Category: home

The pressure was on. It was the third trip over to Washington for Aunty A so in theory there are no more excuses. Plus the visit of Nanny and Gramps in April had in fact proved that there is no such thing as jet-lag – it’s all in the mind. So how exactly would Sally fare this time around? Well. In summary I think we can safely say there has been an uptick in her performance and there appear to be a few clear drivers of this success.

Stage one to conquering the imaginary force of jetlag is to not go to bed too early. Over her first week Sally has managed this successfully – managing to stay up fairly consistently to around 10pm each night (and sometime a little later). We can thank her second wind for this feat – a wind that normally arrives at around 8:30pm after she has recovered from a heavy afternoon drinking and shopping!

The second stage appears to be alcohol related. Don’t drink too much or at least try to avoid post 5pm. Which soon changed to 6pm. The lack of wine in the evening appears to make the difference because it means you can knock back a valium, sleeping pill and any other drugs you happen to carry around with you (and that appears to be quite a few – all strictly legal though!) just before heading off to sleep.

The third stage is not looking at the clock when you wake up in the night – it will only annoy you. Sally isn’t very good at this. It’s fair to say that she’s a bit of a clock watcher. Having said that, with stage 1 and 2 mastered there have been some consistent nights where 6 or 7 hours sleep have been had; and if we think back to previous visits that’s the equivalent of about a weeks worth of sleep on those trips!

The other positive is that after going to sleep she hasn’t had the soul destroying experience of waking up the same day that you fell asleep – there’s nothing worse than that.

So there we go. One week in and Aunty A is doing pretty well. By the time she comes out to visit for the 7th time I think she’ll have it cracked!

Some times they are very bad and some times they are very good. This weekend we’ve had both. Toby moaning and whining his way round the shops of Seattle and then being all cute and saying that he is going to give half his soccer winnings to his brother ($50).

Once the whining and moaning was out the way they gave each other a cuddle…

Even though the back yard looks like it has been hit by something like a tornado combined with a hurricane, a great drought and a whirlwind or two, it has in fact only had a couple of little boys playing every sport imaginable in it. It is amazing how two boys and 37 soccer balls, baseball sets, american football and a badminton set (and me) can turn a yard into a mud pit. And even more amazing than this is that some flowers survived!

The roses smell lovely – the boys think the yellow ones smell best:

Some even made it into the house!

 

…and he knows it. Teeth cleaned, ready for bed but Toby had one last treat for us ball before he went to bed.  I’m not sure where he’s learnt all his moves from but they are pretty impressive – particularly in those pj’s!

httpv://youtu.be/fcqTk0TZ9aI

Wow! That was quick! We are now officially into our second year in America. In some ways it seems like a lifetime ago that we got in a cab from the Dovecote but in others it feels like only yesterday.

To celebrate our one year anniversary we had a BBQ. This wasn’t just any old BBQ though – this was a BBQ on our new BBQ. We didn’t quite go for the super-sized monster BBQs that you can get in Lowes and the Home Depot – we went for the more modest option. Sunday morning was spent putting the thing together ready for the beautiful weather on Monday and our anniversary.

Whilst munching away on British bangers, beef and blue cheese burgers and lamb kebabs we discussed a few things about the previous year and the lists went a little like this…

 

Question #1 – what have been your favorite things?

Harry – the day on the boat at Lake Chelan, Cannon Beach, Hawaii, skiing and the eagles on Grouse Mountain

Toby – playing outside, the view from Kerry Park, the view from our garden, Harry getting his butt soaked in the sea in Oregon, Mount Rainier and throwing a football which made him burp

Tracy – on the boat in Lake Chelan, Langley and Bellevue mall

Neil – San Juan Islands, the views of mountains and lakes and Mount Rainier

 

Question #2 – where do you want to go back to?

Harry – Hawaii and the seats we had for our last Sounders game

Toby – baseball

Tracy – Villaggio, for 6 weeks

Neil – the tulip fields and the Oregon coast

 

Question #3 – where do you want to go that you haven’t been to yet?

