Category: home

Not only is Harry a soccer superstar and a basketball wizard, he has also demonstrated a softer side today. Put to one side that he is a sporting genius, he is also an accomplished artist as this self portrait he drew today demonstrates:

For those of you wondering, Harry is the one of the left.

Over the course of the coming weeks and months we are all going to do our own self portraits and see who’s is the best. When you come and visit us, you will be expected to add your own effort! I will be the judge and my decision is final!

It’s been another week of “just living” in America. Maybe I’m calming down a little and not feeling the need to go out every weekend! Anyway, it’s been a fun week doing a bunch of different things.

On Wednesday we went and had our induction at the gym. I went first and had my tour round the machines. It’s slightly worrying about how often they tell you that the gym never gets busy – what does everyone else know that we don’t!? After I finished, Tracy went for her tour and I took the two little piglets into the pool. Both of them did some very good swimming. Harry didn’t have his tummy band and swam very well, including plenty of under water swimming. Toby did have his tummy band but swam like a little fish anyway. After an hour in the pool and starting to encourage our healthy side we went to Burger King and had a flamed grilled whopper!! Not ideal but nice nonetheless!

Harry went to soccer training on Thursday night. There were a few more boys this week – four instead of two – so I think going to training in Issaquah next week is definitely the right thing to do. Anyway, training went well, his coach praised Harry, saying that he “had skills that he had never seen another boy do at this age”. Fortunately Harry didn’t hear this otherwise we wouldn’t have heard the end of it! Considering he has been a coach for 40 years, we either have 1) a truly gifted soccer player for a son, 2) his coach gets a little carried away, or 3) American kids just aren’t very good at soccer!

On the downside, a Bosnian boy called Ferris started this week, He’d never played soccer before so no threat from that perspective, however he did win all the sprints which didn’t go down well!

On Friday evening it was my turn to choose where we ate. And being totally unoriginal I selected Zeeks Pizza, although we went to Issaquah rather than Kirkland so I had some originality to my choice. Before we went out Toby had to get changed. He had chosen his own clothes and for some reason Tracy wasn’t prepared to go out with him looking the way he did! Can’t think why – any ideas?

Harry and Toby shared a pizza – chicken on one side and pepperoni on the other. I like that about Zeeks, you can choose a different topping on each side of the base. Tracy liked Issaquah Zeeks better than Kirkland as the wine selection was better.

On Saturday as the boys were still undecided about going on adventures – Harry wanted one, Toby didn’t – we compromised and took them on a shopping adventure! First we went to the Bellevue Foam shop and ordered two pieces of foam to fit on the single beds. They will be ready for collection on Tuesday and will be our mattresses. We lay on a sample on the shop floor and they were surprisingly solid considering the weight I placed on it!

After the foam shop we went to Pier 1 imports and were actually, very well behaved! I think the giant spoon and spatula may be purchased soon though to accompany the knife and fork we already have on the wall in the kitchen.

The shopping bonanza continued as we headed off along the I-90 up the mountains into the clouds to the North Bend premium outlet shopping center. After a couple of hours mooching around here and a couple of pairs of sneakers, some basketball shorts and a few other bits and pieces later, the clouds had lifted and we decided we ought to go home.

As it had been a very busy afternoon, Tracy thought she deserved a little drink when she got home:

The bottle was empty on the side before the night was through! Although I suppose I should admit that I helped a little!

Sunday morning. A well deserved lie-in. Or so we hoped. Instead it started with “Mum”, …, “Muuum”, …, “MUUUUUUUUMMMMMM”. It was Toby and he was feeling sick. Fortunately the bowl was close by as he had claimed to feeling ill the evening before although we thought this may have been an excuse for not going to sleep (it was about 10pm at night, having not gone to sleep until about 11pm the night before).

As it turns out, he was feeling poorly and spent most of the morning being sick. It was mostly phlegm but it’s still not pleasant. After a couple of power naps he finally managed to crawl his way downstairs and it wasn’t long before he was asking what was for lunch – which was toast, much to his disappointment!

My morning was spent getting beaten on the xbox by my 8 year old son. Great.

