow (yes, that's Tuesday for those of you keeping track, the day we are supposed to leave) and we might be able to talk to someone and they might be inclined to help us maybe.

Now, I have to interject here that when we were praying about these visas, Jeff thought it would be a good idea to ask God to maybe not have it all happen last minute.  I quickly prayed for peace should that happen anyway.  And then I just shook my head.

Jeff shows up at 9am the next morning (did I mention that through all of this Chicago is seeing the worst winter in decades both for snow and cold?) and I stay home to pack up the rest of our bags, pretty sure that it would indeed be all last minute.  Little did I know...

Upon arriving and finally talking to someone, we finally learn of this problem with infant visas.  We are told that they make the request to the London offices and then...wait.  They have no idea when someone will get to it or how long it will take them to respond.  She said there was one small thing they could possibly try but it was not likely to work and we shouldn't book our tickets until we hear from them.  Jeff stays around until noon and arrives just before hoping to catch them before they all leave.  Apparently that day they left early.

Jeff arrives back in Elgin, thoroughly dejected, not knowing when we'll be able to rebook our flights or how much it will cost or if he'll have to go on without us (his visa actually was ready) and how much of a bad first impression this might be making with the new bosses.  I, meanwhile have stopped packing all our little odds and ends since it would just end up getting taken all out again.  We call the airline to change the flights as it has to be done by 4:30 or we lose all our money.  After 45 minutes of fighting with a peon that was going to way overcharge us, we demand to speak to a manager.  One isn't available but he'll put urgent on the request and have one call us right back.  It's now 2:30.

At 3 the phone rings and we breath a sigh of relief, we were about to call the airline back to remind them of the urgency with which we needed to change these tickets.  It's the British Consulate.  Our visas are ready.  All of them.  Oh crap.

Jeff starts running around like a madman throwing everything into any suitcase that still has room.  We figure we're screwed on the weight allowance anyway, but hey at least we're going to get there.  Hopefully.  The big issue is how to get the visas and us to the airport by 4:30, the standard 2 hours before the flight.  I am on the phone trying to call anyone and everyone I can think of that might be off work, close to downtown, and could perhaps drop everything and meet us at the airport with our visas.  

Janet!!  The hero of our story.  What a great God we have.  I managed to do a bit of work with Janet last spring while I was hugely pregnant with Asher and because of that her boss, Janice, not only knows me but loves me.  Normally at 3pm Janet would still be at least ankle deep in payroll but they had just finished.  Wow!  So Janice releases Janet from work early to run down and pick up our visas and hop in a cab and meet us at the airport.  

Jeff is pretty sure we're not going to make it in time and phones the airline to see if we can check in over the phone since it wouldn't let us online.  We're packed up and in the car by now, having had to say way too quick a goodbye to Mary not to mention having interrupted Asher's dinner.  Poor little mite.  So Jeff gets a hold of someone at the airline and she says we've been taken off the flight tonight (thanks to the mildly hair-brained person we were talking to previously).  Ack.  She is in the middle of putting us back on when we drive through a dead zone and loose her.  I know right!  It gets better though.  Jeff is completely convinced that last minute or no we are now going to miss our flight and it won't matter anyway.  I phone back just to see if there's anyway we can manage...and I get the same lady.  In a call center of how many, after several minutes of panicking in the car, I get the same lady.  She's got us back on the flight, she can't check us in though.  It's now 4:28, how are we going to get there in time.  I tell her this and she says, "Oh, don't worry about that.  As long as you're there 45 minutes before the flight you'll be fine."  Really!  

Whew!  I'm exhausted typing all this up.  I have no idea how long this is, I'm sure it's ridiculous.  Anyway, Janet actually beats us there, we get there at 4:35 and the kind women at the check in counter doesn't bother charging us for the overweight bags, tells us that we actually get an extra checked bag for Asher, so we only end up paying for one extra bag.  Praise the Lord!  She also changes our seats to bulkhead seats so that we can get a basinet for Asher to sleep in during the flight.  (he was a little too big, but it gave our arms a rest for a bit anyway) 

The rest of the trip wasn't nearly as exciting.  We were a bit delayed in Dublin, but arrived at Heathrow mid-afternoon and Duncan was there to drive us on to our new home in Oxford.  The landlord gave us a quick tour of the house and all the little idiosyncrasies and then Jeff and Duncan took quick trip to the grocer for a few supplies.  I would love to say that we slept great that night considering how exhausted we were (neither of us slept really on the plane) but Asher was up several times throughout the night.  Fortunately though, it didn't take him long to adjust.

