Turkish Delight

We went out last night for our anniversary and had a fantastic meal at a wonderful turkish restaurant in town. We sat outside and with the sun and the turkish music we almost felt we were there. Expected to walk out into the streets of Istanbul or a lovely coastal town. They treated sam like a god and brought him his slightest request. When we left they gave him a whole box of turkish delight as well as giving M a box of coffee. We will definately be going back, the food was fantastic and the prices reasonable.

We have had the last two days off school work. Yesterday we met my sil and her sons in ferry meadows. The boys played until they could play no more. They were absolutely shattered when we left. I am so glad that we live close enough so that sam can get to know his cousin and see them on a regular basis. Moving around as much as we did I never got the chance to live near my cousins until I was in high school.

Today Fiona came over with becky and peter and we spent all afternoon in the garden playing lego and a ball game that was a strange mixture of t-ball, rounders and cricket. Never did quite catch the rules but everyone had a blast. Met the new neighbours for the first time as becky managed to hit a ball across two gardens into theirs. Luckily it didn't hit anything and they were home and were good natured about us retreving it. thankfully sam can't hit that hard yet or we would have to ban t-ball from the garden.

Next two days we are stuck at home waiting for deliveries-tomorrow it is the shed and friday it is the dishwasher-yipee! Just home the dishwasher is easier to get up the stairs than the sofa was. Maybe if I smile sweetly at the delivery man he will bring it up. Better yet I could bribe him with cookies.

Ordered sonlight 1 last week and am patiently awaiting its arrival. I opted to have it sent M-bag so it could be months before it arrives. Just hope it doesn't get lost somewhere. Sam is very excited about the new read alouds and the new science. We are almost done with science 1. Have decied to set a side one day a week to do all the experiments we haven't yet had time to do. that should help make things more fun and draw out science 1 as we will be done way before science 2 arrives. think we will probably do it on a friday as that is a nice way to round out the week. So starting this friday you all have an open invitation to participate in science day if you are over our way.

13-lucky for some..

today is our 13th wedding anniversary, so happy anniversary sweetheart. Here is to the next 13, may they be even happier! We had a quiet meal in tonight and are going out tomorrow night to celebrate.
A good start to the week. We did normals this morning and then headed over to pborough to play with sarah and her girls. sam had a blast and it was nice to catch up with sarah. She has very kindly asked me to be godmother to her youngest and I am thrilled to pieces. sam and the girls spent the entire afternoon charging around and jumping on the trampoline. He should be shattered but I can hear him still moving around up there.

Last week disapeared in a haze of settling back into life here. Signed sam up for lots of sporting activities over the summer. He is very keen and hopefully it will help us to meet some local children. We also spent the weekend cleaning out the garage and finishing the unpacking. We are more or less there, with only a few boxes to unpack and a few pictures to hang. I have hung lots of pictures in the playroom so it feels cozier.

This week we are social butterflies, we are seeing friends everyday but thursday. At some point our new dishwasher should be delivered-yipee!! Just hope it is easier to get upstairs than the sofa was. Sometimes I am not convinced that the kitchen on the 2nd floor is a good idea-especially when it comes to carrying up the shopping.

Sam was so excited about the summer reading scheme at the library that we had to go along on saturday ( the day it started) to sign up. I think the librarian was bemused by my over enthusiastic 5 year old who cornered her at the counter and asked (very politely) to sign up for the scheme. We have agreed that this year he has to read half of the books himself. Our first two books are a famous 5 mystery and a magic key floppy book. He has finished the floppy book already but we still have several more chapters of the famous 5. Will try to stretch it out this summer as we usually finish the 6 books in about 3 weeks. I am glad that he is so keen to do it, I can remember as a child being just as keen. I would have spent the whole summer in the library if my parents had let me. It is a shame that they don't let children volunteer at the library because I think sam would enjoy helping out there.

sam did a great job here!

DSCF1370, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

sam is especially proud of these pages of his scrapbook

DSCF1372, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

sam's scrapbook

DSCF1371, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

a sam lego creation

DSCF1375, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

5 things

thank you for tagging me helen, here are my answers:

1. 5 things in my fridge
bottle of key lime juice ( for key lime pies)
half eaten hersey bar (not mine I swear!)
milk
3 types of cheese
sam's easter eggs

2. 5 things in my wardrobe
way too many t-shirts
a black velvet cloak
shoes I never wear
scarves
suits from my days at work

3. 5 things in my handbag
a shuffle
my calendar
leaflets sam has collected
lifesavers
my wallet

4. 5 things in my car
bottles of water, some full, some not
the galt catalogue ( sam's fav reading material)
a cardboard box to go to the tip
car seat
lego

I tag Merry, Jules, Mary and Dinelle

Feeling hot, hot, hot,..

especially as our car has no air con! Sam and I went out to go swimming and run a few errands and came back dripping. Even with all the windows down in the stop and start traffic there was no breeze. I am not complaining because I would much rather be too hot than too cold, just wish our car had air con. Despite sweating buckets we have had a nice day.

Spent the morning doing normals, sam is really enjoying our science unit on the body-hope this is not a sign that he is destined for the medical profession! We did all our work outside in the sunshine and broke it up with relay races and sword fights with plastic baseball bats. We rounded off the session by working on sam's new scrapbook (thank you auntie lyn!!) He was so absorbed and concentrated so hard, I was amamzed. He did 4 pages, he chose all the photos and the stickers and I helped with the writing and sticking things down. He is very proud of his efforts and rightly so. Hopefully we will get the chance to finish the book this week. Big hugs to my aunt for giving us the books, I can't wait to start mine. Will blog photos of sam's album when he has done a few more pages.

We now have neighbours-neither are attached to us so we can still make lots of noise (at least for the time being). They both seem very nice and we plan to have them over in a couple of weeks. No one with children so far, sam is so deparate for a neighbour with children. I hope we get one and that they are his age!

PE in the extreme

In one fell swoop today we covered off PE for the next week. On what is undoubtedly the hottest weekend of the year we cycled all 26 miles around Rutland Water. It was hot but fun. Sam was on his tag a long so he worked as hard as we did. It was nice to be out in the sunshine, if only the whole trail was off road. It is absurd that 4 miles of it is along road, and without the benefit of a special bike lane. I am a nervous rider as it is without having to worry about cars. It took us about 2.5 hours to go round and we all headed for the shower when we got back!! Spend the rest of the day pottering, M and Sam washed the car and then we fired up the bbq. M loves his new bbq, a huge thank you to my in laws.

Orlando had his first feed this weekend. His food didn't freak me out as much as I expected but I still couldn't bring myself to touch it. He ate it quite happily so he must be settling in. He is lots of fun to watch and we can't wait until he gets a bit bigger so we can handle him more.

Spent all day yesterday working in the garden. We now have lots of new fruit tress and herbs so hope we don't get a hosepipe ban up here. The cats love the garden and are out all day. It is so nice to have the space and to be able to leave the doors open all day.


Friday Sam and I did a session on the 4th of July for our home ed group. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, especially the softball game. We talked a little bit about the history of the 4th and then the children did a variety of craft activities. We finished off the session with a flag relay race and a softball game. Thank you to everyone who came and helped to make the session fun.

a sam masterpiece

DSCF1362, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

orlando exploring his new home

DSCF1361, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

the newest member of the family...Orlando the grey rat snake.

DSCF1360, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

Back to reality

Well, the clothes are all washed and put away, the suitcases back where they belong and all the film developed or pics downloaded so I guess the vacation is well and truely over. We had such a great time and enjoyed visiting with everyone so much that getting back into the swing of things isn't easy. We also miss the california sunshine!! Life is always better when it is sunny. I don't miss the bay area traffic though, it makes leicester at rush hour look deserted. Don't know how they are going to solve the traffic problem, everytime we go home it gets worse. Give everyone one a segway!! that would make it less crowded and more fun.

Back to normal today with only a minimum of fuss. I think we will carry on over the summer, it gives some structure to our day if nothing else. Sam is very keen to start his scrapbook of the trip. My aunt who is very into scrapbooking gave us two beautiful albums and lots of cool paper and stickers. If only we had taken pic of him at the ball game to put in there!

Today we went to find the latest edition to our menagerie-you guessed, the long anticipated snake. It is a grey rat snake and very cute. We have reserved it and will go pick him up later in the week, once we have made space for him in sam's room. Not sure who is more excited, Sam or M. I am not thrilled about what it eats but am trying not to think about that. Sam hasn't decided on a name yet, suppose it depends on if it is a boy or a girl.