“Shall we go on an adventure?” … “No” … “Why not?” … “They’re boring” … “Oh, okay”.

After this brief exchange (with Toby) we embarked on a quiet weekend at home. It had been a reasonably quiet week altogether.

We took Harry to his first night of soccer training on Thursday evening. We got there early to make a good impression. We needn’t have bothered! Only one other child turned up – Isaac – and the coach called Ed. Ed didn’t inspire us with any great confidence and believe that he is the man to take Harry’s soccer skills to the next level! Apart from stating that he didn’t really want to do the training again this year (but they couldn’t find anyone else) and that he “couldn’t be relied upon” he looked, with all due respect, like a gentleman who should be sat down taking it easy with his grand kids. He didn’t have a heart attack as he put Harry and Isaac through their paces but I was worried throughout the session!

At the end of the training he informed us that Harry needed to work on his sprinting (because they play on a sand/soil/ash type surface which are very tiring), practice some more with his left foot (as two footed players are better than one) and improve his shooting accuracy a bit more. Despite this he rated Harry as up there with the best for his age group. Which is more than can be said for the feedback Isaac received. I’m not sure Isaac will be back next week.

Harry will be back next week, however Friday afternoon was spent talking to the coach at Issaquah soccer club and they are much more like what we’re looking for! The Director of Coaching is the son of Alan Ball, former England captain and World Cup winner. He used to run the Portsmouth FC academy and he brings over proper qualified soccer coaches from the UK to train their ~4,000 kids that they have registered with the club. Training begins the week commencing the 18th July and we will be taking Harry and Toby along. Toby is rather enthusiastic but then he was when he went to rugrats the first time – I’m sure he’ll last longer this time though!

While I was busy on Friday afternoon working (sorting out soccer training), Dane came round to play with Harry and Toby. He mainly came round to play with Harry but it’s sort of like a play with one, get one free deal with Toby! After the initial showing off part had died down they spent hours in the garage making dens in with the boxes that we still haven’t got rid of. I’m not sure we should get rid of them either with the amount of time they have both spent playing in the garage this weekend!

They were going to spend the night in their on Saturday but they quickly changed their minds when they released what that actually meant!

On Saturday morning, after the adventure discussions, we went to Sammamish Club to check it out as a way of reducing the size of my belly! While it may not be the most glamourous of clubs, it’s dirt cheap and has classes and a gym for the belly shifters plus it has a pool and tennis courts which we can take the boys to use. We signed up for a 3 month trial (another positive is they don’t tie you into 12 month contracts) which if nothing else will enable Sally to go to the gym for the 3 weeks she is out here – so there shouldn’t be any withdrawal symptoms there!

After signing on the dotted line for the membership, we watched England lose on penalties in the women’s World Cup – doesn’t matter where you are in the world we still lose on penalties – and then we went over to Phantom Lake to see what it was like. I drive past it on the way home from work each day and it looks pretty but now was the time to check it out. As it turns out, there isn’t an awful lot to do there but it does have possibly the most extensive spread of lily pads in the world. That may be a slight exaggeration but it was still pretty impressive. Almost as impressive as the lily pads are the houses that surround the lake. Many of them had, amongst other things, giant slides from their garden into the lake. I think we may have been in a somewhat exclusive area of town!

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After this very busy morning we went home for a nice burger – which kind of demonstrates why there is a need for the gym membership! The rest of the day was a nice relaxed time sitting in the sunshine in the garden which is quite a sun trap considering the height of the surrounding trees.

Fortunately for Toby there were no adventures planned on Sunday either, just the first batch of waffles from the waffle machine (and the second batch – slightly less burnt!) and a trip to see Cars 2. This was much more agreeable than a trip up and over the mountains to the east and down into the Washington desert, which sounds ever so boring. Maybe next weekend …

No matter where we are in the world, Titanic still makes Tracy blub like a baby and assembling Ikea furniture is never straightforward!

We bought a nice new chair and foot stool (poof) from Ikea this morning and they delivered it this afternoon – very good service! Unfortunately the holes to fit two parts together (the base and the back) didn’t line up and the best that the customer service team could offer was for someone to call us back in a couple of days – bad service!

