2 months in....

Well, after promising I would update this blog on a weekly basis I realise I haven't actually done it for 3 weeks.  As we've only been here for 2 months this is very poor.  I will try and do better!

Its been our first bank holiday weekend here (as I know it is at home too) but ours is for Memorial Day to remember all the troops who have given their lives for the country, a sombre day you would think, but the park down the road still managed a big fireworks display last night!  It has been a lovely weekend though.  We went down to Monterey Bay on Saturday to go to the aquarium (pics on facebook to follow) and had a fab day.  We have spent the today with our new friends Greg and Emily, just hanging round in the sunshine (well the blustery sunshine) which too was great.  The 3 days have just been over a bit too quickly as back to the grindstone tomorrow, oh well.

I have to say that one of the most disappointing things about California so far has been the weather.  Early on we had a run of blisteringly hot days but since then its been pants.  Yes, its mainly been in the low 20's and we all have dirty looking tans (T especially looks like he needs a good bath!) but I have to admit I expected more, its California for gods sake!  Today started out like a British bank holiday but at 11 the sun broke through and it was pleasant but very windy and although some mad people braved the pool I certainly wouldn't have.  It rains and is cold cold at least once a week.  People keep telling me I'll start to moan when summer really starts (although I won't), however I am now fearful it won't start and we've brought the British weather with us!

My thoughts mainly this week have been dominated by houses.  I have come to the conclusion that we can only really be happy out here if we move.  As I originally wanted to do right from the start, I think we would be better off in Mountain View.  The schools are better and Sophia won't be in such a minority group, the journey to preschool will be 5 minutes instead of 20 and more than that we have met some lovely people that live in Mountain View and I feel we can be more part of the community than we are in Rivermark.  Its not been an easy decision, we've only just moved in, but having said that all our stuff is still in boxes and we'd just have to hire a van and we'd be good to go.  So anyway the landlord has been informed (pretty pissed off but thats life) and has already found new tenants!  Things are moving so fast that it is quite worrying about getting something else sorted out but having said that feel like a huge weight has been lifted just knowing that we can leave.  Operation house move now well and truly on, at least it will give me something to concentrate on!!

Sophia has now done 2 weeks of preschool and its been ok.  She is not that fussed about it and says that daddy and her both do their 'jobs' together, its just something she has to get through.  However I did know it would take time and she wouldn't settle in immediately, shes not that type of girl.  When I ask her if she's talked to any of the children she says 'I forgot!  I'll do it tomorrow'.  I initially was not that impressed with the preschool itself but she had a bit of a wobble this week (which was actually down to a dodgy tummy although we didn't know at the time) and they actually dealt with it really well.  Much better than at the start where when I picked her up she was sitting in a dark room whilst the rest of the kids 'napped'!  I think its a time will tell kind of thing.

I have got my driving teat tomorrow, am verrry nervous.  Its not that I can't do, I feel perfectly competent driving round every day but under pressure I feel sure I'm going to do something daft.  Everyone keeps telling me how easy it is which doesn't really make things any easier. Have also got 'well care' checks for both the kids tomorrow afternoon, and as I fear they are just going to tell me about all the jabs the children need (America and England differ greatly on immunisations!) am not especially looking forward to that either!

Although it has been 3 weeks since I updated this I don't feel there is a great more to say.  I am quite sadly looking forward to next week when Amercian Masterchef hosted by Gordon Ramsey starts!  And brand 'new' X factor with Mr Cowell starts in the fall, as we're now on our umpteeth series am feeling America is a bit behind the times!

The kids in general seem a bit happier.  Tommy is going through the 2 and half stage.  He looks like an angel. Bright white hair and brown as a berry however he is acting a bit more like a devil child.  Nothing is good enough and every sentence starts with 'I want!'  However little old ladies do cross the street to talk to him (and his tow head?).  Sophia is ok although I think if she could have an afternoon at Frasers or Brodens or Indis or Jessicas house it would make all the difference.  2 year olds are easily adaptable, 4 year olds are not!  She did have a lovely afternoon this week playing with a little boy called Ben (whos English!) but she still needs a few more friends.  I know it will happen (and for all of us) bit I'm not a very patient person so its still hard work!

Facebook is great but it does also inform you about all the things you are missing!  Love to everyone back in England, we miss you all so much xx

A week in the life of....

Tuesday 3rd May
Its boiling outside, and I know I should be doing the all American thing of letting the kids run through water sprinklers in some park, but quite frankly I can't be arsed!  The kids are happily watching some god awful American version of Thomas, where the fat controller (or Sir Topham Hat as he's called here, the fat controller is obviously not pc enough!) has a dreadful heavy northern accent but everyone else has an American accent.  Its just not right!  Still the kids don't seem to care much.

Last week was a hard one.  Was feeling very homesick and was starting to grow a bit of tired of 'meeting people' - is hard to be completely at ease when meeting up with people you don't know.  However all the people I've met have been lovely and as long as we keep going to things it should hopefully get easier and easier.  What's been even harder though is Sophia has suddenly starting talking loads about home and all the people and things she is missing.  She is seeming very bored with life and even said that she missed Morrisons!  So desperate to get her into preschool and making some of her own friends although am really hoping she will actually do this and not sit in a corner and draw!  Sophia and I have finally come to an agreement about which preschool she should attend (she wanted to go to one where the average age of the women that ran it must have been about 100! but it was quite similar in looks to Little Hands so she wasn't prepared to consider anything else!)  So we kept looking and have seen a fair few and have decided on a place called the Wonder Years.  Its quite formal in that there is maths lesson, english lesson, art lesson and drama lesson every morning (its more like school than school if you know what I mean!) but the people there seem nice and she can have her lunch and be picked up at 1 before the dreaded afternoon sleep!  She'll go 4 mornings a week and she'll start on May 17th.  She has agreed to go to this preschool over the other one because it has a metal tortoise statue outside the front!  Am really hoping that it will mark a turning point for her as if I'm really honest I don't think I will be able to feel settled until she is.

Wednesday 4th May
My favourite thing about California so far is the beautiful evenings and the 'holiday' smell of palm trees, suntan cream and sweet flowers that fills the air.  Even in our built up residential area you still get a whiff of this and I'm really enjoying going for a jog in the late afternoon sunshine when Ste gets home from work.  Its really beautiful.  Another really nice thing about our area is how well they 'keep' it.  The grass is always mowed, there are flowers everywhere, there's no rubbish anywhere.  They must spend a fortune of it (which is possibly why the Californian schools are in a right state!) still it is very lovely.
One of my least favourite things about California so far is the driving.  It is actually far easier than I thought but the the rules of the road are just very different from home. The situations in which they give up their right of way are completely different so I never really know if I'm doing the right thing! I also dislike very much the fact that we have to retake our tests.  I've actually done my written one now which was bizzare to say the least.
'The kids are squabbling in the back.  Do you:-'
a) lean over from the driving seat and give them a slap
b) pull the car over, stop, then lean into the back and give them a slap
c) ignore them and keep your eyes on the road
Ok, this wasn't actually a question but some of them were very like this.  One the answers to my questions was 'because it annoys people' which I thought was very weird for a formal test!  Still all passed and now I've got the joys of the real driving test in a couple of weeks, which I've been reliably informed that only an idiot could fail, so no pressure then!  Ste's social security number has now come through so he's taking his written test on Friday.  Will be good to get it all out of the way.

Sunday 8th May
It is taking me an age to write this post and so I am actually going to press publish instead of save at the end of this mini installment.  We've had a lovely weekend.  Ste passed his written driving test getting none wrong, the geek!  Granny has arrived, hurray!  The kids are loving her being here, especially Sophia, she is so bored of me!  Ste and I went to Santa Cruz last to have a bit of time for ourselves which was lovely and very needed.  We all took Granny to the 'dragon' park yesterday which is now a very firm favourite of the kids (There are some photos on my facebook page via mum, can't wait till we get our camera back!)  Its Mother's Day again here today so I have got some lovely flowers, two mother's days a year can't be bad!
Our ship with all our stuff is due in on Tuesday so it could be only another week or so (it has to go through customs) until we get our hands on it.  I think I speak for us all when I say, WE CAN'T WAIT!!.  Life without furniture and things is very hard.

Anyway I really have run out of things to say so will update soon.  Miss you lots of everyone in England reading this xx

Easter America

More weird things about California - 1)you can buy maple syrup flavoured sausages, easy to buy by mistake and as rank as they sound!
2)California state law requires that all children in preschool up to the age of 6 should nap from the hours of 1-3 in the afternoon - therefore Phia will never go to preschool in the afternoon as we will be paying for her to stare at the wall for 2 hours whilst someone tries to force her to go to sleep, something she has not done in the afternoon since 18 months of age!