Have found a few more ideas for friday, just have to give them a test run tomorrow and make sure we have all the supplies. Sam and I looked at the Declaration of Independence today as well as the Constition. I hadn't read them since high school and had forgotten how elequent they are. Jefferson was a genius. This is going to sound really corny but it made me feel proud to be american-despite all its faults and problems.

I just touched a starfish!

DSCF1328, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

Sam and Dad at Glacier Point with Half dome in the background

DSCF1294, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

Half Dome-Matthew climbed this.

DSCF1287, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

rock climbing for beginners

DSCF1270, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

We're back....

from our globe trotting. We all had a fantastic time, especially sam who fell in love with every dog he met and delighted in playing with cousins and making new friends. We had a busy time so have come home shattered. Still not quite sure what time or day this is. Poor sam is so out of sync that he didn't get up until 12:30 today, I was beginning to wonder if he would ever wake up.

Everything about our trip was so great that it is hard to say what the highlight was. Yosemite was breathtakingly beautiful and we would have gladly spent the whole trip there if we could have. The camping facilities weren't brilliant but the scenery more than made up for it. Lots of wildlife, though we didn't see any bears. We saw deer, chipmonks, ground squirrels and a coyote. Sam got into hiking and managed a couple 5 mile hikes. My dad and stepmom camped a short drive away from us so we got to spend time with them in the park. Sam was thrilled at seeing them again and so were we.

From Yosemite we drove to the santa cruz/monterey area where the highlight for sam was undoubtedly the monterey bay aquarium. It really is outstanding and we spent the better part of a day there. We also spent time in santa cruz and carmel and went to a state park to see some giant redwoods. Sam was delighted as we had a gopher take up residence next to our tent and whenever we were eating it would pop up. There were also lots of tree frogs around and sam couldn't believe his luck when one jumped in his shower one morning!

Next it was up to the wine country to camp with my dad and do a little wine tasting. we also met up with my uncle. We stayed at an excellent campsite-complete with petting zoo, pool and playground and dad and amy watched sam for us while we hit the wine trail. M did the tasting while I did the driving. We bbqed with dad everynight and he even did a proper breakfast for us in the morning. Oh the joys of having a motorhome! It was so wonderful to see them and sam adored spending time with them. We were all very sad when we had to say goodbye. They headed up north whie we went down to the bay area.

Took sam to his first baseball game and he had a blast. He was really keen to catch a foul ball but unfortunatey we were sitting in the wrong part of the stadium. Next time we will get tickets behind home plate. He is now a confirmed As fan and was gutted when is baseball cap was stolen out of the rental car. We spent two days playing in SF-dad came down on the first day to go with us to exploratorium. It is a hands on science museum and sam was well and truly in his element. Not sure he understood all the experiments but he had fun doing them. I think we all did. We also go to spend time with my cousin medea and her family. They kindly took us out to dinner and sam fell in love with her boys all over again. Her sons are 15 and 10 and talk about hero worship. Sam was enthralled and spent the whole evening playing with them (we brought lego!) and was gutted when we had to go. I was impressed at how patient max and dylan were with sam, they didn't seem to mind the fact that he was 5. they all got on so well that we adults were able to catch up on everything.

We said goodby to M on father's day as he had to return home, while we went to spend a few days with my aunt and uncle. It was so nice to see them. we had a pool party the first day, my cousin and her 5 year old son came as did a friend of my aunt who had 3 children. We were in the pool all afternoon and you have never heard so much laughter. I think sam drank half the pool between giggles. The children all got on really well, no squabbles or tantrums at all. The next day we went to the Jelly belly factory, where they make jelly belly jelly beans. We did a tour of the factory and then headed off to the shop for lots of free samples. I think that sam had more jelly beans in one morning than he has had in his whole life! His fav were the root beer ones.
we were also able to spend the day with an old school friend and her husband. I hadn't seen her for many years so it was nice to be able to visit in person. Sam loved playing with her cats and dogs, though not sure they felt the same. We visited a ghost town and the local zoo with them, but had to call it a day when temps climbed over 100. I love the heat but it felt like we were baking in an oven. At least it was not humid. We had a wonderful visit with my aunt and uncle and were so sad when we had to go. I hope that we will be able to go back and visit soon.

So now we are back to reality and all that entails. This week is pretty quiet-my main job is to plan the 4th of July session I in charge of for our home ed group. Am distinctly short of ideas-except maybe for a game of softball. Sam thinks we should make a giant paper mache model of the US but I think that is was too ambitious for one session. I will do some posters about the flag, the national anthem, the declaration and so forth but am short on things for the kids to actually do. Off to trawl the internet for inspiration.

sunshine at last

what a glorious day, shame we spent most of it running around doing jobs. We did manage to get back in the afternoon and the garden really came into its own. sam spent ages in the sand box creating a dino excavation site for his playmobil people while I was a very lazy mom and sat and read the paper in the sunshine. Even the cats were out enjoying the nice weather. Marquesa couldn't understand why the birds did not want to be friends with her!

Sam picked out a few lego toys and knex for the plane with money very kindly sent by M's aunt. He has been very good about saving them until the day, though he complained bitterly about it to the tesco's lady and to M's aunt when he phoned to thank her. I have squirrled them into his carry on so hopefully out of site out of mind. One of my overwhelming memories of childhood holidays was the excitement of picking out books and toys for the trip. Mom and I would go to the bookstore on base and I would be allowed to choose a few titles for the trip. Waiting to read them was so hard and once or twice when I read them before the trip I was so disapointed because I then had nothing new for the long drive or plane trip. Sam is equally excited about his books and toys and hopefully they will keep him amused for 11 hours as the movies on board look dire.

We have had a good week, most of our friends from pborough have been over for a visit so we haven't done much formal work. Instead we have both had a ball catching up with friends. In fact sam was so disapointed when I reminded him that no one would be coming over to play today that I had to remind him that we would be seeing lots of friends over the weekend.

M's family is coming for a bbq tomorrow (fingers crossed for nice weather) and we are going to my goddaughter's christening on sunday. There will be lots of children at both events so hopefully he will be so tuckered out that he will have a nice long sleep on the plane!

final countdown

T-5 and counting!! not that we are excited about our upcoming holiday at all. last week just flew by in a haze of normals and seeing friends. On friday we went back to pborough to our home ed group and took L and M. Neither of the boys was that keen on the african drumming that was on offer so we had a good walk aroud ferry meadows instead. We then went back to merry's which gave us a chance to see her beautiful new home. the children all had lots of fun and we were all sorry to leave.

The weekend passed in a haze of running errands and sorting out the house. Yesterday we went to get a new gas bbq ( a house warming pressie from the in laws) and the boys spent an enjoyable afternoon putting it together and sorting out the garden. Despite the frequent showers we managed to use it and now sam wants to bbq every night!

It is half term and while lessons haven't stopped completely they have slowed right down. Had some of the boys over day and it was so nice to catch up with everyone. The children spent the day playing jurassic park (whose idea do you think that was then?!) and mucking about in the garden. The house was so empty after they left. We filled the void by walking to Asda to get a few bits that I managed to forget when I ordered the shopping. Sam took frolic in the toy push chair and raced along the sidwalk like a maniac. He has decided that frolic is the only stuffed animal going on our trip as it was getting too tricky to remember who he was taking. Am quite pleased about that as his dragon was originally on the short list and dragon is taller than I am!

We have more friends coming over tomorrow and thursday which is a lovely way to round off the week. We do miss having our friends close by but are grateful that they are willing to come all the way over here to see us.

The bbq boys

The bbq boys, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

A taste of things to come

A taste of things to come, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

curious sam..

Went to a free screening of curious george in nottingham yesterday and we both really enjoyed it. We met up with friends and the 4 children were absolutely spellbound, not a peep out of any of them for the whole movie. In fact, I have never heard such a quiet movie theatre(except for giggles and laughter in the right places) considering there must have been about 75 children there. The sound track was great too, we all like jack johnson-he is so very jimmy. He is gettting a lot of airtime at the moment, just hope jimmy does too when Hoot is released over here.
After the movie we hopped on the tram and found a park for our picnic, the children ran around like loons while we mums played catch up. We were lucky with the weather and the heavens didn't open until we were safely on the train home. Nottingham looks like a fun city (yes I know it is the most violent city in the uk but not in the very centre) and worth getting to know. It is only about half and hour by train so we will definately be heading back up there.

