31Oct2008: Day 158: Maybe They Should Put Health Food in Candy Wrappers

Fairly dull in regards to Halloween. We did have a few trick-or-treaters so luckily we have an abundance of left over candy. Here we were afraid that we wouldn't have enough. Part of it was probably because we don't know how to turn our porch light on, although, it does go on automatically at around 10:30pm for a few hours. Hopefully no one will show up then.

Makenna was all excited to hear the door bell ring and eagerly waved hello to the girls who were at the door. They all "aahhd" at the cute little girl cheering them on. The next time it rang, there was a scary mask and that was about the end of Makenna's excitement on the whole door bell ringing. The next time it rang, she literally just clung to me and didn't want to go to the door. I convinced her it would be okay, and by the time we made it to the door, they already left with treats in hand from Chris handing them out. That was about all that we got in the way of people at our door.

The night itself was quite funny. As soon as Makenna saw a candy wrapper, she immediately wanted some. Now mind you, she's never had this candy before but she knew she would like it. She didn't hesitate about putting it in her mouth, not even one brief thought of "I might not like this." Nope, just popped it right in. Daddy gave her another piece and mommy said "no more!" She didn't eat much dinner. So later when she was asking for food, I said she could have grapes. She said "okay" and then I brought them out and she wouldn't eat a single one.

I actually thought, well maybe if I put it in a candy wrapper she'd eat it without a thought. Nope, she recognized that the grape was just in a candy wrapper. She took the wrapper, looked at me, and said, "all gone". She knew the candy was all gone. We tried several times to get her to eat a grape to no avail. She decided she liked pulling them off the stem it was attached to so I let her do that and she held them in her hands and licked it. I figured if she would just bite into it and taste it, she'd hopefully like it. So Chris squeezed one open a little but again, no luck.

She tried putting the licked grape back in with the bunch so we kept putting it on the lid of the carton they were in, so we could throw it away. She was getting upset and kept putting it back in with the bunch. It was kind of funny as every time Chris put it on the lid, she'd yell, "no" and put it back in with the others. This went on about five times or so and Makenna got so mad that she picked up the grape off the lid and then threw it at Chris. We both had a good laugh at that. It's hard not to laugh at behavior you don't want to encourage when it was so appropriate.

The other thing I have to add, as this is kind of a "Makenna Journal" as well as being our travel blog, is that her and I were playing with some toys on the floor that she got for her birthday and I was putting these little people in a row on the floor with some animals and pretending that the people were feeding the animals. Makenna was pretending with me in making the munching noises of the animals eating, but then all of a sudden she decided a tornado came through and would knock down all the toys. She then would say, "fweetie" for sweetie. Chris says "sweetie" to her often when she's in the beginning stage of doing something she shouldn't.

Another thing I wanted to add is that she's getting better with her spoon and fork. She mainly uses a spoon in the morning with her cereal, and she has that about mastered (thank goodness). The fork, she can do some times but usually her meals are finger foods. I need to find some little forks, like shrimp forks or something. They happen to have little tea spoons here and I only shipped over one "spork" like instrument for her and that doesn't always get the food too well.

Well, Chris has to work tomorrow so we won't really be going anywhere but hopefully we'll be going to dinner with Makenna's friend Hannah and her family then off to see fireworks. They've been shooting off fireworks around the area sporadically throughout the week. I think some holiday "Guy Fawkes" day or something like that is coming up. It might be tomorrow. I'm not sure what it's about but I guess I better study up on it.

30Oct2008: Day 157: Come On!

Took Makenna swimming with her Dora swimming ring today. She enjoyed it. She was quite the friendly child today too. While we were in the pool, there was an older boy in the pool (maybe 4 years old), and Makenna kept waving and saying hello to him. Then as I'd take her swimming around, away from the steps, she'd wave and say bye, bye, and "see you later." Then we'd come back to the steps and she'd say "hello" again. It was quite cute and funny.

She's also starting to say some words a little more clear. Today she said "garbage" much clearer. Usually it came out sounding like "garbf" but today it was gar bige, with the pause between. Then she kept trying to say fox again, and we're trying to encourage her to say the ending clearer as when she says it, it sounds as though she's swearing.

After dinner, I offered her the last of her birthday brownie. Daddy kept asking her to share and he'd say, "come on, let daddy have some." So Makenna would just say back to him "come on." It's also cute to watch her try and sing itsy bitsy spider. You can understand some of it. She has this way of getting you to sing the song. She starts it, and then as you pick it up to sing it, she stops and lets you do it. She does it with most of the songs. She won't sing the whole song through. I guess she figures she has some other sucker doing it for her.

