Our Holding Pattern

We are still here, in case you are wondering...waiting to move into our home!   We were notified this week that our furniture will be delivered next Wednesday, Yippee!!!  We are all more than ready to get back to a normal life.  Honestly, we are all going a bit batty in the hotel and the kids bickering at each other is not helping at all.  On the good news front this week our second car arrived from the UK and we were able to pick it up on Monday so we are no longer a one car family, which means the kids and I can get out of the hotel while my husband is at work:).  Also our air freight arrive last week so I now have some basic items at the house and can now start cooking in our own home.  Eating out is fun until you have to do it every day for every meal for 3 weeks.  I actually looked forward to cooking again, and I am not a fan of cooking.  Also in the air freight were a few school books that I sent ahead.

Since the kids are fighting and getting on each others nerves I have decided to implement a light school day every day.  So far we are on Day 3 of this schedule and fingers crossed it is going well.  Actually I think the kids needed something to do other than playing on their electronics.  Since we are starting school with the kids, my husband and I discussed with the kids what they wanted to learn in the upcoming school year and I am ordering supplies based on some of their requests.   So hopefully those items will begin to come in and we can get started.  I will post our curriculum for the new school year soon:).  My school room is coming along nicely and I can't wait to put our school supplies on the shelves and then show it to you.

I have already contacted one local home school group in our area and have scheduled our first field trip to a local museum this week.  At the end of August I am signed up to participate in a class to better understand the laws of homeschooling in this state.  Slowly but surely I am getting the feel of the land here:)

Princess entered a story into a local contest at my parents house and it was PUBLISHED!!!!  We are all so excited.  Considering she was once my very reluctant writer she has made great leaps in her writing style.  If you want to read it go to this link.  The homeschool community is so fantastic, I put her story up on some of the homeschooling boards I am on and she has 22 positive comments from people we don't even know.  Princess is just glowing from all the comments and it has really motivated her to keep writing.  Now if I could just get Little Man to enjoy writing all will be good.

I will leave you with a few pictures of the fun we had this weekend.

Visited the Children's Botanical Gardens and had fun exploring

Went to the zoo and enjoyed a sea lion show

Found a small herd of deer in our back yard tree line.  The kids could see them from the deck and were so excited.  Can's tell here but this one was a young buck, I think

Took the kids to the Melting Pot, which is one of my favorite restaurants.

Hopefully, next week we will have our house hold goods and we will begin unpacking and living in our own house again.:)  Until then.....

Week 6 of our move

We have been on the move living out of suitcases for 6 weeks!  This is the longest break the children have had from school since we started home schooling 5 years ago.  For the last two weeks my husband flew back to the UK to do his final check out at work and close out all the rest of our accounts.  While he was back in the UK, I flew back to my parent's house to rejoin my children.  We have had a wonderful time with my parents, who have really loved finding educational and fun activities for us to do. 

We visited Indian Steps Museum and learned about the Susquehannack Indians
 

We went blue berry picking and princess made a yummy blueberry cheesecake

Kids tried sailing on a local lake
 

Took a ride on a historic train where we learned about the area and Abraham Lincoln who rode this line while on his way to deliver the Gettysburg address
 

Went to summer concerts in the park

Took a paddle boat tour on the Susquehanna river and got to talk to the captain
 

Went swimming at my sister's pool
 

Went Kayaking for the first time ever

 We have had so much fun visiting with my parents.  My husband returned to the states last Friday and the kids and I have rejoined him in Missouri.  We are still waiting for our household goods to arrive so until then we continue to live out of suitcases in a hotel.  We have been notified that our household goods are in the states but have not been released from US customs, which will take another 7 to 18 days.  Our second car has also arrived but still hasn't been released so we continueto be  a one car family t the moment, which is a bit of a struggle as my husband has returned to work and the kids and I are stuck at the hotel.  

So our lives continue to be in a holding pattern.  I think we will all be relieve when we can finally move into our home and get back to our routines. 