Came home to find the phone line was down, which meant, horror of horrors, no internet!! After lots of irate calls to BT the problem was finally sorted today-appears the line was accidently cut by guys working down the road.

Sam's map of the solar system is more or less done, it looks good and he has enjoyed doing it. Will photograph it tomorrow once he has had a chance to add stars and space ships. He is really enjoying our space unit, not so much for the planets but for the probes and space ships. All is knex has now been made into probes and droids and aliens, who seem to be locked in some type of battle for the universe. Me thinks he has seen star wars one to many times!! He is also enjoying latin-mainly I think because two of the characters are a cat and a mouse. He has been saying 'mus exit" all day, which is the last line of one of the stories. He can't get over the fact that the characters in the story actually existed-we must get up to vindolanda this summer and show him the fort and where the family lived. More california project tomorrow-this time looking at the european conquest. last week he had fun building california indian dwellings out of mechano. He is always building something.

The boys gave the lawn its first cut today, sam loved working with M and M was very patient with him. I think that they both enjoyed themselves.

a new way to blow up a balloon

more science experiments, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

view from the french doors at the front

DSCF1207, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

the kitchen

DSCF1206, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

new nasa designer unveils latest martian rover

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homemade mars rover

homemade mars rover, originally uploaded by mattamsam.

Because of Winn Dixie..

is an excellent family movie. We got it out of the library and really enjoyed it. It has all the right ingredients, cute dog plus other assorted animals, funny bits, sad bits and tug at the heart strings bits. It was originally a children's book so will look for it when we go home.

We had hoped to have friends over today but they were not well so we spent the day doing normals and generally amusing ourselves while avoiding the frequent rain showers. We had lots of fun with the latest young scientist club kit-photos to follow. The raising experiment was a hit as usual and M was mesmerized as he hadn't seen it before. We also got to make slime, though ours seems a bit rubbery rather than gooey. Sam is very eager to get the next kit as it is all about volcanos and he loves making them.

We managed a swim at our new gym yesterday and I am sorry they lied--that pool is not warm! Even sam said it was chilly and he plays in the sprinkler. Once we got splashing around it wasn't too bad but it could do with being about 10 degrees warmer. M is taking sam tomorrow while I get my hair done and he is really excited about it. We hope to go at least once a week, more if we can.

L and M came to play yesterday and the boys spent the whole time playing some complicated monster hunting game. they both had on safari hats and seemed to be hunting the monsters from scooby do. It is amazing how well they get on, it is like they have always known each other. L and I had a nice visit and she brought us a lovely flower for the garden. We are so lucky to have found nice friends so quickly.

Car is all better, only a blown fuse-but I won't even tell you how much they charged us as they work at an outrageous hourly rate. I wouldn't mind so much if the guys doing the work actually got half of that per hour, but I bet they don't. Forget college-sam is going to open his own garage!!

Education but not as we planned it..

Sam and I had a nice day planned, normals in the morning, the space centre in the afternoon and then a swim at our new gym. The day didn't quite happen like that as the jeep decided not to work but in the end we had an even nicer day. Sam got a good lesson in mechanics and physics from the two RAC men who came to the house, the first to try and fix the car and the second to tow us to a garage. Sam kept offering helpful advice to both men who took it with a smile. We then did a bit of geography as the garage was in a part of leicster that we only vaguely know. Then some diplomacy as I did my best not to explode when the woman told me that she wasn't sure that they would get a chance to look at it today, let alone fix it. As it turns out the garage is about 1/2 a mile from the Space Centre so we covered off PE on our walk over there. I sort of assumed that being a tuesday morning it would be empty but boy was I wrong. It seemed like every school in leicseter was there. I am sure in my day we only got field trips at the end of term--not in the middle-who said they could be out of school-not fair!!!

We managed to enjoy ourselves, despite the noise and chaos and I my interested was sufficiently peaked that I am going to look into doing an OU course on the planets or the solar system. Sam enjoyed the museum much more than last time we went about a year ago. It is still aimed at older children but having done some planet stuff at home he was much more interested at the museum. I still think that their entrance fees are outrageous when you consider how big the science musem in london is they don't charge a thing. luckily, EO members get a discount.

The Abbey Pumping Station Museum is right next door so we headed over there when we were done at the space centre. It was delightfully empty and we were able to browse in peace.

More PE as we walked to Abbey Park and explored there. It includes the remains of Leicester Abbey where Cardiinal Wolsey died and was buried. There are quite a few remains to seee and we had some interesting discusions about the dissolution, funding for archaeological digs and the layout of churches. I just love the fact that not only does HE allow us the freedom to do this but that he is interested in all these things. His focus changes so quickly too, one minute he is going to build a space craft and the next he wants to know what happened to the monks from the dissolved monastaries.

More lessons in dipolmacy was we walked back to the garage (it was gone 3 by this time) to be told that they still hadn't properly looked at the car and that they would not get round to it until tomorrow. GRRRRRR.. what happened to being nice to your customers. If only our wonderful mechanic wasn't away at the moment. They graciously agreed to give us a lift into the centre of leicester, wheere we explored some more while we waited for M to get off work. The museum at new walk is great and even better it was empty!! Definately worth another visit when we can stay longer. We got a lift home with M and were both shattered.

We had a good day, just not the one we had planned!!!

Have a great time in LV Dad-can't wait to see you guys.

friends old and new

The last two days has been filled not with boxes, thankfully, but with friends. Yesterday we met up with new friends, L and her son M. M is the same age as sam and they also use sonlight. Sam and M got on like a house on fire, in fact we hardly saw them they were so busy playing. I really enjoyed chatting with L and hope that we will see a lot more of them. They only live the next village over so are nice and close. Sam was delighted to have made a friend close by and I was too.
Today was filled with old friends-Merry and the girls came to play and it was wonderful to see them. They are our first official visitors and it was fun showing them around. Sam and the girls had lots of fun, playing some made up game involving most of his fluffy animals, especially the snakes. We didn't see much of them as they spent most of their time in sam's room or the playroom, which merry and I a chance to catch up. We were both sad when they left, we miss all having all of our old friends close by.

Sam really enjoyed learning about the la brea tar pits today as part of our california project. He spent ages drawing a picture of the pits and various animals getting stuck. Next stop on our california tour is the native population. He finished sinagpore 1A today, though with some protest. I can't seem to make math fun for him, maybe because it isn't one of my favorite subjects. Must try harder though as I don't want him to become mathphobic. The Minimus latin books arrived today which was another excitement. Am very keen to start the programme as I think he will enjoy it, especially as the two main characters are a cat and a mouse. We are going to take it very slowly but hopefully it will be fun. It should help him with his french and his english grammar.

Settling in..

slowly we are settling in here and it is starting to feel more like home. Most of the boxes are hidden away in the garage and all but the playroom and office are just about sorted out. There are pictures on the walls and clothes in the cupboards, which is a relief I can tell you. I wore the same pair of jeans for almost a week because I couldn't find anything else to wear.

We are all finding our feet-sam and I have been to our local country park twice and have a playdate tomorrow. M is delighted that his commute is so short and we are all benefitting from the extra family time.

Thank you all for your good moving vibes and your nice comments, it really helped to make things go better. Evenything went as smoothly as these things go, a few minor hiccups but they have all been sorted. Now the boxes are all hidden away you can all come and visit!

We are back on track with normals. Sam has finished explode the code 2 and should finish singapore 1a tomorrow. We are looking at planets and the solar system in science so will probably head over to the space centre at the weekend. We have also started a project on california-and discovered that most of it was underwater in the triassic, jurassic and creteous. tomorrow we are looking at the la brea tar pits and then on to the native american population. There has been lots of imaginative play with his fluffy dinos-I think they were all engaged in a game of hide and seek this morning that invovled using all the sleeping bags. It is so cute the way he talks to them and he says that he is their dad and that he loves them all very much. It is hard to reconcile that side of him with the one who wants to crash into things and generally create chaos.

We should have gone to t-ball tonight but instead had a family run around the park. M pointed out all the birds and butterflies to sam, while he was on a snake hunt, having been informed by a fellow park goer that snakes are often spotted there. We didn't spot any, which was probably a good thing because he would have wanted to take it home.

still here but no broadband!!

we survived the move, all people, fish and cats accounted for. the house feels huge and is still full of boxes. we are running between the two houses at the moment trying to get other one ready for our renter who should move in in the next couple of days.
sam has taken everthing in his stride and is settling in well.

we don't have broadband at the house yet (grrrr!!!!) so am sitting here at the local library-had to get my fix somehow. we should be back on line on tuesday so will update then.


talk to you all soon

The final countdown..

has begun. Counting tonight, we only have 4 more nights left in this house. We have spent 10 happy years here, I still can't quite believe that we are going. The next few days are going to be very busy so not sure how much I will be able to post. M will shut down the network here on wed so we won't be up and running again until broadband is installed at the new house (should be friday).

