SNOW!

That's right, it's started SNOWING here in England!!

It started just after Thanksgiving in parts of the UK, but didn't snow here until Monday night. Kari got REALLY excited that she might not have school on Tuesday, but so far it hasn't been that bad. It snowed more last night, my guess is about an inch, but I really have NO idea.
I've been bundling up when I go outside...today I wore knitted tights under my jeans, AND socks. Plus a beanie, gloves, arm warmers, a scarf, and a coat over my shirt and cardigan.

Kari's out for the night for a school thing, and it's just me and Ellie at home tonight, so we had a snowball fight after school, it was awesome. We had one on Tuesday too, and she got me right in the eye, but we've since discussed snowball fight etiquette, which in my world includes NOT hitting people in the face. Much better efforts today, no one got hit in the face.

Other than snow, not a lot out of the ordinary has been happening here...I got to have "Thanksgiving" here, Penny and Kevin were both out that night, so Selena and Kiv very kindly brought over turkey, carrots, cranberry sauce, and some non-Thanksgiving foods like sausages and yorkshire puddings. I made corn bread [my favorite!] and rainbow chip cupcakes...Which I ALMOST messed up so bad. I added 1 1/3 cups of oil instead of 1/3 of a cup of oil, and since it was a box mix, I wasn't sure how to fix it! I ended up putting regular flour in until the consistency looked better, and they turned out pretty good, so hooray for an avoided catastrophe!

I've been doing lots of exploring on walks with Bindi, and there are SO MANY gorgeous green areas around here.

I'm flying back to Ohio on December 14th, I'm super excited!!! My momma and Nate will be at the airport when I get there, the plan is for them to meet me at my gate, I'm really getting impatient! I want to start packing already but know it's still just a LITTLE too soon!

And with that, I leave you with pictures!

The last month or so

I feel like a horrible blogger, it's been almost a month since my last post, and that one was pretty boring [no pictures. I know about 80% of my friends are "visual" people, so they probably didn't read that last post...come to think of it they might not read this one either!]. Sorry!

I'm making up for it though, lots of pictures for this post, in slideshow form again. I'm going to try to talk about everything that I have pictures of, so either skip to the end to watch that first, or read it all first. Either way. =]

My brother turned 20 on October 10th, he got the best birthday ever this year: 10-10-10. Seriously. Not fair. On his birthday, I went into London with Selena and her friends Lauren and Kiv. We were going to see a band from Beaconsfield [not far from here] play a show that night, but also wanted to hang out in the city while we were out there. We went to a couple arcade-type places, which was cool because I got to see all the games that are the same here and at home, and the ones that are different.
We had lunch at a TGI Friday's, which is one of my favorite restaurants back home, so I was THRILLED! And, it was decorated with a ton of American sports stuff, like a old-school Mighty Ducks logo. I was a happy camper there!
One of the best parts was getting to meet up with Allister, an old friend from home who is studying for a year in London. Allister and I probably haven't seen each other in 5 or 6 or more years [since sometime in high school], but it was so great to meet up with someone else who "gets it" about what I'm missing. And I couldn't have met up with anyone who "got it" more than Allister, since he lives about 6 streets away from my family at home!

This past weekend, Marika and I went to London to go to the Tower of London, which I know I went to when I was here with People to People when I was 12, but I don't remember a lot of. It was great to get to go back as an adult and see it all again, and maybe this time I'll actually remember more of it! =] Another reason that going here was such a big deal to me was that my Aunt Monica, whom I stayed with while I was in Ohio this summer, LOVES King Henry VIII, and I've been on a mission since getting here to find her a great Henry postcard. Since the Tower of London was where Henry kept his prisoners [including a number of his wives], there were BOUND to be postcards and souvenirs of him aplenty there...and there were! There were some really cool ones, but I stuck with the post cards for her and a charm for my charm bracelet for me. I did see some postcards that I'm positive are in my People to People scrapbook in a box at my parent's house, which goes to show you that they keep the same ones for at least 10 years. King Henry VIII's armor was there, which was super cool to see, because he was rather large for his time.
Anyway, the Tower is spooky, pretty much all the way through. When you think about the loooooong history the place has, it's hard to not realize how spooky it is! So many people were prisoners there [a lot probably for reasons that wouldn't be considered "good" nowadays]. One part that really stuck with me was The Princes in the Tower, which I don't remember hearing about before. Supposedly, these brothers were taken to the tower after their dad, the king, died, and they were seen a few times after that, but never again. There are 3 people who are suspected of possibly killing them, if they were actually killed. I like mystery things, so this was super-interesting to me. But I also like solid, for-sure endings, so I don't like that there's no conclusion about how these poor boys died. Also, it's confusing to read about because everyone had the same names, and people have a lot of titles that are used to identify them. I feel like I'm still in school when I read about these kinds of things!
I also have always been really interested in Henry VIII and all his wives, and this kind of history was always so cool to me, from a social perspective, not from a fighting and political aspect. It's nice to be able to "study" things the way you want to and not the way schools and textbooks force you too. =]
Anyway, the Tower was a lot of fun, but now my cousins Jason and Dawn are mad at me for not going to a cheese sandwich place near there that they went to and insisted was life changing. Sorry guys!!!