At first I was going to wait but then the call of the drill was too much and I decided to make my own holes! Thankfully (surprisingly), nothing went horribly wrong and we now have a lovely, comfy new chair. It’s big and squishy and covered in a nice brown corduroy type material. It’s in the family room and it’s made the  room feel much better.

During the stress of the Ikea furniture assembly Harry and Toby watched the “sinking ship” film aka Titanic. It kept them quiet for most of the afternoon however I think it may have been a touch wasted on them as they seemed to enjoy their mum blubbing like a baby more than the film itself!

Roll on tomorrow and Independence Day. That’s not wasted on them either – it’s all about the fireworks!

Just a short post as a special request from Tracy. She would like everyone to know that although she maybe fortylicious, upon trying to purchase several bottles of wine at Trader Joe’s on Friday night (it had been a tough day) the cashier had requested proof of age before letting her make the purchase! I think the guidelines here are that if they think you are under 30 they ask to see some ID.

So there you go. Being stuck with three irritating boys, with no escape but the bottle for over 6 weeks has knocked a decade off! Gok Wan eat your heart out!

Thursday 23rd June, 10:50am. The day of driving destiny! The day to take my US driving test – all of 18 odd years after my last driving test. Although the test is designed for 15 year old Americans to pass I still felt rather nervous. The nerves were not helped by the stress of thinking I wasn’t going to make it to the test center in Renton due to the directions of a ridiculous (free) satnav app I had downloaded onto the phone. Tracy had the proper one as she had a day of leg waxing and kids birthday parties (unrelated activities).

After taking me on and off of freeways on a reasonably random basis and delivering me to a final destination that was clearly not my final destination, I arrived 10 minutes after my check-in time and 5 minutes before the test. For once though I didn’t have to sit around waiting and I was out in the car park waiting for my examiner to arrive in no time.

The examiner was called Sam-Sam. Or something like that. We started off with Sam-Sam checking the lights, front and rear, and then he asked me to show him my arm signals, starting with a right turn. Now as I had written about learning my arms signals the day before you would have expected me to actually learn them. However I hadn’t – safe in the knowledge that they knew I already had a licence and wouldn’t possibly bother asking me this kind of pointless questions.

If he had asked me to show him how to signal left as a starter it would have been ok – I know that one – but turning right I wasn’t too sure. I started to plead ignorance but saw from him face that that wouldn’t work and so I started to generally move my arm around into a variety of positions until he asked me how to indicate left. Amongst all the different poses I had tried I had clearly struck “right turn” gold however I’m still not sure what the actual right turn motion is but hey, never mind!

Next up was left turn which was easy. Slowing down took a couple of variations of hand movements (including a general flapping motion) and he seemed reasonable happy that I had at some point made the correct gesture – at least, he let me continue to the actual driving part of the test so I figure I may have got something right.

The majority of the driving test was fine, or at least I thought it was until Sam-Sam gave me my feedback later. I reversed round a corner, parked on a hill – including turning the wheel the right way on the off chance that it rolled away. Again to make sure I passed I made a good show of turning the wheel both ways so that he knew I was trying to do the right thing even if I wasn’t actually doing it.

We ended, 15 or so minutes later, back in the car park to do a quick spot of parallel parking. Of all the tasks this was actually the easiest because the parking space was a coned area and obviously large enough for some big old US cars to fit in so me positioning a small PT Cruiser in there was no problem.

I then parked the car in a final space and sat ready for judgement. It didn’t start well, Sam-Sam was clearly enjoying my misery – probably pay back for the rubbish efforts at arm signals. So the crime list read as follows…

1. I was too far away from the kerb when I reversed round the corner
2. I didn’t look behind me all the time while reversing round the corner (I think he’s wrong about that though!
3. At a stop junction I didn’t look far enough past a tree (don’t really know what he was talking about but I nodded and feared the worst)
4. Something about wide roads in the US and keep to a certain side on my side, blah, blah, I’d kind of switched off and wasn’t paying any attention any more

As Sam-Sam continued I was convinced I’d failed but then I looked at his clipboard and he drew a circle around “qualified”. Hurrah! He did continue to tell me more things I did wrong but I wasn’t in the slightest bit interested. I’d 88 out of 100 so I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. The smugness grew further when I sat waiting for my temporary licence and noticed that the gentleman who had taken his test at 10:55 had only scored 72 out of 100!