We have had a busy weeek, HE wise we have gotten back on track and continued with the tudors. I think the session on friday went well, though I am not sure who enjoyed the butter making more, the parents or the children! Thank you everyone who helped out, I appreciate it. I hope the candles acutally burn. We are going to save ours for the new house. Not sure how much formal learning is going to go on this week, though I am sure there will be lots of informal learning-lots of opportunities to study physics (fitting thing round corners), language (swear words), geography ( us getting lost looking for the nearest homebase), PE (carrying boxes), diplomacy (mommy trying not to loose it when something goes wrong), archaeology (finding all those things we thought we had lost once the house is clear of furniture), animal science (trying to coax 3 cats into their cat baskets), the list of things to learn is endless, do you think the lea will approve?

She's the one..

at least we hope so. Got a call from the letting agent today-the woman that sam and I gave an impromptu showing to on monday has reserved the house!! Subject to credit checks and references it looks like we may have a tennant and all thanks to sam. We spent ages in the front yard on monday, gardening and playing with his new swing ball set (thank you nana!) and were in the middle of a sam suggested picnic when this woman drove by. I saw her stare at the house and then stop just down the block. She got out and came down to ask about the house. She seemed so keen that we gave her an quick viewing and boy was the house a mess. there were toys and clutter everywhere. Looks like she was able to see past that though. Hope she passes the checks it would be nice to have this house sorted out.

It has been a good week so far. We are back on track with normals and have spent a lot of time on the tudors in preparation for friday. We both enjoyed doing a tudor garden and sam's dragon is now sporting a ruff. He is excited about the CA project which we will start once we have moved. He is still not so keen on doing math so must think of some way to make it more fun. Any suggestions??

Had great fun yesterday with Merry & the girls and my friend miriam and her boys. The children devised some game involving resecuing playmobil people and drving cars down the bannister. they all got on really well and considering there were 7 children in the house they were remarkably quiet. It was probably the last time we will have friends to play in this house which is sad but hopefully they will all troop over to the new house once the toys are unpacked.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter, Passover, Spring to everyone. S and I have had a nice day today while poor M had to work. Sam's day started with an easter egg treasure hunt thanks to the easter bunny. he was delighted to eventually find his easter basket hiding in dryer. The easter bunny had kindly given him a chocolate egg and a scooby doo dvd. Needless to say he was delighted and enjoyed the hunt and then watching the dvd. He is getting quite good at solving the mystery before the gang-perhaps we have a budding dective on our hands! We went down to my sister in law's to spend the day with them and my in laws. All the boys played well together and really enjoyed the easter egg hunt that Jo had organised. Not sure how much chocolate was consumed but it was probably way too much. Oh well, normal service will return tomorrow. My in laws gave sam a really cool swing tennis/soccer set so we had to set that up when we got home. We both enjoyed a quick game of swing tennis-no doubt this is going to be lots of use over the summer.

I don't usually get political on this blog but a news story this week made me really mad. I found it on the bbc and have included the site address below. Basically during the invasion in Iraq the coalition forces not only thought it was a good idea to build a landing pad smack dab in the middle of the ancient site of Babylon but they also allowed soldiers to fill sandbags with finds from the site!!! I can't believe that they were so ignorant that they didn't realise what they are doing-this is one fo the most famous sites in the world there is no excuse for abuse like this. they have now apologised but sadly the damage has been done. they also justified their actions by saying that worse may have happened if they hadn't been there. I am sorry but this is no justification for what they have done just a very poor excuse. I appreciate that I may be slightly biased when it comes to archaeological sites but what they did shows disrespect not only for our shared historical past but also for the local culture. How would we feel if foreign nation came in and set up camp at Mount Vernon or Plymouth Plantation? We would quite rightly be outraged. We owe history and the Iraqis more than an apology-the us government should not only pay for restoring the damage but also fund on going research indefinately. sorry to rant on what is probably not important to anyone else.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4908940.stm

The Easter Bunny Comes early..

in the form of M's grandmother and aunt and uncle. They came for a visit today and came bearing easter gifts for us all, most notably sam. It was lovely to see them, especially M's uncle who has been very ill but looks as if he is now on the road to recovery. Sam tormented auntie S until she constented to build a lego house for his new dragon. unfortunately it was a bit of an impossible task as he dragon is about 3 feet long and although we have a lot of lego we don't have quite that much! She was a good sport though and did her best.
Did some crafty stuff before they came and managed to squeeze in a chapter of our read aloud as well as having sam read to me. tomorrow I am going to sneak in math and explode the code. I think our next project will be on California, which will take a bit of thinking on my part as there is so much we could cover. I think we will start by doing a map and puting in the major cities and places that are significant to our family. We could also look at what dinos (if any) have been excavated there as well as the prehistoric creatures from the la brea tar pits. we could do some experiments about earthquakes. we could do a bit on native american tribes in CA as well as the white settlers. we can't of course miss out the gold rush! we could also do how our family came to life in CA and where they all are. we can look at native animals and the different climatic zones. we could talk about california as a magnet for immigrants and how they have shaped the state. we could eat mexican food-just about the closest thing ca has to native quisine. oh there is so much to do, i am feeling quite inspired. hope sam will be. will have to find something gory to hook him in. the dinos and la brea tar pits should definately capture him.

Stress free trip to Ikea yesterday. Can't believe that I just typed those words, they don't usually go together. they didn't have the flooring that we had originally gone for but did find something that we liked and it even cost less than our original choice. sam got a gaint dragon which has been draped over him ever since. He even brought it into our bed this morning, funny it didn't feel so soft when it wacked me on the head at 5am. We also got the lighting for the downstairs hallways. still lots more we need but the car and our bank account can only take so much! I suspect we are going to be very regular visitors there over the next few months.

Dino Delights

Had a lovely day (until rain stopped play) at the Dino park in Norwich with my friend M and her family. The park had something for everyone from a dino trail to a petting zoo to adventure playgrounds. Sam was delighed to be with H & F, M's two oldest and I was thrilled to be able to give my god daughter D a cuddle. Sam loved spotting the dinos on the trail and I have to say that for plaster dinos they were very well done. He would have also spent all afternoon in the adventure playground had the heavens not opened. It was great to catch up with M and her husband, it is such a shame that we don't livve closer. I enjoy M's company as much as I did when I was 11 and it incredible to think that we have known each other for about 27 years. God that makes me sound old!! I am so please that our children get along. Sam really looks up to H who is an expert in all things lego and star wars in his opinion. Before heading out to the park we did a short session on fossils and the geologic periods. Sam was amazed to discover how short a time humans have been around. Must do a geologic time line for our playroom in the next house. We can put a picture of a species or two from each period. Having had such a dinoriffic day we had to of course watch the rest of jurassic park tonight( we started it last night0 and all of jurassic park III. All the fluffy dinos had to watch with us but he made the babies cover their eyes at the scary parts!!

He is now asleep in my bed with all his fluffy dinos around him. Not sure there is any room for me, think I may have to sleep in his bed tonight!

Did a bit of painting once sam was in bed and am now avoiding finishing my book for book group. It is tomorrow night and at my house so I really ought to have finished the book. It is a bit of a strange one-it is The accidental by Ali Smith. Not sure if I am enjoying it or not. It is not an easy read and I still have 3/4 to go so not sure if I will finish in time. We have had a run of odd books so hope the next one is better.

A busy day tomorrow with a bday party. followed by a playdate, followed by Ikea and then book group. We are off to Ikea to get the flooring for the ground floor of the new house. M and his dad are going to be laying it a week on mondy. Can't believe that the movers will be here two weeks from tomorrow! Still so much decluttering to do. Had a start on the junk drawer but gave up after half an hour. Next house.. no junk drawer!

So long and thanks for all the fun..

Sold my little car today and as much as I know it was the right thing to do I still feel a little sad. Probably would help if I hadn't given the car a name. Sam and I had lots of fun in sebastian and hope he went to a good home.

