A Little Marvelous Catching-Up

To finish with Saturday's events...

We went bowling with Cindy & the kids on Saturday evening. We all had fun, but Cindy is still feeling the unpleasant side effect of a headache that hasn't gone away yet. We need to get her in to see a physical therapist.

Anyway - Steve beat everyone both times, Cindy finished 2nd both times, and then the rest of us trailed after in an unremarkable order. Julie slept in the stroller. The bowling alley was clean, NOT cigarette-smoke-y, not crowded, not overly loud, and just generally a pleasant place to be on a Saturday night.

I need to print a retraction - we *did* win stuff at Caleb's school's Christmas Bazaar. I got a call on Monday that we had won 3 gift certificates and a little girl's diary. And Cindy won 2 gift certificates and a voice memo recorder.

Sunday we went to church and heard an Israeli pastor. He grew up in the Jewish faith, but became a Christian at some point in his adult life. I missed that part because I had to take Audrey to the restroom. It rained all morning and on and off in the afternoon and evening. I don't really remember anything else from Sunday...no, I do remember something. I had to get out and get 2 of those little flat batteries for something of Steve's. I went to a couple of electronics stores before I found them, and the place I found them was next door to a huge shoe store, so of course I had to stop in. I ended up with some brown boots and new socks, too. Then I went to a clothing store that was on the way home and bought a couple more things. I'm going to have to return a sweater because part of the yarn has been nicked and is starting to fray. Bummer because I would have liked to wear the sweater today.

Monday was fine. Tuesday morning was fine. Tuesday afternoon I got a call from Caleb's school that he was sick with "severe diarrhea" and was really pale. Great. When I got there he was still a bit pale, but nothing like what I expected. Basically he lost containment. He chose to stay with his class while they rehearsed for their Christmas program instead of making a quick pit stop. Poor kid. So he's home now for 48 more hours before he can go back to school. I think we just let him get back on "real" food too fast. I'm going to take it easy this time. I've got 3 weeks to get him all well, otherwise we'll have a rough journey home.

So today, instead of running errands like I had planned (like mailing boxes home) I sent the van with Steve to work in the hopes that the kids would sleep a little later. That's what I get for hoping - Julie was the first person awake and the other 2 woke up as soon as Steve left the house. I guess that's a little more sleep than they would have gotten otherwise.

Audrey goes to school tomorrow, and Caleb will come with me & Jules to run errands. It might actually make it a little easier having him with us. I'll keep telling myself that, anyway.

It's 10 p.m. now and I hear Julie boo-hooing. I decided last night that we were going to start giving her formula last thing at night in the hopes of getting her to sleep through the night. We'll see if that works. It sounds like Steve got her quieted down. Now I get to go up the loudest stairs in the UK and wake up all 3 kids.

Night all!

Saturday Was Marvelous

After just piddling around the house in the morning, Cindy and the kids came over around noon. We all went to Caleb's school's Christmas Bazaar. It was scary. It was crowded, it was loud, there were yobs-in-training everywhere (yobs are hooligans) and it was hard to win prizes. That was not fun. Audrey's school's Christmas Fayre was much more fun. We won a *ton* of stuff and it was crowded, but not packed like Caleb's was. In fact, here is a picture of all the stuff we got from Audrey's fayre.


There is:
1 Barbie and 3 Barbie outfits (won in the raffle by Audrey)
1 can tomatoes (won by Emily in the tombola)
1 can potato, chicken, & mushroom soup (Emily/tombola)
1 gift box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates (Audrey/tombola)
1 bottle wine (Emily/tombola)
1 box fudge (Caleb/tombola)
3 chocolate bars (Caleb/tombola)
1 vanilla-scented candle gift box (Caleb/tombola)
assorted loose sweets (all the kids)

We laughed a lot about our haul. Emily played twice and got the canned things. Caleb won his tombola things on his only go. You got 5 tickets for a pound and he pulled out 3 winners. Audrey went next and got her choclates, then Emily got the only other thing worth winning a few minutes later - the wine. Too bad we don't drink it.

The kids also got their faces painted. Emily had a little butterfly, too, but had to wash it off since she was starting to feel an allergic reaction to the paint.




This was all at Audrey's fayre. On to Caleb's.

They won practically nothing. Just little random sweets. But there was a room with a large garage sale-type setup. Everything you could fit into a bag for £2. And they had a set of scales. We decided it would be handy when we start packing up and have to be aware of the 50 pound limitation. So Steve got that, 2 Park Lane Primary sweatshirts for Caleb (that's his school), and a set of child's swim fins. Then we went over to the kids' section and got a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stuffed character (Donatello, in case anyone cares) and a naked Princess Jasmine Barbie. I encouraged Audrey to choose her since she ended up with extra clothes from the last fayre. Julie got a baby tamborine. I wish we'd found the tamborine when we first got there - Julie was bored and screamed the whole time until we gave her Steve's keys to play with. Connor, Audrey, and Caleb all saw Father Christmas and were given gifts. They each got a book. Faces were also painted.





I'm signing off now. I need to get ready for church.

How Many More Marvelous Days?

Not long now until we go home. I'm starting to feel "pre-packing stress." I know that in some ways it will be much easier to pack to go home than it was to pack to get here. Especially since I've already sent back 2 large suitcases of stuff with Terry & Gwen. That will be a big help. Plus we'll have 2 more suitcases to use on the way home since we bought a full ticket for Julie, as opposed to just paying $200 to let her sit on our laps.

Speaking of Terry & Gwen, they left yesterday morning at 5.45 a.m. Steve drove them all to the airport and since we didn't hear otherwise, we assume they got on the plane and got home. We had a great time while they were here. See his blog http://drbubba.blogspot.com/ for more specifics about their visit. I think I'll have to print out that part of his blog when I print out my blog so that I can be lazy and just fill in the last 2 weeks with his input.

Speaking of printing out the blog, my plan is to print out the whole thing in chronological order and bind 3 copies of it - one for each kid to have when they get older. I've also gone to mypublisher.com and put together a picture album of our adventure from June through September and ordered 1 copy for each kid. They were shipped to my mom's house and she tells me that they look spectacular! That's always nice to hear. All I have to do now is get the September through December book ready to go and then wait for another sale to get them printed. I got a 50% coupon for the last set, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered.

Here's a statistic for you: out of the last almost 7 weeks, we've had house guests for 6. It's nice to get our house back. Everyone slept in their own room in their own bed last night.

