January happenings
So things are hectic around here still.
After the flooding in October, we had issues with damp walls, so had to get the flood insurance people to look at it. Before Christmas, we had the drywall and insulation throughout the garage and downstairs storage room removed (interior walls), and everything professionally dried. It was then left in that state, pending various red tape. Last week, we discovered that somehow the contractors have done more work than the insurance is prepared to pay for. We're waiting to find out what the outcome of that will be (we'd kind of like to avoid paying the difference, since we certainly didn't sign anything), but in the meantime, we've got skeleton walls in our garage and the lower part of the stairwell leading to the garage. The empty walls there are taped up, but obviously it's not secure, and it's certainly drafty.
Also last week, I heard some bizarre noises emanating from inside the wall by our bathroom (i.e. inside the garage). Today, Trog caught a rat in (I believe) the stairwell. He was so pleased with himself, and I scolded him before realising that he couldn't have brought it inside because nobody had let him in! Poor Trog! To add insult to injury, I threw the rat off our porch. After all, even if he had caught it inside, it was still against the rules to eat it inside.
No doubt the cold weather drove the rat into our garage (probably through a broken vent), and from there, up the walls into the warmer part of the house. Thank goodness Trog caught this one, but chances are it wasn't alone. Time to start hassling people to get the damn walls fixed.
In other bad news for Trog, construction has started on the empty lot across the road from us, so we've lost our field (the local dog owners must be very depressed, since it was a popular pre-work dog exercise ground). The children are enjoying watching the diggers at work, though they've interfered with Sproglet's naps. Still worse, the houses will be blocking our sunrise! On the plus side, this should increase our property value, which is always good!
Meanwhile, we're going through an odd patch of weather. A couple of weeks ago it was wet all week, and then we were warned of snow on Friday (which didn't come off as the ground was so wet). Last week, it was dry and below freezing all week, and we were warned of snow on Friday, which amounted to a few inches in the afternoon, and some fun playing on Saturday morning. It's mostly gone now, and we're looking at warm weather mid-week... and snow on Friday.
In other news, I'm currently teaching at the school, but I'm only covering and that will be coming to an end in another couple of weeks. Realistically, I'm not likely to be working again before September, so that means I'll spend the rest of the school year with my mornings to myself. I plan to live the life of a kept woman, which I'm pretty sure means my only responsibilities are sex and shopping. In the event that this is not actually feasible, I shall be using the time to investigate work options, and do a bunch of other projects that have been on the backburner, from going through stuff in the attic to trying out laser hair removal (I have to do something decadent, after all!).
Other future plans involve travelling! Encouraged by our successful Orlando trip last year, we are planning to visit some friends in upstate New York in March (assuming they move into their house on time) and to do a road trip around the Grand Canyon in April (if my husband ends up going to the Vegas business conference he wants to attend). We're still limited by what Sproglet can do, but there's a lot more we can do as a family now as opposed to a few years ago, and it's time to make most of the it!
One of the intangible changes that's happened over the past year is that we seem to be coming closer to the end of our indefinite stay in the US. Our perspective of when we're going home is not so much "at some point," but more "in a few years." It might not sound like much, but it's increased our motivation to travel while this kind of opportunity is still available.
And in photographs...
Meg watching snow leopards on Planet Earth. We've started watching the Planet Earth series in between dinner and bedtime--something very nostalgic about David Attenborough's narration! We all enjoy it, but this is one of two occasions that Meg has felt the need to investigate.
Sproglet in her classroom at school. She put that headband on her herself, just in case you were wondering!
On the Friday that it didn't snow, we went to the zoo in the afternoon and discovered a snow drift along a boardwalk opposite the vulture. This is Sproglet's first snow, as the last time we had snow on the ground was the day after she was born. She was a bit confused when I took this picture, but she and Sprog proceeded to spend five minutes walking up and down the snowdrift.
That weekend was a long weekend, with the Sunday being unusually warm, so we decided to make a day trip across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (we briefly and recklessly considered a run down to North Carolina, but decided against it because so many of the attractions would be closed in January). Sproglet has never been across it and Sprog only once, when he was a year old, and none of us had ever stopped at the first island which has a bit of info. So that's what we did. Above you can see the rocks over the tunnel stretching towards the second island. Not clear in the picture but visible on the day was the bridge curving from the second island to the third and then from the fourth to the hazy Eastern Shore.
