1. Farm fresh produce - Melons, berries and corn. Can't wait for spring.
2. Scenery - Lots of pretty farms and rolling hills. And trees.
3. Weather - Four seasons. Cold winters and hot summers, but not so hot you can never go outside.
4. Central Market - Lots of yummy treats to choose from there.
5. Location - Withing a few hours of several major cities as well as airports.
6. Neato Burrito - A family favorite, especially on Thursdays, when the special is Chick in a Thai.
7. Schools - The high school is smaller than just one year in our Texas school district.
8. Backyard & Basement - A nice place to play and a place for all our stuff.
9. Long Johns - Donuts made both lists. We like donuts.
10. Brad's new job - New company, new job. Sounds really promising, and a good discount too.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Things I'll miss about Texas
We have known we might be moving for almost a year now, and I have gotten used to the idea of not living here any more. We are all excited to move back to Pennsylvania, but there are a few things we might miss.
1. 5th Street Pizza - This is Brad's favorite restaurant and the only one he ever wants to go to. Its St. Louis style, which is super thin crust with a bit of sauce and Provel cheese. Provel cheese is a processed orange and sort of creamy cheese - we looked it up and it said it was a mix of Swiss, Cheddar, and Provelone.
2. Whole Foods - which is about a mile from my house. Its expensive I know, but the produce and meats are great.
3. Shopping - Almost anything else I could possibly need is also about a mile from my house - Container Store, Target, Macy's, etc... Plus a nice selection of smaller shops.
4. Tex-Mex food - there is a restaurant on every corner. We have tried lots and have a few favorites.
5. DFW - Even though we basically live in the middle of nowhere, we can get to DFW in about half an hour, and from there we could go anywhere in the 48 states in about 3 hours or less.
6. Barbeque - Good southern food. Brisket is the popular choice in Texas.
7. Mild weather in January - At least for a few days... Today's high is expected to be above 70. But I won't miss the crazy insane heat for the entire summer and at least a month on either side.
8. Beer & Wine - Easily available at your nearest Target, or any other grocery store.
9. New football stadium - Allen is building one of the most expensive high school football stadiums in the county, set to open in Fall 2013 I believe. It means that more people can sit and watch their high school team play (at the current stadium its not so easy to get a seat.) It would be neat to see.
10. Donut shops - Almost every little strip mall has a little donut shop. Its hard to find the real name of each one because they mostly just say "Donuts" out front. We have our favorites but all that we tried were quite good.
1. 5th Street Pizza - This is Brad's favorite restaurant and the only one he ever wants to go to. Its St. Louis style, which is super thin crust with a bit of sauce and Provel cheese. Provel cheese is a processed orange and sort of creamy cheese - we looked it up and it said it was a mix of Swiss, Cheddar, and Provelone.
2. Whole Foods - which is about a mile from my house. Its expensive I know, but the produce and meats are great.
3. Shopping - Almost anything else I could possibly need is also about a mile from my house - Container Store, Target, Macy's, etc... Plus a nice selection of smaller shops.
4. Tex-Mex food - there is a restaurant on every corner. We have tried lots and have a few favorites.
5. DFW - Even though we basically live in the middle of nowhere, we can get to DFW in about half an hour, and from there we could go anywhere in the 48 states in about 3 hours or less.
6. Barbeque - Good southern food. Brisket is the popular choice in Texas.
7. Mild weather in January - At least for a few days... Today's high is expected to be above 70. But I won't miss the crazy insane heat for the entire summer and at least a month on either side.
8. Beer & Wine - Easily available at your nearest Target, or any other grocery store.
9. New football stadium - Allen is building one of the most expensive high school football stadiums in the county, set to open in Fall 2013 I believe. It means that more people can sit and watch their high school team play (at the current stadium its not so easy to get a seat.) It would be neat to see.
10. Donut shops - Almost every little strip mall has a little donut shop. Its hard to find the real name of each one because they mostly just say "Donuts" out front. We have our favorites but all that we tried were quite good.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Back to where we started
After two and a half year of living in Texas, it is time to move on.
When we moved here from England we knew we might stay for quite a while, or maybe not. We have enjoyed living in Texas - it has certainly been a good experience for all of us.
But Brad got a new position in Pennsylvania so back we go, and we will even live in Lancaster, very near where we moved from nearly 4 years ago.
The packers will be here Monday morning and the truck will be loaded on Wednesday. Wednesday will also be the last day of school here and we will leave on Thursday morning.