All that was left was to sit in a room with lots of “special” people for about 90 minutes so that I could get my temporary licence. The real one will be in the post in 7-10 days – how exciting!

So summer didn’t last long! I’ve been assured that it definitely, definitely starts after July 4th. Guaranteed. Today though, we were back to some overcast weather apart from the evening when it cleared up and the sun came out. It seems to do that a lot. Still, yesterday was officially the first day of summer – and it was fab – all the mountains came out to play. It was even warm enough for the boys to go swimming in Lake Sammamish at Vasa Park. Apparently the water in the lake was warmer than a swimming pool. I’m not sure I believe them but they sounded pretty convincing. I still haven’t been there but it sounds like a nice spot – hopefully a BBQ will be on the cards there soon.

In the evening we played soccer down at Issaquah soccer fields. I had to go in goal while they took shots at me. I didn’t ache as much as I thought I would this morning but I am covered in bites – there are obviously some savage creatures living in the grass down there. I have one on my forehead, one on my neck and one on my elbow – I’m almost a walking bump (and I’m not referring to my stomach!).

The bribe of going to see Cars at the weekend and Seattle Sounders on Thursday night is clearly working well with the boys – they have both been very good all week. I think they must have used up a weeks worth of wickedness on Father’s Day, so they are just in the process of restocking.

This evening should have been spent revising for my driving test which is at 10:50 tomorrow morning. But it wasn’t. Instead we had a little England night watching programmes on the iPlayer. First up was The Apprentice, followed by The Apprentice – You’re Fired and rounded off with an episode of Eastenders. When I say rounded off, I was wrong. Rather than rounding off, we moved on again! To Coronation Street. And then Alan Carr Chatty Man. I think Tracy has been missing UK TV and tonight she decided to make up for going 6 weeks without it!

One thing I have noticed about American TV is that although the programmes aren’t very good (or at least we haven’t worked out where to find the good ones) their TV adverts are much better. Way funnier than the UK – particularly the water skiing boxing and the clouds that go “yeah” (can’t remember what the product is though – probably burger related).

Update: I Googled it and found it – it was burger related:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92Zw_ew9goI

So all in all it was a night infront of UK TV and it was just like being at home! Speaking of home, we got news that there had been a break-in in Meadway since we left. They broke in through a patio door with a fork stolen from someone elses shed. Touch wood it’s not number 2! I presume they’d have to tell us if it was! Harrold has clearly gone down hill since we left.

Anyway, back to the driving test. Rumor has it that they’ll make you drive a couple of blocks, park in a supermarket parking space (which are huge) and that will suffice – I hope so. I don’t want three point turns, parallel parking and reversing round corners. Although I’ve just checked what I am going to be tested on. Arm signals!? Oh gawd! I’ve no idea what they are! Maybe should I revise!

The silly thing is that even if I fail I’ll just get back into the car, drive back to work and carry on as if nothing happened! I’m just hoping that they won’t make me go through the whole hour long test – mainly because I need to get back to the office for a meeting. Oh well, we will see – hope I’m not so nervous that I can’t sleep tonight! Keep your fingers crossed!

(And even if I fail I’m going to say that I passed!).

Today was the first commute from the new house. And it’s not bad! It’s about 8 miles and it took 16 minutes in the morning and 2o minutes home this afternoon – so not too shabby. I took the freeway and it wasn’t at all bad, so I’ll try it again tomorrow.

Harry spent the morning teaching Toby magic ready to give me a magic show when I got home. In the afternoon, they visited Vasa Beach Park, which unlike other parks round here you have to pay to access – which I suppose keeps the riff-raff out. The park received good reviews from Tracy though so I think a visit may be on the cards one evening this week. It has a nice beach and the slide into the lake which both boys seem convinced they will slide down into the lake. We shall see!

