They camp a bit differently in England...

Well, we just returned from a camping trip to Great Yarmouth. We were supposed to come home tomorrow morning, so why am I writing this blog entry tonight? Read on...
Actually, hypothermia, smelly campsite bathrooms, and one randy billy goat aside, we had a great time. They just camp differently here...

Eric was awakened on 28 July (our anniversary by the way) to the sound of "Daddy" in his ear. This would have been fine if it were Ava's little voice. Alas, our little man has discovered how to break free, and without hurting himself. *sigh* Time for a big boy bed.

We arrived at our camp site at Great Yarmouth in the late afternoon. We had really built it up to Ava about a camp fire and S'mores. We quickly learned that camp fires are "dangerous" and not something we do here, so go on down the hill and pitch your tent anywhere you see. Everyone just sort of pitches their tent on top of each other, and when I say tent, I mean circus tent. Our tent was the "hovel" of camp. I watched 7 people people erect one tent- and all 7 half drunk of them were necessary. Maybe they needed that much space for an oven or space heater since "fires are dangerous". While Eric (all by himself) pitched the tent I took Ava to the bathroom. In her loud little girl voice she announced that it smelled like a big toot. Keen eye for the obvious, that one. Since we weren't allowed to burn anything , we hit the boardwalk...Great Yarmouth is kind of a cross between Atlantic City and the Wisconsin Dunes, only a lot, lot colder. Bless his heart, the carousel worker man took about 7 pictures and this is the best.

Ava actually took this picture- Not bad, ehh?

We actually did fit quite comfortably in the tiny tent and weathered a rain storm pretty well. It actually started raining when we went to bed and stopped when we got up- not bad! The next morning we headed to a children's zoo/amusement park...

The kids loved the slide (swide) and Eli actually preferred to ride with Ava- awww!
And then we met the goats. Like everyone else, we bought our little bags of goat food. We walked through the first gate into the middle pen. In here we could feed the goats through holes in the fence. The sign said you could walk into the middle pen, but the goats may be aggressive. Ignoring good sense, I walked into the middle pen with Eli on my hip holding my little bag of food. Instantly two goats reared up and began fighting each other (possibly over who would attack us first), another goat took a big bite of my shirt, and a fourth went for Eli and his bag of food. As I tried (in vain) to escape back through the gate, a fifth goat slipped into the middle pen. I tried to escape too, but the goat still had my shirt in his mouth. I finally got out with Eli, but now we had the problem of the rogue goat who is wondering around the middle pen where he was not supposed to be. We tried coaxing him with food, chasing him, yelling, pleading, and pushing. The people watching from the nearby picnic area where all laughing at this point. Eric finally worked his magic on the goat and got him back into the pen.

Eric, the "Goat Whisperer"

Eli feeds the goat one piece at a time, Ava had here bag "stolen" by another bad goat.

Only this fool would jump in the water at 60 degrees (yes that was the AIR temp- and it was windy!)

Eli captures the castle

So we build a new one!

Last night it was so cold that I had the kids in all of their PJ's and sweatshirts for bed. Eric and I had all of our warm clothes on while we shivered and tried to play a game of gin rummy. By the third game, our fingers where stiff, our lips where blue, and the icing on the cake was that some poor misguided mosquito had the nerve to bite me when it was 47 degrees outside. Any other self respecting mosquito would have been off in the woods dying a slow death from hypothermia. Ah well- for all my sarcasm, we had a fun time and good bonding. Nothing brings a family together like the biological need to stay warm! But, we decided to bond at home tonight, where it is warm, and the bathroom doesn't smell like a toot!

Those Kids!

Thing #3429 that Eli does to bug his sister....
Eli has discovered that if he loads all of the "Dollhouse girls" into the playskool school bus and sends them at full speed down the stairs to certain death, it will make a loud noise, a big mess, and a crying sister.
Ava has been a pill the last few days, don't know it the "terrible threes" are peaking or she is still cross about the bus accident... Anyway, a moment of reprieve from the naughtiness came yesterday. I walked downstairs to the TV being shut off and Ava happily squealing, "Look Mommy! I turned the golf off for you!" I don't think Eric was nearly as pleased as I was.
Today I overheard Ava teaching Eli a new view of "The Ittsy Bittsy Spider"...

The Ittsy Bitsy Pider went up the water spout
SPLAT!

I guess she shares my feelings about spiders...cheers!

