English Heritage

I know it's been SO long since my last blog post, So much has happened so it feels like quite a daunting task to include everything.  Since January, we have gotten new patio/garden furniture, decorated the house a bit more, almost finished organizing everything, gotten new kitchen appliances to make our lives a bit easier, and generally have been "setting up house".  We have gone to a Burns Supper, Stonehenge, Avebury Henge, and up to the British Aviation Museum in Suffolk.  We have made our own homemade haggis, which turned out pretty decent if you ask me :).  We've gone to our first "boot sale" and got some pretty cool stuff!

I named this blog "English Heritage" for a few reasons.  The main one being that there is an organization here called...you guessed it...English Heritage.  For an annual membership fee, you can have unlimited access to all English Heritage sites for free with free parking.  This includes Stonehenge, Avebury Henge, and a bunch of different castles and ruins sites.  We are really excited about it and are already planning for our next E.H. trip to be to Minster Lovell Hall in Oxfordshire!  Here's the English Heritage website.

Another reason is the Burns Supper.  Burns Night or a Burns Supper is an annual dinner event in honor of Scottish poet Robert Burns. Everyone gets dressed up in traditional Scottish attire and eats haggis and neeps and tatties.  Then they read Burns' poems and some even 'perform' them!! We had so much fun, I even made my sash and his bowtie and pocket square!  It was really fun celebrating the Scottish Heritage that night.  Maybe too much fun? LOL

              

Finally, we went up to Bungay, Suffolk, and visited the Aviation Museum. Robert's grandfather, Howard Weaver, was the flight engineer for the bomber the "Red Ass" (Bungay Buckeroo) in the 446th bombadier group stationed here during WWII.  They were the lead bomber flying on D-day.  It's an amazing heritage to know in and of itself. But...we were not only able to explore the entire section of the museum dedicated to the 446th, but the museum curators arranged for us to be personally taken to see the old air field (where the sergeants' mess, barracks, and other buildings were) AND to see the memorial and what was left of the actual runway they used to take off for the D-day flight.  It was absolutely surreal to stand out on the runway and picture the bombers taking off one by one.  We really enjoyed being there and meeting everyone and we will more than likely go back once or twice before we leave the country.  

Here's our "loot" from the "boot sale".  They call it a 'boot sale' because the "boot" is the car trunk.  So people drive up and open their trunks and pull stuff out.  It's basically like a yard sale or garage sale, but it's up at the racecourse.  We got some awesome dutch porcelain pieces, a crystal bowl (yes, it's real crystal) and a beautiful old English clock.  And all in all, we only spent £20.

Pictures of our homemade haggis adventure:

<-- the finished product! with gravy of course!

And here are some more random pictures to "catch up" on life in England!!

Enjoying the lovely spring weather in our patio furniture!! :-)

Playing (and winning) bingo with the girls!

Finally got our wedding pictures framed! So beautiful!

Beautiful views on a 5-mile hike with the girls (and a few dogs!)

Dealing with a car that doesn't like us.  It dies at least once or twice nearly every time we drive it.  Still trying to decide what we're going to do about it, but we're getting by with one reliable car for now.

AAAAND Snow.  Lots of it.

For those of you who are wondering, the nursing process is still pending.  I sent in my final application and i'm officially "in for decision" as of a couple weeks ago.  They are in the middle of an internal review so they aren't making decisions right now, but they've promised it would still be a 6-8 week decision.  They will start making decisions again next week and I'm praying for a miraculous 4-week turn around.  Unfortunately if they don't make a decision by mid-April, I won't be able to start work until at least July, whereas if I get a decision sooner, I could be working in June.  It doesn't seem like it would make a difference, but it will.  I also found out that by taking a job in Oxford (about 45 miles away), I will make a lot more money and it's a bigger hospital with more resources that I know I will enjoy a lot more than the local hospitals.  Because we get to purchase gas (petrol) at the American prices, the extra pay will more than make up for the driving/fuel cost.  So that'll be awesome and will definitely take some of the financial stress away (it's not cheap here!), AND we'll finally get to plan some vacations!