When I got home Toby and Harry tried their magic tricks. The first was guessing the number on the face of a dice after I had given it a shake and put it in a pot. Toby had clearly forgotten all his training and adopted the approach of just guessing what the number was. Although he had a 1 in 6 chance it didn’t work. He looked very disappointed with this turn of events so Harry took him aside for a refresher in magic. It worked as Toby turned into a super magician. Harry then demonstrated the skills of being able to push pins through a pot that had a solid coin inside it. The sleight of hand needs a little more work but it wasn’t bad!

The final trick was pulling your thumb off your hand and making it appear again. It has to be seen to be believed! Maybe the next video clip will be a magic show!

After eating some yummy pasta in the garden – it was a lovely sunny evening – I took the boys down to the local basketball court to shoot some hoops. It was the Stickells’ family against the Invisible Team and after some nail biting basketball Toby managed to shoot the winning hoop. It was his first of the game and pretty impressive considering the hoop is about 9ft high but it’s amazing what you can do when you’re 4 (and being lifted high into the air). Harry celebrated victory over the Invisible Team by throwing the ball in the air, which then came straight back down and landed on his head. Toby had hysterics and continued to laugh all the way home.

So day 1 of trying to behave passed without incident – they can be good when they try! Amazing! … Spoke too soon. 9:20pm and we’ve just been up to see them – apparently Goofy’s hand moved – any excuse not to go to sleep. Honestly children!

The first thing to decide on this post was the title. Normally it’s quite easy but this one could easily have been titled “Devil Children” or “Chicken Giblets”. While both of those titles would have worked I think Fathers Day is the most suitable.

This week has flown by and it has been another busy one. Our shipment arrived on Tuesday and the whole of Tuesday and pretty much everyday since has been spent unpacking boxes. It’s now Sunday evening and we’re getting there. The house is still a tip but the boxes are going! It is mainly clothes that need to be put away now and then we need to work out what on earth we are going to do with all the empty boxes in the garage – there’s definitely no room for cars in there at the moment.

Harry has finished school for summer now – poor Tracy! The final week consisted of his usual half day on Wednesday, no work all week, a sports afternoon on Thursday (although I’m not sure how sporty it was apart from a tug-o-war) and then a 2 hour school day on Friday. It seemed a bit pointless going to school for 2 hours but I think that is the minimum amount of time that counts as a school day and it means they have completed enough school days in the year. An easy life!

On the Wednesday we received an email from Andy (Harrold & Carlton FC coach) which informed Harry that his team mates had voted him player of the season – which he was suitably thrilled about. They asked if we could send a note or video to share with the team at the presentation BBQ on Saturday. After spending some time preparing his acceptance speech with typical cliches such as “really surprised”, “couldn’t have done it without you”, etc. we headed on down to the tennis court to shoot the video. To spare his embarrassment I won’t share the first 4 “takes”. The final version that got sent across was as follows:

httpv://youtu.be/aaRkmrTKqcI

On Thursday afternoon we headed to VW Seattle to sign the papers for the new car. We had been told that it could cost anything up to $1,000’s to register the car but it turned out to only be $156 which was a nice result! We then went back to VW Seattle on Friday to actually get the car. Tracy drove it back to the apartment following me (as I nearly drove into a bus!). It was definitely the bus drivers fault though – he was where I wanted to be! It doesn’t bode well for the driving test though which was meant to be taken this Tuesday but I rearranged it until next Thursday.

Our Friday night meal out was my choice, and I plumped for the Californian Pizza Kitchen in Bellevue – it made a change from Harry’s choices which were Zeeks Pizza or the Mexican and Toby’s choices which were McDonalds or Burger King. Although it was nice, it wasn’t quite the same as having a Friday evening in Kirkland but I suppose we need to get used the that.

Saturday saw us packing up the another 4 suitcases of clothes and a bunch of other things and almost moving everything to our new house. It rained all day and we spent most of it tidying, unpacking and shopping! The boys bedroom benefitted from a very colorful light and 4 new lamps appeared in and around the dining room and the family room. A giant pear was also acquired and currently sits proudly on the dining room table. Harry and Toby spent most of their time in the shops playing some sort of “touch as many things as you can” game. It didn’t matter how many times they were told not to – they’d forgotten 2 seconds later. Still they promised they would behave on Sunday as it was Fathers Day.