Well, I'll leave you with that.  If you've made it this far, Cheers!

Read more...

A new look

I finally got around to putting a new look on my blog.  I spent entirely too much time pouring over designs and other stuff on thecutestblogontheblock. When I likely should have been working on updating my pictures on my website.  Oh well, I'll get there.  For now, I'm very pleased that I have a nice new page to look at (I also updated the look of my website, I'm on fire!).  

Asher's sleep is all messed up today because he decided to get up at 5:30 this morning.  We are not amused.  But it means that while he should have just started his afternoon nap, He's been down for a while now and I can hear him working on waking up.  Poop.  I can't wait to get Jeff a bike this weekend so it will take him 10 minutes to get home at night instead of 40.  He thinks that means he can stay later at work, little does he know.   So a quick blog for the day.

Some odd things we've noticed...

"What's for tea?"  Actually translates as, "What's for supper?"  Huh, who knew.  I'm glad I found that out before I invited someone 'round for tea.  If you want to offer them an actual beverage of tea, you offer them a cuppa.  It made for some very confusing commercials on tv until I figured it out.

In this house, at any rate, you have to turn on your power outlets.  

Apparently, it is fully recognized in this country that vehicles are much bigger, faster, and can do more damage than people, so they have the right of way.  And in some of the more touristy areas, they actually write on the street that you're about to step into which direction to look for traffic.

To ensure that you don't run out of hot water for your shower, it is equipped with an electric shower.  That is to say, it takes the cold water and heats it as it's coming out of the shower head.  Jeff was very excited about the prospect of long showers until he found out that the bathroom is much too cold for him to be naked and wet in there for any significant length of time.  (Sorry for the TMI)  

That's all for now.  I want to get back to my pictures.  I've been reading other people's blogs and realizing that I have been far too selfish in not sharing pictures of my wonderful little man.  So here's a quick teaser, more to come later:

Read more...

To answer a few questions...

We have a family website that I have been very lax in keeping updated the last few weeks.  The first thing I had to do was update my blogs.  Thankfully very easy as all I had to do was cut and paste from here to there.  I'm also wanting to get back into keeping up with my blogging more regularly as I want a place to record all the fun and strange and unexpected things we keep coming across here in the UK.  First though, I thought I'd post the following 'News' item from my website as it sums up a few things of where we're at currently.  I still have to tell the story of how we got here.  It's coming, I promise.  And I have to go through all the pictures I finally downloaded off my camera.  Two months worth.  Looks like naptimes are going to be busy for the next few days.

Originally I started writing this great long post about our entire adventure, but it was bordering on the ridiculous in length so I'm just going to save this entry to answer everyone's question: Are we there yet? 

Yes, we are most definitely here. We arrived in our little house almost two weeks ago now and are settling in quite nicely. There have been some bumps along the way, but we're getting used to things here and, as they say, getting it all sorted.

Now before you start yelling at me for having been here for two weeks and only just now  updating you, remember that we didn't actually have internet for a whole week (I know! how did we survive?). I would say something witty about that being the longest week of my life, but Asher was a week late, so...ya.

Now to answer the other question on everyone's mind: Is it all very exciting and wonderful and all that? Well, yes...and no. It's mostly very surreal, because it's not like being on holiday where you are packing every day with sightseeing and activity because you want to see as much as possible in a short amount of time. In truth, I've seen very little of Oxford. Jeff's seen a bit more because he's been to work. Our first Saturday we ventured into city centre a little bit and then out to the outskirts to hit a Babies 'R Us and then last Saturday Jeff's cousins took us out to a pub in the middle of nowhere and then to the little town of Whitney to look at some shops. Other than that we've seen the same half mile stretch of road that runs from our house to the nearest bunch of shops half a dozen times or so as we keep running back and forth for groceries. (It's amazing how quickly you go through food when you only buy what you can carry!)

But it is very exciting. I mean, dude! We're living on a whole new continent, well, island really, but still. I'm starting to get used to the direction of the cars already. Sort of. They don't look like they're on 'the wrong side' so much now, but I still look the wrong way before crossing the street. I think. I get very confused about that. It's fun to hear all the accents on the street, in the shops, and on tv, but my brain gets a little fuzzy after a while. As for my accent, well, it comes and goes. Mostly comes when I've spent the day with the tv on in the background for company and goes when Jeff gets home and gives me the evil eye for talking funny. Jeff's cousins (who will be referred to as Pam and Duncan from here on out) don't seem to think there's anything wrong with my accent. They think it's charming, a bit muddled, but charming. At least I know I won't be offending people too much.