Harry – San Francisco

Toby – San Diego

Tracy – Alaskan cruise

Neil – whale watching

 

And so there we go! Year one – done. Year two – here we come! And we’ve started it off by booking an Alaskan cruise in July. Whoo hoo!

We’re clearly becoming American. The reasonably large car that we got to start with is no longer big enough. We’ve been here a year and we want bigger! Getting a new car in America is different than the UK. The main thing is that they want you to take the new car immediately. If you so much as mention that you’re happy to leave the car with them a few days while they complete the minor enhancement we want, they give you a strange look, insist you take the new car away and bring it back when the work can be completed. Not taking the car is not an option.

In some respects this is good. You don’t have to spend a few days waiting for the Post Office to open so you can get tax discs, etc. but in other ways it’s not good. The main negative is that Tracy didn’t really have time to get her head round saying goodbye to the Tiguan. The emotion and sadness had to be condensed into about 30 minutes. It was very sad and I’m not sure she has fully recovered yet!

The good thing is we now have a bigger car and can start planning camping trips and the like. Year two in American is going to be larger and even more exciting that year 1 – and just because we got a new car!

Goodbye VW…

Now let’s just hope we get the rear view camera installed before there are any “whoopsies”!

 

After a few weeks of adventures, this weekend was designated a relax at home weekend but we could actually call it, upset Grandad weekend. We’d started upsetting him earlier in the week by getting an American flag to put up in the house. Then today started with the Norwich, Liverpool soccer rematch. When they met earlier in the season it had been a very stressful time in the house with Grandad upsetting a couple of children! Fortunately we all went out and had champagne and everything calmed down!

This time Grandad wasn’t here, luckily for him, because the Canaries were snuffed out and lost 3-0. After this we went to get ourselves some retail therapy – we hadn’t been shopping since Wednesday!! First stop was Sports Authority where Harry got an American football and Toby got a Messi soccer ball. Their Christmas money from Grandad is still going strong and they are making some wise purchases – not tat anyway!

After Sports Authority we went to the Issaquah farmers market. It closed down over the winter but started again last week. It’s been almost a year since we had proper English bacon so we went straight to the “Proper English Bacon” stand and stocked up. We went for 4lbs of bacon, some sausages and a couple of pork pies. It all came to $54 so it better be good! Harry also bought a tomato plant which he planted later this afternoon.

Before heading home we stopped at Lowes to get some picture hanging wire so that I could hang the flag in the hallway. After getting home and putting the picture up it we were all ravenous so we went to Red Robins and spent our vouchers on burgers, root beer floats, wine and cheese sticks! Yum! As we hadn’t been shopping for at least a couple of hours we decided to go again! This time it was to the Home Depot where we bought something else to REALLY upset Granded – another American flag and flag pole to put on the garage! We also got some bark chippings ahead of a spot of gardening.

The flag went up:

And very good it looks too. There is an upside for Grandad though, within 5 minutes of the flag going up a bird had crapped on it! So it will have to come down for a wash! Despite this set back, the front yard looks a bit tidier. The lawn was cut – the third time since I’ve been here – the bark chippings went down – we need a lot more – and Harry and Toby collected the remains of the laurel bush clippings.

Progress has been made but more needs to happen tomorrow after more chippings have been collected from the Home Depot.

So there we go, two American flags and Norwich got thrashed – that should upset him!!

As some of you may be aware I suffer from a dreadful medical condition known as thin eyeliditis. It probably has a suitably impressive latin name had it been officially recognized however it hasn’t made it’s way to Wikipedia yet so it remains known only as thin eyelids.

I have suffered with it for many years as the mountains of alarm clocks in storage in the UK, the skips full of alarm clocks thrown away when we moved and the handful of alarm clocks in drawers around the house in Bellevue will testify. The trouble is the light they give off is sooooo bright! It stops me getting to sleep and sometimes they even wake me up because they are deliberately target me!

I had hoped that the current version would be ok – it had 3 different brightness settings on the clock – but even on the lowest setting it focuses the light right into my eyes.