We're still adjusting to life. I miss my Fort Worth peeps something awful.  It's really hard leaving everything behind and trying to start a new life.  Trying to build new relationships, adjusting to the ebbs and flows of military life.  I appreciate everyone who prays for us, we need all the help we can get.  We're looking forward to me starting work to help us both be in a bit of a better "routine".  I'm getting quite stir crazy.

I promise it won't be nearly 3 months before the next blog post.  Hope this was sufficient to satisfy those who have been desperately begging for a new blog!!

Nichole

Long Awaited Update

Well it's been a few weeks since my last blog post.  It's been a crazy, busy, and stressful few weeks.  We've been working on getting our vehicle inspected, registered, and insured in a foreign country ... which proved to be way more complicated than we thought.  After she moved to Switzerland, I remember my friend Suzanne saying "the honeymoon period is over".  The fun novelty of it all has worn off.  Not all of it, I'm still excited about the things I'll get to see...but real life has set in.  Real life that involves budgets and errands and bills and grocery shopping and balancing the ups and downs. Not to mention being newlyweds and getting used to living together.  It sure isn't a vacation anymore, that's for sure.

One big solace for me this few weeks is I found this beautiful park that has a pond/lake thing.  It's about half a mile there and about a mile around the water.  It's a perfect walking path!

Anyways, we're still unpacking and organizing.  Rob has been off work the last week and a half because of the holidays, so we are just being lazy and enjoying our time together.   He goes back to work on Monday and I'll get back to work cleaning and organizing.  One box at a time.  Once we get everything cleaned and organized and get things on the wall and put away, etc., I'll take more pictures of the house.  But here's one to hold you over.  After our furniture came in, and they took the loaner furniture out, we had so much more room than we expected and it was really exciting!!  Rob jumped up and down and yelled "there's so much room for activities!!!!"

The other good thing about getting our stuff on before Christmas is that my 3 foot tree came!!  So we got to at least minimally decorate for Christmas.

Christmas was good, we didn't really go crazy this year, but we got a new TV, blu-ray player with blu-rays and new DVD's to go with it, Rob got a new bike, and we are getting some of our wedding photos framed, finally!!  We also started a new tradition of buying a new board game or two and playing games on Christmas day!  I kicked Rob's butt at Comedy Movies Scene It!!! My parents got us WARMTH!  We got a fleece blanket and a thermal duvet cover that is AWESOME.  Rob gets really cold, so they got him some thermal pajamas, too, which have been a big hit!!  I got a new stethoscope from mom and dad as well, but it looks like I won't be using it any time soon.

Speaking of which...the nursing thing is still pending.  I send the necessary paperwork back to the necessary people in the states and now I'm just waiting for it to come back.  I'm just hoping everyone will fill things out appropriately and get it back quickly.  Either way, it will still possibly be close to 3 or 4 months before I'll actually be able to start working.  Of course, I was ideally hoping I'd be working by February 1st...but I guess not.  I'm thinking about finding a part time job somewhere locally.  Something to occupy my time and provide a little extra spending money.  There's a local hotel looking for a receptionist so that's probably the direction I'll head if they'll have me!  

With all the stress and change, I needed to make a change...something new and something just for me.  So....I chopped all my hair off and dyed it.  You can't really see the color in this picture, but you'll get the jist of it.  

Anyways, that's the best update I have at this point.  Just living normal life.  Hopefully within the next couple months we'll be making a trek to northern England for a really cool World War II 'tour'.  And eventually we'll end up taking a trip to London.  We want to pick a non "touristy" time to go, and we have to plan ahead because we can get into some hotels with seriously awesome military discounts.  So, you have those things to look forward to!!

One last thing before I go.  Rob's favorite part about our stuff finally arriving:

COFFEE!!!  I mean...REAL coffee!!!

ps - thank goodness for Amazon.com and them shipping K cups to APO addresses!!

I'm working on a list for care packages, but as soon as I started writing this, the ideas I had all completely left my head.  SOOOO whenever the ideas come back in, I'll let you know!

That's all I got for now!