And to answer the last question (well, usually the first that people ask): Asher is doing great. He's settled in really well, only took a couple days to fully adjust to the time change (thank You, God!). We pretty much stayed in the house all of last week so we could establish a schedule and I have to say he's been napping better here than he was back in Chicago. Two full hours in the morning and a good hour and a half or more in the afternoon. Now we just have to get the night-times back in order. He does sleep, from about 7:30/8 to 7 in the morning (kid is like clockwork with his mornings within 5 minutes of 7am every day), he just wakes up half a dozen times a night. We've given him a lot of grace though considering all the upheaval he's had for the last two months. But all that is about to change. Pray for us, we're weaning off nighttime feedings starting this weekend. If you don't hear from us for a few days (or several) you'll know why.

So I hope that answers some questions, at least for now. I'll try to be better about updating in the future as we settle in. 

Read more...

The Great Meltdown

What did we do before internet and mobile phones?  What was life like when one had to rely on archaic 'landlines' and 'snail mail'?  I really don't know.  For as long as it has taken us to get 'back on the grid' I can't even imagine how long it would have taken to reach people with a home phone - which we won't have for a week more or longer - or by post - which, granted we could have mailed a letter exclaiming our safe arrival the moment we set foot on British soil, they might have even gotten it by now.  How did people do it back then?  I suppose there would not be the expectation of keeping in touch.  People would say things like, "Have a safe journey, send us a letter once you've got settled".  I suppose they'd be quite pleased to hear something within the month.  

As it is, I have friends texting me the moment we've said goodbye saying "miss you already" and others writing on my facebook wall chomping at the bit to hear if we've landed and do we absolutely love it here.  I'm realizing when I left Canada for Chicago, I was really ready to leave, ready to put the old stuff behind me and set off on my new adventure.  There were a couple friends I was sad to leave, but I wasn't leaving behind a life, I was on my way to find one.  

Well, be careful what you wish for.  I found one and now I've had to leave it behind.  Not that I'm not excited to be on another new adventure, but I'm feeling a bit more lost this time 'round, a bit more...out of place.  Granted, there's a bit more in the way of culture shock with this move and there's the having to adjust to a new and drastically different time zone as well, but still.  I took for granted how much I did/talked to/planned with/thought about all the other people in my life in Chicago.  Perhaps I just had a bit more of a selfish existence in Canada, we'd only recently been married, and with the exception of work there was not a lot of involvement in things.  So much has changed.

It's not just Jeff and I this time either.  That's the biggest shocker.  When Jeff and I moved to Chicago, every night after dinner, we would go wander around downtown, just walking up and down the streets, seeing what was around.  On weekends, we would pick a new part of town to go explore and find something to do out there. We got to know the city very well, very fast.  We were much more mobile then than we are now.  It might be a bit different if it were summer and warmer out.  It's such a production to get everyone bundled up and make sure the little man has his sweater and coat and hat and boots and oh dear we've lost his mitts so we'll just put socks on his hands and maybe we should bring a blanket as well cause it's windy and what if it rains.  Ack!  What I wouldn't give for August.  But even so, if it were just Jeff and I we would have spent entire days already just walking all over the city and getting lost and finding our way again and sleeping like logs at night.  Not that I would trade Asher for anything but I might go stir crazy pretty quick if we don't find something to do outside the house.  

Oh, and something to do that doesn't cause The Great Meltdown.  I guess I just assumed that Asher would be mostly unaffected by the change, that he would react to things here the same as in Chicago.  Ya, I'm an idiot.  Not only is he in the umpteenth strange house for the umpteenth time in what has been a very long month and a half, he also does not have his own bed and hasn't except for a few days around Christmas for all that time.  Add to that the fact that he has been teething almost non-stop since the end of November.  Add to that he's also learned to crawl and so has many more places he would like to go and is often thwarted in his attempts.  Add to the much more frequent falling that goes along with said mobility.  Add to that all the myriad of new people that have been passing through his life, clamouring for attention and the absence of a lot of the ones he was accustomed to.  I'm sure there's more.  What you get is a baby who used to be hailed as "such a happy baby" by everyone who met him to a quite cranky little boy (unless he's getting his way, then, yes, he is quite a happy baby) who gets very upset at being told he can't do something, go somewhere, or put something in his mouth, who won't eat much except for bananas and breastmilk, who is once again waking up every two hours (if we're lucky), and demands to be in sight of mommy almost without exception.  I was talking to my mom about this last night and she said, "Ah, so he's entered his terrible two's a little early has he?"  Oh God help me.  I'm not kidding, please, if you pray, pray for me.  I suddenly have no idea how to handle my son and I can't abide the idea of just giving him everything he wants and yet I know that he needs a lot of grace because he's going through as big of a change as Jeff and I are but he has no understanding of what's going on.  I have no idea how to balance that.  Especially when I'm so tired and stressed myself.  

