Kisses and Cuddles

Posted on | April 28, 2010 | 10 Comments

Hey! I did some crafty time!! Felt quite a bit challenge though because most of what I own is still in a crate somewhere in the UK (rumors said the boat has docked although it can take a week or two to pass customs).

Today is WPlus9‘s day #1 sneakie peakie for two new sets coming out in April. For this card I used one little stamp piece from the Kisses and Cuddles set: a circle. Quite simple see, just stamping the circle over each other to create the background. I’m not usually the background stamping kind of gal but ya know, when you only have so many things to work with one gotta do what one gotta do. For the crepe, I folded together about 6″ of crepe. Place some flowers (you can make this yourself with stamen and tiny flowers — a lot of this at many craft stores) and staple the crepe and flowers together. To cover the staple I placed the “Thank you” on top of it and a button over it just because. Pretty easy!

Gives the card some dimension in an easy and clean way.

I also want to share a photo of M at the beach last Sunday. She was one happy camper!!

It was cold at Southwold beach but beautiful.

Ok, off to take my driving test. Wish me luck!!!

So Far: Lovely!

Posted on | April 26, 2010 | 12 Comments

It’s only been a few full days here in the UK but we’ve experienced so much already and each day we’re enjoying our lives here more and more.

Now first of all I always pride myself in not getting jet lag… or if I do it’ll be very little of it. The last few days here has just been that: jet lag free! A few years ago I found this article on how to avoid jet lag: A few days before the flight eat very little meat, eat lots of veggies, drink lots of water and try to get on the new time as possible. Well, the last wasn’t going to do it but what I usually do on a long flight is sleep on the plane following the new location’s time. On the plane the girls got about 5 hrs of sleep and I probably got half of that. When we got here we all took about 1-2hrs of naps and normal sleeps at night. Results: No jet lag!

The first day here was filled with meeting people. Everybody on this road, and more, knew we were coming and they all welcomed us with smiles, tea, and chit-chats. One neighbor brought some friends over to meet us (their little girl goes to M’s school) and another sent us flowers. It’s been so welcoming here and we look forward to being an active member of this community!

Because we’re not all lethargic, we’ve been able to explore and see a lot of neat new places between Thursday (when we landed) and Sunday. The best parts were the following (if I write them all this post will be a short novel!):

Grocery shopping!

You know I love good food right? Well, this area is totally raw food haven. Fresh, local, sustainable/organic, veggies, fruits, and meat. There’s a grocery store that’s wonderful, Waitrose, that’s just a few minutes away and last weekend we went to a nice market in a city called Ely. Waitrose is a tad below Whole Foods I think. At the market we got some fresh veggies, meat, plants and ostrich burger. Our first and quite tasty! Here’s a photo of the market:

This village!!

We’ve been walking around the village and M said she loves this place more than our old home. Why? There are ducks to feed, horses to pet, and little girl friends around the corner. Our little village is called Exning and it’s adjacent to a bigger town called Newmarket. Newmarket is the place to go for horse races (and the shopping). I am guessing it’s like the Kentucky Derby so there are many horses in this area. We’re also only 15 minutes away from Cambridge. In general, Exning is seriously a lovely village. Very very quaint, friendly, and close to many larger cities. Unless something major happens we can see ourselves staying in this house until our four years is up. Here’s a photo of the local church, circa 1100 A.D.:

Uniform shopping!

I love kids in uniform. They’re just so cute and M was no exception. We went shopping on Friday and ever since that kid got her hands on her outfits she couldn’t wait to go to school. She was more excited to go to school this time around than the first day of kindergarten!! In the UK instead of kindergarten they call it year 1. Here’s the Emma after school. There’s a play set that the previous tenant left behind and she’s been playing on it everyday (another reason why she loves this place). Oh, whatcha think of the haircut.

Last but not least… daddy and Jovie!!!!!