What a Wicked Week

It has certainly been a crazy week.  I haven't even been here for 7 days and I've already been to a Spouses' Coffee, a promotion ceremony, and a military ball. Not to mention I've managed to snag a UK cell phone and as of today a UK bank account.  I think I'm doing pretty well for only being here for 6 days!!

I don't really have much to SAY, but I've included pictures again.  Here we go:

30 November 2012: 

"The Secretary of the Army has reposed special trust and confidence in the patriotism, valor, fidelity, and professional excellence of Robert N. Weaver.  In view of these qualities, his demonstrated leadership potential, and his dedicated service to the U.S. Army, he is, therefore promoted from Sergeant to Staff Sergeant...effective 1 December 2012."

I am a PROUD wife, you have no idea.

ARRC Christmas Ball - 1 December 2012.

I'll tell you what...these Brits can party!!!  I doubt the website can handle it, but I will try to post the video we took of one of the British soldiers dancing....HILARIOUS.  But the file might be too big, so we'll see.  Either way, we ate ham and turkey, mash and carrots, bacon wrapped sausage, stuffing balls, onions, gravy, yorkshire pudding, and chocolate cake.  And we drank....a lot.  And we danced...a lot!  It was a WONDERFUL night!!

So I'm on my own this week as Rob is out of the country. I decided to light a fire.  Absolutely beautiful and TOASTY warm :-)

OKAY!!!  Food update!!  

So I haven't had anything I didn't like just yet. Try everything once I say.  I've chosen to pass by a few things, for example, their kalamata olives are in a brine that has sugar in it so they're really sweet...not a fan.  Also...for those of you who know my obsession with sour cream...I will have you know I have officially switched to plain greek yogurt while I'm here.  The reason?  Over here, not only is sour cream difficult to find, but it's called "Soured Cream".  Okay...I love me a dollop of Daisy...but when you call it "soured cream" all I want to do is puke.  That said, they have Oikos greek yogurt and it worked just fine on my taco the other night!

Things we do have: RealLemon Lemon Juice (another obsession of mine), and Heinz EVERYTHING.  Apparently there's a baked bean thing here?  Baked beans for breakfast?  Either way, they're Heinz baked beans.  There's an entire freaking AISLE for Heinz products at the store (Tesco).  I found these already in our refrigerator when I arrived.  Have no fear, I have replenished the Ketchup for the condiment king (Rob).

So...another thing about food is that they don't put preservatives in ANYTHING, and their kitchens are really small.  So you end up being able to buy everything in super tiny packages so that you have room for it and/or so that you use it before it goes bad.   That white sugar pack is only slightly taller than my cell phone.  As you can see below, the next recipe on the list is Banana Bread, compliments of Ashley Menge's recipe!!  I'm planning to make this before Rob gets home on Friday.

Anyways, we're still working on getting internet in our house, and still figuring out just the right settings for the boiler to keep us warm.  It's a work in progress, but like I said...pretty good for just 6 days, right??

On About Town

OKAY!! Time for an update on life in England!

So I arrived Tuesday morning before 7am England time.  We stopped at a couple of the U.S. Air Force bases on our way back from the airport. The drive was absolutely beautiful.  Of course, I couldn't use my phone at that point so I didn't take any pictures.  I'll even admit it, I definitely slept a bit in the car on the way.  I needed that 45 minutes of sleep, because I was awake the rest of the day!  We did a bit of "American Food Shopping" at the AF base, then headed for home.

I can't even put into words how wonderful it was to be back with my amazing husband.  So I won't even try.  All I'll say is I'm SO happy and SO blessed.

Wednesday I was able to go to a spouses' coffee at the Warrant Officers/Sergeants' Mess on base.  There were over a dozen wives there and it was good to meet everyone! I made some great connections already.  They are more than willing to help me out until we get a car because they understand what it's like!  In the afternoon, Rob and I were finally able to get a cell phone plan set up so I'm finally back on the grid!!  It definitely took FIVE trips to the phone store before we finally figured it out.  It was seriously complicated.  Really now...how are we supposed to have built up a UK credit history when we only just got here!? :-) Oh well, taken care of!!