 
 

Week Two in our move

It has been a busy 2 weeks getting everything set up and ready for the family to move in.  Just in case you didn't know moving is expensive! We keep being surprised by little expenses that keep creeping in and making a mockery of our carefully planned budget!  Our house is coming together and we have completed 25 out of the 28 items on our list.  While not being able to stay completely on budget, we hope that by spending the money now we will ward off any future expenses, at least that is what we keep telling ourselves.

My husband and I realized this week that this has been the longest time we have been without our children, 2 weeks.  We have left them with my parents for up to a week before but never 2 weeks.  Not sure my parent will ever agree to watch my kids again after this length of time!  But, we couldn't have accomplished as much on our list if the kids had been with us, so THANKS Mom and Dad!

The craziest thing we have done this week is drive 300 miles one way to shop at Ikea.  I have been going into local furniture stores looking for bookcases to use in our new school room and couldn't find what I was looking for.  The few shelving units that I did find had limits of 15 to 23 pounds per shelf, considering the amount of books I have I knew that just wouldn't cut it.   So I took to the Pinterest page and started searching on the web for homeschool classrooms and noticed lots of people were shopping at Ikea for their school room furniture.  Once I checked out Ikea's web page, I found bookcases that could hold 63 pounds per shelf, I knew where we needed to go.  

Our car load of 5 bookcases and a desk.  All of which is sitting in the garage as we have no tools to assemble them until our sea freight arrives.  I think this is only the second or third time I have ever been in an Ikea store, sure wish there was one closer because that is a drive I can only convince my husband to do once, I think!  He was a really good sport about it, I must say.  

My husband and I have been enjoying going to more upscale restaurants, you know ones without chicken nuggets on the menu and paper napkins:). We are taking this opportunity to go to seafood restaurant, and the melting pot, my personal favorite. 

On July 4 th we took the day off from the house and work and went to the botanical gardens.  Just to slowly wander the grounds, it was fabulous!  Later we took a nap, heaven, since we have been working at a non stop pace for the last week and a half.

On Saturday we bought tickets to see the Cardinal play the Marlins.  I haven't been to a baseball game in years.  It has been nice to have some time together and regroup, my husband is still my favorite person to hang out with.

We are hoping the work to the house is completed this week.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope in another couple of weeks I will be back to browsing your blogs

 

Our New/Old Home

My husband and I left the kids with my parents and drove our new RV to our new/old house.  We had fun on our road trip getting chance to try out our new camper although driving was a bit hair rising at first for my husband.  While my husband wanted me to take the wheel and try driving, I declined, maybe next road trip.

 We arrived in town and were able to check out our house.  We have had renters there while we were in England.  Thankfully our renters left it in pretty good condition so we were very relieved.

Since we arrived it has been a flurry of activity getting new carpeting, painting, and other needed improvements done in order to get ready for the family to move in.  My husband and I created a checklist and we are slowly working our way down the list.  We hope to have it all completed  by the end of next week.  We don't expect our furniture to arrive until the end of July.

One of the big things I am doing is converting our bonus room into a school room. I can't wait to have a designated room for all our school supplies.  I plan on painting the room a bright cheerful yellow and accent it with white furniture ie. book cases and desks.  Since this is a big project to do and expensive it will done done slowly over the next few months or year.  The most important thing to do in this room is paint it and add better lighting.
 

We have also purchased a new car, a Honda Odyssey.  I love it!!!  It took a little bit for me to get comfortable driving on the "right side" of the road again.  

We had our storage delivered  this week.  We haven't seen this stuff in nearly five years. As the packers were unloading the truck I couldn't help but think I stored some really silly things...things I just couldn't part with at the time of our move.  I haven't unpacked these boxes yet, I wonder if I will be a lot better at purging as I unpack, because really if I haven't missed it in nearly five years do I really need it:).  

I am still on that stage where I am comparing everything to the UK so I am sure I am annoying to my friends and family;).  There are some things here in the US that I am thrilled to be able to do/see again, but I also missed certain things I can only find in the UK or Europe.   

Thanks for stopping by commenting, I hope to be back visiting your blogs soon, once life settles down a little:)