A sign told us the names of all these navy ships by their number. This one that passed by happened to share its name with my brother, so we took a picture!
The fishing pier on the island. There's also a gift shop and a restaurant. Nothing much, but it's kind of nice to stop and appreciate the bridge.
After a brief walk at the Eastern Shore Wildlife Refuge, we went to Cape Charles for lunch and came across these kite surfers.
Almost as exciting as a dead jellyfish.
The children watching the snow fall on the following Friday. You can also see the building work going on across the road. There goes the view!
We moved outside to see the snow properly. Sproglet last saw falling snow at ten or eleven months olds. She was dumbstruck.
There was one patch of snow on the ground at this point, so the obvious thing to do was get out the bikes and make tracks in it.
Twenty-six minutes later. The tyre-tracks, I should note, were made by Daddy.
The following morning, Sprog and I were the first out to play in the snow. When we came back in to get the camera, Sprog spotted this snow 'Christmas Tree' that we had made while tracking snow up the steps. He insisted I take a picture.
We did snow angels and snowball fights, but the children's favourite activity was skidding on the ice at the end of the drive.
Sprog most wanted to build a snowman. To my disappointment, the snow was too fluffy to roll into a ball, and to his disappointment, there wasn't enough to build a full-sized snowman. Still, we managed to pile the snow up and compact it together and with sticks, stones and one of Sproglet's hats, we had ourselves a little snow-boy (gender determined by Sprog). Sprog kept saying we had to finish it by midnight, and I finally worked out that he was thinking of the Snowman and fully expected our snowman to come alive and dance with him. I was a little concerned about the disappointment when this didn't happen, but I did not disillusion him.
For the record, I was not awake at midnight last night, so I can't be sure how this ended (My brother said I should have trolled Sprog by playing "Walking in the Air" at midnight)! But the snow-boy collapsed at around lunchtime today, so I can only hope he made the most of his brief existence.
After the flooding in October, we had issues with damp walls, so had to get the flood insurance people to look at it. Before Christmas, we had the drywall and insulation throughout the garage and downstairs storage room removed (interior walls), and everything professionally dried. It was then left in that state, pending various red tape. Last week, we discovered that somehow the contractors have done more work than the insurance is prepared to pay for. We're waiting to find out what the outcome of that will be (we'd kind of like to avoid paying the difference, since we certainly didn't sign anything), but in the meantime, we've got skeleton walls in our garage and the lower part of the stairwell leading to the garage. The empty walls there are taped up, but obviously it's not secure, and it's certainly drafty.
Also last week, I heard some bizarre noises emanating from inside the wall by our bathroom (i.e. inside the garage). Today, Trog caught a rat in (I believe) the stairwell. He was so pleased with himself, and I scolded him before realising that he couldn't have brought it inside because nobody had let him in! Poor Trog! To add insult to injury, I threw the rat off our porch. After all, even if he had caught it inside, it was still against the rules to eat it inside.
No doubt the cold weather drove the rat into our garage (probably through a broken vent), and from there, up the walls into the warmer part of the house. Thank goodness Trog caught this one, but chances are it wasn't alone. Time to start hassling people to get the damn walls fixed.
In other bad news for Trog, construction has started on the empty lot across the road from us, so we've lost our field (the local dog owners must be very depressed, since it was a popular pre-work dog exercise ground). The children are enjoying watching the diggers at work, though they've interfered with Sproglet's naps. Still worse, the houses will be blocking our sunrise! On the plus side, this should increase our property value, which is always good!
Meanwhile, we're going through an odd patch of weather. A couple of weeks ago it was wet all week, and then we were warned of snow on Friday (which didn't come off as the ground was so wet). Last week, it was dry and below freezing all week, and we were warned of snow on Friday, which amounted to a few inches in the afternoon, and some fun playing on Saturday morning. It's mostly gone now, and we're looking at warm weather mid-week... and snow on Friday.