It's raining now. It hailed for about a minute earlier when I was putting Julie down for her nap. I wouldn't have noticed it much except Julie has an angled ceiling with a window in the roof line. Did that make sense? Her window is not perpendicular to the ground but is at a 45 degree angle, so when the hail was coming down it was particularly loud in her room thanks to the window. We just had a nice loud clap of thunder and Audrey took 10 seconds out of her movie ("Aladdin") to act all scared. Yeah, right.

Today is Caleb's school's Christmas Bazaar. Audrey's school's was Wednesday. We got a haul at that one. We took a picture of all the stuff we won, but I'm going to wait to post it until we come back from Caleb's. We'll see if we're as lucky at this one. I think we might also go bowling late this afternoon with Cindy, Jarrett, & Connor. We haven't really got to see them much over the last couple of weeks, but we did have Thanksgiving dinner with them.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, it was very anti-climactic. Steve worked, we went to the grocery store, we returned the Adams' rental car, and then we ate at that great American institution, Chili's. We had such traditional Thanksgiving dinners as: hamburger, grilled chicken sandwich, creole pasta, shrimp, steak...you get the picture. Even though there was a pecan pie on the dessert menu, I don't think anyone ordered it. We all got chocolate things, except Connor, who got cheesecake. I'm not sure if Cindy got something, but I know that if she did it contained neither chocolate nor dairy, so it might have been the pecan pie.

By the way - I bought the copyrights to Julie's pictures, so feel free to print out as many as you want. Those are the only 2 that I bought since any more would have been ridiculously expensive.

I'm going to sign off now. But before I do, look what I found in Audrey's bag this week:

!!*M*A*R*V*E*L*O*U*S*!!

The 9 month pictures.

I like London; It's Marvelous!

Yesterday I spent the day in London with Gwen and Emily. We had a great time! We started by riding the train to Paddington Station. We had to buy our tickets from a real live person, as opposed to the ticket machine, because the machines weren't reading our credit cards. But it turned out well, even though we had to wait in line for a bit. We ended up getting the "family rate" which was 2 adults and 1 child. Gwen's and my tickets were each £16.40, but Emily's was only £1! How cool is that? We got Travelcards, which were also good on the London tube.

After tickets, we got hot drinks at a coffee shop before getting on the train. We also got a chocolate roll thing that was like a pain au chocolat (croissant with chocolate) but much better. We had to wait about 15 minutes for our train, which doesn't sound bad, but it was 31 degrees F and VERY chilly. We kept making Emily stand where the sun would shine on her.

On the train, we sat by an older man (maybe in his 60s) named Malcolm. As we chatted with him, we learned that he used to be a jockey. We also learned that he was going to New Zealand in a month's time for 5 weeks to visit his brother. It was a nice chat.

At Paddington Station, Gwen got a picture of Emily with Paddington, then we looked at the Paddington souvenir stuff, made a pit stop at the pay restroom (20p each), then got on the tube to Baker Street to hop a tour bus.

At Baker Street we had to wait a bit for a bus, so Gwen and Emily popped into a souvenir shop, but had to abandon their prospective purchases because a bus arrived. At first there wasn't room for us to ride up top because it was so crowded, but after the Picadilly Circus stop there was room for us to move up. It was chilly up there, too!

We got off at St. Paul's Cathedral to see if there was really a "feed-the-birds-tuppence-a-bag lady" there. Like in Mary Poppins. While we didn't see her, we did see a couple of interesting things: 1 - preparations for filming for a movie called "Run, Fat Boy, Run" (your guess is as good as mine on this one) and 2 - a man ringing a bell on the steps of the cathedral then running across the street. Again, your guess is as good as mine.

After we looked around back at the cathedral, we walked a couple of blocks to the west to a little place called Bow Lane. Not very significant to anyone, except that my ancestor Simon Hammond lived there in the late 1500s. He lived near St. Mary le Bow church. I got pictures of both! How cool is that?This is the southern end of Bow Lane. You can see the church steeple through the trees.

St. Mary le Bow.

I think the only thing left from the time of Simon is the cobblestone street itself. There was a huge fire in 1666 that pretty much wiped out all of the thatch and timber homes.

After this we walked back to St. Paul's and I had to use a public pay potty. It was weird.

I think the pictures speak for themselves.


We got back on the bus and went to the Tower of London. Ate at KFC, decided not to listen to the Yeoman Warder (Beefeater) on the guided tour, and went straight to the shops then the Crown Jewels. After the Crown Jewels, we got back on a bus and headed back to town.

Uuummmm....I'm trying to play checkers with Caleb and write at the same time. He's beating me.

Got off the tour bus beside the Thames, then hopped a tube over to Westminster. As we emerged from the tube, we were greeted by Big Ben - huge and imposing. We walked over to Westminster Abbey and got pictures of St. Margaret's Church. This is where Mr. Simon got married.

Then on the bus again. We were hoping to go past Buckingham, but ended up only going past the side. Bummer. After this, we hopped off, got on the tube and rode over to Trafalger Square to have tea in the Cafe in the Crypt at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. We had tea on dead people, as Emily put it. Each of us had a scone as big as a fist with clotted cream and jam, a slice of chocolate cake, and a slice of madiera cherry and almond cake. All in all, very tasty.

By this time it's 6.30 and PITCH DARK. It started getting dark at 4.00. Sundown this weekend was at 4.18, I believe. Yikes. We still have a month of darkness!

After tea, we hopped another tube to the London Eye and took a ride on it. It's cool at night. Plus it was a clear night, so we really got to see a lot of lights. The other 5 people in the capsule with us were from the U.S. It was 2 college students (originally from San Francisco, but Hoosiers now, and one is studying in France) and a family from Virginia. The dad is British, but has lived in the States for 7 years. The son, Alan, was 5 yesterday. Imagine Audrey times 2. Not Little Miss Axe Murderer mode, but energetic mode. That was Alan. VERY full of life.

Off the eye, into a souvenir shop.

Out of the shop several £s later and on the tube to Buckingham. The problem with taking a tube to Buckingham Palace is that there's not really a tube station near the palace. There are 3 that are equidistant - Victoria Station, St. James' Park, and Green Park. We chose Green Park. We should have chosen Victoria Station. I'll use some adjectives to describe the walk from the tube station to the palace: dark, deserted, lonely. One more adjective describes a 5-minute segment of our walk that doesn't describe the other 15 minutes: scary. We had to take a little jaunt through the edge of St. James' Park and it was dark, lonely, deserted AND scary. We walked FAST and Emily asked if we could walk even faster. Gwen and I both said later that we were holding our bags in such a way as to weild them as weapons if needed.