Last week ended on a high note. Sam and I did a session on the Tudors for our Peterborough EO group and I think it went okay. No one complained at any rate. All of the boys present decided that they were going to spend the session being tudor ruffifans so they spent the whole session running around outside. Sam was absolutely filthy but I think he had fun. Our next session in a week on friday so back to the books to plan a few activities. Think we will do a bit on gardens, architecture and costume. Found an easy way to make ruffs out of doilies, think we had best try it out before we take it along!

Spent the weekend painting and tidying up the back garden. It is all starting to come together, nust need a tennant now. Fingers crossed that it happens soon.

A busy week ahead, off to the dino park near norwich tomorrow to meet up with friends. I hope the weather hold because sam is very excited about going.

well, we survived..

our trip to london with no major casualities (except my feet!) It was touch and go as to whether we made it there on time due to me getting turned around at hyde park corner. we ran most of the way and made it just in time. sorry to M and sam for choosing the wrong tube station!! The whole process took less than an hour and was trouble free. In two weeks Sam should have a new passport. We spent the rest of our time in london pottering-selfridges, the apple store and the science museum. No trip to london is complete without a trip to either the science musuem or the natural history musuem. One day we will get to the British Museum.

Phoned the estate agent when we got in only to discover the couple never showed up to veiw the house. Very frustrating. We have decided to drop the price a little to see if that gets more people through the door. Hope so.

Lots of castle building on the sofa by sam when we got home. He and his fluffly dinos were being beseiged by a polar allasaurous. talk about mixing different periods in history. we had a long discussion about what he needed for a long seige, after which he dug a well in the middle of the sofa so they could have fresh water and got lots of tins from the cupboard so they could have food! He is such cutie sometimes.
Almost ready for tudor day at home ed group tomorrow. Just hope I have enough to occupy everyone. have more ideas for next time. there is just so much to fit in, it is hard to know where to begin. I think if sam had his way he would have everyone make executioners blocks and swords/axes to go with them. Nothing like a little blood and gore.

Snow Days

Up in Stamford this afternoon, it was lovely and sunny and we were happily feeding the ducks-we were not expecting to be snowed on!! It wasn't much grant you but it was a bit of a shock. We got a bit more snow once we got home which put paid to my plans to trim the ivy. Didn't fancy using the electric hedge trimmer in the wet. I don't look good with my hair permed....

More of the tudors today, we played a version of tic-tac-toe, worked on the pomanders and made tudor cookies. Still have lots to prepare for friday so the next few days are going to be a bit crazy. Sam is slowly warming to the tudors, mainly, I think because of the amount of beheadings. He seems to be fascinated by the fact that so many people got their heads chopped off. Lady Jane Grey is his favorite tudor for just that reason. He can't remember the names of Henry's wives but he knows what happened to them all and he thinks that 6 wives isn't very many!

He is still very into scooby doo and his fluffy dog frolic (thank you auntie lynn!!) Today at one point I think frolic was pretending to be scooby. It is nice to see him finally doing some imaginative play as it is not usually his thing.

We have someone coming to look at the house on thursday so please keep your fingers crossed. It would be nice to know that we have someone sorted out before we leave. Tomorrow night should be fun, frantically cleaning while trying to sort out the tudor stuff.

Happy Birthday DAD!! Hope you have a great day.

A week of changes

What a week it has been here-we exchanaged contracts on the house, we swapped our jeep for our mechanics (a long story but it makes sense), my car is up for sale (anyone interested in a 2.5 year old red & black smart?), Sam's chicken pox have come back and M has tonsilitis. All in all, life has changed quite a bit this week.

The most exciting news is the house, all being well we should get the keys on April 27th. Now it is a mad panic to pitch & purge (thank you MK for the great phrase), sort out this house and get everything in order for moving. Thank goodness we don't have to pack ourselves, I don't think I could face that. Clearing off the bookshelves to paint them today was stressful enough. I am sure we have enough books to start library and what did I buy when we were out today..that's right more books!! In my defense we needed them for our tudor project.

M is chuffed to pieces to be back at the wheel of the jeep again and now that it is back in action we really don't need 3 cars. It makes sense to sell mine, as sam and I will be doing more cross country driving and will need a sturdier car. Just hope we have more luck selling the car than we have had letting the house. Am going to list it in autotrader and the friday free ads tomorrow, once I have got a good pic of it.

We have made a start on our tudor project and have a list of ideas for our home ed group. We had a stab at drawing tudor roses and then designing an emblem for our family. I thought that an eagle & bulldog facing each other on a backround of red, white and blue would be good, while sam felt we were best represented by a Hot Wheels Acceleracer of his own creation. Lots of normals this week, we are almost done with Explode the Code 2 and are half way through Singapore Math 1a. We are zooming through science, at this rate we will be on Sonlight's second grade science by September. We are doing Roald Dahl for our read alouds, S really enjoyed James and the Giant Peach so we are starting Danny Champion of the World next week.

Sam has had a new outbreak of spots around his mouth. They don't bother him but they do look painful. They seem to be drying up though so hopefully this is the end.

Spent most of the day doing the bookshelves while sam went through is magazine collection and played on the computer. His fav game at the moment is definately the Scooby Doo one we picked up in the sale at tesco. Listening to him shout at the screen is so funny-he shouts at all the ghosts and monsters as well as the computer when it doesn't do what he wants.

Hopefully tomorrow will be lovely and sunny again so that we can polish up my car and tackle the backgarden. If not there is plenty inside to be getting on with.

Thank you..

to whomever was watching over us, because things seem to be coming together. Our mortgage man talked to the halifax who are still happy to give us the money and have faxed our solicitor to that effect. She is working on the basis that we will exchange on monday os fingers crossed that we do. I won't believe it until we get a call to say it has been done. So, Mom, St. Anthony, Grandma keep looking out for us please!! I can't remember when I last felt so stressed and anxious and so utterly helpless to control a situation. I know that we are not unique and that things always go wrong-perhaps this should be a sign that the system should change. Things don't have to be hard in life, suffering is not good for the soul.

One thing that annoys me about this whole process is that I can't get anyone (solicitors, sales negoiators, bank people etc) to call me by my first name. Half of these people are older than I am and it feels so false to have them call me Mrs. D. What if I wasn't married, would they call me Miss? Why can't they just use my first name? I am sure that they use my last name out of some sense of propriety by why then do they not insist that I use their surnames? It just doesn't seem right. If I can call them by their first names then they should use mine. We are all equals after all, arent't we??

We had an interesting history lesson today. We are doing the rise of the babylonian empire and how nebuchadnezzar conquered jerusalem and built the hanging gardens. It came to me in the middle of our discussion that the Boney M song "By the Rivers of Babylon" would just fit the bill. So off we went to computer and downloaded it from itunes. I always knew my dodgy taste in music would come in handy someday! We both enjoyed singing along and I now can't get the song out of my head. We also had a long discussion about slavery and how it would feel to be taken as a slave. Sam as very shocked to hear that slavery still exists and I was at a loss to explain why we as a race are so cruel to each other.

Went along to Activity World and nobody minded S still having chicken pox. It was nice to catch up with everyone and sam had a ball running around with the other boys. The older boys are so good with him, I just hope he doesn't annoy them too much.

Finally got an appointment at the US Embassy to renew Sam's passport so someone was definately looking out for us up there. Can't believe that we all have to go to renew it, how silly is that.

A busy weekend ahead, more decorating and entertaining the in laws on sunday for mother's day.

It was all going so well...

until that call from the solicitor and then the day went down hill from there. Sam and I had had a lovely morning, got lots of work done, played in the garden, snuck up to sacrewell to feed lambs (while avoiding other children) and then came home to a message to call our solicitor urgently. Seems that the halifax (who are providing our main mortgage) are now claiming that the didn't know about the remortgage on our current property and won't release any funds or proceed with matters until they speak to our mortgage advisor. Of course as this all happened at 5ish he couldn't talk to anyone so we have spent a tense night speculating about the future. Worst case scenario they could take back their mortgage offer and we could be back to square one and if the builders want to they could put the house back on the market. Best case scenario this is all cleared up by a phone call from our advisor and things go on as planned. I suspect that the reality will lie somewhere in between. This whole process is so frustrating and I feel so powerless. I will be so glad when it all over.

Had someone round to view the house yesterday but they didn't seem that enthusiastic so i doubt they will take it. Just hope that the agent gets more calls and soon.

Sam was feeling really well until about 9:30 last night when he woke up shivering and crying. He as running a temp and had had a nightmare. It took us ages to settle him back down and M and I spent a sleepless night checking on him and searching for the calpol. He seems fine this morning and is back to himself. I think we will have a quiet morning doing normals and starting our tudor project and then if he is up to it we may go to Activity World-provided nobody minds. I think all of his spots are crusted over so he shouldn't be contageous anymore.

