June 26, 1007

Dear all,

I will share a few things that I have discovered since
moving to England.

First, kids are amazingly resilient. Second, there is
a staggering number of hunchbacks here (again, I
relate this to always having to walk with your head
down to avoid stepping in poop and/or lots of other
items that, to describe them, are nearly always
preceded by the adjective "used"). One of the best
things about England however is, hands down, the
gossip. I am not kidding. I now fully understand why
women lunch. Lunch just tastes better when your jaw
hangs open and rests on a sticky cafe table. The
queen's loyal subjects in Cheltenham are hard at work
creating a steamy storyline for the next PBS
mini-series.

I just found out that our estate agent (and fellow
parent at school) ran off with his sister-in-law last
week. This explains why he wasn't returning phone
calls... God bless them, the wife and her brother had
to make a special visit to Mom to break the news that
their spouses just ran off together. "Kids? Uncle
Nigel is your new daddy!" Family birthday parties
will be a bit awkward for awhile.

There is also the friend of a friend who had a heart
attack and died in his flat he shared with his
mistress. She found him and had to ring his brother
so that the brother could technically be the one to
find him. I'm thinking that even with the brother
"discovering" him, there isn't much of a way to hide
the husband's double life at that point.
There was also another tragic love triangle (again
parents at school) in which one scorned wife committed
suicide after her husband had an affair with her best
friend.

Believe it or not, there is more gossip and it
involves key parties and unplanned pregnancies (in
adulthood) where the well respected father leaves the
country to avoid responsibility. Clearly, these
people where not born and raised in the Midwest! We
never get good gossip like this back home.

We are all home after a week of independent trips.
M and S went to Cornwall for their class
trip. They spent 5 days surfing, caving, doing team
building activities and stretching their survival
skills (mainly stripping their sheets and re-making
their beds and dealing with hormonal roommates). Two
"Wally" awards were given to the most entertaining
kids. M was one of them. That always scares a
mother. One thing is for sure: the Brits adore
M's dry sense of humor.

J and I went away to Poole, a seaside town, for a
few days to soak up the sun, slurp down wine and eat
our meals in peace. R was in Normandy, France for a
week. R loved his trip. He visited Monet's garden
and the American cemetery at Omaha beach, which was
powerful although mostly R reported back about the
quality of the gift shops. The kids were required to
speak French as much as possible and had to order in
French in cafes and speak French while asking for help
grocery shops and around villages. I was surprised to
learn that Ryan embraced this. Apparently, there was
no end to the roar of approval from his friends as he
approached people throughout the trip saying his most
favorite French phrase, "J'ai mes regles," which,
translated means, "I have my period." Nice.

The most exciting thing as of late, however, is the
fact that M and S took their Common
Entrance Exams. While M did extremely well, he
was a bit overshadowed by S who achieved the
highest marks of all candidates who applied to "the
college". She worked so hard! We are proud of her
and people are coming out of the woodwork to
congratulate her...and us. Most people try to guess
which parent S, the overachiever, takes after.
Hmmm. Not so much either of us...

Hope you are enjoying the sun and summer. We have had
terrible weather the last two weeks. Temps in the
60's and spotty rain. The heat was put back on, not
only to take the chill out of the air, but my laundry
will not dry without it. It just isn't right. Still,
it is a small price to pay to live in such a swingin'
country. I should be become a romance novelist.

With love from England,

T-Ann

June 7, 2007

Good morning.
It seems like ages since I've written. Lots of new
things have been going on in our lives and now seems
like a good time to share.
Aidan added another day to his week at Cheltenham
College Nursery. He is up to four full days. Next
fall (at age 4) he must start school full time Monday
through Friday, 8:15am-3:30pm. All this time spent at
his fussy prep school will be a way for him to perfect
his budding English accent. Some days I feel like I
need an interpreter. Last week Aidan came home from
school and told me he played games in "the hole".
"The hole?" I asked. "No," he said, "The HOLE!"
"The hole?" I said very confused. "No, the SPORTS
hole," Aidan said. Ahhh. I got it: He played games
in the sports HALL! He says things like, "Mummy, I am
very cross with you" and "Where do I put the rubbish?"
And he has chicken pox.
Ryan gave us our first emergency dealing with the
National Health Service. I'll explain without going
into too much detail (for fear Ryan would kill me).
Ryan had significant pain on a Sunday afternoon. We
took him to the hospital (waiting two and a half
hours~ part of that time for a specialist to come)
only to be told there was no doctor who could diagnose
the problem. Ryan's symptoms, however, had the
potential to be quite serious: there was talk of
removing important parts. Parts that only have 4 hours
to live w/o blood flow. So, with no doctor available,
we had to drive twenty minutes to the nearest
children's hospital where they were to be ready and
waiting for our arrival. They knew nothing about
Ryan's arrival and we were left waiting again,
completely unsure of what would happen next.
Thankfully, antibiotics were all he needed. Scary.
If the worst had happened, his four hours would have
been used up trying to find a doctor. The American
system may not be perfect, but ...On a lighter note,
Ryan has really kicked up his golf game and is giving
both Michael and Jim a run for their money. This will
be the summer one of them beats Jim. Most of us can't
wait!
To all you Harry Potter fans out there: Siobhan was
appointed prefect! A prefect is a much coveted honor
in British schools. It is a role of student
leadership. Bravo! Not only that, she was awarded
her academic colors, which is a badge, given for
outstanding academic achievement, as well. She is
most pleased with this achievement because she has
never taken Latin, French, Physics, Chemistry or
Geography before. She managed to catch up and exceed
most of her peers in one year. We are needless to say
quite proud, as are all the other American kids in
school.
Michael is sporting a new pair of orange tinted
glasses (which we lovingly refer to as his Elton John
glasses). During a routine eye exam, we were educated
on a new technology that helps people with dyslexia.
Michael went in for a consultation with an eye doctor
specializing in this and, wow, it's like a miracle!
Words lay down on the page and nothing is moving! I
mentioned to him that after years and years of working
with his learning disabilities he might have wanted to
mention to me that words were moving on the pages and
that some were bold face and some were zigzaged, etc.
He told me he thought that that was the way all
writing was! So he is happy to wear his glasses while
he studies. They are in hip frames, and he looks
pretty darn cute in them.
I have grown tired of lunching and shopping and
cutting my hair and have taken a job minding a darling
shop nearby three mornings a week. It is a perfect no
stress job with all the time off I need to travel and
be with the kids on holidays. Rosa Blue is quite a
girly shop-lots of florals and wonderful English deck
chairs, totes and textiles. Google if you wish!
Lastly, our Commander in Chief, Jim. Jim works hard
and still travels. With exception of his trips back
home, most of his trips are short, for which we are
grateful. We weren't surprised when he was asked to
extend his time in the UK from two to four years.
Anixter, the company Jim works for, had originally
asked us to stay four years. At the time, we weren't
ready to commit for that length of time. Now we've
settled in and everyone is quite content here. After
a series of family meetings (kindly, Jim's boss
suggested that the decision should be the children's)
we've agreed to stay until the summer of 2010. We are
all happy with this decision and it gives us the
ability to truly settle in and set roots. It will be
comforting to a nester like myself to not live such a
temporary way of life. We can bring our dog over and
live a more normal life. The hunt for the perfect
house remains on.
Hope you are enjoying the American summer. Our kids
are in school until July 7th!
With love from England,
T