In other news, fall has definitely started here, but I think it might be confused with winter, because it has been COLD here recently! We had a few weeks where it barely got above 40 or 50F during the day, and the nights are obviously colder than that! Taking Bindi for a walk has involved a lot more layering up, including but not limited to coats, scarves, gloves, arm warmers and beanies. BRR. I asked Penny and she said it's not usually quite this cold this early in the year, so I'm guessing winter will only get worse. No snow [yet] but I'm kind of hoping that it snows before the end of the month, at least once. Of course, once it starts I'll want it to stop, but oh well!

While taking Bindi for walks wasn't 100% my favorite thing at first, I've really started to enjoy it because it gives me a chance to explore new places around where I live. There's a great area just down the street that's all enclosed where I can let her off her lead and she can run around. It's beautiful right now with all the leaves, but I've been told it's even better in the spring, so I'm excited for that. I've gone the other direction with her a few times too, and found a HUGE wooded area/open area that is absolutely beautiful. We just don't have these kinds of things in California...they're all "national parks" or trails, at least where I'm from. Plus, going on long, meandering walks has been some great exercise! That's my excuse for not working out, at least! =]

Halloween was pretty low-key. Ellie decorated a LOT a few days before, and we just took the decorations down today. We carved pumpkins and Selena was here for that too, so she did one. Penny's a HUGE Elvis fan, so Selena made an Elvis pumpkin for her that turned out pretty awesome. I was really impressed with what Harry, Kari and Ellie did with theirs, I think all 8 pumpkins looked great. The kids got two each, and then Selena and I each did one. Harry ended up staying at a friend's house on Halloween night, and both of the girls decided they didn't want to trick or treat, so we stayed in.

The past week, Penny and Kevin have been in California/Las Vegas, so I've been in charge. No one has been injured and nothing is broken, so I'm feeling that it's gone well. =] Ellie's been a little sad, but we've made it and Mum & Dad come home tomorrow, she's very excited! Ellie had "Roman Day" at school today, and she got to wear a cool costume to school for it. She liked it so much she didn't want to change when she got home! There are a few pictures of her goofing off before school this morning [which I'm sure she'll be mad about when she sees, but oh well!] Selena's been over most days while Penny and Kevin have been gone, she's been great in providing me with grown-up company. Also, we're determined to finish the 1,000 piece puzzle the girls started on the kitchen table a few weeks ago, so secretly, I think that's why she keeps coming back! ;-] We decided we HAVE to finish it before I leave for Christmas...December 14 is the deadline! I think we'll be done before then because we [mostly Selena] made awesome progress on it this past weekend and week.


I know this was a LONG post again, but here's your reward: Pictures!

London Weekend + I Grew A Monkey

Hello there blogworld! Thanks for being here today!

On that note, I never know how to start a blog. Any tips would be greatly appreciated...here goes!

Last weekend I went to London on Sunday with Marika, the Finnish au pair who drives a Fit aka Jazz. We also went out on Saturday night to Beaconsfield, to meet up with a Canadian au pair named Stephanie that we met. [This is relevant, I swear...] Saturday night we got to the train station to take the train ONE station up, and found out that there were NO TRAINS running this weekend out here. They had planned closures for repairs to the lines, so they were running buses that left once every 20 minutes, which was kind of lame.