Plague..

Well, it has finally happened, the monster has come down with chicken pox. He has been exposed so many times and never caught it but now he is officially with pox. Having said that though, it seems to be a very mild case. Only a handful of spots, no itching and as bright and happy as he always it. With any luck it won't get any worse. The bad part from his point of view is having to submit to the calamine lotion. He hates it and wiggles so much that most of it ends up on me. Bribed him with chocolate to stay still but even that didn't work!

We spent the weekend painting his room and visiting with friends. I had not intended to do the ceiling but now the walls look fresh and bright the ceiling looks awful. Guess I know what I will be doing this weekend.

Evil mom that I am we are still doing lesson despite the pox. Our next science kit came so we having been building our own weather station. It seems to work, it can't be any less accurate than the bbc!

Housewise things are ticking over, we have decided to put back our completion date until April 27 as M is working almost every weekend in April. By putting it back we will have time to get the floor laid on the ground floor and hopefully finish up the work that needs doing here. Still no viewings on this house which is frustrating, keep your fingers crossed that we will get a tennant soon.

Good News!

The halifax have agreed our mortgage at last!! Apparently I am not a risk after all. All being well we should exchange on march 27th and are aiming for completetion on april 8th! (YIKESSSS!) This is all moving so fast that I am just in a daze. So many conflicting emotions, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Now the mortgage is settled my main worry is finding tennants for this house, I just hope we can find someone who wants to live here and who will take care of it. It takes all my willpower not to phone the agent at least 4 times a day to ask if they have had any calls.

Today was an indoor day, we spent our time doing science experiments, playing on the computer and doing our normals. J and the boys came to play this afternoon and we had lots of fun. One of the fav toys were the ideal blox from Merry. They are so addictive! Must get some for my nephew for his bday. Feeling very guilty that I am not giving sam as much time as he needs at the moment, I feel torn in so many different directions. One thing about the move happening quickly is that life should return to some semblance of normality fairly soon.

Good News!

The halifax have agreed our mortgage at last!! Apparently I am not a risk after all. All being well we should exchange on march 27th and are aiming for completetion on april 8th! (YIKESSSS!) This is all moving so fast that I am just in a daze. So many conflicting emotions, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Now the mortgage is settled my main worry is finding tennants for this house, I just hope we can find someone who wants to live here and who will take care of it. It takes all my willpower not to phone the agent at least 4 times a day to ask if they have had any calls.

Today was an indoor day, we spent our time doing science experiments, playing on the computer and doing our normals. J and the boys came to play this afternoon and we had lots of fun. One of the fav toys were the ideal blox from Merry. They are so addictive! Must get some for my nephew for his bday. Feeling very guilty that I am not giving sam as much time as he needs at the moment, I feel torn in so many different directions. One thing about the move happening quickly is that life should return to some semblance of normality fairly soon.

Frustrated

It is maddening waiting for things to happen, I hate it when things are out of my control. We still havent' had the formal offer letter for our mortgage, the Halifax are being picky about the fact that I am american and therefore not on the electoral role. I don't know whether they consider me a high risk as I might skip the country but if I haven't gone in the past 13 years it is unlikely that I am going to go now. Even if I did I am not the one earning the money to pay the mortgage so what does it matter. ARRGH!!! Our solicitor needs the offer by monday at the latest if we are to exchange on the 27. Have been told by the mortgage broker that it should be issued tomorrow and I am going to phone them every couple of hours until it is!! That should annoy them so much that they will beg the halifax to approve us. I feel discriminated against-why should i be picked out for special attention just because I am not english, I have been here for 13 years for goodness sake!! Rant over. Just hope everything goes smoothly though I don't it will somehow.

HE wise things have settled back down and we have been getting on with life. Our next major project is the tudors as we are supposed to be doing two sessions for our EO group next month. Sam is keen to build castles-junk modeling looms again. Junk modeling is very much the order of the day here and we have had some fantastic creations. They were all space related yesterday and today they were all monsters from scooby doo. He is all boy my son!

Met up with a very nice family in leicester today. They invited us over to help us get to know the HE scene in leicester. They have two boys 7 & 4 and they all got on like a house on fire. When we left there were three tired, muddy children so I think a good time was had by all. Hopefully we didn't overstay our welcome and will be asked back again. It is nice that people are being so welcoming it will help to make the transition easier.

my new goddaughter D and her siblings.  

two of our furry friends! 

Sam's musher Chad and his lead dog Patch. 

who lives in a house like this? 

Sammy the Snake

Okay, I caved. I said that when we get to the new house and we are settled we would look into getting a corn snake. They were so cute today, it was hard to say no. Today was the big day and M and I are still recovering. I would post photos but flikr doesn't want to upload from the mac at the moment so photos to follow. After a somewhat stressful morning of cake decorating and sandwich making we headed over to the village hall for the festivities. My in laws arrived early to help (thank you!!!) and by the time everyone arrived it looked suitably festive. Everyone we invied was able to come and it was lovely for us to be surrounded by our friends. The snake man was fantastic and had brought along a nice assortment of critters for the children to hold. They all seemed to be fascinated and were amazingly attentive throughout the demonstration. Everyone had the opportunity to hold or touch the animal of their choice and needless to say sam loved them all. I was amazed that he agreed to hold the spider but he did. Apart from a few wobblies from Sam (too much sugar and excitement) all the children got on well and I hope they all had a good time.

After the party my in laws and sil and family came back for pizza and we watched the start of the iditarod on line. Sam opened all his gifts and was thrilled with them all. I was proud of how well he shared with his cousins-quite a different boy to the grumpy teenager I had yesterday. After they left sam and M took sam's new telescope outside to do a bit of star gazing. Not sure what they saw but sam had a blast.

Still can't believe my little one is now five. We have had a lot of turmoil and tears this week and I hope that this will soon pass. Not sure how much more my sanity and good temper can take. I just don't recognise him at the moment, he is not my sweet, funny, affectionate little guy; instead he is a sullen, grumpy teenager. Not sure how to help him either, other than loving him and reassuring him that despite the changes going on around us life carries on and things will be as normal as possible. Here's hoping for a better week next week!!!!

Happy Birthday Sam!!

Happy birthday to my wonderful little man. He turned 5 today and it doesn't seem possible. Just yesterday he was a tiny baby feeding around the clock and now he is all grown up. (still eating around the clock though!!)I am so proud of him and the boy he is turning out to be. I look forward to the next 5 years and know that whatever else happens they will be an adventure. I hope he had a nice birthday. It started off with presents and ended with presents so it can't have been that bad. In between was filled with party preparations and playing new computer games. We had intended to go and see Zathura but he got too engrossed in his new games and didn't want to go in the end. Instead we took his new plane and his formula fuelers out for test drives. Give me barbies any day, hot wheels aren't half as much fun.

Sort of back on track with normals, though not much got done today. We are eagerly awaiting a book on the Iditarod from Amazon for our next read aloud. The race starts on saturday and sam is very excited because his musher emailed him a picture of himself and his lead dog. It would be so cool (pardon the pun) go to up one year to see the start and finish of the race.

things are progressing with the move but don't want to say too much as I don't want to put the kybosh on things.

Tomorrow is mudpud and party cooking and then saturday is the big day. sam is so excited about seeing the snakes etc.

Excitement but not as we know it!

We had a very eventful weekend-culminating in a sunday during which I spent most of the afternoon with my finger plugging a leaking pipe! M had done a brilliant job installing the new towel radiator and was nailing the floor boards back when the excitement started. A nail and the pipe came a bit too close for comfort and we had a nice fountain! I plugged the whole while M went to wickes to get the things he needed to repair the situation. To make a long story short after about 3 hours the water stopped flowing and I was able to move my thumb. I can completely sympathise with the little dutch boy who plugged the hole in the dyke.

The other excitement of the weekend was putting a deposit down on a new house. If all goes well we will be in by the beginning of may which doesn't leave us much time to get this place ship shape to let out. Our new house is in a small town outside leicester called Syston and it will mean M only has about a 15 minute commute into work. Will post a photo of the house later. It is a 3 storey town house with lots of room. We will all be sad to leave Pboro but will be close enough to be able to come back for mudpud, swimming etc. Hopefully our friends will make the trip over to see us as well. Must investigate home ed groups in leicester as well, I 'm sure they can't be possibly be as good as mudpud.

