Easter party

I've downsized to the mini diaper bag and just a coin purse wristlet wallet. (Not sure why I didn't do this BEFORE we left for England.) Regardless, it feels good to simplify (and lighten the daily load). Small victories. :)

Today we took the train into Poole. I hit up Cafe Nero for a white chocolate mocha and they asked if Ethan would like a free babyccino (steamed frothed milk with some chocolate sprinkles). Apparently they are always free for kids there. I loved this place already and now I do even more. It is now the one punch card in my seemingly empty wallet. How cute is this?

Then we went to the "Toybox" playgroup (weekly playgroup Tuesday's from 10-12 at the Poole Baptist Church) I found out about online on the netmums website. It was great! These little old ladies run it and I was blown away by how well-organized it was and how generous and nice and welcoming they were to us. Apparently this was a little out of the ordinary because it was their special Easter party. They had all sorts of toys for kids to play with and a little bouncy house. They also had five different crafts the kids could do (although Ethan is never big on crafts and just wants to play and Hailey just wants to grab everything). I met a few other moms--Adele and I don't remember the name of the other one (she didn't have a famous British singer's name which made it easy to remember). They were both really friendly and had kids near Hailey's age. Yah, potential friends in Poole! They were asking me if I was going to send Ethan to school in the fall (kids start public school at 4 instead of 5 here). Sure! :) Then, they had an Easter egg hunt in the sanctuary, gave all the kids a sticker for their "jumper" (top) and a sheet of stickers and then this little Easter box full of all different types of snacks and we had a little picnic! (String cheese, grapes, mandarin slices, little donut cookies, mini little pie treats, filled bear spongey thing, potato crisps, little Gems). Ha, my kids were a little sugar-crazed and did not need lunch after all that. And the adults all had a "cuppa" (cup of tea and biscuit). They had song time with maracas and most of the songs I knew but they were set to a completely different tune. "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" had a bunch of additional lyrics I had never heard before-it was funny! 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OGu_u6-VKNU

To top it all off, they gave each of the kids a huge chocolate egg on their way out! Wow! 

Checking out their loot. :)

Then Ethan insisted we get a little metal double-decker bus for Hailey too at the Pound store (he is obsessed with his) and we got some sand pails and other odds and ends. I grabbed a "banger" (bratwurst) for lunch and we headed back on the train.

The Birds!

It's Monday, kind of our day to regroup, plan out the week/map things out and catch up on laundry (I literally need to do a load once a day because all of our clothes for one day make up a full load in these tiny washer/dryers. If there are several pairs of jeans sometimes it won't even fit into one load. Even still I probably stuff too much in there and everything is perma-wrinkled and never quite all the way dry.). The postal codes here are brilliant by the way. They are six digits (ie BH15 3PH) and with JUST the postal code you can map things and be within like 7 houses.  

The kids and I were super tired because we went to bed super late and they woke up early. We are getting into bad habits with late naps, late bedtime (been going out to dinner with people lately and the kids keep each other up late)-it starts a whole bad cycle. Hailey was anxious to go somewhere and brought me her coat, then my coat, then Ethan's coat, then Ethan's shoes and would walk to the front door as if to say "Let's go!". She is funny. 

After her morning nap and lunch we set out for a little walk. We perused some of the charity shops (the thrift stores here all benefit different specific charities like Breast Cancer, MS, etc.) There are quite a few charity shops! Always fun to look. 

Then we got a hot cross bun to try and a mocha for me (and a fruit tart for Chris to try). We sat on the park bench to eat it and this aggressive well-fed squirrel kept coming right up to us. He was eyeing that Hot Cross Bun, I know he wanted to steal it. Ethan and Hailey were both fans of the Hot Cross Bun (It had raisins and fruit and spices? Tasted kind of like a mix between a dinner roll and fruitcake IMO). Anyways, suddenly it was like the animals were in cahoots and they all charged. The birds were swooping low by our heads in a frenzy. (It reminded me of the creepy old Alfred Hitchcock film, "The Birds".) I said, "Ethan, they all want your roll, we have to hurry and finish it and get out of here!" That was pretty much the excitement for the day-we survived the bird mauling. 

Old Range Rover. Ethan keeps saying "The cars look different here."

This type of bird was particularly aggressive.

Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove

We set out for Durdle Door and it was my turn to take a stab at driving. Miraculously, we managed to make it unscathed with no accidents, scratches or dings. I thought the hardest part was remembering to look right when entering the many roundabouts. I still need to figure out what to do to effectively look behind the car when backing up (I usually twist the top half of my body around and rest my right arm behind the passenger headrest but it just isn't natural to do the opposite when seated on the other side.) Chris said he thought I was awfully close on the left side so I may need to hug the dotted line more. These roads are so dang narrow in some of these small towns, I just cringe as cars pass by on the other side. :)

After venturing to get change for the car park there, we hiked on this little trail down to Durdle Door--this naturally formed eroded archway in the rocks.  Durdle Door is also part of the Jurassic Coast (England's first World Heritage Site). Starting in Exmouth in East Devon and ending in Swanage in Dorset, it encompasses 185 million years of geological history in 95 miles. There is a trail that goes the whole way if you wish to hike/camp it. Rocks differ in color according to the time periods represented and you can dig for fossils! The beach is made up of little reddish brown polished pebbles and then slightly larger gray rocks closer to the water. It's beautiful! Hailey insisted on walking up the steps by herself.

Everyone ganged up on me and piled rocks on me (the photo below was just the beginning). Ethan found a lot of "favorite rocks" that he loaded into the milk tote and made it weigh a ton (we'll have to cull them later and lower it to a few favorites). 

We met this nice Canadian guy (that has been living with his German wife and kids in Poole for 10yrs.) that took our family pic at the arch. He was telling us how amazing Studland Beach is (a guy at the Corfe Castle Visitors Center was telling me about it the other day as well). Anyways, he was saying that you can take a ferry from the Poole Quay AND you can take a ferry to France from the Poole Quay as well. Nice!

Next we drove to nearby Lulworth Cove. To get there you walk to the cute little town of Lulworth with thatched roofs etc.:

Such a gorgeous sunny day today. We had stripped off our coats and hats by now. Then got seated outside at a cafe. I got the Sunday pork roast (I knew that it was tradition to have a big roast dinner but I thought it was just beef- I was excited to see the pork version on offer as well.) Aside from the meat being on the dry side (like everywhere here), it was good-lots of great vegetables and sides. Loved the bread thing with gravy on it on the top.

Hailey, the green machine, downed all of Chris' peas and all of my broccoli. Well ok, if you must. Chris got Fish and Chips and some British soup that had broccoli in it. Then we headed home and tried to keep Hailey from falling asleep in the car (she came close but we made it). 

Wimborne Minster and Market

Today we rode with Chris into Wimborne (he worked a half day and we explored the town of Wimborne). Conveniently, it was market day in Wimborne Square so we perused the market first thing.

I found all of these tasty things I wanted to buy: orange chocolate chai tea bags, fancy olives, pastries, meat pies, unique fruits and vegetables (purple broccoli thing and this veg that is a mix between cauliflower and broccoli):

Only I was down to 1 Pound and 97 Pence. I bought some ginormous (some are seriously fist-size in width) carrots and then attempted to go to the ATM to take out some money. And then two other ATM's and stood in line for a teller. No luck. So I need to call my bank because obviously they have froze my debit card (Dangit, I know better and should have called to let them know we'd be out of the country but in the craziness, it totally

slipped my mind this time.) Then there is the other problem that is my new phone company--Lycamobile... I have been trying all week to simply start a new phone plan and they have made it way more complicated than it should be. So now I have to sort that out in order to be able to call the bank in WA. Tuesday I put in the new SIM card with 1Pound of credit and then registered online. After researching all the options, it wouldn't take my credit card (I KNOW this credit card works too, I have been using it for groceries and other purchases here.)  We tried maybe 3 times and it locked us out and said to call. So the next day I tried to call and it either ended the call or would say for me to press 1 for English over and over (and pressing 1 did nothing). So then I emailed only they sent me some dumb form letter reply a few days later that didn't address my specific questions and suggested that I try calling again. (Really?!) So I tried again today and got through and gave them my credit card and all my info only to have it denied again and tell me I needed to contact their CS number. So I did that and she kept putting me on hold for long periods of time to call others to ask and I kept having to tell her the same basic situation over and over (she just wasn't getting it). And in the end, she wanted me to call some other number (you ARE customer service!) with some code in 24-48hrs so they can determine why my credit card is not going through. UGH. So I finally just went to buy the top up credit at the grocery store (with said credit card) and gave up on doing a monthly plan. Only when I went to load it on my phone it said my phone couldn't make the call to load it because it was out of credit. This is the definition of insanity! You are a communications company, get it together! (And I thought Comcast was bad before...) Luckily, it worked after a few tries. Only my bank was closed. I seriously just wasted several hours. At least my phone works now. In the meantime we bought some groceries and I took Ethan to the bathroom twice. Luckily the kids were pretty patient through this ordeal. Hailey took a long nap and we went in the toy store and hung out by the river:

And Ethan ate a bazillion carrots and kettle corn. Speaking of which,check out our latest finds:

Mmm,good. Still need to try the regular popcorn and the chips. As a marketer, I love (and was a sucker for) their packaging and the names, I knew I liked their product already. :) And they were half off, which meant we needed to try them all.

Next, we went to Wimborne Minster, the gorgeous old church that the town is centered around. It was a challenge trying to keep the kids quiet in there but I did my best.

The kids were not exactly being cooperative when this lady offered to take our picture:

So we returned to the square to meet Chris and the market vendors were all packing up so we will have to return another Saturday for our goodies. The kids had fun playing in the telephone booth:

Toy Library

Here in England, they have toy libraries. Like a book library, you can check out toys for 3weeks (there might be a minimal fee but it is not much). What a brilliant concept! Today we walked to the free open play session at one of them (about a mile away-Ethan is going to have to get used to walking everywhere because that is what we do). :) I snapped a quick pic before I was informed that we aren't supposed to take photos. 

Here is our little future engineer meticulously parking all of the vehicles. :)

Hailey was only interested in walking up the slides (What is it with both of my kids being more interested in going up the slide than down?) and up and down the stairs. Ethan got to paint a picture, play on the play equipment outside and with the toys and the big toy kitchen.

There were lots of kids and moms there and several moms were super friendly. And if I didn't have to keep Hailey from maiming herself on the stairs I might have been able to hold an actual conversation. The director was really warm and friendly as well and gave me all the info. on the Old Town location (where we are moving) and other nearby playgroups. She led a circle time with songs--some we knew and others we didn't (a song about a turtle and bubbles?). Ethan told her afterwards that he loved her. I had heard him say "I love that girl over there" but I was assuming it was a little girl his age (not my age or older). Afterwards, everyone gets a free piece of fruit on their way out. Nice!

Here are a few things we tried out today:

Both get my stamp of approval. The Creme Egg biscuits are perfect actually because I usually want about one Creme egg per Easter season and sometimes split it between two sittings since they are so rich. (Although, as a kid, Linda and Chris didn't like them and would give me each of their 3packs from their Easter basket so I used to eat a lot of them.) Anyways, this biscuit form is much less rich and hits the spot.

Ethan has been busy doing the activities and crafts from his Easter Activities book from the Pound Store (love that place-amazing how long he has been occupied). Always the independent one, he decided the color by numbers sheep should be a black sheep instead of white:

Oh, I also saw a fox sunning himself in the wooded area next to our apartment today but he sauntered off before I could snap a picture.

Poole Lake Park

Today we walked a mile to Poole Lake Park and hung out with the ducks and swans (pretty but mean little buggers), climbed a tree, played on the playground... 

Ethan made a new little friend at the playground and met several kids. All the moms at this particular park were all done up, I felt a little under-dressed! There is an indoor play area there (like Elevated Sportz minus the trampolines) called the Ark that we will have to pay a visit on a rainy day. We had lunch outside at a kid-friendly Cafe there (it was a nice sunny day today). We sat near these three girlfriends and their kids and I couldn't help but listen to their conversation. Need to make some friends here! :) 

We went out to dinner and drinks at the Cow last night with several of Chris' Boeing coworkers (that are here for varying lengths of time from all different parts of the U.S.) and that was fun. We may join some others (Wimborne folks) tonight at The Olive Branch. 

Ethan was walking very slowly on the mile walk home. He really wanted a Popsicle but settled for some ice cream and managed to speed it up a bit since he couldn't have it until he got home. He keeps spotting people that look like kids he knows at home. And just before his nap he asked when we are going to start traveling. "I thought we were traveling. I like to travel." He's probably referring to "the big road trip" as he likes to call it. Kid after my own heart. Hopefully some family weekend excursions in a few weeks when we get settled in new place and Chris' work slows down a bit (he is working long hours right now and has to work one of the weekend days on the weekend for the next several weeks).