We have an agreement on a house but won't be able to move in until March. So we will stay in a hotel for six weeks or so while we wait.
So once again we are saying good-bye, which is always sad. But we are also excited to be moving back to a place where we already have friends.
And we are hoping to stay a while!
When we moved here from England we knew we might stay for quite a while, or maybe not. We have enjoyed living in Texas - it has certainly been a good experience for all of us.
But Brad got a new position in Pennsylvania so back we go, and we will even live in Lancaster, very near where we moved from nearly 4 years ago.
The packers will be here Monday morning and the truck will be loaded on Wednesday. Wednesday will also be the last day of school here and we will leave on Thursday morning.
We have an agreement on a house but won't be able to move in until March. So we will stay in a hotel for six weeks or so while we wait.
So once again we are saying good-bye, which is always sad. But we are also excited to be moving back to a place where we already have friends.
And we are hoping to stay a while!
Friday, January 20, 2012
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Christmas Day
We had a very nice Christmas here in Texas this year. Everyone got lots of fun gifts and had fun playing with them all day. Ben's favorite gift was a mini fooseball table. He also loved his portable scoreboard and Eagles PillowPet. Susanna's favorite gift was a big bouncing/hopping toy. She also liked her minky blanket. Alice loved her new boots and baby dolls. Brad's favorite was once again the Paper Jamz - this time the karaoke set. He has it all set up with his favorite Frank Turner song.
We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!
Saturday, December 24, 2011
O Christmas Tree
Two days 'til Christmas, and the tree is up! Since we were going away, we decided to wait to get the tree. We didn't want it sitting here with no water for a week.
Brad and the kids upheld our Texas Christmas tradition and went to Home Depot to pick a tree. Because it was so last minute they got an especially good deal on it.
We spent the afternoon putting lights and ornaments on it. The kids had lots of fun pulling the ornaments out and hanging them. Lots of reminders from good times in years past.
We are all ready for Santa!
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Cousins' Christmas
We are just back from a week in Pennsylvania, where we visited as many friends and relatives as possible. Unfortunately there is never enough time to see everyone, and this trip went especially fast.
Brad's sister was also in town from California. We haven't all been together for Christmas since 2007, so it was really nice to celebrate with them. We also saw Brad's cousins from Alabama, and my nephew from Virginia.
Ben wrestled in a holiday wrestling tournament in Hershey. Ben did well in the tournament considering all of his opponents were 3rd graders - he had one pin, got pinned once, and lost the other match. He had a great attitude about it and he really enjoyed wrestling somewhere new. After the tournament we all went to Chocolate World for the tour and lunch.
Susanna and Ben love spending time with their cousins Breck and Piper. All the cousins on my side of the family are quite a bit older than my kids, so these are their only cousins close in age. They got to do lots of fun things together and all had a great time!
Piper loved holding Baby Alice
Watching Alvin and the Chipmunks
Shoe shopping
Eating at Neato Burrito
Picking a Christmas tree for Grammy and Grandpa
Oregon Dairy buffet
Girl cousins
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Birth Story
I wrote this about a week after Alice was born. I wanted to let it sit for a little while, as I was still going over and over the birth in my mind. Its been a while now and I am glad I wrote this down when I did.
___________________________________________________________
Over the summer, I changed my entire birth plan. Originally I was going to deliver at the local hospital with an OB. After much thought, I decided that I would rather deliver with a midwife at the birth center in town. I think that made a much bigger difference that I ever thought in the way things went last Friday.
Brad and I both went to bed on the night of October 13th with the feeling that the baby would come the next day. I hadn't been having many noticeable or painful contractions, so I was also a bit worried about how soon the baby would or would not arrive, and how big baby would be.
Sure enough, shortly after a 2 a.m. bathroom run I was drifting back to sleep when I felt my water break. I still wasn't having contractions but knew it was time to get up and try to get things moving. I called the midwife right before 3 a.m. to tell her and see what I should do. I would not have bothered her in the middle of the night except that I was Group B strep positive and knew I needed to get antibiotics started soon. The on-call midwife decided that the antibiotics could wait until I started having contractions and told me to call her back in a few hours. So we were able to let the kids continue sleeping and I walked around the kitchen. Contractions started after an hour or so and I called the midwife back around 5 a.m. She agreed to meet me at the birth center as soon as she could get there and we ended up getting there around 6.
We took the kids with us and packed breakfast for them to eat there. Because things were still going slowly Brad took them to school, saying that he would probably be back for them around lunch time. That turned out to be wishful thinking.