Sam is going to get a good education in diy, legal processes, banking and frustration over the next two months!! Not sure they feature in the national curriculum. We must stick as close as possible to our normal day to day activities to maintain some type of continutiy for sam and to maintain my sanity.

magnetic personality

We spent most of the day messing about with magents from our 3rd young scientist club kit. We did all of their suggested experiments plus loads of our own. We both had fun and hopefully we learned a thing or two. I really recommend the young scientist club, they are reasonably priced, the kits come with almost everything you need and above all they are fun! Their website is www.theyoungscientistsclub.com. Other than playing mad scientist we spent the rest of the day doing normals, playing with friends and running errands. We ended up at the drs as poor sam has a ear infection. He can't be in too much pain though as he managed to eat his dinner and listen to his shuffle. Still I dosed him up with capol and antibiotics before bed so hopefully he will sleep well.

Thank you for all my birthday wishes. I had a nice day. We lazed around in the morning and then went house hunting in the afternoon. The house that we really liked was in a lousy position and had a garden almost smaller than our current one. The hunt continues this weekend, we have found a few developments that look promising. Meanwhile back here I have painted half the living room and we will be doing the bathroom at the weekend.

Party preparations have started in ernest here, sam is so excited about the big day. sourced all the things for the party bags, now just have to organise the food and do a practice run with the cake. Can't believe my little baby is going to be 5 next week.

shameless self promotion

Happy Birthday to me!!!!! I am now 38, which seems awfully close to 40. Funny, I don't feel that old and I certainly don't think that I am as grown up and responsible as my mother was at my age. Sometimes I marvel that on the outside I seem like a reasonably mature grown up capable of making mature grown up decisions when on the inside I feel like I am still an uncertain, insecure teenager. Wonder if my inward maturity will every catch up with my outward maturity, and if it does is that a good thing or a bad thing.

The 80s seems like yesterday and seems much more relevant to me than the culture of the 90s, it must be true then that your teenage years are your most formative. Seeing all this 80s revival fashion around at the moment just makes me giggle-most of the girls wearing it weren't even born then!!

I guess I must be getting old though because what I really wanted for my bday was a eggloo and a couple of hens. It just isn't possible at this house-plus the cats would think of them as a catch your own supper opportunity.

Not sure what today holds-nothing special planned, just being able to spend the day with M and sam will be nice. though as M has been on nights all weekend I suspect he will sleep most of the day. Given the fact that it is now after midnight and I don't feel tired yet I may end up sleeping half the day! If only a certain young man will up up at 6 bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to start the day.

silence is golden

sam's second sleep over has now come to a peaceful interlude. sam and p are now off in dream land-about half an hour earlier than last time. I hope the boys have had a good time. It was a bit chaotic when P first arrived as we were still finishing off painting the kitchen. After a yummy pizza dinner (thank you to my in laws!) the boys settle in to play hot wheels and then some quality time with wak & tak. we finished off the evening with scooby doo. just hope they don't have nightmares!!!

It has been a bity week. I have been very preoccupied with the potential move and feel that I haven't given sam as much attention has he deserves. Next week should be quieter so we can spend more time together doing fun stuff,not boring grown up errands. We have done normals everyday, worked a bit on our iditarod project and played lots of wak & tak and zoombeenies. we have also had lots of bday parties this week so all that hype and sugar has made sam v. exciteable. that and the fact that he is practically counting down the days until his party. I still have so much to do, the main one being sending out invitations!! Can't believe that my little boy will be 5 in just over 2 weeks. where has the time gone??

As far as the house goes I think we are pretty much decided on buying the new house in leicester provided the garden size and direction passes muster. It is scary and exciting all at the same time, especially as the house would be ready by May which is soon than we were planning on. there is still so much to do to this house to get it ready to let that I can't believe that we will be ready in time. we may go up on monday to have another look around and chat with the sales advisor so watch this space!

Long time no blog..

life in our little house has been busy the last two weeks. The highlight was without a doubt seeing old friends. Not only were we able to meet up with my old school friend M and her family for a wonderful sunday lunch but my friend from college (university for my english friends) MK came to stay for a week.

MK and I hadn't seen each other in about 14 years but it was like no time at all had passed when she got here. It was so much fun catching up with her and showing her our part of the world. I just hope that she had as much fun as we did. Sam had as much fun with her as I did, especially as she kept him entertained with stories about her mischevious pets. She must have been shattered when she left, we kept her busy everyday. It was a sad sam and I who trooped in after dropping her at the airport on monday.

The rest of this week has passed in a blur-normals everyday for sam and I as well as getting to grips with our iditarod project. We have now done our map, chosen our musher and done a table to show all the checkpoints. Next we are going to learn about all the equipment and the sleds, not to mention the dogs! We have each chosen a musher (sam, Matthew and I) and have agreed that the one whose musher finishes first can choose a family evening/outing. Not sure what we will do if none of our mushers finish. Would love to go and see the race one day, will have to add it to the list of things to do!

a quick blog before bed

it has been a long busy week and we have a very busy and exciting week ahead so may not get to blog too much. My dear friend M is coming from the states for the week so we will be playing tourist. I don't expect that too many normals will get done so it will effectively be our half term.

we have finally started our iditarod project by beginning our alaska lapbook. I just need to blow up the map of alaska so that we can plot the route of the race and choose our musher. M is bringing a couple of book on the race that I ordered from amazon and sam is very excited to read them. He is really interested in the race though I think the distances involved are a bit difficult for him to comprehend. I suppose I could say that it would be like driving back and forth to london 10 times. we are marching through sotw and are back on the egyptians. sam did a lovely picture of king tut;s mask. I am just sorry that I did not take more pictures when I was egypt, it would be nice to show him the sites as I saw them.

we made a big decision this week, we are going to get the house in shape to put it in on the market. matthew is exhausted by the daily commute so it makes sense to move closer to leicester. He would like a brand new house so we will head over to the new estate in leciester to have a look at what is on offer. it could be the end of the year before we do move, there is so much to do to bring the house up to a saleable condition. I am going to do as much as I can at evening and weekends to help take the pressure off of matthew. It will be sad to leave this house and peterborough, this is the longest I have ever lived anywhere in my whole life!

on line at last

what a week. we haven't had internet access most of the week due to a problem either with the line or the router. M has managed to put things right-yipee! I didn't realise how bad my cyber addiction was until I had to go cold turkey. It wasn't exactly cold turkey though because I went into starbuck twice in the week to make use of their wireless network. It was pretty cool I have to say,

Sam has had a good week. We started sonlight 1st grade science and have already wizzed through the first 7 days. he is eagerly awaiting his next young scientist club pack which should be here any day now. He is in an art phase at the moment and several times a day will disapear off with his sketch pad to draw something. He likes trying different medium and mixing them. he is quite taken with the charcoal pencils that we got as well as the oil pastels and will often use them in the same picture. I think he must have inherited my mothers' artistic talent. I hesistate to give him too much direction because I think that if I start interferring too much he will loose interest. I just make sure that he has lots of sketch pads and things to draw with. I of course give him help if he asks but usually he doesn't. my artisitc skill are completely lacking so i am not usually much help. Perhaps I ought to do a drawing course.

Lots of socialising this week. We had lots of fun with sam's cousins on tuesday, a party on thursday and mudpud on friday. he certainly is not missing out on a social life because he is not at school. next week promises to be just as busy with ice skating, the cousins and EO group.