Anyway, in the early afternoon on Sunday we trekked back to the station to take a bus out to Hillingdon, where we would be able to get on the tube to take to London.
It had been raining a LOT last week....this is what the road near my house looked like Sunday morning on the way to the station...flooded all the way across both sidewalks and the whole street:

And just for some reference, here's an extended map of the tube station, and I put a big X where GX is, just so everyone can see!

The tube system has SO many lines that go so many different ways and have different ending points/offshoots. It's going to take me a while to get this one down the way I have Muni down...I *think* that if you click on this it will get bigger...or it might just go to the site I got the map from in the first place, where you can make it bigger anyway!


Instead of a 30-45 minute ride on one train, we had a 15-20 minute ride on a bus, then a 30-45 minute train ride. Oh well. While we were on the bus, another passenger caught our attention. While we walked into the train station I told Marika that I thought she was an au pair, because I'd over heard her at the station and on the bus that she was an Australian and she wasn't sure if she was going to move to GX or not, and she wasn't familiar with the area yet. We ended up talking to her at the Hillingdon station and it turns out she was going to be an au pair in GX pretty soon. We exchanged contact information and are now Facebook friends, and I'm excited to have someone else near by who is an au pair!

So, Marika and I had plans to meet up with her friend Caroline, also an au pair, who is from Germany. Caroline wasn't/isn't happy with her house family, so she's actually leaving this weekend to work in France instead. Marika and I both wanted to go to the Tower of London since I haven't been since my People to People trip nine years ago and she's never been. It turns out Caroline had been already, so she didn't want to go, but we decided to go to Harrod's, a huge, fancier-than-Nordstrom's department store, which is a biiiiiiig deal, just to look around. We got there after a number of train changes and waiting, and also ended up eating at McDonald's. It's cheap and fast and the same in every country, what can I say! =]


Marika outside Harrod's


Me and Caroline outside Harrod's. [Hi mom, see, I am here! ;)]


Some of the sweets in Harrod's...SO MUCH CANDY EVERYWHERE!


Santa candy already!


Cupcakes!


Marika resting on a display in the store.


Olympics souvenirs...even though they're almost 2 years away...


I might have to go back and see if they make this shirt in my size...this was the kid's department. =]


What I thought was the best part about Harrod's was at one point while we were on the escalator, all of the sudden I thought the music changed a lot. It turned out there was a LIVE opera singer in one of the balconies singing. It was AMAZING. I'm crossing my fingers that this video uploads before I'm done writing this, because she was really good! [UPDATE: Okay this uploaded but I can't tell if it's working or not...someone let me know! Thanks to everyone who let me know it's working!]

My first video upload success!!!!! [I hope!]


We also went up to Notting Hill to see where the movie was filmed/set, even though I've never seen it. It was nice to see it without all the carnival madness going on! There was supposed to be a tube strike that night, so Marika and I needed to head back to GX before about 5, and we got home just fine, luckily. 


Clouds here were beautiful!


And the houses are so colorful!


Cute wellies I saw on Portobello Road!


Hi again Mom!

This week I had somewhat of an adventure with Bindi on Monday. I went to the wooded area down the street to take her for a walk. It's an enclosed area, and usually we let her off the lead when she's in there and she's pretty good about not going too far away from you...almost like she's afraid you're going to leave her there [which is a good reason to be afraid, I think!]. I was taking her lead off right outside the gate, and usually she walks right through the gate just fine, but this time she didn't, and ran off down the street. I felt like I was chasing Sparky, it was awful. Luckily she didn't go TOO far away, but it was still a nice little run I took!

This weekend both of my parents are in Texas to see Nate for his birthday...the big 2-0 for him this Sunday! My brother is living on his own for the first time this year, and he seems to be...well...he's surviving, but struggling. He hasn't had lights in his bathroom or half his kitchen since he moved in in early August because he had to flip surges and didn't know. That's my brother for you! I do miss him a lot and am excited that my parents are there for his birthday and the beginning of his baseball season. I'm looking forward to reporting highlights for everyone as Nate continues to kick butt on the diamond this season [last season he was the division record holder for doubles!]!!!

While Nate turns 20 on Sunday, I'll be going to London with Selena, who's also Ellie's tennis coach, to see a local band play a show. It turns out Selena and I have pretty similar music taste, so hopefully we find more shows to go to!