Late this afternoon it started to rain and actually thunder and lightening. This was the first time Chris and I had heard and seen it here, the thunder and lightening that is. It would be nice if it's like this tomorrow night as it's Halloween and we're not sure if we have enough candy. Plus, Chris has to go out of town for the day and he might not make it back until late so I might have to deal with hooligans all by myself.

29Oct2008: Day 156: Fried Goat

Bye bye to grandma and grandpa Jones. We hope they arrive home safe and sound to all the snow and we'll see you in a little while. Makenna was not having a good morning. We were guessing that she saw all the suitcases and was not too happy about it. As soon as everyone left, she was much better.

We went to a play group at the church. I unfortunately forgot some toys for Makenna but it didn't matter because they just got toys out from the nursery. I guess last week when kids brought their own toys, they had a hard time sharing. This way, the toys were communal. All the kids, except one, were older than Makenna but she was just as tall if not taller. She had a hard time joining in. They were running around but she just sat back and watched. Then when they were done, she got up and ran around.

After, we went shopping for groceries. I was surprised she did so well as it was lunch time. It wasn't until the last five minutes that she started begging for ooosse (noodles). So I started telling her that we were just checking out and then we could go home and get noodles. Then I followed up with "sounds good?" As we got to our car she kept saying "fried goat, fried goat". At least that's what I understood. I started racking my brains as to what she was saying, and then it dawned on me..."sounds good." She then agreed that's what she was saying. I tried pronouncing it slower and showing her how to say it, but it still sounded like she was saying fried goat.

On the way home, she fell asleep. So after I put groceries away, I got her out of the car and fed her her noodles. Very shortly after, she went down for her nap. After three hours, I finally woke her up. I was nervous about doing this as I may have said before, she is miserable if we wake her up, but if she wakes up on her own, she's fine. I've found though, that if I say her name, and turn on a light outside of the room (as now it's dark at 5pm), and take care of other things outside of her room, she then wakes herself up gradually and seems to be in a happier mood. This doesn't always work but it did today.

She got a very nice birthday card from Donna (thanks Donna!) of Winnie the Pooh and it makes noises when you open the card. She absolutely loved the card. I'm afraid she's going to rip it eventually but for now she's learned to open and close it to get it to say "Hip Hip Hooray, it's your Birthday".

She also took a bath tonight with her new foam letters. She loved the tub full of them and kept saying "letters, letters". She liked the squeaky noise they made under her fingers and I had to keep her from chewing them. As soon as we were done with the bath, she said "bath time". This girl is going to be a fish.

28Oct2008: Day 155: You're Not Her Nanny?

Last day with Grandma and Grandpa Jones. So what better time than to let them watch her to spend quality time together. Plus it gave me time to go to the gym and do a bit of shopping. Of course, both times that I left, she decided she needed a nap! She must be all partied out.

I took her down to the park to play. It was another nice Fall day. A bit cold but not too bad. While we were down there, a little seven year old girl came up and took a liking to Makenna. She was playing with her and talking to me. At one point when I was asking Makenna to "come to mommy," the little girl said, "are you her mommy or her nanny?" I said, "I'm her mommy." She said, "Oh, I thought you were her nanny." I wasn't sure whether to feel good or offended. I figured I'd feel good as I think most nanny's are young. After playing for about 20 minutes, we went back home. That's when I took off shopping. If I had known that Makenna was napping, I would've run up to another shopping center. I had just drove down to downtown Gillingham figuring it was close and I had in mind what I was looking for.

Chris's parents had walked down to Gillingham, and made it in good time I thought. They had a bit of a climb coming back to the house. There's a bit of an uphill climb, not too steep really, but they had their workout for the day.

Now the trick is hoping no flights are delayed tomorrow as there's snow coming down in parts of England, of which one area is a bit close to London, plus we looked on-line and saw that Binghamton is expecting up to 7 inches. So they may get stuck in Washington D.C. We've enjoyed having them here to keep Makenna entertained and give us a chance to reconnect as a couple. Makenna will surely miss them. I can here her now, "Where's Baapa?"

27Oct2008: Day 154: My Two Year Old Girl!

Happy Birthday Makenna!!!! We now have a two year old girl. I can't believe two years have passed so quickly. I was thinking back today about how we were trying to get pregnant and all we had to go through to have this precious girl and now she's two.