I got my first dose of antibiotics and walked around. It was still very dark outside and there aren't good sidewalks around the birth center, so we stayed on the porch. Eventually we went for a longer walk through town and then back to the birth center.
Contractions were starting to hurt but were still manageable. I was definitely getting tired after getting up so early in the morning. I had to keep walking and stair climbing to keep the contractions regular.
Eventually it got to be lunch time and I was still not feeling much closer to delivery, so Brad went out to get us lunch. I had soup and a sandwich, along with lots of grape juice, to help keep me energized.
After lunch I had to lie down for a few minutes, even though that slowed the contractions quite a bit. All I wanted was to take a nap, but with my water broken, I felt I couldn't afford to waste time sleeping. So I got back up and kept moving around.
As we got close to the 8-hour deadline for the antibiotics, the midwife checked to see if I was getting close. I was still only 6 cm dilated, so I had to get another dose of the antibiotics. This was administered through an IV, which they put in and took out each time. Part of my desire to go to the birth center was to avoid an IV altogether, but at least the midwives don't have anything else to put in an IV. That would have been totally different in a hospital; I didn't want to worry about fighting off interventions when I was in labor.
After the second dose, things started picking up and hurting more. I was already 12 hours into labor and feeling very frustrated at how long it was taking. My labor with Susanna was 18 hours and with Ben it was 6. I was really hoping to get there in time to deliver the baby and hadn't really considered that it might take much longer than that.
After about 2 hours of very painful contractions the baby was finally ready to be born. Fortunately it took only a few pushes and she was out. She had her cord wrapped tightly around her neck two times and the midwife ended up cutting it before she was out completely. She was a bit blue and needed a bit of oxygen, but her heartbeat stayed strong the entire time. While they were working on her in these first few minutes I was able to see that we had a girl!
We still hadn't finalized a name and because we needed to finish the birth certificate form before leaving, we had to hurry and decide. We had narrowed it down to Elena or Alice, so we decided to just use both and like the sound of Alice Elena better.
We texted our neighbor who had Susanna and Ben since they got off the bus and asked her to bring them over. She kindly fed them dinner and offered to bring something for us. Another neighbor works for P.F. Changs and they ended up providing our meal - it was quite tasty after my long day.
When the kids arrived we told them the baby was a girl. Susanna was thrilled and Ben needed a moment - he had many months to dream of a baby brother. He got past it soon enough and thinks his baby sister is great.
I was a little worried about going home so quickly after the birth (average stay at the birth center is 4 hours) but it was totally fine. The big kids were exhausted from their long day of waiting and we were ready to get everyone home and settled. Ben went straight to bed as soon as we walked in, but Susanna was ready to stay up all night with the baby. We eventually chased her upstairs after one last cuddle, and Brad and I (and Alice) quickly fell asleep for our first night at home as a family of five.
___________________________________________________________
Over the summer, I changed my entire birth plan. Originally I was going to deliver at the local hospital with an OB. After much thought, I decided that I would rather deliver with a midwife at the birth center in town. I think that made a much bigger difference that I ever thought in the way things went last Friday.
Brad and I both went to bed on the night of October 13th with the feeling that the baby would come the next day. I hadn't been having many noticeable or painful contractions, so I was also a bit worried about how soon the baby would or would not arrive, and how big baby would be.
Sure enough, shortly after a 2 a.m. bathroom run I was drifting back to sleep when I felt my water break. I still wasn't having contractions but knew it was time to get up and try to get things moving. I called the midwife right before 3 a.m. to tell her and see what I should do. I would not have bothered her in the middle of the night except that I was Group B strep positive and knew I needed to get antibiotics started soon. The on-call midwife decided that the antibiotics could wait until I started having contractions and told me to call her back in a few hours. So we were able to let the kids continue sleeping and I walked around the kitchen. Contractions started after an hour or so and I called the midwife back around 5 a.m. She agreed to meet me at the birth center as soon as she could get there and we ended up getting there around 6.
We took the kids with us and packed breakfast for them to eat there. Because things were still going slowly Brad took them to school, saying that he would probably be back for them around lunch time. That turned out to be wishful thinking.
I got my first dose of antibiotics and walked around. It was still very dark outside and there aren't good sidewalks around the birth center, so we stayed on the porch. Eventually we went for a longer walk through town and then back to the birth center.
Contractions were starting to hurt but were still manageable. I was definitely getting tired after getting up so early in the morning. I had to keep walking and stair climbing to keep the contractions regular.