I also have dates for going to the States for Christmas. I'll be in Ohio/the east coast from December 11-January 4, and hopefully my mom and I are going to take some kind of little road trip while I'm out there. No California trips though, sorry guys!


Oh, and the "Amanda Grew A Monkey" bit...Ellie likes to hang on me like a monkey some days...see?










Then she falls and can't get up because she's laughing so hard.


And finally, one more picture for mom...Proof I'm here again! [I post ONE picture on Facebook mobile and suddenly she thinks I'm not here!] This one's by Ms. Ellie!

Pictures!

This weekend I went to London again. I left on Saturday afternoon after taking Ellie to judo [which was fun to watch, I've never seen so many small kids safely tackling each other!]. I met up with Hannah and Mollie at Oxford St. where they were shopping. We had plans to go to Church, another Australian bar that people flock to on Sundays, the next day. Apparently people wear what they call "fancy dress" to Church...In my mind, fancy dress means, well, a dress and heels and the like. Here, it means costumes. This place was like being at a high school dance that had a theme...but with booze. Anyway, we were going as crayons, and had to make my dress/buy fabric to make it. We made a pit stop in Hamley's, a HUGE toy store. It had 5 stories and basically every toy EVER.

I promised pictures, and here they are! Instead of a loooooong scroll through of photos, I made a slide show! It might go a little fast [sorry! I'm going to try to find a better site to make the slide shows on...], but you can pause it and just click through the pictures at your own pace. It's pretty much the whole past month, from the Adidas Women's 5K challenge that Penny, Kari and Ellie ran to the trip to London from this past weekend.

Picture summary!:
A few shots from the Adidas 5K that Penny, Kari and Ellie did.
The "American food" section at the grocery store near here. Penny's sister found a website called usafoodstore.com that imports a bunch of American food [mostly cake mixes and cereal, but still cool!] that I'm excited about.
London weekend: On Saturday we went to the London Aquarium. No flash photography allowed, and honestly, I'm not going to bore you all with photos of fish. A turtle shot, but no other fishies. We tried to go up to the Prime Minister's house but it was blocked off, so Mollie took a few pictures of me outside the gates. We went to Buckingham Palace also, which I remember from my People to People trip from 2001, but not too well. The Pope was here over the weekend, so there was a lot of security stuff set up on the way to the Palace, which was cool to see. No real need to see the man himself though.
Then shots from the crayon's trip to Church on Sunday.

Random!

Michaela just sent me a link to this picture...It's definitely how I've felt pretty much my whole life!



Thanks, Michaela! =]


Anyway, I might be off to London this weekend to stay with Hannah and Mollie again...I want to try to go do something touristy, and they want to take me to another Australian bar that we couldn't go to the last weekend I was there. I have to take Ellie to judo at her school Saturday morning because...
BIG NEWS!:

Kari made the lacrosse team at school!!!!!

She's super excited! She was singing and dancing around the kitchen all afternoon [not that singing and dancing are completely unusual behaviors for her, but I promise, this was different], and we ordered Dominos for a celebratory dinner, much to Ellie's delight! This is the first team sport she's done [in the past she's done tennis and swimming and stuff like that]. They have a match on Saturday morning and Kevin won't be home, so I told her it's not a problem for me to take Ellie to judo so she can take Kari to the match. Plus, I've never seen judo so it should be interesting.
Anyway, I won't be able to go until Saturday afternoon, which is fine. I promise more pictures from London this time if I go!

Tomorrow Ellie is going to let me do something completely new to her hair for school. Usually it's just a low pony tail, since she has to wear a [very cute] hat to school, but I put a little side braid in my hair yesterday, and again today, and practiced on hers today, and we convinced her to do it for school tomorrow. She's very simple and kind of set in her ways when it comes to her hair, so I'm exited that she said yes to something else! I told her I'd do it to mine too so we can match, and I'll have Penny take a picture or two of our matching hair, so there might even be THREE posts in a week! =]

Please please PLEASE let me know if you're reading. So far just my parents have let me know...and I already knew they were [I still like that you are though, mom & dad!]!

Another week!