The busiest kid on the block

Oh that we could all be as productive as a (nearly) two year old. In the span of five minutes my son was able to flush some unidentified metallic object down the toilet, take apart a couch cushion, "teach our TV Japanese" (we can't figure out how to get it back to English), and sabotage the washing machine. He works with style, finding time to annoy his sister to tears and make his parents say silent prayers for their sanity under their breath. He also takes time out for himself, managing to add a fourth bruise to his head while teaching the rocking chair a lesson it won't forget. Somewhere in that busy five minutes, he also managed to take off his pants. We should all take a lesson out of Eli's book, The Most Productive Toddler in the World.Yeah... but you should see the rocking chair!

Nearly equally productive, Ava spent the five minutes picking out the perfect shoes! That a girl!

Bookworms...the lot of us!

Many of my family can attest to the fact that my little girl loved books from an early age. As early as six months old, she could be entertained for literally hours by reading book after book. At ten months old, one of her first words was "buh-kay". (Yes I checked the baby book- this is a recorded fact!) My little girl has not changed a bit- other than, rather asking for a buh-kay, she can launch into a, "will you read to me I want a book about a dinosaur read now please please I can't wait any longer I need to read now please momma please read me a book....and so on. My son has definitely hopped on the "book wagon" as well. Eli has less of a vocabulary, but is still every bit as effective in communicating his desire to read as his sister. "Mommy! Eat a burt, eat a burt, please!" This goes on and on, volume elevates, dogs start to howl, etc. I have often asked myself how we were so, uh, lucky? to have two kids that would always choose a book over TV, toys, food, etc.?
Today I had an epiphany. At promptly 0715 this morning, I heard my children in their rooms. I went in to find both of them in bed reading. Eric had left at 0630 to go to the (this is the ah ha moment!) bookstore so that he could buy "Harry Potter and the Last Addictive Installment" the minute the store opened. We have spent the day taking turns watching the kids while the other reads- (yes it is that good, dog-on JK Rowling!) So while my children nap and my husband "eats the burt", I have to content myself with my blog....only 27 minutes until my turn though!

You can call me flower....

I am a Daffodil What Flower Are You?

Rather a fun little game- what flower are you?

Am I being usurped??

Here is a little cross section of our last few days...
The funny thing is that he was refusing to eat for anyone else- Ava has the magic touch!

Half an hour later, after getting put in time out for "having words with Mom" over brushing his teeth, he happily lets Ava do the job!
Nothing relaxes my kids like a good book- this particular one is a bit gruesome, but lately Ava's taste in stories envolves the occational macabre T-Rex who eats little brothers!
Here is Eli hanging out with the three cheerleaders....go with me on this.... On the right is Holly, Heather is in the middle, and Hayle is on the left. You can't hardly carry on a conversation with them (because they are shrubberies) but they are pretty to look at!

I will leave you with my dear sister, who is still being held captive at Maxwell. No one captures a day like she does..... or explains flickerball....

To answer your question...flickerball is a game that no one likes and
 no
one understands. Think about playing soccer, but upside down. You can
only use your hands to pass this bouncy, dodgeball-like ball and you
can't go forward while you have it...only backwards...which is quite a
challenge when the object is to get to the opposite end of the
field...and no you can't turn around backwards and run that way because
I tried and they put me in the penalty box...yes, there's one of those
too. This is where the game gets challenging...pit two teams of
sleep-deprived individuals against each other right after they ran 3
miles for PT and inhaled french toast...I'm never eating french toast
again) against each other on a football field with basketball goals on
either end with hockey-like nets in which you must throw the ball,
without moving your feet. It is quite hilarious...but the funniest part
is the officials. They are all Commissioned Staff who obviously hate
 the
game too...and anytime you break any rule (there are 30 pages of rules)
they blow their whistles and the head official shouts out the
 infraction
with the speed of an auctioneer. Before he is even done the other two
officials are repeating the same infraction, in the same manner so all
of their voices overlap and no one knows what they did wrong because
they can't understand the officials...at which point the other team
 gets
a tech shot because you failed to respond to, "WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS A
DIRECTWHATWEHEREISAWHATWEDIRECTINFRACTIONINFRACTIONGRAYTEAMGRAYTEAMTRAVE
LOIAJFOIAJEOIJQ;ORIFJIOFJVNKVKLN!!! Followed by an excrutiating
combination of three whistles of varying pitches being blown in a round
robin-type fashion. Needless to say, I wish I had a video of it to send
to Bob Saget, or what-his-name. 

Hurry Home sis! I miss you!

A Really Scary Story...

In case anyone was wondering how my sister is doing at BOT- she is doing great, really...um...great. Here is a recent e-mail, just to let you know how, um, great she is doing...

So...I I'm not supposed to talk about the really terrible things they
do
to us here, so this is a G Rated version of how my days typically go...