There’s no question on how M would react to seeing her daddy again. As expected when she laid eyes on him at the airport M ran and tackled her daddy. Jovie on the other hand was more questionable. She is a baby and it’s been three months. On top of that Jovie (M was the same) is not a friendly baby. You can flirt and giggle with her from a distance but once you reach out to her she’d cry. Although she did fuss a bit at the airport the next day was a different story:

That’s it for now. We did go to the beach but I’ll save that story+pics for a different post. It still feels like a vacation to me (probably why I haven’t done much, ha!) but I’m sure, very soon, I’ll wake up and realize that this is our new home (that I have to clean). Thursday I am taking my driving test. Wish me luck!!!

First Class Trip!

Posted on | April 22, 2010 | 22 Comments

Not that we went first class (the military would go broke if that’s how they transfer their people on commercial airlines) but the whole experience of getting to the UK was wonderful.

Early Wednesday morning, 6:15 a.m. to be exact, I called United to confirm our flight. Due to the volcanic ashes air traffic to and from Europe, esp. the UK has been insane. After a lot of checking, she felt for my situation – two little kids and traveling to the airport, she confirmed that Heathrow is letting our flight in. YES!! So off we went (I did call one more time before we left town to make sure) and our first stop was Avis… I’ve been using a rental since I sold the car a couple weeks ago. Usually after dropping a car off one would catch the shuttle to the airport. But the guy checking us in thought that I had too many things for somebody traveling alone with two kids. So he asked this wonderful gentleman, Hank, to drive us to the airport. Well, Hank not only dropped us off, but he also helped take all our things to the check-in counter (one large suitcase, two carry-ons, one scrapbook tote, one stroller, two carseats, a breast pump, a bag full of frozen breast milk, my backpack and M’s backpack). You know one is just about helping when one refuses a tip. I tried but he said no, he just wanted to help and if I just do the survey and tell Avis how wonderful the KC airport Avis was he’d be happy. Great great start!

The person at the counter was very helpful. He was not only efficient he was nice too. He got us somebody to help me with my backpack, one carry-on, and carseat. Ok, they don’t seem like much but the two I have were very heavy (camera + computer gears). After everything went through the machines this person helped carry everything to a seat in the boarding area. Note to mothers traveling with milk… I had 30 oz with me. Frozen + ice pack and they did a special scan and that’s that. There was no hassle/question. So if you’re nursing, want to bring extra milk, you can and just let the security folks know and hand the bag to them. The flight attendants were great too, VERY accommodating with me having Jovie.

One great thing about our travel yesterday (besides seeing the hubby) was that I got to meet a cousin that I’ve only heard of and have only communicated via email. She lives in Chicago with her family and even though short I had a very nice visit with her. I arranged it so that we had a long layover in Chicago and we went out to lunch at a Japanese market. Very neat!! I’ve never been and it reminded me of Indonesia. The food was good too. After Chicago I left Jovie’s carseat with my cousin (that’s the only reason I brought Jovie’s carseat – we got a UK spec for her here) and the load was a tad bit lighter and less awkward.

Now, if you were an original ticket holder for London Wednesday, consider yourself lucky – it was like holding a small lottery ticket. For most airlines Wednesday was the first day for them to fly into Heathrow. The boarding area was jam packed. It was full of regular passengers PLUS 60 on stand-by. Some are families with young children. Who’d think that a volcanic eruption could displace millions of travelers (per CNN at least)!

The long flight, 8hrs, was nice. Nothing spectacular but it was smooth. This was my first international flight on a U.S. airline company. Usually I’d take Singapore Airline. There was no hot towels soon after you board/before landing, there was no toiletries packages, there was only one meal and a light breakfast (if you’ve ever been on an Asian airline food is abundant) and the alcoholic beverages were not free (although the first one was on the captain because there were a lot of stranded people on our flight), and there’s no special kid’s meal + toys, the people on United were very very nice. It was neat too to be in United’s first flight to the UK. Once we landed everybody cheered. Half were happy to be home and the other half were glad that they were safe. There were many hugs and laughter.