The day started out as a normal day and we didn't celebrate until tonight when Chris got home from work. We had the neighbors come over to drop off a present for Makenna. The guy, Paul, works with Chris, and his wife Karen, and their two kids, Sophie and Daniel came over. They gave her a small doll. She was of course, more interested in the tag attached to the doll.

Makenna did help me to make her birthday cake...which was really brownies. We figured that she would like brownies better than cake and they don't really have cakes that you can order from Tesco's (the main grocery store here). At least I don't think you can. They have some already done in an isle that who knows how long they've been sitting there. We made a small one just for her and then a large pan for the rest of us. The picture above is her small one that Chris decorated. She loves sitting up on the counter as I cook. She gets really upset when I don't let her sit up there, but I get nervous that she's going to fall off, or get burned because we have a "hob" as a stove which is built in to the counter, basically. Or I just have too much stuff up there already and no room for her.

So after dinner, we put candles in the brownies and Chris did a nice job of writing in icing on them. We sung happy birthday twice as she really loves the song. She didn't really grasp the concept of blowing out the candles. But she certainly enjoyed the brownie and ice cream. She wanted more, so we had to limit her.

Then we went in and opened gifts. She mostly received books and it seemed as though she got tired of all the books and was excited by the clothes. The one toy she really liked was one I bought at the pound store. It was a swimming ring that you blow up that has Dora on it. We hopefully we get a chance to use it on Friday. What was really funny was that I so wanted to buy her these foam letters that you can use in the bathtub to play with, and learn with, being the goal. I couldn't find them anywhere, and since Toys R Us is banned per Chris (you'd have to see an earlier post from over a month ago,) I had no luck. Somehow out of sheer coincidence, Grandma and Grandpa Jones bought her some. I was shocked when she opened them. They had actually won them back in the states, at some thing they want to. Chris and I had also bought her these drums that you are supposed to be able to play with in the bathtub. She has some bath toys that I want to get rid of so now I'm happy that she has these other toys.

We also got her this little people farm and Chris and I spent more time playing with it then she did. She actually liked the box...of course. I think that she was a bit overwhelmed after the third gift or so. She started out opening gifts fairly well. She needed encouragement to keep ripping, which is funny because she usually rips stuff I don't want her to. Maybe that's why she was hesitant.

Tomorrow is the last day that she'll have to spend with grandpa and grandma for a bit as they leave on Wednesday to return home. One other thing that happened this past weekend is that we turned our clocks back. So now we're only four hours difference from home, compared to five. I'm not sure why we do it a week earlier. Next week we'll be back to the five hours difference. It certainly makes a difference as it's really dark by 6pm.

Well, Happy Birthday my beautiful baby girl....Makenna Jean...

26Oct2008: Day 153: Canterbury and Clever Girl

Today I went with my parents when to Canterbury Cathedral for morning worship. I never get to go far like that because I have to get Teri to her church which occurs in the afternoon, so, it has been nice to have an extra car around such that we can go to cathedrals. We actually wanted to go to a different cathedral, but the next closest one was in London (Westminster or St. Paul's) and while it would have been very nice to go there, it is much too long of a trip by train and my parents are tired out from their week on their own travelling the north of the country. The said that they really like Coventry out of all their places, but they went to Cambridge and York as well. The thing my mother found the most interesting was the variety of flushing mechanisms that are available in the various Bed & Breakfasts that they stayed at. The most notable one being the one hooked up to a "clapper"....no kidding, they had to clap their hands to flush. Classic.

Anyway, so we went to the Cathedral and it was a very nice service. We got into the front row of the Choir or Quire, The congregation actually is split in two and facing across from one another and the priest and such walk down in the middle...it was different. The organist there is amazing and has been playing there since 1988. He played quite a long postlude that we sat and listened to, the we walked around the Cathedral for a while looking at the tombs again.

When we left, it was raining quite a bit and we walked around in the area for quite some time looking for a place to have lunch. My parents have had it lucky since they have been here with much of the time being bright sun shining days.