It's kinda like the movie, Groundhog Day. Every Day I wake up to the
soft, static sound of a Christian Rock station playing on the alarm
clock. It's always 4:30 am, I am always in the same position in my bed
and it is pitch dark outside. I am still sore and exhausted from the
previous 19 hour day and I go about my routine of remaking my bed,
getting my gear on and brushing my teeth in the dark (because we are
not
allowed to have the lights on before we are supposed to be in the hall
outside our rooms in the morning to march to PT...make sense?)

Then I go through the day performing various tasks with funny
names...like today, for example, we had to get up at 4:15am instead of
4:30am because we were doing a "Flight Line Run." Gee...that sounds
interesting, I thought as I bumped and thumped in the dark this
morning...it can't be that bad.....

Then I realized that I am a total retard for thinking that. I thought
that we would form up as a flight and run around the track a few
times....I was wrong.

Not only do we have BOT (Basic Officer Training - that's me) students
here at OTS (Officer Training School), we also have COT (Commissioned
Officer Training - that's Ness), and ROTC. We have several classes of
each and some super smart individual...probably a disgruntled Logistics
Readiness Officer (lol), thought that it would be fun to see all 1000
of
us run at the same time.....

So...where can 1000 people run together all at the same time? The
runway
of course! Genius... our students are used to running about 2 miles
every morning...so let's make it 3 miles today just so we can watch
them
all trip over one another as they stumble down the 3-mile long
runway...so that's why they call it a "Flight Line Run."

Various other daily tasks include marching EVERYWHERE on the base (we
haven't earned the right to walk anywhere by ourselves yet) to the
same,
"HUP TOOP THREEP FOURP." Only the ROTC people are cool enough to have
cadences. We just march ourselves around being led by a guy holding
what
appears to be a giant curtain rod (Ness you know what I mean) called a
"guide-on" which is kind of paradoxical because the guy that's usually
holding it is the one that marches off in some random direction away
from the rest of the flight.

Then we get to eat... not really eat as much as shovel as much food as
we can into our face and drink the 24 oz of water that we are required,
in the 3 short minutes we are given to sit down, eat, drink and get up.
Next we are given about 10 minutes to get into full BDU gear...(notice
no mention of a shower). Then it's off to our classes for the day where
we sit in a giant air-conditioned auditorium with comfortable seats and
are expected to stay wide awake for a three hour lecture given by a
crusty old guy that reminds me of Ben Stein. There is a reason that
they
have dubbed the auditorium, "the coma dome."

If you feel tired you are supposed to get up and stand in the back of
the class. If you do this you also get demerits from the upper class,
who are kind of like Drill Sergeants to us.

Repeat this entire process three times a day, throw in reading 100
pages of leadership and management and answering corresponding questions for
the CWT (our 1st test), memorizing various quotes and knowledges for
corresponding training days, giving the proper greeting and salute to
commissioned staff and upper class, remember your reporting procedures,
classroom and auditorium procedures, ironing two sets of uniforms,
preparing news briefings, learning how to play the most complex game,
Flickerball, ever created, doing laundry and rolling it to spec for
room
inspections, remembering to stand up straight, tuck in your shirt and
shoelaces, shine your boots, make sure you annotate your Ranger Rope on
your canteen, make sure you drink the nasty lukewarm sink water out of
your canteen (oh yeah...we are only allowed to drink water right now as
we haven't earned the privilege of drinking anything else...we also
aren't allowed desert), putting up with feuding roommates and doing a
million push ups before "lights out" at 11:00pm and you pretty much
have
my day.

So now when you think you are having a bad day... look down at your
civilian clothes and the Coke in your hand and think about the girl in
BDUs with 20 lbs of gear on, who smells like fear, sweat and shoe
polish, trying to keep her chin up in the hell hole known as Maxwell
AFB, Montgomery AL.

OT McDaniel...out.

England gets an Eye Full

Saturday is Market Day in our little neighboring village of Ely, so the kids and I left Daddy at home and off we went. There are booths selling nearly everything imaginable and much to the children's delight (and the parents chagrin) is an airplane ride. (You know- where the airplanes go around in a circle and then up and down.) Ava begged and pleaded to go so I gave her the over used parental answer, "If your good while mommy shops.." In a rare occurrence, spurred on by the airplane ride I am sure, they both were excellent for an hour. So I pulled up to the promised airplane ride, paid my one pound fifty and heaved Ava into a US army helicopter...then I saw my son. He was holding up his little arms saying, "Up! A-pwane!" Every mommy instinct warning bell went off in my head as I lifted him up to sit by his sister. I explained to Ava that, even if it meant nose tackling her brother, she was not to let him stand up, fall out, or get hurt. I watched them both smile hugely and wave as their chopper took flight. By about the fourth time around, three things were apparent. The smile was never going to leave either of my children's' faces, Ava was not going to release the death grip she had on her brother's arm, and I know have two "big kids". Something about watching my kids handle something "scary and dangerous" together without my help really hits it home that my kids are growing up. Admittedly, part of me does a little happy dance over that, but part of me also misses my babies...
On a lighter note...imagine me, hauling all of our purchases, pushing a stubborn double stroller, fielding sippy cups and tantrums that my children were now throwing, all while attempting not to hit any cars, people, small dogs, etc. as we headed back to our car in the car park. Two cars were already waiting as I approached my parking spot. As they sat and glared at each other, a gust of wind came up. Did I mention I was wearing a full skirt? Now picture me doing all of the above juggling while being attacked around my face by my rogue skirt. Needless to say the two parking spot contenders stopped glaring and started laughing...I'm sure they got an eye full! I then had to unload a stroller full of kids and stuff into my SUV while trying to pretend I had a shred of dignity left- all in a days work!

