Auntie Mel

Boxing Day was notable for a few reasons.....

...first Boxing Day isn't Boxing Day in America; it's a normal working day!! A bit of a shock as you can imagine. Of course I moaned about it to my new colleagues but they weren't interested especially as I couldn't even explain why Boxing Day is Boxing Day in the UK. It just is...innit....

...second the weather decided to change and we had a huge temperature swing of about 50 degrees fahrenheit and it actually....... rained! That was a nice Christmas gift for us, the Brits that we are. We know where we are with rain of course. We have umbrellas, we have anoraks...we can smile in the rain. Alas the very next day the temperature plummeted back to below zero (fahrenheit...) - so back we went into ski jackets, ski trousers, gloves, hats, ear warmers (THE most essential item of clothing) and boots. We take longer getting ready to go outside than we actually spend out there! Especially when the melted snow from the day before has been frozen and turned into a thick, impregnable sheet of ice that covers everything. The kids had a good laugh at me taking 30 attempts to get the car up the drive and into the garage

....and third Auntie Mel arrived. Anth and I made no pretense of dumping the kids on her! She knows she's not here on holiday! Louis especially is beside himself with excitement to have his Auntie Mel here - I might have to nick her passport to stop her leaving

Christmas

Just the four of us for Christmas - and after a tummy bug had laid low both kids Anth and I actually enjoyed Christmas lunch on our own with a bottle of bubbly as both kids slept. Of course a shame for the kids who had been looking forward to the day sooo much - but even though slightly surreal it was nice to have a meal in peace.

Kids in their own beds!

We finally bade farewell to our rented furniture when our container arrived from Leeds. The kids were excited - Eva especially, running around the house in her dressing gown, swimming goggles and bike helmet! I didn't get a photo of that but here are a few of them in the house...and outside

WELCOME

Dear Friends,


Six weeks in to our American Adeventure and Anth and I thought it would be better to give you an insight into our life here via a blog rather than Facebook. The temptation to update those of you who use Facebook with daily pearls of wisdom such as:
"Stuart.....has never felt cold like it..." and
"Stuart.....is desperately trying to go two days without doing a burger...." or even
"Stuart...as a matter of principle refuses to refer to himself as Ser-dooh-ert just so the Yanks can understand him...."

....is great but I thought it time I got to grips with the blogging industry.
So thanks to you Graham for the quick blogging tutorial - I'm ready to go.
If it works.... you'll be able to see and hear about our midriffs swelling, our lack of care for the environment as we cruise around town in our V8 cars, hear hilarious stories of us (me) going arse over on a particularly slippy day and of course you'll be able to witness first hand the deterioration of our sense of humour as we strive to integrate ourselves into the Land Where One Liners Are Not Welcome!

So God Bless America and please let us have your feedback!