Fathers Day began rather abruptly at 7:10am as the boys came into the bedroom shouting “Happy Fathers Day”. I opened one present – a rather nice iphone charger before I got a cup of tea and Cadburys chocolate fingers in bed! I then opened my other pressie which is a Belgian waffle maker. I’ve wanted one of these since we came out in February. It looks brilliant – can’t wait to make some waffles!

From this point on I think Harry and Toby spent the day misbehaving in countless different ways and it stayed that way until just after 6pm when we sat down for roast chicken. We nearly didn’t get the chicken as unlike UK supermarkets this one still had it’s giblets in! I wasn’t getting involved (as it was Fathers Day) and neither were Toby or Harry – even though Harry had intended to take them out, he changed his mind when he saw them. Tracy ended up scooping them out with a spoon and putting them straight down the waste disposal unit – I can highly recommend these and not just for giblets. They are also very good for unfinished bowls of cereal and potato peelings.

After the giblet experience, it was decided that we wouldn’t be having roast chicken again just beef and pork, however, Tracy changed her mind once she had tasted how good it was! All plates were cleared and our first American roast dinner was complete – yum!

After dinner, we sat down and watched Cars in the formal lounge in readiness for Cars 2 which is out in the cinemas next week. The devil children are being bribed into good behavior – a week of behaving and we go to the cinema next weekend. What are the chances of that happening!?

Today was the day. After watching 2 Meadway get packed up, moving out and living in 4 different places for about seven and a half weeks and following the container across the Atlantic, through the Panama canal and up to Oakland, California, we were finally reunited!

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Tracy was emotional as the boxes started coming out the container – probably at the thought of seeing all her handbags again (all $65k’s worth of insurance value – or somewhere near that figure!). I was excited at the thought of being able to sit on our sofa again – we’ve missed it! Toby just wanted to get his soft toys and Harry was busy at school, watching a movie and eating popcorn – school in America sounds awesome!

The container and crew arrived at 8:30am and it took about 4 hours for them to upload the lorry and unpack most of it. When we asked if they would be putting all the furniture together they didn’t seem too happy about it but they did it! The one thing that I knew would be a nightmare to put together was the bunk beds. And they were. I had hoped to avoid it altogether but after spending an hour or so trying to put them together they finally came and asked for help. After pretty much taking it to pieces again we managed to get it sorted. There is no way those beds are coming home with us though – they are being thrown out! They may not even make it until our return if Harry starts picking it again like he was in Harrold!

Although the our new house is much bigger than Meadway, the kitchen is smaller – not as much cupboard space anyway. There is going to have to be some creative cupboard packing skills displayed by Tracy – I’m keeping out of it! It’s also good to have the table and chairs in the kitchen/diner area (or nook as the Americans call it) mainly because it means I can no longer walk into the low light that hangs down. The lampshade is hard and it hurts and I used to walk into it on a regular basis!

The furniture all looks really good – I was worried the colors may not go with the color of the hardwood floor but everything goes perfectly. The sofas are super comfy, as is the bed, and by the end of a busy day the house is starting to get organized. It will probably take a couple more days and we will move in on Friday but progress on day 1 is good. Even if I do say so myself.

We left the house at 5pm and headed on over to Kirkland for a well deserved visit to Zeeks pizza. Then it was back to the apartment and into our comfy’s and pj’s just in time to experience our first earthquake. It was a moment we would never forget. At 6:52pm on the 14th of June it struck, just 9 miles north of Seattle. I say we would never forget it, we probably wouldn’t if we’d felt it, but we didn’t! It was only a magnitude of 2.5. Fortunately the local news station tweeted about it otherwise we would have been completely oblivious!

So all in all it was an exciting day! Our new house is starting to feel fab and homely (apart from the remaining piles of boxes), our bellies are full and now we are watching the Seattle auditions for Americas Got Talent (with a lot of weird people!). I think we will sleep well tonight!