35 Years Young

Today is Eric's 35th birthday. It only seems a year or two ago that we were celebrating his 30th, or my 21st for that matter! How different things were in those days...

We took a long walk today through the footpaths of Littleport. It never ceases to amaze me that we are here, living in England, for better or for worse, for a lot of rain or a little rain, really cold or just mildly chilly, etc. At any rate, it hit 70' today- pool weather- so here are a few outdoor pictures. Happy Birthday Eric and Happy 11th Anniversary Dad and Karyn!Here is the "nurture" side of the nature vs nurture debate. (Yes that is my daughter swinging on the rope in the background while my son pushes the imaginary baby.) We honestly couldn't be happier!

The luckiest 35 year old in the world!

I just wanted to point out that we have officially turned into "Those People". All we need now is a Rottweiler and matching "The South Will Rise Again" T-shirts....

One lucky little boy...

Today we took the kids to an indoor play area on Mildenhall (the sister base to Lakenheath). The reason being that it was cloudy and overcast (be still my heart!) and therefore, outdoor play was out of the question. A little girl tried to play with Ava by barking and acting like a puppy. (This should have been pretty attractive to her as she spends many hours of each day as "Ava the Kitty". Matter of fact, I spend quite a bit of my day having "Meowversations" with her!- I digress...) Anyway- Ava decided that this little girl was being a bit too aggressive with Eli, so amidst all of the screaming, laughing, and otherwise loud children, I heard one clear little girl voice ring out, "You leave my brother alone!". I didn't know whether to be proud or wonder if my little girl was being a bit hypocritical with one of her peers. Proud eventually won out as I watched her shepard her little brother around for the rest of the time we were there. At three and a half she is quite the little mother... I guess it won't hurt Eli too much to have two over protective women in his life!

The "Mothered"

The "Motherer"

Quote of the day from this mother..."I used to paint, draw, or decorate as a creative outlet; now I reconstruct rubber lizards, draw multiple pictures of the perfect T-Rex, build fairy houses, and find humor in the clothing combinations that my three year old assembles...Somehow the later is more fulfilling! -Ness

Happy 4th of July!

Yesterday, my son started to say "Love you". You can only imagine the "mommy guilt" that I felt leaving home yesterday evening to go to work, and here is my sweet baby, wearing my bdu hat and saying Yuve you Momma! I think my eyes finally stopped "watering" about the time I got to the gate on base.

My little soldier!

That evening, Eric, Mom, and the kids went to the base carnival and picnic for 4th of July. (By the way, I get this question a lot, the British do not celebrate July 4th any more than we celebrate "we lost to Vietnam" day) Ava and Eric rode the teacups until dizziness set in and then they ate hot dogs. Daddy is a brave man...
Ava had to ride in the front of the train, and Eli would not be left behind! They were both enthralled by the fireworks and refused to leave until it was over. I think they slept well last night...
One final note: My sister Carissa is currently busting her tail at Basic Officer Training at Maxwell AL. I know she would appreciate any cards, letters, or care packs as she is pretty cut off from everyone. We are all so proud of her and praying she is getting a little sleep! If you want her address, post a comment and I will e-mail it to you! Cheers!

Ain't No Sunshine...

For all of you in Indiana, Florida, Texas, and probably New York and Michigan too... as much as we enjoy hearing about your sunshine, your beautiful tans, your sufficient levels of Vitamin D...
we just wanted you to know that, at least we won't be suffering from skin cancer! So there! (I'm really not bitter that I look like an albino polar bear...really!) Eric and I are going to Canterbury today while Mom watches the kids. We have not had 24 hours away since Ava was born! So, despite the fact that it is supposed to rain (again), and I am taking a WINTER coat because the high is 58', we plan to have an excellent time! Here is a picture of our own little fairy...