Buckingham. 9.30 p.m. Dark. I was so tired by this point. Gwen and Emily were, too. They got a couple more pictures, then we decided that we would hail a taxi.

Sweet relief.

Taxi back to Paddington.  £10. Worth it. McDonald's for late dinner. £2.99. Mostly worth it. Bus home at 10 p.m. We were so tired. It was nice to see Steve waiting for us at the train station.

But then...Steve had a good movie on the telley ("Return of the King") and it was up to the point where Frodo loses his finger. If you're *that* close to the end, you might as well finish it, yeah?

I got to bed at 11.45. Not 2 hours later, Audrey wet the floor in the bathroom (we're not sure how it happened) and woke us, then Caleb came in and woke us after a bad dream, and Julie felt the need to feed, so we didn't sleep all that well.

Caleb is at home again today. He still has the squirts. I'm really going to concentrate on getting him medicated today and filled with binding food.

The mail just came and the 2 big kids each got a letter. Caleb opened his and we read a letter from Nana. Audrey's is waiting for her to get home from school in a bit.

I need a shower.

I Just Had a Marvelous Cookie!

So Gwen, Emily, Julie and I were going to go to London today...but it's 2.31 p.m. as I sit in my lounge writing this. Emily has had a fever for the last couple of days and Caleb's "thin dirties" have not improved any. Gwen and I went to the grocery store this morning to get some more provisions and I got some quadruple chocolate cookies. They're *really* tasty. And I think I'm the only one who likes them, so even better!

Steve has gone over to Cindy's house to help Jarrett with some science homework this afternoon. I just bathed Julie - she had lunch all over her head - and the other kids are watching a Veggie Tales movie. When it's over, I'm going to take my 3 up to my room, put on a cd, and force them to lay still until they pass out. Or until I pass out. I don't care which, as long as people are unconscious.

Uuummmmm...we ate at TGI Friday's last night. Cindy and the kids joined us, so we had 12 people all together. I think everyone was pleased with their meals. Terry was so pleased he left the waitress (named Laura) a quarter for a tip. I wonder how many Americans eat there and leave American money? Just so you don't think Terry is a cheapskate, they added in 10% gratuity. We get off easy here with tips - 10% is generous.

I got Caleb some diarrhea medicine today at the store. I had to ask the pharmacist and she pulled some little kid Kaopectate-type stuff out from behind the counter. I almost didn't ask her, but I'm glad I did. Hopefully we can get him back to normal and back to school. He missed all of last week. Steve thinks that this malady might be Caleb's "curse" since we've dealt with this kind of sickies with him since he was 8 months old. Rota virus.

Julie has a new game now when she eats mushy food - she gets some in her hands and then makes little fists and squeezes as hard as she can. I think it's cute and I chuckle, but Steve fusses at me for "encouraging" her. I suppose he's right, but it's just too funny! She also likes to make popping noises with her mouth and shake her head "no." Not at the same time. I would be massively impressed with her motor skills if she could do that!

That's it for now. Veggie Tales is almost over and I want to go to sleep. Or I want them to go to sleep. I'm not picky.

My Marvelous Son and His Money

Ok - back to the money...

Yesterday we decided that since Caleb was home from school but was perky and not acting sick, we'd go to the Reading Museum. Steve went to work and the rest of us rode a bus to the train station then walked about 2 blocks to the museum.

We had a nice time learning about Reading. There used to be a big biscuit company here called Huntley & Palmers and it was world famous. Reading came to be known as "Biscuit Town" because of the biscuit factory.

It was cool watching Caleb - he really got into it. They have these clipboards that they let kids use and they give them paper and pencils. Caleb wrote down everything he saw. He sounded out the words and got pretty close on most of them. I translated on the pages so that if we keep the pages we'll know what he saw.

We ate lunch there at the museum. Gwen and her girls had jacket potatoes (baked potatoes), my kids split a cheese sandwich, and Terry and I each ordered tapas - Spanish "pub food" as Steve so delicately told us. We each got 6 different things - fried prawns, vegetable fritter, some kind of fish cake, some kind of croquette-things, spicy meatballs, and something with fried onions and zucchini. I ordered a 2-person order and shared with my kids. Terry ordered a one-person order and went at it alone.

After lunch we went back into the museum to finish looking at stuff we hadn't yet seen - we went into their "Box Room" - a place where visitors are encouraged to pick up and touch different things from the museum's collections. Caleb liked the microscope and put just about everything underneath it for scrutiny. Audrey just liked picking up a Tibetan bell and ringing it. Good thing it had a nice ring.

Done with the museum - headed out to the shopping area in Reading.

We wanted to get a cell phone for the Adams - got a Nokia, but I'm still trying to figure out if they can use it in the States if they unlock it.

Then we went into the mall and got the kids and Terry an ice cream. Hindsight being 20/20, that probably wasn't the smartest decision we made yesterday. Gwen and I got coffee at Starbucks. But Gwen had to re-order her coffee because the Eastern European employees didn't understand that she just wanted a medium cup of coffee in a large cup so she could "doctor" it like she wanted. They kept trying to give her a medium Americano coffee (already with milk) in a large cup. She wanted to put her own milk in. And I discovered that my favorite coffee, a breve latte, likely doesn't exist over here. It's made with half-and-half in the States. What's the UK equivalent of that? Oh well - probably better that I didn't get it with heavy cream - more fattening.

On to the Disney Store. While T&G and the kids (except Julie) were there, I wanted to go to a photo kiosk to upload some pictures from a memory stick that I've been needing to get printed for several weeks now. BOTH machines at BOTH ends of the mall were broken. Grrr. That's irritating.

Back to the Disney Store. By this time, Caleb has his money out and is on the prowl. He had £3.07 (I guess he lost 3p somewhere - oh well). He kept picking stuff up that was too much. We finally settled on a punch-out "board" game from the movie "Cars." To give you an idea of the size and material of the game, it was with the coloring books and is made from the same stuff that covers of coloring books are made of.

Outside the mall to the bus. We missed one bus because there were already 3 strollers on the bus and we had 2. So we took the little girls out of the strollers, put Julie in the front pack, gathered up the stuff that was in/on the strollers, folded them, and waited for the next bus. We all pile on, the strollers get stowed, Terry sits downstairs and the rest of us head upstairs. About 4-5 minutes from home, Caleb tells me he doesn't feel well. Great. So we take his game out of the bag and now he has a lovely Buzz Lightyear Disney Store bag to puke in.

