Category: home

A few weeks ago Toby and Harry started piano lessons on Wednesday mornings before school. They like their music in America with school bands, marching bands and all sorts so the boys have clearly caught the bug.

After a couple of lessons they decided to invest some of their birthday money, money fron Aunts and Uncles, winnings from tomato competitions and pocket money, in a keyboard so they could practice at home. Luckily Tracy found a keyboard that was a bargain and, more importantly, came with headphones!

They have both been practicing the songs they learn in the lessons as well as trying to do the national anthem. They have no music sheet for the national anthem, they are just guessing. It’s not going too well! What is going well though are the following:

Mary had a little lamb:

httpv://youtu.be/5es7mqvAQ2M

Twinkle, twinkle little star:

httpv://youtu.be/Gauned8_7No

The good news is that they are under instruction to create a Christmas day show. Can’t wait for that!

Tonight was our second Halloween in the US and the boys were excited! Throughout dinner Toby kept asking if we could go trick or treating yet. Over and over again! Come 6:30pm and the witching hour was upon us. Fortunately, after raining for most of the day, the weather brightened, the clouds went and the moon and stars came out.

Armed with pumpkin candy collecting buckets it was time for Pikachu, Ninja Boy, Pretty Pumpkin and a Whoopee Cushion to hit the streets:

I have to admit that the pretty posing pumpkin was my favorite:

Just like last year the boys were soon into it – dashing up and down driveways, knocking on everyones door. We think that you’re only meant to knock on doors that have some sort of pumpkin outside but Toby and Harry ignored that and knocked on every door that had a light on!

An hour and a half later, with buckets of candy and so full and heavy that they could barely walk we left their school friends and went back home. Pleased with their collections, they soon set about ripping into them.

What are the odds on some cries of “I feel sick” before the night it out!?

 

At about 5:30pm this evening I pulled on to the drive. I got out the car and locked the door. As I started to walk up the path the door open and Toby shot down the the path to meet me. What was so exciting that Toby moved at the speed of light? Well let me tell you, he’d lost his first tooth!

It had been wobbling around in his mouth for a good 2 or 3 weeks and today in PE it had finally fallen out. Here’s the gap:

When a tooth falls out at Harrold Lower school the teacher puts it in a tissue and sends you home with it. At Spiritridge you get given a plastic tooth holder in the shape of a tooth which you hang round your neck and keep it safe:

Now all that needs to happen is for Toby to discover if he gets an American or English tooth pixie. Who knows which it will be? His preference is American so that he can get some money this evening rather than wait for the English one to come across on the next BA flight! We shall see…

Now that we have reached October thoughts are starting to turn to Halloween and more importantly, to our Halloween trick or treat costumes!

My costume is easy – I’ll be brushing off the whoopee cushion and parading the streets in that again. Tracy will not be using the Hula girl with the big butt but has opted for a pretty cool new outfit. I’ll say no more for the time-being but we saw a dress rehearsal on Saturday and she looks pretty awesome!

Toby has got his suit sorted and the dress rehearsal went well – again, no more details until Halloween. Harry’s rehearsal was tonight and it didn’t go so well! He was clear in the shop about what he wanted but when he put it on it sent him into a bit of a pickle!

His choice of outfit was a morph suit. I’ll let the pictures tell the story. Here’s the front story:

And here’s the rear story:

It’s going back to the shop this week! We’ll try and find something else, slightly more suitable and comfortable!

We have had a fabulous moon over this weekend and after a little digging it turns out that it is so fabulous because it is the Harvest Moon. Or the Wine Moon. Or Singing Moon, or the Blue Corn Moon and occasionally the Elk Call Moon.

And what exactly is the Harvest, Wine, Singing, Blue Corn or Elk Call Moon all about I hear you ask? Well let me tell you. The full Harvest Moon is the full moon that occurs closest to the autumnal equinox.