So today, we tried to go grocery shopping and Asher started fussing, and not even that much, but suddenly I just couldn't think straight, couldn't wrap my head around trying to figure out what to buy when everything around me looked so foreign, how to get what we needed without spending too much money, how to cook with things that I'd never used before, and how to do that while getting Asher to sit in his stroller (pushcart here) quietly and not need my constant attention for once.  In the end, I couldn't do it, I took Asher and we went home, leaving Jeff to try and buy what we needed but only as much as he could carry because there's still a good 5 block walk from the bus to our house.  What a disaster of a day.  I suppose I should stop hiding in my room and go downstairs and see what groceries he managed to get home.  I'm just not sure if I'm ready to be mommy again.  

Okay, so now that that depressing post is done, my next one will hopefully be about our action-comedy-adventure trip to the UK.  Full of plot twists, tears, surprises, and chuckles.  Stay tuned. 

Read more...

Uh...Happy New Year, I guess...

So it's ridiculous, I know, that I haven't blogged in forever and even forever ago was to simply say I haven't blogged in forever.  I've had an excuse, really I have.  We are finally out of our, staying with our wonderful friends, whose wireless internet I cannot access.  Don't ask, long story.  So I'm highjacking her internet straight from the modem for this short time so I can let everyone know (my fantasy life consists of a whole boat-load of lurkers out there) that I am still alive.  

We made it out of the apartment.  It took professional movers the entire day to pack up all my crap.  Granted, I had managed to pare it down quite a bit.  We got it down from 500 cubic ft in our estimate to 335 actual cubic feet.  Whew!  I wonder if I'll even remember what all is in there by the time it arrives.  It'll be like Christmas all over again.

We spent New Year's Eve in our friends apartment, splayed out on the couch, completely exhausted from that day's cleaning, packing up the remainder of things that were coming with us or getting shipped air freight, and driving out to our friends in the 'burbs.  We watched the ball drop in New York and called it a night. 

My mom was with us for another 4 days and we managed to do a lot and even relax a little during that time.  It was much harder to see her leave this time.  Before, it's always been a bit of a given that we'd see her again in a few months, now that we're going to be so much farther away, that's not so sure a thing.  Asher will have changed so much by the time she sees him again.  I'm just so glad that she was able to be with us during this time and help out so much with him.

Asher had his 9 month check up yesterday and he's still in the 90th percentile pretty much across the  board.  Apparently he should be leveling out now a bit.  I hope so, it would be nice to not have to buy new clothes every two months for this kid. 

So now it's 6 days and counting (7 if you look at the day we arrive as opposed to the day we leave).  Starting to get excited.  The biggest thing for me right now is just that we'll be able to settle down and get my poor little man back on a schedule.  This last month has been really hard on him, he rarely gets sick and he's had a stomach bug twice and now has a cold, mostly with the congestion in his chest.  Poor little mite.  And to avoid keeping entire households awake that have been kind enough to take us in, he's been sleeping with me (did I mention Jeff is on night shifts all this time?) and being nursed a couple times a night.  I look forward to getting him back on a schedule and getting him to sleep through the night.  We had been doing so well before all this moving around started so I'm confident we'll get back to that pretty quickly.

Last thing before I head to bed:  Teeth!  Little man has been teething non-stop since the end of November.  His bottom teeth broke through sometime in October, then he had a bit of a break, end of November saw his top teeth come through, the fourth while we were in Calgary, and now he already has two more teeth on the bottom (that's 6 in total for those of you keeping track) and now he's working on the 7th up top with the 8th not far behind.  At this rate, he's going to have a mouthful by the time he's One.  Wow.  And I told you about the crawling right.  He's getting to be quite speedy, and bold.  Yikes, have to do a bit of baby-proofing on the new house.  I'm also starting to get a little excited about all the shopping that awaits us, just don't tell Jeff ;).

Read more...