Last week all three kids started school. Harry went back on Tuesday night, since he boards during the week and classes started Wednesday. Ellie started Wednesday morning as well, and Penny, Kari and I took her to school, since it's also Kari's old school. We went to Westfield, a huge mall, that day, and I gave in to my love of stationary and pens at Paperchase, which was awesome.

Kari started school on Thursday, so that was the first day all the kids were gone all day. Friday I watched Cassidy for the morning while Penny and Kevin were out, and we had a great time.

I had a nice weekend, I went out on Saturday afternoon with two other au pairs, Marika and Elin. Marika drives here and HAS A HONDA FIT. Okay well it's a Jazz here, but it's a Honda Fit and makes me miss Little Blue! We had a nice time in High Wycombe at the Eden Center.

This week is the first full week of the kids being in school. Here's an idea of what my schedule is every day:

7:00 am-7:20 am Get up and dressed.
7:20 am-7:35 am Eat breakfast, usually make Ellie breakfast and get Ellie upstairs to get ready. Usually around 7:35 Kari and Penny leave to take Kari to the bus.
7:35 am-8:20 am Make sure Ellie is totally ready for school, has all her stuff for the day, do Ellie's hair, and usually we have a few minutes that Ellie will use to play a game before we have to leave for school at 8:20.
8:20 am-8:35 am Either Penny or I will take Ellie to school and come back home.
8:35 am-3:40 pm Do whatever needs to be done at home during the day. Each week it's cleaning the floors downstairs and dusting, ironing, cleaning/dusting the kid's rooms and bathrooms, cleaning the stairs, and anything else that comes up during the week.
3:40 pm Leave to go pick Ellie up at school, come home.
3:40 pm-7 pm Eat, do homework with the girls, help get Ellie into bed for the night.

That's pretty much it during the week.

Yesterday Kari and I were brushing up on our British history...She's preparing for her common entrance tests in the spring, which is basically what she'll be studying for all year. The exams are a pretty big deal. We learned about Edward I, Alexander III, and that back in the day [okay, and today still, but not as bad] that people are SUPER uncreative in naming their kids. Alexander III's wife was named Margaret, they named their daughter Margaret, and SHE named HER daughter Margaret. Um, like that's not confusing...

Tonight I'm going to a meeting with some other au pairs which will be nice.

I sent out some more letters, so write me back or send me your address so I can send you some too! Oh, and let me know who's out there reading this, leave me a comment [with your name, pretty please...Jess P, was that you with the ranch comment???]


Edit!!!
I can't believe I almost forgot this!!!! I finally got my diploma in the mail this week!!! Here are some [okay a lot of] Skype screen shots of my dad opening it, and a Sparky appearance!

Birthday celebration and more!

Last week was my 22nd birthday, and I spent the weekend in London with my Australian friends Mollie and Hannah.

After my last post, Penny, Kevin and the kids brought out a cake for me after tea, which was so nice and unexpected! Kari very loudly sang "Happy Birthday" [though she rarely does anything quietly...], throwing in the word "tomorrow" after "birthday," since it wasn't really my birthday yet.


Yummy cake!

For tea that night we had pasta, and Penny and Kari were making a cream sauce that was SO GOOD. Kari and I made it again last night...mmmm! I ate way too much that night and wasn't expecting cake after that, so I was REALLY full that night!


I took the train out on Saturday along with 5,000 people going to a football match. I only had one minor mishap with the trains...I thought I bought an all-day pass for all of the tube system when I left GX, but it turns out I didn't, and had to call Mollie to figure out what I DID have to buy. The trains in London [aka the Tube] are really nice inside compared to BART or Muni. The seats are reallllly padded, but nicely kept up. The biggest/most annoying difference to me was that unlike on Muni and BART, each line and direction has different platforms, so you have to make sure you know what line you're looking for, otherwise you'll never be at the right platform at the downtown stations.

We were trying to go to the Notting Hill Carnival, which was conveniently supposed to be over my birthday weekend. But, when I got there Saturday afternoon, Mollie got a call from a friend who was there and said that it wasn't on until Sunday, and Sunday was "kids day" rather than the main part of the carnival. So instead of spending that night at the carnival, we went to Leicester Square. AND WE GOT THERE ON A DOUBLE DECKER BUS. I seriously think Muni should consider these, because it's so much easier to see where you are if you're on the top section [these were all enclosed]. It was really awesome to be able to see where we were going and actually have a better view on things than if we were just at street level.


