June 18, 2006

Dear all,

I hope all you fathers out there enjoyed your special
day. We had a nostolgic day in the Forest of Deans
riding on an old steam engine. Aidan was in heaven!
Certainly one highlight was the gift store that had in
stock every Thomas the Tank engine thing you could
ever imagine. I cannot begin to describe Aidan's pure
joy. Look around your room right now. I can
guartantee that anything you can name has been made
with a Thomas the Tank Engine logo. Thankfully, we
were able to pull him away pretty easily when it was
time to watch the steam engine roll into the station.

Michael and Siobhan are packing for their overnight at
Cheltenham College. It is a camping experience quite
different from Prairie Crossing Charter School! The
list of items to bring is mind boggling despite the
fact that all camping equipment is provided! Posh,
posh! In Prairie Crossing, the kids are encouraged to
bring as little as possible on their camping trips.
They are there for the environmental aspect. They run
with sticks. Very old fashion. Here, for one night,
they need three sweatshirts, three pairs of pants,
shorts, pajamas, hat, mittens, camping pads, sleeping
bags, insect repellent (?) sun screen, bathing suit,
towel, toiletry bag, I could go on. They will have
fun, though, and are doing lifesaving and kayaking (in
the swimming pool) among other activities.

Ryan was able to play in two cricket matches this
week. He is rarely seen without his cricket bat. He
just loves the game. Aidan and Ryan share this love
and together they play cricket in our garden almost
every night. Aidan with a bat (albeit plastic) is
scary and downright dangerous, but Ryan is very
patient and I love to watch them play together. The
highlight of Ryan's week was playing in the away match
on Saturday: he got to ride on the coach busses!
Additionally, the tea at the school they played was
"the best". They served jelly donuts, chocolate
sandwiches, chips, popsicles (ice lollies), juice and
hot dogs.

Things around Cheltenham are still all about the World
Cup. Last time England played, I kept hearing this
low noise. Hardly audible, but irritating- like a
motor running constantly. I couldn't figure it out
until I went outside and walked down the block. The
noise was an entire city singing an unsynchoronized
chorus of the England Fight Song! After the win, the
shirtless men and their girlfriends sporting tissue
tee halter tops and fake tans stumbled down our street
singing at the top of their lungs. Aside from that,
the latest news is that the post man's bike was stolen
and a man named Paul John George Ringo Crawford was
charged with robbing a man outside the Burger King.
We must be in England.

Currently, we are having the hallways painted in the
house. The sherbert green walls that I honestly
thought I could live with haunted me. Had to go.
Couldn't do two years with them. Now they are a
beautiful historical white in keeping with the
Regency townhouse that it is. I can already feel the
house stretching and moaning and coming alive with its
makeover! It so badly wanted to be stately and
elegant again! The halls go up four flights so this
will be so much more cheerful and will be a nuetral
background for all our priceless art (note to self:
must buy priceless art...) Most importantly, it will
allow our french door that leads into our back garden
to really "pop". Currently, it is shrouded in green
and the beautiful garden out back is lost.


Our garden is very English. It is walled on all
sides. Ivory and pale pink roses, flowers in shades of
purple and at least four different types of ancient
ivy grow wild up the sides. Clearly this ivy has
remained undisturbed for generations until we moved
in. A few weeks ago, a cricket ball (larger than a
golf ball, smaller than a tennis ball) got lost in the
ivy and the boys ripped down a section in their
pursuit of it. Thankfully, I came out in time to stop
the massacre (and then started my own). Cricket balls
have now been replaced with cans of used tennis balls
(so as to ensure little to no bounce!) purchased at
the thrift store around the block.

We sit outside with a glass of wine at night and
listen to the church choir practice or the classical
music from the lovely and very civilized middle aged
couple's home next door. The cat who adopted us sits
at our feet. We drink in the fragrant roses and
flowers and relax. So peaceful. Then, like a needle
screeching across your favorite album, the children
discend with their sporting equipment and their needs.
The rest of the evening is spent guarding our drinks
and heads from various fly balls and disciplining
those that are still prone to throwing rocks. We have
just ordered a sweet bistro set (soft green). Not too
fussy and best of all, it will allow us to put our
drinks up on a table and at least LOOK civilized!

Ahh. I digress into an Under the Tuscan Sun moment.
Without the recipes. I miss my dad this Fathers Day.
We are looking forward to my parents arrival in a few
weeks. I was, at first, feeling pressure to find the
perfect pub for my dad to "get to know the locals".
Then I realized its always good to give guests a
job...

