School & Music

We had parent-teacher 'meetings' on Tuesday evening. They have them several times a year here instead of just 1 at the beginning of the year as US schools do. Kaitlyn has adjusted quite well socially as well as academically. Her teacher is encouraging her to join her letters in handwriting, she is writing poetry, stories, learning French, the class has dismantled the Narnia they had built in the class and are now building 'A Secret Garden.' Her spelling is impeccable and she is even progressing in her maths (multiplication and division)!
A bit of background: The kids only have homework once a week-usually on Wednesday or Thursday-and it is not due back until the following Monday. No schoolwork has been brought home as of yet-we found out why. The kids do not work out of workbooks or worksheets at this school. They have composition books for each subject and those books are sent home at the end of the year. There is a kitchen in the school-Kaitlyn's class has been learning about the continents and have been making things from other countries. Griffen's class had to 'design' their own object to eat that used only 3 fruits. He made a smoothie. Music, art and drama are encouraged greatly at the school with art and drama being offered as after school clubs and music during school time. (more on that later).
Griffen has struggled a bit, but his teacher said he is doing quite well now and is showing strength in math and science. She also managed to squeeze him into a special program called "Early Literacy Support," next term that will help to boost his confidence as well as his reading and writing skills. It is a government funded program with room for only 6 kids. His teacher is amazing-she is young and is only teacher I've met who goes out of her way to teach to all modalities of learning, concentrating on tactile and kinesthetic. Her methods of teaching math and sentence writing were amazing. Both kids are slowing making changes in how they talk. Kaitlyn's intonation is changing and Griffen is pronouncing his vowels with an English accent.

Now for the music...today was the school concert. I listened to the orchestra, beginner & continuing flutes, violins, clarinets, recorders, brass, the choir and one pianist. The school teaches all but the piano, but announced that as of September they would teach that as well! Kaitlyn made me proud, playing flute with a group that had been playing since September. Griffen has just started a tester class for the violin and they played today as well. In fact it seemed that well over half the school is playing the violin!

More Spiders....

Killing spiders right and left over here. I went to the hardware store in search of a solution, specifically spray. The woman at the store said, 'oh, we don't have anything like that. We do have a little contraption so that you can catch them and put them back in the garden.' I said the heel of my shoe would work much better and that I was looking more into blocking their entry into the house. Here is a link to the most common one we've seen: Spiders
Here is what we did today...Got my car, Jason took the kids to Wimpole Farm (see link on sidebar) to check out the lambs as it is lambing season, I held a baby sick with the flu all day with a slight break to take Kaitlyn to receive Reconcilliation. Tomorrow is Mother's Day and the time changes as well.
Good News: through a friend of the priest at our church here, we will be getting tickets for Easter Sunday Mass at the Vatican.

Roof Deer

Just another day passing by. The sun was out yesterday and today, but it is misleading. You look out the window and think, 'what a beautiful day,' then you step outside and this blasted freezing wind smacks you in the face. I don't think it has gotten above 45 since we've been here.
It has been nice living here though-life is simple. We walk to school everyday, I stop off at the shop for whatever I may need (fresh bread, morning pastry, fresh eggs etc). The shop owner knows us by name. Everyday we see a tractor and horses walk by the front of the house, we can hear the train, we can hear the sheep bleating in the fields after the newly born lambs. Yesterday we awoke to find 2 Muntjac Deer (not much bigger than dogs really) munching away in the back garden. In typical Jason fashion he told the kids they were roof deer with fangs down to the ground and red eyes. He said they normally eat the moss off the roof but if they saw somene looking out the window they would eat them instead.

Catch-up

Well...must play a bit of catch up. I suffered what I believe to have been strep throat last week. It was a self diagnosis as they do not test for strep here. The Dr. just look at my throat, took my temp and gave me an antibiotic. Jason had an exceptionally busy week as well-so we are thanking god once again for our wonderful neighbor, Kate. She took the kids to school, picked them up and even fed them dinner one night.
We ventured out north on Saturday...to buy me a VW Touran. We found a dealer with a used one that was a demo for the dealership-complete with DVD system. It was a mere 2 hour drive smooshed in Jason's car-but it was nice to see a different part of England. The accents were quite different and the people were more friendly. Since we were so close to the Peak District we thought a nice drive there and an overnight would be fun. The Peaks are rolling hills with the old stone fences-very pretty. However-we have 3 children and you can guarantee something to go wrong right? Turns out Jillian gets carsick. After cleaning up chunks of happy meal and running out of clean clothes we went home instead.
Sunday-another cloudy day (I think we are going on 10 sunless day now). After church we went out to a pub for our new tradition, Sunday Roast. There is a nice highly rated 'family friendly' pub in a neighboring village. Family Friendly=smoke free restaurant and child size portions of all menu items. Jason thought he knew where he was going, and ended up taking the back way. After a bit of driving through an area that made it seem we were trespassing we saw a sign that said "Ford ahead.' Quick what does that mean? Oh...a river crossing without a bridge.

Spiders

Sshhh...don't tell Jason. I just killed the nastiest black spider I've ever seen. It even made me cringe when I squashed it. I wonder if they have a bug service here?

Utilities

Got our gas and electric bills. Electric for 2 months came to £197.23 (roughly $335) and gas-heating oil really- was £191.50 (or $325). Yikes! Keep in mind that the gas bill was solely for heating and hot water. We only turn the heat on from 6:30 am-9:30 am and 3-10 pm. The hot water is on from 6:30 am-10 pm. Looking forward to some warmer weather and lower bills.

Narnia

We had a foggy frosty morning yesterday. As we walked across the green on the way to school Kaitlyn said it looked like Narnia. This photo is of the farm about 3 houses down the street from us. If you look closely you might see a horse or two.

Pancakes and laundry

Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday (Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras in the US). Traditionally over here they eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday as a way of using up extravagant ingredients like butter, milk and eggs before Lent. From that developed the annual Pancake Races. The pre-schoolers, Class 5 (3rd grade) and teachers head over to the Green for this event. Each racer holds a pancake in a pan as they race across the green with 2 designated 'flip' areas. Afterwards the adults are invited over to the church for pancakes and coffee.
As for the laundry...how long does it take to dry? Well here is my recent experience: Thinking Sunday was a nice sunny breezy sort of day, I put some clothes out to dry on the line. Our neighbors came over for dinner, so I forgot about them for the night. I checked on them Monday morning only to find they were still a bit damp, so they stayed out again, or maybe I forgot about them again. Lying in bed Monday night I heard the distinct pitter patter of rain and realized my clothes were still outside. Who wants to get out of a nice warm bed and take laundry off the line? Sooo Tuesday comes along-what is that-3 days? Tuesday was a very cold windy day-wind should dry clothes right? Not when it keeps trying to snow. Tuesday night I finally bring the clothes in only to have to put them in the dryer. So much for conserving energy.