The Beginning of Craig's Visit

Our sea shipment arrived on Tuesday, June 2, which was a lot earlier than we expected...hard to believe! But, as mentioned in the previous post, we weren't able to actually live there until the floors were finished on Saturday. My brother and his 6 yr old son, Clyde, (we missed you Sara!) arrived from Colorado on Friday for a 2 week visit. It was a bit crowded at our parents for that night, but it was great fun for the boys to spend some time playing together again.

All 3 of the boys were signed up for the first session of the park district swim lessons. They run for 2 weeks at a time, Mon-Thurs for 30 mins a day. Max and Blake are continuing for a couple more sessions, but unfortunately, Clyde couldn't stay the whole summer!

They loved the lessons and it just happens to be at the same pool where Craig and I (and Pam) learned how to swim! So fun!

Our parents left on Monday for a trip with friends for the week that was planned long before I was moving home or Craig's visit. We missed them, but Craig and I got to spend loads of time together and he accomplished several projects for my parents. If they were home, my dad and Craig would have been golfing everyday and he wouldn't have gotten anything done!

The first one of those projects was making cement blocks with Max and Blake's name and hand prints. Craig gave one to our parents awhile ago from Clyde and wanted to add to the collection. Now we just need Derek and Erin! Anyway, we spent part of the day looking for the material and then the boys helping to make the blocks. They had a great time and the first project was a success!

Another one of our favorite things to do in the summer was to ride our bikes to the Dairy Queen. This was the first major bike outing for the boys.

We made it safely and enjoyed some delicious ice cream!

Not sure if my brother has changed at all since he was 5! He just fits right in! Glad you came to visit Craig and Clyde. More fun to come!

We're back!!

My that was a really long trip to get from the UK to the US! It has been 6 weeks since we have been here and I have been terrible at updating! Life here has just been absolutely crazy and we are still trying to make our house feel like "home". Again, I need to ask for your patience on getting caught up. Hopefully I will be able to post things as they happen again and not a month after the fact.

When we arrived in the US our temporary apartment wasn't quite ready so we were lucky enough to be able to stay with my mom and dad for a couple nights. We slowly moved out of their house and into a 3 bedroom apartment..about a 25 min drive from our new house. We made trips back and forth at least once a day which got old quite quickly. Mother's Day in the US was on the 10th and Dan got me a new camera! Yeah! I was luckly enough to celebrate both the UK (March 22nd) and US Mother's Day this year. I think we should get a day at least once a month!

We closed on our house May 12th and everything went smoothly. We had the keys, but no furniture! It was nice to be able to get in and clean and think about where we wanted everything to go before it got here. The boys and I were able to catch up with some good friends we left here and also new ones that we made in England that moved back to the states before us.

Stacey, Beckett, Ian, Tina and baby Jade - It was a really beautiful that day. We were sitting outside for about 45 mins and I got sooo burnt!! My skin hasn't seen the sun for so long, it just couldn't cope. We spent the afternoon at Amy's. She has a beautiful house with an even more beautiful setting...lots of trees, land and a fantastic pool. The boys just had to take their shirts off and Eden just laughed and laughed at them. They loved it! This is what they call a hot fudge sundae in America!! The boys couldn't believe how big it was and it only cost about $1.50! I love Sam's! We couldn't even finish it between the 3 of us. I have to admit that this was even before lunch.

On Memorial Day weekend (May 23rd), I was lucky enough to go with Marci and her daughter Janelle to meet Carrie at an amazing outlet mall in Iowa. Carrie moved to Iowa after we left for England and this was our "half-way" point...so Carrie says (2 1/2 drive for us and only an hour for her!). It was a great time catching up and getting some great bargains! When I arrived back at our apartment, Max had to tell me all about the Swivel Sweeper G2. Dan and Blake took a couple hour nap while Max watched an infomercial about this incredible vacuum cleaner. He believed everything he heard and can repeat back almost every selling point. It is the best vacuum there is! Just ask him!

The one difficulty that we have had with our new house is the hard wood floors. At this point, we will never have them in another house again! Before we closed on the house, we noticed several dents in the floor and wanted them to be fixed before we moved in. This has just been a nightmare! There ended up being 70 boards to replace, then the people who replaced the boards got glue all over so they had to burnish the floor and but 2 coats of finish on it. We know it is going to get scratched and dented, but we didn't want to buy a brand new house with so many dents already in the floor. When our things arrived from the UK, they were still working on the floor so we had to wait a few more days to move in! Thanks again to my parents for letting us stay in their house! You can see in the corner of this picture that they are just getting started in removing the old boards.

The circus was in town the last weekend in May so Kara, David, Dan and I all had to go along with the little guys to get in on the action. They loved it!...Dan slept at least half of the show! UGH! Can you believe that one bag of cotton candy was $12!? Ridiculous! Anyway, it was a good time and so great that we can do things again with Kara and David.

Ok, so that is enough for now. I feel like we are living in the country. Our local cable company doesn't have service where we live. We have had to get a mobile broadband card to have Internet and it is so incredibly slow. It takes at least 5 mins to upload 1 picture. I might have to go easy on the pictures next time.