All full moons rise around the time of sunset. Because the moon orbits the earth in the same direction the earth is rotating, the moon rises later each day – on average about 50 minutes later each day (24/29.5 hours, or the number of hours in a solar day divided by the number of solar hours it takes for the moon to orbit the earth). The Harvest Moon and Hunter’s Moon are unique because the time difference between moonrises on successive evenings is much shorter than average. The moon rises approximately 30 minutes later from one night to the next, as seen from about 40 degrees N. or S. latitude. Thus, there is no long period of darkness between sunset and moonrise for several days following the actual date of the full moon. In times past this feature of these autumn moons was said to help farmers working to bring in their crops, or in the case of the Hunter’s Moon, hunters tracking their prey. They could continue being productive by moonlight even after the sun had set. Hence the name Harvest Moon.

The reason for the shorter-than-usual rising time between successive moonrises around the time of the Harvest- and Hunter’s-Moon is that the plane of moon’s orbit around the earth makes a narrow angle with respect to the horizon in the evening in autumn.

So there we go – that’s all you need to know about the Harvest Moon, and this is what it looked like this evening. Very lovely I’m sure you will agree!

Ten years old! Ten! Crikey! Ten years ago minus 3 days we’d planned to have fish and chips for dinner on the Friday night. As it turned out we spent the weekend at Northampton hospital, watched the Canadian grand prix on the Sunday evening and then on the Monday Harry arrived, although he almost dragged it out to the 1st of October. Ten years later here we are in America celebrating his birthday.

Harry was clearly very excited about his birthday because he couldn’t sleep the night before. In fact he was suffering so with not sleeping that he got Tracy and I up twice before midnight, crying because he couldn’t sleep. Dear oh dear. Eventually he got to sleep and then before we knew it, at 7:05am Harry and Toby were standing in our bedroom all expectantly!

Tracy and I got about 3 minutes to wake up, sing happy birthday and then it was time for presents – Harry wasn’t in the mood for hanging about! First up was the playroom to see why they had both been locked out all of yesterday. This was a joint birthday present and was a new foosball table.

That was pretty exciting for them both but then Harry wanted more! Time to go downstairs and I’m not sure who was more excited Harry or Toby!

The presents and cards were demolished in next to no time even though the present opening was mixed with eating birthday cake for breakfast. Despite being on a diet of some sorts I decided to indulge in some cake too – it was lovely but incredibly sickly. So much so that I could only manage two pieces across the day (at the time of typing this anyway!).

With presents opened it was time to start enjoying some of them – namely the xbox games. Off they went for a while until the Seahawks game kicked off on the TV. They watched that for all of 2 minutes before they put their Seahawks shirts on and disappeared out the garden to play their own version of the game.

After that, it was time for a quick bite to eat for lunch and then we were off to the zoo – Cougar Mountain zoo. It was a lovely hot afternoon – just like last time we went to the zoo – but this time we actually got to see some cougars. In addition to that, the parrots still said hello, which was nice, and the view was still lovely. It’s only a small little zoo but it is very nice and it’s always (both times!) absolutely blooming boiling!

With the zoo sorted it was on to Issaquah for a birthday dinner at the Chinese. Once we were absolutely stuffed with food it was back home to play soccer in the garden and then some more time on the xbox and the foosball table.

Despite being pretty tired Harry managed to avoid having the typical birthday mood, although the same cannot be said for Toby. Toby has had quite a moody day all in all and he finally admitted this was because he didn’t like Harry being the center of attention! But he seems to be over this now – it’s amazing what a bath can do!

So there we go. Ten years ago, out popped Harry and today we celebrated in America. Where will be be celebrating in another 10 years time?

17012 SE 40th Ct is under attack! From this feathered chap:

He might look like a nice little woodpecker but on Friday night he was tapping away on the wall by the lounge trying to get in. Next stop was the window in the boys bedroom. Saturday morning it was the window in the ensuite – he’s definitely persistent – but so far the walls have remained strong!

Up until my birthday I was the only one in the house without a bike – poor me! But not anymore! I am now the proud owner (and part builder) of a Huffy Cranbrook cruiser bike.