Thankfully he doesn't puke on the bus. We all get off and across the street to the house. As I'm fishing for the keys, I look up and there's a rather large puddle of what once was the contents of Caleb's tummy right in front of the door. I pull my turtleneck sweater up over my nose and help get everyone inside then Terry and I use a mop bucket and a watering can I found in the garage to wash the stuff away. Not 10 minutesafter we finish, Steve gets home.

Long story short, Steve has it now. It's 7.52 a.m. and he's upstairs sleeping. He had planned on taking today off anyway so we could all go to Portsmouth to see the HMS Victory, but I don't think that will happen. I do know that we are going to get Terry over to a private hospital this morning to get a blood test done that he needs for his doctor to regulate his medication.

I'm going to go now and beat my children. Or child. Caleb has turned into a surly teenager and I want to kill him. Sick or not.

Marvelous. (Said with *much* sarcasm)

It's 7.30 a.m. Caleb is staying home from school. Again.

At 4.23 a.m. I hear a little voice saying, "Mommy." Here's the conversation:

-Mommy.
-What Caleb?
-Mommy, I have 2 things to tell you.
At this point I'm thinking that he's probably had a bad dream. He's had those lately.
-What. Note the lack of a question mark. It wasn't a question "What?" but more of a confirmation that I was still awake at this point. Like you'd say "right" or "left" when someone asked you which way to turn at the end of the street.
-The first thing is that I threw up. The second thing is that I left my money in my jeans.
I'm amazed that the child can be so blase about throwing up. At least it was his "first" thing and not his "second" thing. And the money? What's up with that? It was at least 8 hours before.
-WHAT? Did you make it to the toilet?

At this point I'll stop the dialogue. He threw up 3 times in his bed. THREE TIMES. Why does the child not think to make it to the toilet? What is up with that? At the first sign of maybe getting a bit ill, Audrey runs to the potty, but Caleb pukes all over himself and his bed. Nasty. At least I'm not the designated puke parent. That's Steve's job.

So 3 little puddles of puke. He had been sleeping in his Spongebob sleeping bag that the Adams fetched from home for us, so it, his jammies and his "pee pad" (the pad he sleeps on to protect his bedding) were tossed in the washer. I need to go put them all in the dryer now.

And eat breakfast. And get my "morning happiness" - coffee.

My Son Is Marvelous

He unloaded the dishwasher all by himself without me asking him to.

He came up with the idea on his own. This after a morning full of nasty replies to my requests and a disrespectful attitude.

Wow

Marvelous Everyday-ness

As I write this, I'm sitting in the lounge with Caleb, Julie, and Elizabeth. Emily is still upstairs asleep, as is Gwen, Terry is making a glass of tea, and Steve has taken Audrey to school. Caleb is home from school for the second day in a row because of diarrhea. They want kids to stay home for 48 hours after "bugs" hit to make sure they don't infect anyone else. Sunday he had 2 bouts.

We got the Adams a vehicle yesterday from National - the same people that took forever with Cindy and Alan (on two separate occasions it took HOURS) took only about 10 minutes with the Adams. Unbelievable. But that was a good thing since I had all 5 kids in the van with me.

Went to the grocery store - finally. I had been trying to get to the store since Friday. This time Terry stayed in the van with all 5 kids and Gwen and I popped in and got food. I stocked up on my very favorite thing - chocolate-covered cornflake clusters. And I talked to a man who was buying licorice with his 2- or 3-year-old daughter for her "Grandad Tom" in Canada. Apparently Grandad Tom can't get licorice in Canada. So, being the nosy person that I am, I stopped and said, "He can't get licorice in Canada?" and we started a long conversation about what English foods people can't get in Canada or the states. I'm thinking that it must have been a certain brand of licorice because I know that you can get the nasty stuff in the states. He said that when they go over for Christmas, they take a whole suitcase of chocolate and other foodstuffs. Interesting. As I walked away I heard the little girl say, "Who was that?" and her dad said, "Just a very nice lady." How sweet!

I think today the Adams are going to go to Windsor. I don't think they thought we were as close as we are - only about 30-45 minutes. That should be a fun trip for them.

I can't really think of anything more to write about...oh - Terry went with Steve last night to play skittles at AWE. They were gone for about 3 hours. They had a good time. I don't think I posted any pictures from when Steve last went, so I'll put some up now.

The top picture shows the other team resetting the pins after somebody on Steve's team bowled. The next picture shows a ball going into the pins, and the final picture shows what actually goes on during a skittles game. The bloke at the far L of the bottom picture is Richard, the man Steve is working with. Richard's wife, Val, is Audrey's teacher at her nursery school. Val told Steve that she refuses to play skittles because the pace is much too slow for her taste.

So they played skittles last night.

I think this is all for now. When interesting things happen, I'll let you know. Or when normal things happen, I'll let you know. Or when Audrey makes her mark on the world, I'll let you know.

It's Marvelous to Have Friends From Home Here!

We are having a wonderful time with the Adams! Elizabeth had a rough time last night getting to and staying asleep, but the 4 Adams awoke much more refreshed and feeling better than they were on Saturday. We ate lunch at Chili's and messed around the mall this afternoon.

Elizabeth is getting so big! She's over 2 now and is talking so much! It's so odd! She was just barely starting to put words together when we left and now she's talking lots. Emily has grown so much, too. It feels so nice to have them here - normal somehow. And yet it feels so weird.

I'm so drowsy right now. I awoke this morning to the *lovely* sound of Audrey screaming at Caleb downstairs in the lounge. Our door was shut and I could *still* hear her. She was yelling at Caleb because she wanted to watch "Fun Song Factory" on TV but he wanted to watch the sports show that was on (huh?). It was before 7 a.m. and I was NOT ready to be awake. I don't know if I was more irritated with Audrey for yelling or Caleb for ignoring her. He has started this thing where he just ignores her. I think he figures that if he doesn't acknowledge that she's even talking to him, he doesn't have to acknowledge that there's a conflict that needs to be resolved.

Speaking of Audrey, I have a new nickname for her: the Princess of Dead Horse Beating. Terry was amazed at her ability to make the same demand for at least 30 minutes. She wanted a piece of leftover pizza for lunch. We had none. This did not deter the little princess.

-I want a piece of pizza.
-Audrey, we don't have any pizza.
-Ok, but I want pizza for lunch.
-Sweetheart, there is none.
-But I want some.
-Caleb had the last piece.
-(with tears and a pout) Mommy, I want pizza. Cheese pizza.
-THERE IS NO PIZZA, Audrey.
-Mummy, I-WANT-A-PIECE-OF-PIZZA.