Jim is in the States this week so if you see a guy
that looks like him, it just might be him. An
emergency poker game has been called.

Love,

T

June 12, 2006

Hi!

We finally have gorgeous summer like weather here with
temps in the 80's and lots of sun. It is wonderful.
I find it perfect, but Jim is out buying fans as we
speak.

The sun, coupled with the start of the World Cup has
brought new life into Cheltenham. First of all,
people are just as crazy about their soccer as we
think they are. Yesterday, Michael had a home cricket
match at the same time England played in the World
Cup. As we walked to school, it was almost eerie: no
cars on the street, no people, no noise at all (until
they won). We just needed some tumbleweed to complete
the effect. Two hours later I walked home (before the
cricket match ended-I'll get to that later) and the
town was hopping! Lots and lots of drunk English men
and women about! Mostly men without shirts. Everyone
complaining, that while England won, they did it
poorly. World Cup continues through the summer.

I left Michael's cricket match early because I
honestly could not sit one more minute. A boring
lecture in college still meant that you had pen and
paper to doodle. This was terrible. I left before
tea. (Jim said the parents had a nice spread for tea.
They make the kids eat at the other end of the pitch,
with lesser quality foods!) I'm thinking a cooler of
cold beverages could really help move the game along
for us next time. One dad we were sitting with said
that even the clapping for your team is done in a lazy
way. Specifically, he corrected Jim as Jim clapped
too enthusiasitcally, "No. Even the clapping is slow
and lazy. Don't put any life into it." Jim didn't
make the end of the game, either. Four or more hours
is just too long.


The best part of the weather is that I'm now observing
a most curious cultural phenomenon: ladies lunching.
This looks NOTHING like Devon and I racing over to the
hospital cafe in Prairie Crossing for the world's best
tuna melts and kettle fried potato chips every chance
we could. This is refined. These are lovely women in
floral dresses with matching shoes and purses. They
have perfetly done hair. They walk by our house and I
want to stare! Even if Devon grew her hair into a
suberbly coiffed bob (wouldn't you like to see that!)
and I traded in my comfortable Dansko and Birkenstocks
for slingbacks and strappy sandals, we could never
pull off "lunching". These women have it in their
blood. Like blue eyes or blond hair. They have the
ability to "lunch" because their mothers lunched as
did their grandmothers before them. I want to observe
them, but can't get too close. I pretty much eat cold
pizza and get to the next item on my things to do
list! All that preparation seems like a lot of effort
just to eat. Interesting to watch, but I'll have to
leave this one for the Brits.

Michael and Siobhan had a dance on Friday night. Very
cute. Very bitter Ryan stayed behind. I'm not sure
who wants to be older more Aidan or Ryan! M and S
each had friends over before hand. It was nice to
have a lot of kids in the house like we used to and
nice to get to know their friends. We'll have some of
Ry's friends over next weekend.

This week is Aidan's 3rd birthday. Without meaning
to, his gifts became quite British: a wooden double
decker bus, a plastic cricket set and his own tea pot
(for decaf tea-he loves it with milk and honey and
actually has become quite demanding regarding it!)

Have a great week and start of the summer for all you
with kids out of school. Additionally, I'd like you
all to know that my cousin Michelle who was diagnosed
with the brain tumor has received good news: it is
not malignant. Thank you for praying for her!

Love,
T

June 4, 2006

Hello, all!

We our home from our wonderful time in Skiathos,
Greece. The island was small and picturesque. It
was filled with pine trees, which we thought
surprising. It reminded us of Alaska, that kind of
rugged beauty, only with beautiful seas of green, blue
and turquoise surrounding it. We enjoyed perfect
weather. No rain! Our flight was less than three
hours! Hard to believe!

We arrived and were dropped off about a quarter of a
mile from our hotel. The gravel road was too narrow
and winding for the bus to maneuver. It was a pretty
road (that really reminded us of the area near Jim's
cousin Paul and his wife Ginny's home in Willow
Alaska) heavy with the scents of wild flowers and
roses. Heavenly. The hotel was a small complex of
small studios of white stucco and red tile roofs with
a bar and pool. There was alot of space for the kids
to play. We settled in and got right down to the pool
to enjoy the sunshine and a cool beverage. We had our
first experience of just how highly revered children
are in Greece when almost immediately, the boys, who
were playing soccer in a grassy area near the pool,
kicked a soccer ball into Jim's beer bottle and glass
(poor Jim!) shattering them into a thousand pieces all
over the ground and into the swimming pool itself.
The bartender jumps over with broom and assures me
that if its good luck to break a wine glass in Greece
it must be good luck to break a beer glass. And the
person stepping on the glass in the pool? Not so much
luck...