In other news, I'm currently teaching at the school, but I'm only covering and that will be coming to an end in another couple of weeks. Realistically, I'm not likely to be working again before September, so that means I'll spend the rest of the school year with my mornings to myself. I plan to live the life of a kept woman, which I'm pretty sure means my only responsibilities are sex and shopping. In the event that this is not actually feasible, I shall be using the time to investigate work options, and do a bunch of other projects that have been on the backburner, from going through stuff in the attic to trying out laser hair removal (I have to do something decadent, after all!).
Other future plans involve travelling! Encouraged by our successful Orlando trip last year, we are planning to visit some friends in upstate New York in March (assuming they move into their house on time) and to do a road trip around the Grand Canyon in April (if my husband ends up going to the Vegas business conference he wants to attend). We're still limited by what Sproglet can do, but there's a lot more we can do as a family now as opposed to a few years ago, and it's time to make most of the it!
One of the intangible changes that's happened over the past year is that we seem to be coming closer to the end of our indefinite stay in the US. Our perspective of when we're going home is not so much "at some point," but more "in a few years." It might not sound like much, but it's increased our motivation to travel while this kind of opportunity is still available.
And in photographs...
Meg watching snow leopards on Planet Earth. We've started watching the Planet Earth series in between dinner and bedtime--something very nostalgic about David Attenborough's narration! We all enjoy it, but this is one of two occasions that Meg has felt the need to investigate.
Sproglet in her classroom at school. She put that headband on her herself, just in case you were wondering!
On the Friday that it didn't snow, we went to the zoo in the afternoon and discovered a snow drift along a boardwalk opposite the vulture. This is Sproglet's first snow, as the last time we had snow on the ground was the day after she was born. She was a bit confused when I took this picture, but she and Sprog proceeded to spend five minutes walking up and down the snowdrift.
That weekend was a long weekend, with the Sunday being unusually warm, so we decided to make a day trip across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (we briefly and recklessly considered a run down to North Carolina, but decided against it because so many of the attractions would be closed in January). Sproglet has never been across it and Sprog only once, when he was a year old, and none of us had ever stopped at the first island which has a bit of info. So that's what we did. Above you can see the rocks over the tunnel stretching towards the second island. Not clear in the picture but visible on the day was the bridge curving from the second island to the third and then from the fourth to the hazy Eastern Shore.
A sign told us the names of all these navy ships by their number. This one that passed by happened to share its name with my brother, so we took a picture!
The fishing pier on the island. There's also a gift shop and a restaurant. Nothing much, but it's kind of nice to stop and appreciate the bridge.
After a brief walk at the Eastern Shore Wildlife Refuge, we went to Cape Charles for lunch and came across these kite surfers.
Almost as exciting as a dead jellyfish.
The children watching the snow fall on the following Friday. You can also see the building work going on across the road. There goes the view!
We moved outside to see the snow properly. Sproglet last saw falling snow at ten or eleven months olds. She was dumbstruck.
There was one patch of snow on the ground at this point, so the obvious thing to do was get out the bikes and make tracks in it.
Twenty-six minutes later. The tyre-tracks, I should note, were made by Daddy.
The following morning, Sprog and I were the first out to play in the snow. When we came back in to get the camera, Sprog spotted this snow 'Christmas Tree' that we had made while tracking snow up the steps. He insisted I take a picture.
We did snow angels and snowball fights, but the children's favourite activity was skidding on the ice at the end of the drive.
Sprog most wanted to build a snowman. To my disappointment, the snow was too fluffy to roll into a ball, and to his disappointment, there wasn't enough to build a full-sized snowman. Still, we managed to pile the snow up and compact it together and with sticks, stones and one of Sproglet's hats, we had ourselves a little snow-boy (gender determined by Sprog). Sprog kept saying we had to finish it by midnight, and I finally worked out that he was thinking of the Snowman and fully expected our snowman to come alive and dance with him. I was a little concerned about the disappointment when this didn't happen, but I did not disillusion him.
For the record, I was not awake at midnight last night, so I can't be sure how this ended (My brother said I should have trolled Sprog by playing "Walking in the Air" at midnight)! But the snow-boy collapsed at around lunchtime today, so I can only hope he made the most of his brief existence.