This went on for 30 minutes. At least. I don't remember what I finally did to change the subject, but I know I did something because otherwise she'd still be asking for pizza.

I'm very drowsy now, so I'm going to bed now. I just wanted to report Audrey's talent for stretching a 3-second question into a 30-minute diatribe. How precious. :[

Marvelous News!

1 - The Adams made it safely! Whoopee!!!
2 - The Baldridge kids LOOOOOOVE their new school! http://prospectus.dolphinschool.net/index.html
3 - CINDY HAS A PLACE TO LIVE! This is after 5 days of total misery with house-hunting. More on #3 later.

Off to visit with the Adams!

Wednesday. My Not-So-Marvelous Ear

My throat is fine, as is Steve's. My left ear, however, is causing me some discomfort. Audrey is fine, Julie is fine, and so far, Caleb is fine. Jarrett hasn't gotten sick yet, either, but Connor and Cindy both went to the doctor on Monday. Connor's antibiotics seem to be working, but Cindy's don't seem to be working. Connor and Jarrett and trying out their new school today. By the end of the day, they'll know if this will be their school while in England. Hopefully it will be and Cindy can go forward with their arrangements for their apartment.

It's colder today - overcast and chilly. It misted a bit this morning, too.

On to other adventures. My newest 2 weird things: crispy seaweed and toothpaste with lichen. Last night we had Chinese takeout and I wanted to try #1 on the menu - crispy seaweed. Very salty. Good as a garnish, but not as a plain forkful. Yikes. The toothpaste I'm trying out now is Italian and is made with Arctic lichen. Based on its Latin name, it's something from Iceland. It's supposedly what "Arctic residents" have used for millenia to keep their teeth as blindingly white as the snow. Or whatever.

Julie is yelling, so I need to go.

The Kids Thought Halloween Was Marvelous

I thought it was lame. We waited until after dark (5.15), then waited some more to make sure other people were trick-or-treating. Finally at 6.00, I took the kids out because I saw ONE mom with her kid. In a nutshell, we went to maybe 12 houses in the span of 45 minutes. Steve and Julie stayed at the house because he was sick and she was asleep. He said that there were maybe 12-15 trick-or-treaters that came by. We have a lot of gummi bears left. But that's ok.

I learned from one of Caleb's teachers (who we chanced to encounter just after we left the house) that the "go ahead" signal for trick-or-treaters over here is a jack-o-lantern in the window. Not the porch light on, like at home. Hmmm. Different. Good thing Steve had let the kids carve one, I guess. It was on the front porch when we left home.

We didn't encounter but maybe 5 other trick-or-treaters. The other costumes were all spooky scary ones - not cutsey ones like my kids. Oh well.

I'm going to go now. It's waaay after my lunch and I'm hungry!

The Nightmarish and So Totally Not Marvelous Trip Home From Warwick

When we loaded into our 2 vehicles to leave Warwick Castle, we agreed that instead of going straight home via the motorway, we would go through a village that had some miniature shops that sounded pretty cool. It took us about 45 minutes to get there. When we arrive and find a nice big car park (with free public toilets), we learn from the other vehicle that Cindy has a migraine and needs to get home ASAP.

Ok. So no miniature shops. No big deal. My big focus right now is getting home as expediently as possible, which might be a problem since we are having to go around Oxford at 5.00, but I'm hoping for the best and Steve and I just don't mention it while we're driving. But we're both thinking it.

We get almost all the way around Oxford on their Ring Road (the loop) and then meet with disaster. We had just gotten off the phone with the other car and have learned that we need to make a potty stop as soon as we can. No big deal. We're about 6 miles away from the motorway services. We're about 4 miles from the access to the motorway. So we should be there in 10 minutes tops.

I'll spare you the excruciating details and just tell you that it took us 1 hour to go 1 mile. There was construction and a roundabout at rush hour traffic. Either on its own wouldn't have slowed us down so dramatically, but both together were a nightmare. We never did get to the motorway. When we *finally* got to the roundabout we decided to take a "through the country" route because we had been listening to the radio and had learned that there were 2 different accidents on the motorway that would further hamper our progress.

After some massive irritation about the lack of markings or access to the Burger King that we spotted, we made it to the BK. By now it's almost 6.00 and all of the kids have to go to the loo. Not to mention the grownups. So we all pile out and hustle in. After I took Audrey and then got her settled with Lynette, I looked around and realized that NOBODY HAD JULIE.

My heart stopped.

I trucked it back out to the van and peeked in through the very dark tinted windows. She was in there, happy as a clam. *HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF* I can't believe all 3 grownups in our car went off and left her. At least it was locked and she wasn't making any noise to attract attention. But still...

We got dinner at the BK then all loaded back up. It took us 30 minutes to get back to Henley-on-Thames to deliver the Baldridges, then another 25-ish minutes to get back to our house. Lynette and Nancy completed their gathering and packing to prepare to leave the next morning at 6.00 a.m. to catch their flight home.

Friday dawned on Steve driving Lynette and Nancy to the airport (got there without any problems, then got home as Lynette posted earlier), the other 4 Nolens sleeping, and the Baldridges sleeping and recuperating (Cindy, at least was recuperating). Later that day I had to take Julie to her 9-month photo shoot.

The photographer was amazing! She probably took between 150-200 pictures of Juju. And Juju was adorable! I knew that this would be tough to pick photos later. And it was. I ended up going back on Wednesday and I had a heck of a time picking. I ended up getting 2 different poses and will post those when I get the cd I bought.

Anyway, Steve talked to Cindy & company while I was out with Julie and they made plans for dinner. At least, they made plans for us to go to Henley for dinner. Before we went out that way, though, we took the kids to a fancy dress shop to get their Halloween costumes. We ended up with a knight and a fairy princess. I got Julie's kitty costume later, but since I'm posting pictures, I'll include her, too.

The purple hat on Audrey is the Halloween hat she made at school. She insisted on wearing it in the picture. I managed to get her to leave it at home when we went trick-or-treating. But that's another story. I do need to say that Caleb isn't just any old knight, he's St. George. As in the one that killed the dragon here in England. Caleb is completely smitten with anything to do with George and the dragon. Hence his fondness for the pub of the same name.