It arrived in a box in a few different pieces and after an hour or so and a few dizzy blonde moments the bike was fully assembled:

Although I am very pleased with my handy work I must admit I was somewhat reluctant to get on it! I’m sure I have tightened all the bolts correctly but you never know – the instructions weren’t exactly comprehensive!! Anyway, in the end I decided to take the plunge and take it for a spin round the flatish part at the top of our close.

Unfortunately I didn’t get the turning circle quite right and before I knew it I was picking up speed and heading down the road at a rate of knots! The cruiser’s don’t have traditional brakes – you have to pedal backwards to slow it. Having not tried this before I was somewhat hesitant about how quickly to pedal backwards although the hesitancy went quite quickly as I gained speed and the junction got closer!

Fortunately the impending disaster was averted and I slowed the bike and turned back up the hill to home. At that moment I realized that pedaling up a hill is not one of the most pleasurable things in life! I think I shall stick to flat areas for the near future!

It’s birthday month in Bellevue and today it was Toby’s. Yesterday at 7:30am Tracy went into his room and told him to get up only to be told in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want to! Today at 6:40am there was lots of chatter in their bedroom – he seemed much more inclined to get up today!

With me leaving the house for work at 7:30am Toby had a present opening deadline to hit and he set about it with gusto! He ploughed through the presents and cards filling the room with soccer kits, gloves, balls, baseball clothes, a new Wii, games, films, a new goal and many more things besides.

After a few phone and skype calls it was off to school for a morning filled with birthday wishes over the school tannoy, popcorn, birthday songs and an all round good time. Once school was finished it was time for the party at 321 bounce – which is basically a warehouse full of bouncy castles, slides and assault courses.

There was also a bouncy boxing ring with giant gloves which proved popular – including with Tracy and I!

The giants slides were also a big hit with young and old:

And then before we knew it the hour and a quarter was up and the bouncing games were over. Lucky for me because I was hot, sweaty and knackered!

It was then into the room to fill 15 excitable kids with pizza, pretzels, crisps and sodas! The perfect recipe for fun filled evenings!

With the pizzas demolished it was time for Toby’s cake which he chose himself:

With cake added to the concoction in their tummies and the singing complete it was off to the present room where it all got very loud as all the guests gave Toby his present:

httpv://youtu.be/PYXg24CazD0

And with that it was all over and back home. Once home they boys enjoyed their new goal from Aunty A and Uncle Jack:

After about 20 minutes of soccer a Toby “it’s my birthday and I can have a mood if I want” moment ended the game in slightly unsavory circumstances! But we were expecting it! Pretty much every birthday and Christmas ends this way – the excitement is clearly too much for them to cope with.

Roll on 18 more sleeps until number 1 sons birthday!

 

We’ve been to the Issaquah Farmers market for the last 3 weeks and each time Harry and Toby have wanted to buy something. That something is not a pound of cherries, or some pluots, or even a cucumber. No. They wanted to buy a pet frog (or two). Not what you typically find at a farmers market I’m sure you will agree but slightly easier to accommodate than the two alpacas that are also found their!

Anyway, having managed to talk them out of it for the past few weeks this time they finally got their way and Froggy and Frazzle became the latest members of the Stickells family adventure in Washington. Froggy belongs to Toby and Frazzle to Harry. They are African dwarf frogs and they live in their small tank with Mr Janitor the snail. He may actually be called something else but last I heard it was Mr Janitor. Mr Janitor is the key to this mini ecosystem. While Froggy and Frazzle make messes all day long, the snail is the cleaner, and the whole thing falls apart if anything happens to him i.e. he gets stuck on his back (shell) and can’t turn over, which apparently does happen.

Froggy and Frazzle have to be fed twice a week and have their water changed once every 6 months. It hopefully won’t prove too much of a burden. All we need to do now is find the best place for their tank to live. On the side in the kitchen seems like it’s asking for trouble!