There are some ruins around the Cathedral, which were likely the abbey, but there wasn't anything saying that was the case. There are numerous arches and old columns holding up nothing. Another abbey destroyed by King Henry VIII during the founding of the Church of England when he broke from the Roman Church. I looked online and it is not St. Augustine's abbey which is actually outside of the town. We'll have to get down there at some point. In 597AD, St. Augustine brought back Christianity to southern England after the Romans abandoned England. He was the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

There are quite a lot of small shops and places to eat just about everywhere you walk, so we finally settled on a place, which was basically a Denny's-like diner place. Dad and I had over cooked fish fry and chips while mother had a ham and cheese baguette. As you may know Fish and Chips are big here, but Baguettes are really big over here too. It is a french bread that is actually about half the diameter of normal french bread and they put whatever sandwich meat you may want and then they put it in a giant George Foreman grill like thing that is hot on both sides and squashes the thing down. It is a nice sandwich when it is done. You don't have to get it heated, but it is nice that way.

Teri went to her own church today and stayed with Makenna. Tomorrow is Makenna's second birthday and she is turning into quite a manipulator...Teri wrote this, before her brother Jake called and she plopped the laptop on me to finish:

Makenna is becoming the queen of excuses. Today before Sacrament meeting, we were sitting and she found her diapers and changing pad in the backpack that I bring, and she kept asking to have her diaper changed. All this so that she could get out of sitting in Sacrament meeting. She wanted to go play the piano. I told her that I would change her diaper but that we were going right back in. She immediately started to run the opposite way. I corralled her in and we went back and sat.

She was pretty good after that. She took the small bag of crayons and shook them so they went flying everywhere. Her and Hannah colored together for a bit but they both got bored with that. They started standing at the doors and pressing their faces against it like they were prisoners. Then they shared some cereal and shared toys to pass the time. As soon as church was over, Makenna ran to the piano to play. Grandma Jones thinks that she'll be a natural at playing the piano because she puts both hands on the keys to play not just one finger. They certainly need piano players here at church! But I don't think she'll learn before we go.

25Oct2008: Day 152: Day Out

Chris and I had another opportunity to have a day out together. First we went to downtown Chatham to buy Makenna some presents for Monday. Mostly books. She loves books and I like having a variety of books to read to her. We also picked up a few party things like a candle that says "two" and some party plates, napkins, etc.

Then we stopped back at the house to see if Chris's parents wanted to go to Leeds castle but they wanted a day of rest....so....we left Makenna with them again and we took off. (Some day of rest!)

We decided to go back to Leeds. We've wanted to do the maze since the first time we went back in June. Our admission back in June covers us for a year to go back as many times as we want and it's only a half an hour away. It was a beautiful Fall day to go as you can see in the pictures.


I like this one on the above. If you look through the trees, you can see the castle.

The maze was fun. It took is a bit to get through it, but we did it.

The face with the red eyes and greenish hue was under the maze. You didn't really have to find you're way out. You just followed a path underneath to get out.

Then we decided to try and find someplace to eat, but couldn't really decide so Chris said we should go to the movie theater and gauge what we want to do depending on what time a movie was playing that we'd want to see. Well, we got there around 5:30pm and a movie was playing at 5:45. So we decided to see it. It's weird because they give you assigned seats and the theater was practically empty. We didn't mind our seats so we stayed put. You have to sit through 20 minutes of ads and 10 minutes of previews. Has the states got this bad with ads and movies? I know that there would be a few the last couple of times I saw movies in the states but 20 minutes worth?!?!?

We found a Mexican food place after, that was right in the same plaza, but they were booked up for the night so there was a Chinese buffet right next door and it was after 8pm so we just ate their. I wished we could've gone some place different, but it was still nice to eat in peace (without a child screaming to walk around). I can't wait to go home and eat at one of our buffets. We have more flavorful food and we don't have seaweed! I don't get why people eat it!?! I tried it and it's crunchy, unflavored food. I asked someone once why they eat it since it has no flavor and he said as a vegetable. I'm not sure if he was joking.

I guess grandma and grandpa had a pretty good time with Makenna. They took her to the park for a bit. Makenna seems to be in this klutzy stage lately. She falls into things or falls down period. I'm not sure if some of it is to get attention or not. She does play it up though either way. We'll have a little drama queen on our hands that's for sure. She's also now saying "see you later" in a bit of an English accent (instead of "see you soon"). When she's been saying goodnight, before going to bed, that's when she says it.

One last thing that happened today was that Chris mentioned how people over here have a hard time understanding us. I said, well that's fair enough, I have a hard time understanding them sometimes. Today, when Chris and I were in Chatham, they were selling hot dogs with bacon on a roll. The bacon being Canadian bacon (I think that's what they call it,) where it's fat slices not the thin crispy strips that we eat in the states. So Chris went up and asked for two bacon hot dogs. Well, the girl put on two pieces of bacon with a hot dog and handed it to him. As she was doing it, he tried correcting her in what he meant but she still didn't get it. So I just said, "I'll have the same, except with one piece of bacon." Who knew we'd have a language barrier in England!