So after we got the costume stuff for the kids, we headed to Henley. The cousins played for a bit before we walked over to an Italian restaurant for dinner. It was fabulous! It was so tasty! It will be getting my business again. Terry and Gwen, be prepared for us to drag you to this Italian restaurant. I loved it! Sparky's Mom wanted me to be sure to include that we actually ate food that wasn't Indian and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Saturday...I'm trying to remember what we did...oh yeah! The Baldridges were going into London and they wanted to leave their van here and catch the train in. So Steve took care of ferrying them to the station. I think we mostly just hung out here at the house. We might have gone to the grocery store, but I don't really remember. Sunday was just hanging out. We didn't go to church, but I forget our lame excuse.

Steve had been feeling weird for a few days, but he marked it up to being nervous about missing 2 weeks of work. So he spent the day just resting and I think being a little stressed about going back to work. After he picked up the Baldridges from the train station on Sunday evening, we all went to an Indian restaurant and enjoyed the buffet.

Monday dawned. Back to our routine. Steve to work, dropping off Audrey at school. April and Julie walking Caleb to school, April taking care of Monday morning stuff. I was expecting the Baldridges sometime in the morning to come by and drop off some of their stuff, since they were checking out of their cottage and heading to Scotland for a couple of days. But what I wasn't expecting was Steve to come home from work before lunch.

As I've posted, Steve was pretty sick and missed work for several days. I finally convinced him to go to the doctor on Wednesday and that's when the doctor said he had a "bonger" of an infection. I woke up Thursday feeling like rubbish, so he made me go to the doctor and take Julie with me since she had been feverish for the whole day. She and I got in at 5.30 p.m. and were both prescribed antibiotics - her for bronchitis-like symptoms and me for tonsillitis. The Baldridges had returned late Wednesday night and were staying with us until their return to Paris on Thursday, so they were able to help watch kids and get dinner while Steve took me and Julie to the doctor then to get the prescriptions filled.

Friday I ended up still feeling yucky, but I didn't want to walk Caleb to school, so we were back to our old routine of me driving everyone. Actually, Steve drove us to his work, then I drove back. On the way to his work, I realized that Caleb had been the last one out the front door and hadn't shut it. So we had a wide open front door waiting for us. And it was letting *very* cold air in. Then after we dropped Steve off and were about 5 minutes away from the lab, I realized I had his office keys on the van key chain. Great. I couldn't turn around because we were cutting it close to get Caleb to school as it was. So I tried calling him a couple of times but, of course since I had his keys, I wasn't expecting him to be in the office.

So I'm making plans to drop off Caleb, swing by the house, grab Steve's antibiotics that he forgot, shut the front door, then drive all the way back out to AWE to give Steve his keys. But about 5 minutes after I realized I had the keys, the "fill van soon" light came on. Lovely. We've been using the lab credit card to fill the van since they pay for gas. I can't use the card because it's in Steve's name and I didn't really want to use our personal card to fill up. It would be about $120. We would be reimbursed, of course, but I still didn't want to do it. So I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to do this and if I have enough diesel in the van to get back out to AWE after I drop off Caleb.

Get Caleb dropped off in a timely manner (thankfully).

Get home and get hold of Steve simultaneously. He got a key from the secretaries and doesn't need me to come back. *sigh of relief* He also arranged for a coworker to bring him home. *another sigh of relief*

Now for a Caleb story. On Wednesday when I was driving out to the other side of Reading to look at Julie's pictures, I got a phone call from the secretary at his school. His shoe had broken and did he have another set I could pop over to the school? Well, he has another pair, but I can't take them over since I'm on the other side of Reading. No bother, are you happy for him to stay inside during break time and read books? Yes, I'm fine with that, and tell him I'm sorry and we'll get this sorted this evening.

Turns out there was a fire drill and Caleb had to go outside sock-footed. He was upset and cried. After school I dropped Audrey and Julie back at home with an ill Steve and took Caleb to the shoe shop and got him another pair of shoes. I find out during this little excursion that his nemesis, Kyle the pencil bully, had loaned Caleb his P.E. shoes to wear for the afternoon. Miss Pells had given Kyle 4 stickers to say she was proud of him. I decided to send a packet of gummi bears and a little note the next day to tell Kyle thanks for sharing and being a good friend. After Miss Pells read the note to Kyle, he hugged Caleb (!) and told him he would bring a packet of sweeties from his Halloween candy to share with Caleb.

So Friday after all the confusion of getting everyone to school, Kyle's mom hands me a little bag of Malteasers (like Whoppers) and tells me that Kyle insisted and that she doesn't want Caleb to get in trouble for having a bag of sweeties at school.

I'm amazed at what God has done with this situation with Kyle. Every day on our way to school, Caleb and I pray that God would show Caleb how to be a friend to Kyle and that he would show Kyle how to be a friend to Caleb. God has really used this situation to hopefully bring some joy into Kyle's life (I think he might have some bigger issues), to teach Caleb that when we pray, God hears and answers, and to teach me that nothing is too small or trivial for God's careful attention. I need to really make an effort to teach the kids this by helping them pray for things going on in their lives. Like the pencil bully. What a cool testimony for a 5-year-old to have!

Audrey is insisting that she needs some medicine, so I better go and figure out what's going on with her. Next entry: Halloween.

My Marvelous Little Dino

My profile pic was taken back in June after the kids' joint b-day party. Caleb thought Julie needed a makeover.

More Marvelousness

In the words of Caleb, "I misspoke." No kidding. The kid actually says that. The trip to Stonehenge was Tuesday, October 24. Monday was spent getting Cindy & Alan's rental car and cell phones to use in the UK. You would think this wouldn't take more than an hour or so, but it took 3 hours just to get the car. No joke. Talk about a nightmare! But they finally got everything sorted and got a nice big van. Post-van they got a cell phone, then we all went to eat a very late lunch (or slightly early tea) at Chili's. Then we did some looking around and shopping at the Oracle Mall, where the little kids got to spend the commission money they've earned for doing household chores. The each had £10 to spend. Audrey got 2 princess ballerina Barbies (Belle and Briar Rose a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty) and Caleb got 3 of the 4 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in ninja knight gear. He has Leonardo, Donatello, and Michelangelo No Raphael. The Barbies were undressed by the time we got home little under an hour later. Big surprise. We also helped Cindy and Alan get to their cottage in Henley-on-Thames that night. The backdoor opened up to a patio that was about 10 feet from the river. Pretty.

Tuesday was the Stonehenge/Portsmouth trip like I mentioned earlier. Tuesday night the kids and Steve worked on the pumpkin for Halloween.


Wednesday was the finale of the adventure that the Nolen 5 had begun back in July: Warwick Castle. We went to see the Mighty Trebuchet. We knew that there were 2 shows and that the first one was at noon. We got there early and ended up having to wait about 20 minutes, but at least we got there in enough time to get a decent place to stand to watch it.


