Warwick Castle

On Saturday, we all (my parents, too) took the train to Warwick to see Warwick Castle.  The train ride was just over an hour from our town, and once we got there, it was a short walk through the town of Warwick to the castle.

As far as castles go, this is a good one.  There is quite a bit open to the public.  To start our tour, Brad and I took the kids through the towers and ramparts.  This involved 500 steps up and down, starting with the tower in this photo.

Everyone made it to the top of the tower.
Susanna brought along Barnaby Bear, who is currently part of her class at school.  Barnaby likes to travel to new places.
Ben loves playing knights and was excited to find some good knight accessories in the gift shop to go along with his hat and cape.
After the castle tour, Ben got more knight attire.  Watch out - he is getting good with his sword!

Getting ready for Easter

As Easter and the spring school holiday are quickly approaching, I've had some important things to do.

The first thing was helping Susanna to make an Easter Bonnet.  These will be worn in a parade at school and then put on display.  Having no idea where to start on something like this, I asked around a bit, and then went to the 99p shop (like the dollar store!)  I found, for 99p, a simple Easter Bonnet, just a plain girly hat.  Then I bought some fluffy chicks (availabe at every shop at the moment) and a packet of shredded tissue paper, and some plastic egg ornaments.  Susanna used these things to decorate the hat, and presto, Easter Bonnet!  (Photos to come at a later date.)

The next thing was making Crispy Chocolate Easter Nests.  Since they don't eat peanut butter eggs in this country, these nests are the homemade treat of choice.  The PTA will be selling them after school tomorrow and asked for volunteers to make them.  I got the recipe from the PTA president herself, and I'm sure its a good one, but I'm not sure mine came out right.  If anyone can screw up chocolate and cereal mixed together, its me.  I think I'll stick to marshmallows and rice crispies (but I don't share those!)

Other than that, I've been looking around at the Easter offerings at the shops, which are a bit more limited than those at, say, Target.  I've only seen fillable plastic Easter eggs at one shop and they were rather expensive.  I think I've only seen Easter grass at one shop as well.  And rather than endless chocolate bunnies, they have chocolate eggs - hollow chocolate with some kind of candy inside.  Lots of options on the chocolate eggs, but if  you really want a bunny, I've seen a few.

Of course the Cadbury eggs are widely available, and since they're made in this country, they're better than those sold in the U.S. (which are imported.)  They've never been my favorite, but the freshness definitely helps!

Spider Bear

Today I took my mom shopping at a shopping center in the next town, and Ben had no choice but to join us.  We had already planned a lunch at one of his favorite eateries, Wagamama.  But when we passed Build-a-Bear, he reminded me that he'd never been there, and I decided to indulge him (as an early birthday gift).

The lady working there was very nice to Ben, showing him how it all works and helping him through.  Ben picked a plain brown bear, added the birthday song, and when he spotted the Spiderman outfit (hanging right at three-year-old eye level) he decided he wanted that too.

His bear is officially named "Spider Ben"!

Good morning, sunshine!

Not so long ago, Brad and I would slowly open our eyes in the morning, see that it was still dark out, and figure it wasn't time to get up yet.  Then our kids would come running in and inform us that it was in fact after 7:00, the time they are supposed to get out of bed.  They, in fact, prefer to get up much earlier.

Now its the opposite.  We open our eyes, see how bright and sunny it is through the curtains in our bedroom, assume we've overslept and jump up to check the clock.  6:10.  Looks like 10:10 outside.

Needless to say there is no longer any chance of our kids sleeping until 7 with all this early morning sunshine!

We have yet to set our clocks ahead one hour - that doesn't happen until this Sunday (always the last Sunday of March).  Once we do that, we will have a short break from the 6 a.m. wake-up call, but I know it won't last.  Soon enough the days will extend themselves and we'll be right back where we started.

I am, however, looking forward to having light long into the evening - soon enough it will be light until 10 p.m. which is so nice for evening walks or cutting the grass!

Mothering Sunday

This past Sunday was Mothering Sunday, England's Mother's Day.

They, of course, celebrate this holiday a bit earlier than those in the U.S.  In England, I believe its always celebrated on the 4th Sunday of Lent.

Historically, children were sent away from home to work, and this was the one day they were sent home to be with their mothers.

Susanna and Ben made me several cards and gifts, and both brought me daffodils from school.  Susanna went shopping with her daddy the day before and picked out a nice Made in England teapot, which I love.

On Sunday we went to London, since my parents are here.  We first went to Whole Foods (England's only one!) for lunch and a look around.  (Unfortunately if we wanted to actually shop for groceries we'd probably have to drag our suitcases along!)  Then we took a bus to Europe's largest shopping mall, Westfield.  We wandered around there for a little while, and I bought some clothes for the kids, but didn't even look at anything for myself (typical mother, right?)

Father's Day is celebrated in June at the same time as the U.S.

Quiz night

Tonight Brad and I went to a PTA-sponsored quiz night at Susanna's school.  Of course we went into it planning to win, but alas, our team came in third.  

Topics included general knowledge, people and places, science and nature, sports and entertainment, and the school.  The last topic was a spin-off the newlywed game - one person had to leave the table, then those remaining at the table and the individual who left had to answer the same questions and compare the results.

Being Americans, we were at a slight disadvantage as some of the questions were a bit "English."  But we each contributed at least one winning answer!  At least we learned a few new facts!

In addition to the quiz there was a delicious curry dinner, and many bottles of wine.  The PTA made quite a bit of money from the evening, so all in all it was a very worthwhile event!

Visiting the horses

We're having some lovely weather this weekend, so Brad and the kids decided to go for a walk in the woods to see the horses that live nearby.

Beans on toast

Tonight I finally tried beans on toast.  I guess people eat that here but until now I just hadn't been interested.  Maybe its more of a breakfast thing, I'm not sure.  Anyway, we got in late this evening after Susanna's Rainbows time, so dinner had to be fast.  Baked beans are definitely fast!  And I did in fact enjoy my beans on toast, with a bit of cheddar on top!  (The kids had beans and toast on the same plate but not touching.  I didn't even suggest they might like to try it together.)

Not much has been going on here lately, except that last week I was really, really sick.  All week.  I woke up Sunday feeling a bit achey but of course I just got on with it.  On Monday, I felt decidedly worse, and by Tuesday I could barely move my head.  Ever hopeful, I kept trying to get up and out, but once the kids were dropped off I kept ending up back in bed.  By Wednesday I pretty much gave up and didn't even try to do anything (apart from necessary taxi services) and finally started feeling better on Sunday.  I don't really know what it was, other than maybe some kind of flu virus (but not "the flu"), as per the rather unhelpful doctor.

So now I am just trying to get myself organized again, making sure I know who needs to be where when and what he or she might need to bring along.  Susanna's been getting some of her lunches at school recently which makes one less thing to do in the morning.  So far she's mostly liked what she's tried.  The one exception was the omelette.  The only problem with the menu (for Susanna) is that every day there is potato in one form or another, and that is the one thing she won't eat, in any form.  I wish Ben went to school and could get the lunches - he'd eat them everyday!

We are quickly coming up on the one-year anniversary of our move to England.  I can't believe it!  Where has the time gone?