Honestly, though, the children were highly regarded.
Everywhere were comments on our large family and blue
eyes. Aidan especially was treated like a king!
Everyone wanted to touch and stroke his white hair!
After an infancy spent with doctors, chiropractors,
physical therapists and cranio sacral therapists all
manipulating his skull, he is very sensitive to people
touching his head! He grew so used to it, he wouldn't
even notice after awhile! It was sweet.

Our first morning we attended a short informational
gathering. The man speaking had a map of the island
and was helping to get us oriented. He pointed out
where the nude beaches were. I thought Aidan wasn't
paying attention when he commented loudly, "I like to
be naked". Ryan wanted to die. Speaking of nude
beaches, Jim was all prepared with a pair of really
dark sunglasses. He had, undoubtedly, created a
topless episode of Baywatch in his mind. Quite the
contrary. It was much more like an "R" rated episode
of The Golden Girls. The all day season finale where
Betty White and friends hook up with aged men and
spend the day at the beach changing and being topless
and doing lots of things that you'd do if you were
naked/nearly naked and elderly at the beach: undress,
reach, stretch, walk around, smoke, bend down for the
novel you dropped, re-dress, etc. Nothing that we
didn't mind having the boys see! Wasn't really going
to be anything to build a dream on, that was for sure!
Jim was famous for saying things like, "Siobhan!
Don't turn around!" Of course, she'd turn around only
to see an old man pulling on his Speedo. Yuck. No
courtesy 180 degree turn? Jim had such high hopes.
His one word summed it all up: Brutal.

One day, Jim took Michael, Siobhan and Ryan to Athens
for the day. Two hours by boat, two hours by bus and
then to see the Parthenon. An amazing experience for
them. A chance of a lifetime. They will probably
appreciate it more as they get older. What an
opportunity. Meanwhile, Aidan and I went into town to
dutifully pay homage to the Greek God of really cheap
shoes.

While in Athens, thankfully, Jim and the kids were
unaffected and, in fact, weren't even aware, there
was a terrorist attack. A bomb went off in the city
sending debris for up to 20 meters. Tragic. When I
packed for the trip, I ended up putting away some of
the clothes the boys had put out for themselves. They
had some British football jerseys and American looking
shirts. I put them back chosing plain t-shirts. I
didn't want to stand out any more than we already did.
No American flag shirts. Siobhan saw one man in
Skiathos Town (the main town) with a t-shirt that had
a picture of the twin towers with the Nike swoosh that
read, JUST DO IT. Frightening.

On a lighter note: Our hotel room was awful! Because
I am famously cheap and I planned the trip, we learned
a cruel reality: Do not go cheap in Greece.
Apparently, most accomodations are simple there. Go
cheap and you are now one step from camping only
without the basic essentials. I got a serious talking
to from Jim who really believes that he has arrived to
a place in his life that he doesn't want to stay in a
place where "the first roll of toilet paper is
complimentary". Yeah, it was pretty bad. Even I was
grossed out and had to swear to not be so cheap in the
future...we'll see. We had four hand towels for all
our toweling needs for 7 days! I did bring our own
beach towels. The beds were really like cots. You
made your own beds and the blankets were wool. I'm
guessing they weren't dry cleaned with each new guest.
Because there were too many of us for one room, we
had to split up and the room Ryan "called" (because
it was bigger, of course) for the boys ended up with
unpleasant smells (I'm being polite) accompanied by
sewer problems. At one point, three sewer caps were
opened in front of their room and were emptied by
hand. All day. Into buckets. There was nothing to
do but laugh and thank God for my patient husband!

This was a small price to pay, I reminded everyone, to
spend a week near a beach that is considered the most
beautiful in Greece and always ranks among the top ten
most beautiful beaches in the world. No hotels on the
beach, so it feels secluded. Besides, the food was
fabulous! Michael ate nothing but squid and octopus!
After a couple of months in England, we were missing
really tasty food!

That's all! If I can get my personal assistant and
professional social butterfly to show me how to post
pictures, I'll send some photos of the Pierces on
holiday.

Love,

T-Ann