New house

Here are a few photos of the new house.  We move tomorrow.  We been in and out since Saturday cleaning and moving in odds and ends.  The kids are excited to live there!

This is the living room, looking through to the foyer.  Its not quite as big as the camera makes it look, but its a decent size room.

Here is the "family room" (was a dining room I think), which is off the living room and has a door through to the kitchen and also to the conservatory/breakfast room.
Here is the kitchen and conservatory/breakfast room.  Check out the wine rack!  The house also has two refrigerators, which Brad thinks is great!
Here is the kitchen - there are two parts separated by the arch.  Lots of cupboards and plenty of counter space too.  Its all an "older" style as you can see, but its generally in good shape.

Christmas Fair

Yesterday we went to the Christmas fair at Susanna's school.  They had lots of games (and opportunities to win sweeties!), face painting (Susanna is sporting a cat face), crafts, and food.  A good time was had by all!  Except poor Ben, who wasn't feeling well and gave up after waiting more than 2 hours to see Santa.  Susanna made sure that Santa knew Ben had tried!

We're moving (again)

So we've been here for about 7 months now, and its time to move on.  But this time we're only going about a mile.

We'll still be in the same town (of course) and we're actually moving closer to Susanna's school, which will hopefully increase Ben's chances of getting in there next year.  I just did his application but we won't find out anything until February.

The house is a bit bigger, with an extra bedroom and half bathroom.  And it has CLOSETS.  Small ones, but I'll take anything I can get!

I am realizing (well I guess I realized a while ago) that we aren't going to get a great house with our budget, so all we can do is prioritize.  Things like a tumble dryer (or at least the space for one) are huge and not to be taken for granted!  Also nice is a refrigerator larger than dorm-sized.  Our new house has two!  

So hopefully everything will go well and the new house won't be worse than the old one (I won't bore you with my complaints!)  But I know it won't be tons better either, so I feel like at least I am going into this with my eyes open.

Really, we just didn't have too many choices when we had our house hunt in March.  We took the best one at the time.

We are planning to move next Tuesday.  My parents are coming for a visit next Thursday, so it will be a busy week!

Guy Fawkes Night

November 5th is the day that England celebrates Guy Fawkes Night.  

Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament in 1605, but the plot was foiled.  Now there is an annual celebration (of the foiling) that traditionally involved burning effigies of Guy in bonfires.  I'm not sure if the effigy-burning still happens, but they still have the bonfires anyway, and also fireworks.

On Saturday our town had a big Bonfire Night/fireworks display, and I'm sure it would have been lots of fun if it hadn't been such a rainy, yucky day (and night).  Just as I was buying my ticket at the post office early Saturday afternoon the rain began, and that was that.  The festivities still went on, but we just couldn't drag the kids out in the bad weather at the same time they normally get ready for bed.  

So lucky for them, lots of neighbours have been setting off fireworks in their own gardens this evening, and we've seen a few "shows" from the comfort of our own house.

Now that the kids are in bed I hope that the fireworks quiet down a bit, but really they don't seem too bothered anyway.

Darkness

A few months ago, during "summer", I couldn't believe how light it was so late at night.  It would be so light out and I would look at the clock and see that it was nearly 10 p.m.

Now its gone the other way.  Susanna has swim class at 5:15 on Wednesday, and since we just set our clocks back a week and a half ago (one week earlier than in the U.S.) this was the first night that it was dark when we left home at 4:50.  I have to admit that it took a little extra motivation to drag the kids to the car and go to the pool.

Everything just seems darker here.  There are streetlights in some places, but even so, its just dark.  Really dark.  And its only the beginning of the long, dark winter...