Have very sadly decided that we won't be able to go to melrose afterall. I was really looking forward to meeting everyone and spending some time with the families we already know. Two of the boys ( our antenatal class friends) are having their bday parties that week as it is half term and sam was devastated at the thought he might miss the parties, especially as he so rarely sees them now they are in school. In retrospect I should have realised that it would come to this choice as all the boys (bar sam) have mid feb bdays. It was a tough decision to make and i hope we haven't upset anyone. that was certainly not our intention as we value and cherish all of our friends. so have a great time everyone who is going, i will be thinking of you!

yosemite sam

after spending two hours on line and trying to get through on the phone I finally managed to book a campsite for yosemite for our vacation. It was one of the most frustrating experiences I have had in a long time. Everytime I would get through to the accept transaction step the site would time me out even though I had not spent more than 10 minutes on the site. The site was so slow to load as well. I was so frazzled that sam kept bringing me chocolates to help!! It was worth it in the end though because now we have a reservation. Sam is very excited about going and keen to get rock climbing and hiking. They also have stables there and is equally excited about the prospect of going on a trail ride. Must try and get him a few riding lessons before we go so that he knows how to sit on a horse and isn't too sore.
Booking the site was the focus of our day really. We also went for a walk, played hot wheels, did laundry and played dino park again. Somehow I am always relagated to the ticket taker. not sure I fancy visiting the park though as the bus is usually driven by playmobil cats and dinos are allowed to roam free. he has certainly started being more imaginative in his play in the last few months-even if it does involve feeding his playmobil horses to his fluffy t-rex!! in fact he amused himself all the way home on the train last night by setting up museum and bringing it to life. I then had to solve the mystery ( I think we watch too much scooby doo)

It was back to normals this week and sam seemed as keen as I to get back into the rythmn of things. We seem to be marching through the read alouds so am searching around for more good chapter books. Have two on the way about the Iditarod which we will be following and doing a project on. Sam is excited as we have almost finished kindergarten science and will be starting first grade science next week. I am going to reinstitute the weekly experiments as I got a bit lax at the end of the year. Sam enjoys them so much and as one of my goals this year is to make our home ed experience more fun then back they come. our next young scientists club box should be here soon. We are also catching up with SOTW and are looking at ancient africa at the moment. several good ideas to try out, including a recipe or two.

Sam really enjoyed both home ed groups on friday. In the morning it was the main EO group where we did experiments with light and color and in the afternoon it was mudpud at activity world. Needless to say he was shattered by the end of the day.

Yesterday we went to london to celebrate M's bday. We wandered around covent garden before heading over to the scienc and natural history museums. We treated M to an IMAX movie for his bday . We saw Aliens of the Deep and the boys loved it. I prefered the space one we saw last year. We were all so pooped that we headed home about 4 and all had an early night.

Today is M's bday but he has had to work. Hopefully next year we will get to celebrate with him.

FSP

Today was the first meeting of the year of the Future Scientists of Peterborough club. The club focused their attention on air and what happens when you heat it and cool it. They did approximately 6 experiements and a good time was had by all (at least I hope so!) The youngest member of the club-josie was very keen to join in and assisted greatly in the experiments. The key thing (from my point of view) is not so much that Sam learns lots of complicated science but rather that science is fun and accessible and starts to look at life in a more scientific way. It was great having the puddles over to join in and I hope that it was a success from their point of view. Sam is very excited about the next meeting of the FSP and spent the afternoon looking in his books for experiments for them to do. Sorry there are no photos-didn't get a chance to take any but hopefully Merry will blog some of the ones that she took.

Seeing the children have fun today and go off on lots of interesting tangents really sums up home ed for me. It is all about making learning fun and hopeing Sam's eyes to the wonder and excitement of the world around him. I hope that we managed to achieve a little of that today.

only my son..

could come up with a line like "mommy, my pteradon wants me to read chronicles of narnia to it, please can you come get it down off the shelf".When I went up to get the books he was surrouned by his fluffy dinos and most of his dino books. He had obviously been reading them bedtime stories. It was so cute. It wasn't so cute however, when 45 minutes later he still hadn't fallen aslelep!

Despite M not being here (he's at work) we have had a really lovely day. We went to cambridge to check out a few museums and do a little shopping. We went to the Sedgewick, which is one of his favs and spent ages on their time trail. Having done the OU fossils course I enjoyed it even more as I was able to put things into context. We had intended to visit the museum of classical archaeology and the anthropology/archaeology museum but the former isn't open again until next week and the latter until open until late afternoon by which time we were both pooped. He was very good company and we both had fun. We treated our selves to chocs from Hotel Chocolat and maybe I chose the wrong thing but I much prefer Green & Black. Sam seemed very happy with his though and devoured it in reccord time. We had mom & sam movie night tonight and watched jurassic park 3. he was so cute, he insisted on bringing all his fluffy dinos down to watch and then covered their eyes during the scarier bits. He has asked to watch Walking with Beasts tomorrow so that his new smieadon can see his family. He also wants to make his own version of jurassic park ( or mesozoic park as we call it) tomorrow-sounds like we have a busy day ahead!!

Was absolutely stunned at how easy it was to file M's taxes on line last night. Was even more astounded when it came out that we are due a refund. Must have done something wrong! Only my taxes to do now-am just waiting for my on line pin number. Have worked out all my details on paper so hopefully it won't be that bad. I made next to nothing so there is really nothing to report.


Have booked our flights to CA-we are all very excited. It is ages and ages until we go but we can't wait. It will be lovely to see my family again as well as showing sam yosemite and monteray. there is do much to do, I don't know how we will fit it all in!! May even get to go to my 20 year high school reunion while we are there-can't believe that it has been that long. I certainly don't feel old enough to have graduated in '86.

Rant

Excuse me for a moment while I rant about the lack of computer games for macs. We got Sam zoombinis for xmas on the basis that it would work on a mac-what they failed to mention on the requirements is that it doesn't run on the latest version of OS (which we have) now we are stuck with yet another game sam can't play until I get my pc mended. We have searched high and low for mac games but for this age they just aren't out there-why!!?!?!?!? someone ought to start up a software company that does edutaional games for macs-there is surely a huge gap in the market, we can't be the only ones with this problem. If my pc isn't fixable then I don't know what we will do-hardly seems worth paying hundreds of pounds for a pc only to pay games on it.
Rant over, sorry about that.

A belated thank you to merry for a lovely art day on tues. we had lots of fun and sam enjoyed the different media. We must get back into doing this type of thing at home. I am great on talking about artists and their paintings but not so good on experimenting with their techinques and styles at home. I guess I am more a read it out of a book kind of gal.

Resolutions-Sort of

As a rule I don't do resolutions because over the years I have learned that I don't keep them which makes me feel even guiltier than I usually feel on a day to day basis. Merry's 5 goals list got me thinking though. I would like to set a few goals for the year, both personally and for HE. I haven't done 5 for each category and these are likely to change over the year and may well be forgotten altogether if my track record is anything to go by.

Personal Goals:
1. Pass my fossils course
2. Pass my Leonardo course
3. Keep the house organised for more than 5 minutes
4. Make sure my family and friends know how much I appreciate and value them
5. Have a more proactive approach to life
6. Focus more on my business-try to achieve an event or party each month
7. Make time to exercise

HE Goals:
1. Make learning more fun
2. Follow through with ideas more
3. Help sam to develp his creative side
4. Finish all the experiments we start!!!

I am sure I will think of more as the days go by so may well add to this list.

Sorry!

Sorry to all those Scrapy Doo fans that I may have upset with my last post! I think we will all have to agree to disagree. Who knew that a cartoon would engender such lively discussion both at home and on the blog!

New Year's day had an interesting start for us. Came down to discover that in the night someone had broken into our shed and a neighbors. They practically destroyed both shed doors in doing so and took only the seats off our bikes. I am just so thankful that they did not try to get into the house. M spent all day sorting out the two doors and his parents came up to sort out our kitchen lights. Sam delighted in showing them Swamp Beast and I think my fil was really taken with it. Once both problems were sorted out we had fun playing games and were kindly treated to chinese take away by fil. Despite the unpleasant start to the day it turned out to be a nice one.

Today has been mental. Sam and I have been working since just after breakfast to get the house back in shape. He has been such a big help-he really enjoyed the reunite daddy's orphan sock game. Who says cleaning can't be educational! All of our clothes closets look much better as does the living room. All xmas decs are put away for another year and life can return to normal (whatever that is). One last tidying job to tackle tomorrow-sam's room. I am not looking forward to that, don't know where I am going to fit everything in. Should have asked santa for a ray gun for xmas to shrink all sam's toys to pocket size. when he wanted to play with them we would just reverse the polarity of the gun.

A policewoman came by today to interview us about the break in. Poor woman wasn't quite prepared for Sam Dolling ace detective who was eager to help her with the case. She took it all in her stride and patiently explained the crime solving process. He was excited to hear that the crime lab will be coming to dust for finger prints ( so was I-wonder if it will be like csi?!) They don't really expect to catch anyone but at least they are investigating.

Happy New Year!!

A Happy 2006 to everyone. I hope it is a happy, healthy and prosperous year for everyone. We had a quiet night last night-it was a family movie and game night. We watched Scooby Doo the movie-the one with Sarah Michelle Geller. It was good and we all laughed a lot. It did prompt a family discussion about Scrapy Doo. M & S think he is a good guy and should never have been made the villian of the movie. I disagree- I never liked Scrapy Doo. Oh, the level of intellectual conversation in our house.