These last couple of nights in the middle room seem to have made the condition even worse! The wireless router, although probably 9 ft away woke we up the other night shining brightly into my eyes. I wouldn’t have minded but I’d put a book in front of it to stop it before I went to bed but at some point in the night the light managed to move the book and then direct it’s full glare straight at me. I had to spend the rest of the night asleep under the duvet shielding my eyes.

That very same night the lights from next doors house was upsetting me. It was either that or a star somewhere. Trouble was that the blinds were pulled but the slats were slanting into the room and pointing downwards and this let sooooo much star light in.

It has now evolved into quite a complex night time routine. I have to make sure the blind slats point upwards, make sure the alarm clock light is set to low, make sure there is no bottle of water in front of the alarm clock as some how this refracts the light and burns it straight at me, make sure the wireless router lights are hidden behind a book or piece of paper and make sure that an object of some sort is positioned in front of the cable modem.

I haven’t worked out how to block out the light from the bathroom where the light has to be on all night to keep the boys happy. Who would have thought sleeping could be so stressful? I’m starting to sympathize with Aunty A and her sleeping issues!

This was meant to be the latest edition of jet lag watch but the jet lag myth has been busted! Even the Aunty Arnold theory that only women suffer has been destroyed! Which, on a side note, makes Aunty A’s suffering look even more pathetic!!

On Monday morning, Tracy and I were clearly worried that the latest visitors weren’t going to make it through customs and onto the plane as we were both awake before 4am wondering how they were getting on! We needn’t have worried because a little over 12 hours later we were at the airport and Nanny and Grampy were coming up the escalators. And with their usual luck, the rain had stayed away, Mount Rainier was out to welcome them, as were the other mountain ranges. The devil clearly looks after his own!

The highlights of Nanny’s first ever flight were, firstly not even noticing that they had taken off, and secondly being so upset from watching War Horse that she had to spend some quality time watching In the Night Garden! Not even the grand children watch that any more! But they were new episodes and she enjoyed herself!

Anyway, having arrived and delivered a chocolate mountain into the house the time soon was upon us to decide how much sleep they would get on their first night. They went upstairs at 9:45pm with my guess being they would be awake by 1:30am and Tracy guessing 2:30am. How wrong we were. When I left for work the following morning all was still quiet. Something was clearly wrong! As it turns out, Grampy slept to about 4am and Nanny until 7am! What’s that all about!?

Still, not to worry – the second night is always the worst! The jet lag was sure to strike then. But oh no. Bed by 10pm and sleeping through until 4am for Grampy and 5am for Nanny. It’s a very impressive performance. I’m sure if we reviewed Aunty A’s performance we would see that they have slept more in the first two nights than Sally slept in the first two weeks! Which just goes to show, when I told Sally to “pull yourself together” I was right!

Target have a commercial out at the moment that has the song alouette playing in the background:

httpv://youtu.be/KcgwgkyU4sY

I have a vague recollection of singing this at school, very many years ago but it was not until the other night that I searched for it and found out what it actually means. As it turns out, what seems on the outside to be a happy, fun song is actual not. It’s all about plucking the feathers from a lark!

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Lark, nice lark

Alouette, je te plumerai

Lark, I shall pluck you

Je te plumerai la tête

I shall pluck your head

(Je te plumerai la tête)

(I shall pluck your head)

Et la tête

And your head

(Et la tête)

(And your head)

Alouette

Lark

(Alouette)

(Lark)

O-o-o-oh

I think the advert should be produced again with them singing the translated version – it would make for a much funnier advert!

It’s quite good fun working in American – particularly of late. A couple of weeks back I had a promotion, pay rise, bonus and shares and now it’s happened all over again! My boss left a week ago and now I have his job, more money and another bonus!

Hopefully it will all happen again in another couple of weeks! At this rate I will be the President of Expedia by summer. Or maybe not!

At 10:14pm Tuesday night spring began. I’ve no idea why it starts at some random time in the night but it did and I’m glad it has. We’ve had a good few weeks of wet weather but the sun has been shining since spring sprung and it’s been really rather lovely.

On Wednesday we had a lovely sunset which turned the mountains pink. Mountains that we hadn’t seen for quite some time:

Hopefully this is just a sign of things to come! Roll on the sunshine and let’s cut back a little on the rain!