Here’s a picture of Heathrow. One of the busiest airport in the world…

Crazy, huh? Just reopened Tuesday late night. We were one of a handful first flights coming in that morning. Although the airport reopened they were limiting which flights can come in/out. Our flight was allowed to keep its schedule but the United flight coming out of London Wednesday was canceled. That’s why I stopped to take this photo. I felt like I had my own personal airport. On a normal day there’d be many many people.

After the border patrol and bags pick-up the first thing we saw was the husband/daddy. M ran straight to him and hugged and kissed and snuggled. Jovie was neutral but she did let him hold her and even though she fussed a bit she was fine. Wonderful wonderful reunion and now we’re finally home. The house is still empty — our furniture is suppose to dock the 25th of April — but we’re all together again! I had one nap so far. The kids listened and they slept for about 5 hrs on the plane. I think tonight they should be tired and go to bed as usual. We’ll see. I’ve been pretty good at controlling jet lag. With kids though it’s a bit tough.

Many hugs to you (I am just friggin happy to be here) and more stories, photos, and craft projects coming soon!!! First class experience for sure the last day or two!

Flyin’ to the UK

Posted on | April 21, 2010 | 7 Comments

Okie dokie… if you’re reading this post it means that the girls and I are flying over the Atlantic ocean (and over volcanic ashes) on United flight 958. We’ve been waiting for this day and more anxious the last few days than we’d normally would due to all the cancellations. But we’re finally on board and soon we’ll all be together again!! I’ve been meaning to do some crafting too after we moved out of the house but a lot happened here and that just didn’t happen. Tell you more on that later.

Yesterday was my last day at work too. Bitter sweet for sure and I’m going to miss everything about my job and the little town that we called home the last few years.

This post will be short and sweet… next post will be live from the UK {::SMILE}.

In the mean time, enjoy a little something I made a few weeks ago… Just a simple card with some pattern paper and a stamp from Clear and Simple. It’s the Rock-a-Bye sentiment that I used. Button, ribbon, and card stock from CSS too. The pattern paper’s a digital kit from The DigiChick.

Blog/Site Tip: Meebo Bar

Posted on | April 18, 2010 | 1 Comment

Have you seen the little bar on the bottom of my page? It’s pretty cool! The thing is called a Meebo Bar.

Meebo isn’t new. I’ve used it for a couple of years now in my online classes. It’s basically an online chat application. I’ve been using it in my classroom because unlike MSN or AOL the end users do not need to create a username or password in order to chat with me. I can have virtual office hours with my students no matter what chat application they use on a regular basis… or if they don’t use any. Very nice free app!

I don’t see a need to plop in the Meebo JavaScript onto my blog. I mean who’d want to chat with me, right? But if ever need to have a chat application on your site/blog… for example if you have an online store… you can easily add this feature onto your site. It’s just like embedding a YouTube video, pretty easy and free. Just something extra for your customers/guests.

But the Meebo bar I want to try out. I’ve seen it here and there the last few months but I haven’t had a chance to play with it until recently. I have a presentation in a few days and I want to include Meebo in it. Again I am using my blog as a guinea pig.

How does it work? Well, look below and you should see a bar. On the left is has “Share Page” and on the right are different chat applications icons. If you have a Facebook account and one of the other chat apps that are showing go ahead and log in to them. The same if you have a Twitter account.

Now, there are different ways to share. You can click on the “Share Page” and it’ll share whatever URL you’re on to your Facebook/Twitter/Yahoo/Email. Or, if you’re logged in to one of your chat application, that thing will open on the bottom right and you can drop the URL anywhere and you’ll be sharing my page. Try hovering over one of the photo (or video). You’ll see a “drag to share” button. Go ahead, drag the image and the sharing tool will be available. You then just drop the image to whatever your social media tool is and voila. Pretty fun!

Still not making sense? Check out this video:

A larger version of this video can be found here: Screencast

Need an image to test this out? Try this: