Aaron with an English accent!

Aaron has somehow already developed an English accent (or something like it), and it is hilarious. He turns it on and off, and it is especially prominent after he has been to pre-school or been playing with other kids. I am not sure whether he is doing it intentionally or not, it seems intentional to me, like he is kind of trying it out. He also has adopted certain phrases, such as “let’s have a look,” he uses “children” instead of kids, etc. Linnea has not changed her speech at all. Afer the first couple days of pre-school, she asked me, "mama, how do you say tomato?" There is a garden at school in which they grow tomatoes, so I knew where this was coming from. I explained the different pronunciation of tomato in England vs. in th U.S. She listened and then decidedly said, in Seattle, we say tomato!" clearing rejecting this funny new way of speaking.

Linnea continues to ask to ask to go back to Seattle, though no longer every day. She asks, “am I five yet?” as that is when we have told her we are returning. She and Aaron play airplane every day, in which they take trips to Seattle.

Out and about....

We have been spending most weekends in the local area, but did get out to Oxford and the Cotswolds via car a couple of weeks ago. The history and architecture was incredible, though with the twins we didn’t see too much of it. (There is a nice playground in Oxford though!)

I recently had the opportunity to go to London to see Coldplay at Wembley Stadium with a couple of our friends who teach with Meade. (Meade generously stayed at home with the kids). It was an awesome show, full of energy and creativity, I loved it.

This past Saturday, we went to the horses races/beer garden festival in Ascot, a nearby town, with the kids and some friends. It was not what I was expecting. It turns out that this is one of the biggest horse races in the country. And the people were dressed for it! Fancy hats and high heels, they were out in their best (and us in our jeans of course). The kids chose the horses, and we did not win, but it was fun for all.

6th grade, not so bad

Meade is well into his teaching. He particularly enjoys the 6th graders, who he says are “excited by everything” and often burst into spontaneous applause. The kids are overall quite motivated and several are very smart- one kid has memorized the entire phylogenetic tree (just because). He has a lot of prep time during the day compared to at Garfield, which allows him to get a lot done and come home sooner. There is a great group of mainly new teachers with whom we are spending a fair amount of time. They are pretty much all single and in their early 30s to early 40s and like to party and see the country. They are always doing something, and generally we are able to bring Aaron and Linnea in tow.

More documentation!!!!

I am enjoying my free time while they are in school, as they are no longer napping (arrghhhh!) so the time is particularly precious. I try to pack in a run, errands, relaxing time, and (now) working on my paperwork to become certified to practice medicine. I finally received notice that my application requires LOTS of additional “verification” of documents and additional documents, etc. It was pretty disappointing. I am therefore now in the throes of obtaining additional signatures, documents, etc. from the U.S., which is not easy. I am still hopeful that this will work out and that eventually I will be certified, though not on the timeline I had originally hoped. I may have to figure out what else I am qualified to do other than practice medicine.... I do have a lot of experience waiting tables.....

Nursery school

Aaron and Linnea just completed their third week of pre-school (nursery school here). They are going to a Montessori school three mornings per week. It is very close to our house, so we can walk. They seem to enjoy it very much, no tears when I have left them the first day and since. I think they are pretty happy to be back in a social setting like this.

It is very different from our co-op experience over the last two years, in which the parents are very involved and all is touchy-feely and free. An example of the difference is that at the end of the session at co-op in Seattle, the kids run to and hug the teacher. Here, at the conclusion, the teacher stands at the threshold of the door and one by one she bids the child goodbye, instructing them, “I look in your eyes and you look in mine and we say good afternoon” with a formal handshake. Aaron and Linnea have not quite got this down yet.

Organics & recycling- not as bad as initially reported!

Thank you for your suggestions and lamentations regarding the organics/recycling situation. I am happy to report that my initial description of the situation was inaccurate. It has taken a little time and investigation, but there are organics available in certain grocery stores with a pretty good selection, depending on the day. It is a very small town, so that is in part the issue. We also found a farm store in Windsor that has a fair selection of organic produce. We just had to look a little harder- there is certainly nothing like Trader Joes or PCC. Additionally, we have found that we can take our cardboard/plastics to certain recycling centers or bins. Lastly, we are planning to (eventually) start a compost in our backyard. So, that is all looking a lot better and I am less troubled.

Meade's teaching

Meade has been in school for a couple weeks now, and it has been going well for him. He has only six students in one of his classes and the most he has in any class is 17- very different from Garfield… He is teaching IB Chemistry , junior year science, and 6th grade science. (Yes, sixth grade!)

I still don’t know when I will hear about my ability to work, but hope to know by Nov. or December. I am in contact with the locums agency and hope to have all my paperwork ready so that if and when I am certified to work, I will be ready to start. For now, I am a stay at home mom.

The kids are overall doing well, but I think just now really beginning to understand that we are very far away from home and not going back anytime soon. Out of the blue the other day, Linnea looked at me with big, sad eyes and said, “I want to go back to my Seattle house.” It’s difficult to explain time to a three year old, two years is forever to them. They do seem to be assimilating to their new country however. I asked Aaron how much the pretend train ride will cost and he said "40 pounds." Linnea asked me the other day if I would like some tea, and I swear she said "tee-ee?" with that extra little something on the end. They begin pre-school this week, which we are all looking forward to.

Daily life and travel

During the week, when it is just me and the kids during the day, I generally run or walk (pushing our ever trusty but getting quite heavy stroller) to a playground with them in the mornings. There are a couple playgrounds very close by. They also enjoy going to the library in Egham, which is about a 25 min walk. We did buy a car, but I have not yet braved the left side of the road driving aside from a few blocks. Hopefully by the time the weather turns cold, I will be ready.

As for traveling, we have been to London a couple times on the train. Aaron is enthralled with the trains and boasts how many trains he got to ride in one day-“ I rode 5 trains today!” Last Saturday, we went to Brighton, a hoppin, colorful town on the southern coast for a day. Yutaka, Meade’s good friend who lives in Japan, was visiting for the weekend and accompanied us there.

The weather as you may know is simply crazy. I really do feel as though I am on an island the way weather moves in and out so quickly. This morning it was sunny and warm, with a few clouds in the sky. By 1pm it was cloudy and started to downpour, and it will probably clear up again and then rain again tonight… I guess this is pretty typical. I prefer this variability to daily sun followed by six months of gloom in Seattle. I just need more space in the stroller to bring everrthing from sunglasses and sunscreen to raincoats and fleece for the kiddos.

Organics and recycling

One surprise was the recycling situation. I thought that the UK was “enlightened” like Europe in things such as recycling and organic food. In this area at least, this is definitely not the case…. They don’t recycle cardboard or plastic, and you can not put food waste with the yard waste (though I think that Seattle is pretty ahead of the rest with this). It is so difficult to throw away things like cardboard and plastics that I am still saving them in hopes of better options soon. Eventually we will have to move out of our house due to lack of space….

The grocery stores have minimal organically produced food that I have found so far, and it seems that the priority is pre-packaged everything. I found a farm very close to our house that has a small cooperative store, but even this is conventional farming. I have not given up yet and think that there must be a better option out there.

Englefield Green

Our town, Englefield Green, is tiny and mainly residential. Basically there is one main street with a bakery, butcher, small, limited market, a pharmacy and a couple of restaurants. Our house is about 3/4 mile from the main street and about ¼ mile from “Englefield Green,” which is a huge open field with an small playground on one side. In route to the playground, next to the field, is a pub called The Barley Mow. The great thing about pubs in England, as you may know, is that it is more of a family and community meeting place and less a "bar." Kids are welcome and there is even a small play area in the back garden of this one.


We are really happy with the house we are renting. In the photo above, we live in the left side of the house. It is larger than our house in Seattle, has a spacious front room and three bedrooms upstairs, a ton of storage space and sizable kitchen. It is very quaint and charming. There is a fairly large grassy backyard with a green house and a little path leading to the “office”, the owner’s previous workspace. The kids have renamed this their “school house” and love to “play school” and have tea parties back there.



The only issues with the house are two- the wall decorations and the dryer. There are pictures hanging on seriously every wall or space in the house, including the molding and wood paneling. Lots of sailboats, scenery, an eerie looking hamster, etc. I tried taking some down, but that somehow looks evern worse. The dryer basically does not work, or would take hours to dry one towel, so we hang our clothes up to dry in the backyard, which is kind of a relaxing task. The only problem is the frequent rain that seems to hit almost every day lately and that crunchy feeling to the towels.



Our neighborhood is fantastic. Lots of kids- all girls! There are four girls in the family across the street ages 4-16, and two girls in each family on either side of that house. Since it has been warm, they have all been playing outside quite a bit. Linnea is in heaven, following them around with adoring eyes. As for the little guy, well, he seems to think he is playing along as well as he trails behind them running and yelling (though I am pretty sure he doesn’t have a clue what they are yelling about).

Off we go!

My mom, Aaron, Linnea and I lugged our 8 army duffel bags (50 lbs each) to the checked baggage counter and I felt as though I had conquered it all when we weighed in ok (well, a little over, but they gave us a break). However, we still had about 18 hours of traveling left to endure. The flight was not too bad, all things considered, aside from when we nearly missed our connection in SF due to our outgoing flight being delayed. It was a truly awful experience. My mom and I were each carrying huge carseats on our heads, a very heavy pack on our backs, one extra duffel bag, and two screaming and crying three year olds trailing us. If that nice, brawny guy did not come out of the crowd to help us, we never would have made it.

The rest of the flight was ok, the kids slept most of it and enjoyed more pirate's booty and goldfish crackers than one would think possible.

Finally connected!

Hello friends and family. Sorry it took a while to get this up and running. We FINALLY now have internet access at home after waiting over a month. I am new to this blogging thing. Hopefully, it will be useful for us to stay in touch with you and share our experiences. I will try to be less long-winded and spare you (some) of the details.