Eventually it got to be lunch time and I was still not feeling much closer to delivery, so Brad went out to get us lunch. I had soup and a sandwich, along with lots of grape juice, to help keep me energized.
After lunch I had to lie down for a few minutes, even though that slowed the contractions quite a bit. All I wanted was to take a nap, but with my water broken, I felt I couldn't afford to waste time sleeping. So I got back up and kept moving around.
As we got close to the 8-hour deadline for the antibiotics, the midwife checked to see if I was getting close. I was still only 6 cm dilated, so I had to get another dose of the antibiotics. This was administered through an IV, which they put in and took out each time. Part of my desire to go to the birth center was to avoid an IV altogether, but at least the midwives don't have anything else to put in an IV. That would have been totally different in a hospital; I didn't want to worry about fighting off interventions when I was in labor.
After the second dose, things started picking up and hurting more. I was already 12 hours into labor and feeling very frustrated at how long it was taking. My labor with Susanna was 18 hours and with Ben it was 6. I was really hoping to get there in time to deliver the baby and hadn't really considered that it might take much longer than that.
After about 2 hours of very painful contractions the baby was finally ready to be born. Fortunately it took only a few pushes and she was out. She had her cord wrapped tightly around her neck two times and the midwife ended up cutting it before she was out completely. She was a bit blue and needed a bit of oxygen, but her heartbeat stayed strong the entire time. While they were working on her in these first few minutes I was able to see that we had a girl!
We still hadn't finalized a name and because we needed to finish the birth certificate form before leaving, we had to hurry and decide. We had narrowed it down to Elena or Alice, so we decided to just use both and like the sound of Alice Elena better.
We texted our neighbor who had Susanna and Ben since they got off the bus and asked her to bring them over. She kindly fed them dinner and offered to bring something for us. Another neighbor works for P.F. Changs and they ended up providing our meal - it was quite tasty after my long day.
When the kids arrived we told them the baby was a girl. Susanna was thrilled and Ben needed a moment - he had many months to dream of a baby brother. He got past it soon enough and thinks his baby sister is great.
I was a little worried about going home so quickly after the birth (average stay at the birth center is 4 hours) but it was totally fine. The big kids were exhausted from their long day of waiting and we were ready to get everyone home and settled. Ben went straight to bed as soon as we walked in, but Susanna was ready to stay up all night with the baby. We eventually chased her upstairs after one last cuddle, and Brad and I (and Alice) quickly fell asleep for our first night at home as a family of five.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Alice is 2 months old
This baby is happy
This baby has better things to do
This baby is having a good time
This baby looks good in zebra
Friday, December 2, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
Mentos and Diet Coke
I know this isn't new, but Susanna just heard about the Mentos and Diet Coke experiment and wanted to give it a try.
We got a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke and a roll of mint Mentos. We made a funnel out of cardstock and dropped 7 Mentos in all at once.
Here is what happened:
We got a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke and a roll of mint Mentos. We made a funnel out of cardstock and dropped 7 Mentos in all at once.
Here is what happened:
Friday, November 25, 2011
Picture time
We went for our first photo session with 3 kids when Alice was one month old. Susanna and Ben did really well with photos while I tried to make Alice content enough to get her picture taken. She would not be put down for her own photos, but we did the best we could. We were happy with the photos we got, and I'm sure we'll be back for more soon.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Grandparents
My parents just left after a 9 day visit to Texas. We had a nice visit with them and celebrated my Mom's 70th birthday while they were here. Alice enjoyed the extra attention, as did Ben and Susanna.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
First tournament of the season
Ben had his first wrestling tournament of the season yesterday. Check out the new singlet! Much more exciting than the one he got last year. Ben had a good tournament. He got pinned twice but pinned three other guys. He ended up being 3rd place out of the 11 wrestlers in his weight group.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Baby faces
Baby Alice is now three weeks old. She is doing great and growing like a weed - she is up more than 2 pounds from her birth weight. Eating is one of her favorite activities, along with sleeping, but she is also having more alert time during the day.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Football
Today was Ben's last regular football game of the season. Another win for the Gators - they finished the season in second place with a 6-2 record. Next week is play-offs, and if they win that, they go to the [first grade] Super Bowl the following weekend.
Ben had the first touchdown of the game (and his fourth for the season.)
Another good run by Ben.
Baby Alice couldn't stay away for another week, so off we went to the game. Everyone was happy to see her.
The boys love running through the cheerleaders at the end of the game.
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