The bottom picture is the trebuchet in mid-launch. Steve caught it on the upswing. Talk about a cool weapon! The trebuchet has over 300 pieces and is moved in those pieces to and from battles. No nails or glue was used - just wooden pegs and wedges. When the trebuchet was assembled for the first time, each joint was marked with symbols that the common non-literate man could understand so that when it was disassembled, it would be easy to reassemble. They would have anywhere from 50 to 200 trebuchets at a battle because it takes about 15 minutes to get the thing loaded and ready to launch. Those 2 big wheels at the base are used to wind the thing up. Two men are in each wheel and they walk in the wheel to tighten the ropes that pull the arm down. They're like big hamster wheels. Apparently in cranes that used this technology in the medieval ages, they used blind people to man the wheels because when you walked in the wheels it was very likely that you would get sick. Anyway, they flung a pumpkin way the yaw (my own personal term used to describe a far distance) down the river. It was cool. We got it on video.

After the trebuchet, we went into the castle and immediately took the kids on the Troll Trail. They had this, face painting, and some other things going on for Halloween. Anyway, along the Troll Trail there were places to stop and read info about trolls concerning stuff like dandruff, ear wax, bogeys, etc. Nasty. And there were trivia questions about trolls. Here are a few:

What ride does a troll like best at the amusement park? A troll-er coaster.

What kind of music does a troll like best? Rock and troll.

What is a troll's favorite sweet? A troll-ipop.

What do you call a troll's vacation? A troll-iday.

I'm not sure if there were more - this is all I can remember. Anyway - at the top of the troll trail we met a troll. Audrey was skittish, but Caleb was fearless. Especially after I recognized the "troll" as the guy who had said that Caleb was his favorite customer on the day we went back in July.

Making troll faces.

After the troll trail, Steve and I stood in line with our 3 kids plus Connor to get their faces painted while the other adults and Jarrett looked around the castle. There was one lady painting faces and we weren't that far back in the line but it took us an HOUR to get all 3 kids to the front of the line and their faces painted. They had the choice of a fairy, a giant, or a troll. We ended up with 2 fairies and a troll. The girls had glitter on their little frou-frous and Caleb ended up with 3 brown warts. The paint lasted until the next morning, but most of his green was gone - he just looked a little jaundiced around the temples. Audrey's was mostly intact the next morning.

That's all I'm going to write for now. Our trip home from Warwick was an absolute NIGHTMARE, so I'll save that for the next entry.

P.S. Audrey is getting sick now. Maybe the tonsillitis....

Will This Be the End of the Marvelous Paris Tale?

Hopefully I can sit long enough to finish the Paris story before I have to go get Caleb from school. Steve is back at work today, although most minor things that could have gone wrong this morning getting everyone sorted did go wrong - but that's for another entry. Or at least later in this entry.

So I think I had gotten our little group to the cafe. After we placed our order (spaghetti for Connor, a burger for C&A to split, tomato & mozzarella salad for me, and a Nutella crepe for Steve), Audrey fell asleep in Steve's lap. This answers part of the question of where my sweet little Audrey had gone and why this little terror was in her place. We woke her up long enough to eat some of the burger and french fries - they don't call them french fries in France. I think they were just "chips."

We all make a stop in the pay toilets at the restaurant and head out to get back to the hotel. We have a little time, so we ended up stopping in 2 different tourist-y shops on the way back. I got t-shirts for all 3 kids and Caleb found a great DVD that has over 100 photos of Paris on it. What a find! It has some annoying music in the background, but I can live with that. I also got a small handful of postcards to send to my grandmothers and my brother and parents. I even got stamps and stamped them thinking we would have plenty of time to find a postbox before we got on the Eurostar.

I'll end that part of the story right now. I actually finished writing the cards back in the UK and had to post them from here. So those in my family who got postcards - notice the 2 different stamps. I was bound and determined to use the French stamps because I bought the darn things and otherwise I'd just have to throw them away.

We got back into the Metro and immediately ran into a lot of problems: we couldn't get through the gates because there weren't employees manning them, we didn't know which tickets to use because they have this weird time-stamp system that we didn't quite master while we were there, we got on the right subway but went the wrong direction...at one point I was writing on the darned post cards and wasn't holding on to the bar. I was standing up (the stupid subways were PACKED on a Saturday afternoon - whooda thunk it?) when we stopped suddenly. All of the stops and starts are sudden and without warning. I went flying and clobbered a lady right behind me. All I remember is that a man grabbed my hand, Steve grabbed my arm, and I stomped all over this lady's leopard-print pointy-toed shoes. Oops. Sorry, lady. Steve still had hold of my arm and I was yelling at him to let go and he was getting aggravated that I was yelling and I was frustrated and majorly embarrassed. So here we are - 2 Americans exchanging heated words. I was just mortified. That's my excuse. At this point we realize we're going the wrong direction, so we have to get off and try to head back the other way.

Sardines doesn't accurately describe how squished into each other we were on the subway. We finally made it to our stop and got to the hotel - 30 minutes late. Yikes.

We joined up with the Versailles group then headed out to the train station. We were walking and I was appointed leader. Why me? I didn't want to be the leader. I don't know French! I knew roughly where we were going, but I wasn't positive of the exact set of streets we needed to take. At one point, I abdicated my position to another and we were off again...down a wrong street. U-turn and lots of hustling.

We made it to the train station with 30 minutes to spare. No big deal. We get up to departures fine, then have to get our tickets out to get through the gates. No big deal. We thought. Nolens made it through ok. Lynette & Nancy made it through ok. Baldridges couldn't find their tickets. Talk about nerve-wracking! All this time, I am working on the "visitor to the UK" cards that we all have to fill out. I'm filling in our address on 11 cards. It takes longer than you might think, but I get it done. I'm not sure when we'll need to present them - on the flights from the US to the UK we have to present them when we deplane in the UK and go through customs (Terry & Gwen - make a note of this and have our address handy on the plane). Here, though, we have to present them before we get on the train. We all get up to the counter, the Baldridges having found their tickets, and present our passports to the guys there. I was so relieved to hear English being spoken with an English accent that I almost cried. Only Steve and I had our cards completely filled out, but the nice customs men said it was ok since our address was on all the other cards.

We got through customs fine, but Cindy was having trouble getting her customs man to understand that they had flown into Paris from Africa, were going to the UK, then were returning to Paris to fly back to Africa in 2 weeks. What's so hard about understanding that?

