Is This a Test?

One of our neighbors is about 94 years old and the widow of an admiral. She approached me yesterday to spread some new year cheer and ask me for my (wait for it)..."Christian name"!#%*^!

Several thoughts ran through my head: Is this a test?! Will we be expelled from the cul-de-sac?! What the heck is my Christian name?! Did my parents forget to get me one?? If I don't come up with one stat, will she know I'm a sinner?!

A lot of stuttering and 30 seconds later, she threw me a bone and clarified that she was asking for my first name. Well, shoot...why didn't you just say so, lady?

Anyway, we hope you all had a safe and fun New Year's celebration. We went to a friend's house in town centre and somehow made it past midnight (including all of the children!). Here are some shots from the night:

We discovered that things can get very crazy at the pubs in Henley. A single policeman had to calmly chat with a lady who was sitting outside of the Catherine Wheel, trying to responsibly sober up...what an animal! (Totally joking...our Bay Area parties would blow these people's minds!!)

It's been raining cats and dogs over here and the river has been pretty full. The kids and I were cut off on our walk to the Rowing Museum and had to depend on a very strong man nearby to cradle my heavy pushchair over some planters, to dry land! 

The path for walking usually goes all the way to where the wooden posts are sticking up!!

In other news, I've had to cancel our super cool organic weekly fruit and veg box. It turns out, I'm not cut out for cleaning and prepping all this organic goodness...it's a little TOO organic!

Of course, I couldn't sound too pathetic when I wrote to cancel, so my official reason is that the quantity of fruit and veg delivered just wasn't enough bang for my buck. Yeah, that sounds cooler.

In addition to taking scalding hot showers to rid myself of any slug cooties, I've also been spending (insane amounts of) time working with Audrey on her winter break project. This coming school term, the entire school's curriculum will be worked around a theme: Brazil! The kids will be learning the language, their dancing, places to travel to, food, etc. Audrey's job was to research Brazil and present 3 interesting facts. We decided to paint one of our egg cartons and call it her treasure chest of facts. Inside, she has some pretty "golden" facts! (When does she graduate again?)

In addition to learning about Brazil, Audrey's also been working on being polite to her brother and using her words to express herself. She wrote this apology after interrupting Dorian's story and taped it to the wall. Quite a crack-up when we finally saw it!

Anyway, over the break, we were introduced to Google Hangout by our friends Will and Anne. It's a fun app and I'll definitely need to set it up for our dads who have Android phones and can't get in on the FaceTime action. Here we are chatting with Anne and...Kermit?

I've been thinking about our move lately. I remember considering this move to England and convincing myself and Stegen that it was the best time in our lives to do it. Audrey and Dorian were still too little to be traumatized and they'd settle in and make friends without issue. It's all been true--they've both settled in so well and we've all made friends. But then I realize that this thing isn't permanent and that when Audrey's about 10, we'll have to rip her away from her good friends...it won't be so easy then. The only way to ease that trauma will be to keep her in touch with her friends back in America while we're here and vice versa. Speaking of her friends, we got this sweet message from her ballet teacher and best friends back home--heart-breaking and heart-warming at the same time. 

Happy New Year, everyone!! We love hearing from you and hope to see you back in the States this summer.