Mollie, Hannah and me waiting for the bus to Leicester Square.

Anyway, in Leicester Square we ate dinner at a Pizza Hut [my choice]. Pizza Hut is very different in England...it's a more legit restaurant than in the US. The three of us stuffed our faces with pizza, and Mollie thought they had ranch, but it turns out they stopped carrying it, much to my disappointment. Mollie and Hannah love ranch now too, apparently, so I'm glad I have some comrades in my hunt for ranch dressing in the UK.

We saw "Salt" that night, which was really good but totally left wide open for a sequel, it really didn't even have an ending.

That night we went out to this huge park behind their house, Hampstead Heath. It reminded me a lot of Dolores Park back in San Francisco, which was kind of neat. We climbed up to the top of the hill in the park and could see pretty much all of London lit up in the dark. Everything was so cool lit up!

Sunday Rey [another au pair from near where I am who was out in the city with us] made potato pancakes [I made eggs...], and the girls dipped theirs in ranch, which I never would have thought of. There are a few Australian bars in London that Mollie and Hannah go to every Sunday, so we knew we were going to one of those, Walkabout. Before we went there though we went to the Camden Markets, which are like a HUGE flea-market, but permanent. Every type of food you could imagine was there, including this crazy potato-chip stand that spiral-cut a potato and then fried it. Someday, I promise there will be a video of this.


Part of Camden Markets used to be a horse stable, and they have HUGE fake horses in there.


We got to Walkabout and it was kind of weird to be in a bar at 3pm on a Sunday, but since Monday was a Bank Holiday, there were even more people there than usual. We left for a bit to check out "kids day" at the carnival, but then came back before leaving about an hour later. When we got back, I passed out pretty fast.

Monday morning Rey had to leave to go back home, and the girls and I spent a majority of the day in bed before finally getting up to check out the carnival. There was a 12-hour parade involved, and we couldn't figure out why it was sooooo long. Well, it's because the parade moves about 1 mile an hour. We accidentally ended up in the line that was only allowed back in the tube station, but we'd gotten the feel of it, and I had my backpack with my weekend stuff in it, and since it was so crowded, we didn't want to risk anything bad happening to my stuff, so we went to the Marylebone station, got McDonald's [tastes EXACTLY like home], and then I got on the train back to GX.

Overall, I had a nice birthday weekend!

This week has been pretty low-key. I got all three of the kids playing Words with Friends now, and Kari and Ellie want to play really fast, so they like to pounce on me when it's my turn, which is funny. Ellie even BEAT me once...but I helped her play "quiz" with the q and z on double-letter spots, so she got 42 points for that word. This time I'm not helping her find words as much.

Yesterday, Ellie started teaching me how to play tennis. Yeah, start laughing! It wasn't TOO bad, nothing was broken and no one was injured. It actually wasn't too bad! 


More language differences for dad:

1. "Red Route" instead of "Red Zone" for fire lanes.
2. Things aren't for rent or for lease, they're "to let."
3. Gas stations are called petrol stations. 
4. Some houses here just have a name and no actual number. 
5. You go to the cinema, not the movies.
6. TJ Maxx is called TK Maxx, but the logo is exactly the same. 

Pictures from my last weeks in SF, OC, Ohio, and the beginnings of England

San Francisco

The lovely Tabby and Nicole on Shayla and Tabby's last SF Monday!

Nicole and me at Q Bar.

Me and Tabby...We're demonstrating something, I just don't remember what anymore.

Me and Shayla! Ms. Madagascar!

Stephen, Nicole and Ashley at my going away party.

Lianne and Nicole!

These lunatics...

Totem pole.

Dave, Ryan, Martin and Jessie.

Ashley, Danielle me and Amanda.

Orange County

Doug, my almost-brother, and Nate, my real brother.

Doug, Lauren and Nate.

Doug, me, Lauren and Nate.

Me and my car with Vincent, they guy that owns it now.
Ohio

My many bug bites on my back.
Gerrards Cross

The ADORABLE Cassidy at Ellie's tennis practice. We played "tennis" with the cones.

English mailboxes.

Downtown GX.

The train station/construction for the new Tesco, due to open in late November!

The view out my window...part of Ellie's school.

Another view out my window.