Now comes my absolute favorite part: security. Steve says they should give up trying to run a "tight ship" security-wise because, in his words, "it's not like they're airlines." Anyway, we put all 3 million pieces of luggage on the conveyor belt then walk through security. Why does it take 3 times as long to gather up from security than it does to actually put your stuff down and go through security?

Then we have to split up to get to our coaches. The Baldridges are in coach 16 and the rest of us are in coach 1. Since we're some of the last people on the train, Steve is having a tad bit of difficulty getting our luggage stowed. But we get seated fine. There's enough room in our coach this time for us to take up 6 seats instead of the 5 that we actually have tickets for. We are sitting in 2 sets of seats that are in groups of 4 that face each other over a little table. Lynette and Nancy are in the aisle seats of one group and the 5 Nolens are in the other group. Audrey sleeps a lot of the way home, Julie is half naked since her diaper leaked, and Caleb cat naps and spills my Diet Coke down the back of my leg. Lovely.

Fortunately we arrive in London without any problems. But when we get to London, we have a whole new set of problems. While we're unloading from coach 1, Connor comes skipping up to us and says, "Daddy just fell down the hole by the train." What? "Is he hurt?" "Yes." Skips off. Cindy is walking over to us also to get Steve to come over and help. So I put Caleb in charge of pushing Julie, I give the 2 smallest rolling bags to Audrey and Nancy, Lynette grabs the medium suitcase, and I get the big suitcase and the backpack. We trundle off down the platform to coach 16. I'm imagining a broken leg and lots of train employees. What we actually see is Alan sitting on a bench looking perfectly normal..

He ends up with a badly scraped shin, but he doesn't know the extent of it until late that night. He ends up wearing shorts for several days so that nothing rubs against the scabs. Yikes!

At this point we're splitting up. I'm going to drive the van with Lynette, Nancy, Audrey, Julie and all of the luggage while Steve and Caleb go with the Baldridges via the tube to Paddington station to catch a fast train to Reading. I'm fully expecting them to arrive in Reading before we do. We have an absolutely fabulous drive out of London! Some of wonderful things we saw were: the National Royal Theatre (or some such building) floodlit purple and green, West End theatres with lit up signs for Evita and Stomp, Herrod's decorated with large Christmas-type lights, and fireworks the whole way home. Seriously. As soon as we got out of London we could see fireworks on either side of the motorway.

As we get to Tilehurst, I stop at the grocery store to pick up some Indian food for dinner. I rush in and rush out because I'm expecting to get home to a message from Steve to come to the train station to pick them all up.

As soon as we walk in the door, the phone rings. Steve. No, he's not at the train station in Reading. He's still in London. By now it's 8.30 p.m. Somebody has jumped on the train tracks and gotten killed. This happens about once every couple of weeks or so. They won't be able to leave Paddington station until 9.30 or later. Lovely.

So they finally all get on the train (after having a steak dinner) and I get them from the train station. We get the Baldridges delivered to their hotel and get all of our crew tucked into bed.

Paris adventure over.

Sunday we do nothing.



Monday everyone but me and the little girls go to Stonehenge and Portsmouth. Steve is unimpressed with Stonehenge, but says the HMS Victory at Portsmouth was fabulous! I think I'd like to go there before we leave.



Connor, Cindy, & Alan at Stonehenge.

Jarrett, Caleb, & Connor at the HMS Victory. They got to go aboard and see the whole ship from stern to ... what's the term for the other end?

Anyway, they had a great time and we have some really cool pictures of them on board.

I'm signing off now. I've actually already gone and picked up Caleb from school, but now I only have about 10-20 minutes before we need to leave to go get Steve from work. I'm driving the van today since I'm still feeling icky. You can see the swelling in my tonsils from the outside. It's yucky. Steve says he's feeling much better, but I'm still feeling nasty. At least I'm not aching now. That only took 3 hours this morning to go away.

Cindy, Alan and their kids are in Paris again right now. Cindy and the kids will return to England on Sunday night and will begin to look for temporary accommodation and schools for the kids. They have been temporarily relocated from Africa since the rebels there aren't behaving. Instead of being evacuated every 6 weeks or so, they chose to just stay here. It will be really cool to have them nearby for the remaining time we're here. Caleb and Audrey just adore their older cousins. And Julie is smitten with both of them as well.

I need to go save Julie from the lounge door. She keeps opening it right into her forehead.

I Feel UnMarvelous and NonFabulous

Quick update:

We got Steve in to see the doctor yesterday - he was diagnosed with a "bonger infection" in his throat. His throat was massively sore and his tongue had turned white. Ewww. Anyway he got a prescription for amoxicillin that we got filled last night. He woke up feeling a little better and by this evening he is feeling much better and is planning on going to work tomorrow.

I feel like poo. I woke up to the wonderful sensation of a totally sore neck. I thought it might have been the way I slept (there were 2 kids in bed with me - more on that in a bit), but soon discovered that the glands in my neck were swollen and tender. I also had the aches and a horrible headache.

Julie slept later than usual - I thought that was a bit weird, but didn't suspect anything until after she got up from her morning nap with a 100+ fever. Uh oh. Steve insisted that she and I get in to see the doctor and we did - at 5.30. Our doctor's office is open until 6.30. Her ears and throat are clear, but she has baby bronchitis...I think. The doctor was a bit nonspecific - not to mention the thick Indian/English accent. Julie got a prescription for amoxicillin, too. Turns out I have tonsillitis. I got a prescription, too. So we think Steve has/had it also. The husband/wife Indian/British doctor couple were a tad hard to understand.

Anyway - everyone except Caleb is on antibiotics. Amoxicillin to be precise. Audrey got a prescription because the dentist we saw last week wanted to make sure that she didn't get an infection - so hopefully this will ward off any evil tonsillitis spirits that dare venture her direction.

Now about kids in my bed...Cindy, Alan and the kids returned from Scotland late last night and crashed at our house, so we put all 3 kids in our room (Julie was in the pack & play) and Steve slept in Caleb's bed. This way the twin beds in the girls' rooms were available for use as well as the couches downstairs. They've headed out to London for the night. They're going to catch the Eurostar to Paris, see Alan off to Africa, then Cindy and the kids will head back here. They have been given the choice to either stay in Chad with Alan and get evacuated every 6 weeks or so or be stationed elsewhere - England or France. How fortuitous! Cindy is already looking at schools for the kids (aged 10 and almost 13) and is working with the Exxon people in Houston for housing.

This is all for now. I have a headache and Steve tells me it's time for another dose of medicine.