Its been another weird week.  Easter sunday started pretty crappily this morning as we had a few skype conversations with you all and everyone looked happy in the sunshine with their chocolate easter eggs.  Here it was raining and not a chocolate easter egg in sight (they don't do them over here, just as well really as the chocolate is horrid!).  All we had to look forward to was dragging the kids round car shops to try and find ourselves a car.  (Easter sunday is not observed around here at all and all the shops are open until around 8, usual practice for all sundays)  However, after a trip to a pizza place (where everyone else's kids were so badly behaved it made me yearn for Whale of a Time!) the car thing was sorted out quite quickly.  We've decided to lease a new car and much to Phia's delight it's red!  Then the sunshine came out in full force and we all went to a funfair for little kids, little gullivers world, and we've all had a lovely day.
The past week itself has been ok.  Steve started work and is enjoying it so far (which is a bloody good job really!).  He's already busy with plenty of stuff to do and is excited about the prospect of getting his teeth into it.  The kids and I also had a busy week.  We went egg painting with a group of American women, all of who are not from this part of America, so everyone was new in a way.  We also met another English person, yay!, and were invited to hers to play (she has 2 boys, 4 and 3).  We also did the library, Spanish class, park visits, Walmart!  So we have found our feet a little bit, hopefully as the weeks go by it will get easier.
This Saturday we went on the traditional American easter egg hunt which involved hundreds of children spilling into a field scooping up little plastic eggs full of candy, easter really is all about the candy out here!, and piling as many as possible into their baskets.  Phia was great, she got her elbows out and went for it!  I was quite scared as couldn't see her in the sea of children and parents weren't allowed in with the 4 year olds so I found it quite uncomfortable.  T didn't really get it, Ste was at least allowed in with him, but he was happy with just the one egg!  Not surprisingly neither of them liked the candy inside!
On Saturday night we were invited to a bbq at the house of one of Steve's new colleagues.  Of course we had to take the kids and they don't have any so we were a bit worried about how it would all turn out.  They live up in the hills overlooking the bay (we really do live in such a beautiful area, will be great when we actually have the time to get out and explore) and their house is enormous!  Even with the kids in tow and the fact they had 2 enormous dogs (that scared Phia a lot) we had a really lovely evening.  It helped that they are British, although have been here for 14 years, our children were very well behaved until 9.30pm and they gave us a bag of tetley teabags to take home (albeit the America version!)
Next week its preschool finding week as really need to get Phia sorted with something to do.  She's been a bit all over the place and has been finding it difficult to sleep.  Might be something to do with its so hot at night here (god only knows what august will be like, the a/c will so be needed!) but I think its lack of routine and normality so we desperately need to find her some!
Missing home lots especially due to things we're missing, Easter, birthday parties, babies being born! etc etc but determined we will have a good time in the Bay for the time we are here.  Lets see what this week brings.....

Week one - tick!

3 different things about California (well there are loads but the main ones we've noted this week!) - although its a wine region they don't have screw top wine bottles, you can't buy bath sponges and you also can't buy baby changing mats.

It all started well a week last Thursday.  The kids were absolute stars on the plane.  Sophia sat quietly and made clothes peg dolls, drew pictures and watched the same episode of Little Einsteins about 100 times!  Tommy found it a bit harder to sit still and didn't like wearing the headphones for the tele but was in general very well behaved too.

However its been a hard first week.  Ste and I have visited IKEA about a million times but we still have a very empty house with only beds, a dining room table and chairs and a sofa bed in it.  We have fortunately received our air freight so at least have some of the kids toys, some clothes and a few pans (we lived for about 4 days with just one pan, 3 cups and some plates!).  We've all been quite jetlagged but Tommy has definitely been the worst and we've only had one night so far were he hasn't joined us in bed in the early hours!  Hopefully though the worst is over and we're all settling down to our new time zone.

Mum came over with us for the first bit and was great as she looked after the kids whilst we tried to get things organised.  The park at the end of the road is fab and the kids have already spent many happy hours with granny playing in the sandpit.  Ste and I meanwhile have seen the inside of IKEA, supermarkets, Walmart, the bank, the internet shop etc etc.  Still hoping its all about done now.

The real disappointment so far has been the Rivermark area where we are renting our house.  Far from be like Cambourne it is a pretty much non English speaking community where I really cant see us fitting in all that well.  However I suppose we only have to live here and can go elsewhere for things we do.  Still its a disappointment non the less.

Ste starts work on Monday (happy birthday to me!) and is feeling pretty nervous about it as am I but I feel the quicker we get into real life the better.  I have the grand plan of the park and then Santa Clara library to pass the day, providing I can find my way in the car!  We went to San Francisco zoo yesterday and I drove back which was fine but I did have Ste sitting next to me telling we where to go - def need a sat nav!

Food has been a real nightmare since we got here in that the kids will eat practically nothing.  They hate the bread and since they both live on cheese sandwiches this is going to be a bit of a problem!  The highlight of my week was finding baked beans and robinsons orange squash is a tiny dusty corner of Safeways.  They may have been hideously expensive (the squash was $6, over 4 quid!) but I could have cried and happily bought them and skipped out the shop - small things!

We're all feeling a bit home sick, probably me the most, followed by Sophia.  She keeps saying things like 'I can't go to my best friend's houses can 1?' very matter of factly but it makes me feel sad!  She really needs to make some new friends so we've got to get out there and start doing stuff.  Have lined her up a ballet class for next week as a start.

The weather is lovely although deceiving, we've all managed to burn ourselves a bit as even when it doesn't feel burning hot it obviously is.  Need to make suncream part of the daily routine.  Tommy in particular is not keen on this.  When you approach him with a suncream bottle he runs away screaming 'no burn me, no burn me!'

Anyway best go and sort the kids tea out (they are out exploring with daddy!)

Bye for now xx

Ste and Sian's house hunting trip

Our new house in Rivermark

The park at the end of the street

Our swimming pool (well actually our shared swimming pool with several other families!)

The Rivermark Shopping Plaza with a giant Safeway (our new Bar Hill Tesco's only we can walk to it!)

Cambourne in California?!!

Santa Cruz, one of our local beaches