Since Rob had to work all day today, I had decided to spend the day shopping...errr...I mean...walking around and exploring the town! :-)
I was SERIOUSLY blessed and lucky to have met Katrina yesterday at the spouses' coffee because she was in town today to shop, as well.  She called me when she got in town and we met up and spent over 4 hours walking around town and shopping for the both of us.  Won't lie, we definitely got each other lost!!  I kept saying "get me back to the main road and I can get home!"  I finally got a good pair of boots so my socks will no longer be molested by what we like to call "invisible puddles".  I still need a good pair of rain boots (Wellies) and a rain jacket (Parka), but today's weather was beautiful compared to yesterday, so I had very little urgency. I'm sure I'll be sorry for it tomorrow!!

I took a few pictures along our walk.  I told Katrina I was going to be a "tourist" for the day, so of course, she made me take this one:  

This is the view right out my front door! Beautiful, huh?

This is called "The Queen's Hotel" and it's right next to a beautiful park.  Katrina and I passed this on our walk today when we went WAY out of the way from where we were headed!

I love the architecture here so much!  These churches are beautiful.  Some old churches and schools have even been converted into shops (shoppes) or community centers. We actually LIVE next to an old school that is no longer a school!  ....I'm actually not sure what it is...Hmmm...I'll find out later!

This is a German market that's on the promenade! Lots of bratwurst and beer :-).  It's all lit up and really pretty at night!

This store is around the corner from our house. It's "Kebabs-Burgers-Pizzas".  Rob and I both had a Lamb Kebab the other night and it was amazing!  The owner is Lebanese, too, which is fun.

Poundland = Dollarstore.  Or....$1.60 store. :-).  I haven't been in yet, but I was intrigued.

So far my favorite spot.  Free Wifi and amazing hot chocolate.  I'm SURE the barista's looked at me like I was a crazy foreigner because of the way I said "hot chocolate", but oh well.  These people will have to get used to the Texan in me at some point!!

SOOOOO.....What's different?

Some people have asked me what's different.  I think the main question I hear is "do the toilets spin the other way!?"  So I'm going to reveal some things.....

For one...no, the toilets do NOT spin the other direction.  In fact, they don't really spin at all.  It's more like dumping a bucket of water in to flush the toilet like you would if the power or water is out.  It has a spicket kind of thing in the front and just POURS water into the bowl.  It's interesting, but I'm getting used to it.  However, the sink seems to drain clockwise, so I think the "opposite gravity" theory is debunked.

As far as things that ARE backwards....

1) Driving on the other side of the road...creepy.  Driving on the other side of the car...creepy.  Driving down a highway (motorway) and pulling up on a car on your right that has NO ONE in the "driver seat"...creepy.

2) Lightswitches - on = down, off = up.  That's right...you turn the switch DOWN to turn the light ON.  That one took me a bit to get used to, but I think I've got the hang of it now.

3) There are no electrical outlets in the bathroom.  I'll say it again...there are NO electrical outlets in the bathroom. There is, however, one right outside the bathroom door. I sat in the 2nd bedroom to do my hair yesterday...bought a British extension cord today :-).

Anyways, I just received a text that my husband is on his way home, so it's time to go make dinner.  Lots of fun things happening in the next few days, so expect another post soon.

Cheers, mates!

Transatlantic Travels

Well, it took forever, but my passport and visa have finally finished processing!!  It's amazing how everything has worked out so perfectly considering how stressful this process got at times.

For those of you who don't know and those of you who are wondering. I am leaving out of Houston the Monday after Thanksgiving (11/26) to head to the United Kingdom!!

My husband Robert is in the Army and this is just the beginning of our adventures together!! We will be in the UK for at least 3 years as far as we know. After that, who knows!?

This will be where I chronicle our adventures as they unfold!!  Check back periodically for updates and pictures!  Within a week after I arrive, you can expect a new post!!

If you know us and want our contact information in the UK, send me an email.
njzahand@gmail.com 

Here goes nothing!

"England and America are two countries separated by the same language" - George Bernard Shaw