24Oct2008: Day 151: Sorry

Today was a bit more relaxed and laid back. We went swimming after I was done with my workout. This was the first time in a few weeks that we have swam and Makenna did really well. She kicked her feet quite a bit and splashed a whole lot. Every time she splashed and got her face really wet, she would say, "sorry." I don't know if she was saying it to herself or to me.
I kept asking her why she was sorry and she would just say it again.

Grandma and Grandpa Jones made it back from their travels this week and had plenty of stories about the places they saw and the places they stayed. I guess they're not too impressed with the quality of bed and breakfasts here.

I'm not sure what's planned for tomorrow. I think Chris and I hope to go out and shop a bit for Makenna's birthday. We may try and take his parents to Leeds Castle if it's nice out. Plus it will give Makenna a chance to feed the many ducks they have and run around on their vast grounds. I'd like a chance to go through the maze. The tickets we bought back in June (the first time we went,) are good for the year, so it wouldn't cost us anything to go back.

23Oct2008: Day 150: One, Two, Five, Six, Nine

Today was another busy day. We went to play group and picked up Hannah and family. I took this picture while they were in the car as it was so cute that they automatically just started to hold hands. Makenna was a bit lethargic at playgroup and later tonight she felt a bit warm, so I'm nervous she's getting sick...yet again. I hope I'm wrong. She did cheer up when the instruments and cookies came out as you can see by this picture (she's saying cheese in this picture).

The last one was at the playground, which we only stayed at for about 10 minutes as the Fall weather kicked in again today and was windy and chilly. But the lady with the red hair is Hannah's mom (if you couldn't guess).

We got home, ate lunch and then went to the gym. When I picked her up from the nursery, they were just having snack and it was apples and raisins and I asked if she was eating any, and they said she ate some of the raisins. I was like, "really? Good to know." I don't know why this kid will eat other food while she's out or around others, but at home, she puts up a fuss. I basically give her one meal at dinner and if she doesn't eat it...too bad. Breakfast is usually cereal, or leftover pancakes from the weekend. Once in a while egg. Lunch she usually wants "ooose" or noodles. I typically let her have noodles but I found this baby vegetable puree that I mix in with them so that she gets some vegetables. She will usually have yogurt or cereal as a snack. I also buy fruit, mostly melon fruit, and she'll typically eat that. I've tried other fruits and she'll typically say no and won't even try. Or if she tries, she'll spit it out. She eats apples and bananas sporadically.

The other thing was Makenna counting today. When I push her on the swing, I'll have her count to three with me. I usually say "one," and she'll say "two" and then I ask what comes after two and I usually have to drag it out of her to say three but today she hopped right to "five." Then later I heard her counting, I don't remember why, but I heard her say "one, two, five, six, nine."

She's also starting to recognize some shapes. Mostly circles. I can thank that on "Baby Einstein" videos.

I forgot to mention a couple of new words that I learned yesterday during the Christmas shoe box thing. When we were putting them together, people started saying, "put a flannel" in the box. I looked at what they referred to as a flannel and it was a washcloth. I was like, "that's new to me." Then for an eraser, they call it a rubber. The sad thing is that I'm starting to use some of their words and I can't think of the words we use back at home at times.

22Oct2008: Day 149: Bye, Bye, See Ya Soon

What an exhausting day! We had to take Chris into work and then rushed home to eat breakfast. Ran out the door to go to downtown Gillingham to pick up the shoe boxes that the one store said they'd have for me. Unfortunately, they only could give me one. That was after trying to get Makenna to walk faster to get there. She's at the point where any little ledge or step, she wants to walk on it.

We went and picked up Hannah and her sister and mother and went down to the church where they were having a parent/toddler play group. Madonna said she'd watch Makenna while I went to the gym. After working out, I ran home for a quick shower and then back to pick all of them up. Took them home, and got home to make lunch. By this time it was close to 12:30pm.

Makenna needed a "potty-break" so to say. She likes to be by herself when she has to make a messy diaper so as soon as I walked into the dining room to eat, she was like, "bye, bye, see ya soon." I knew that was my cue to leave her alone. So I waited in the living room for a bit and every time I asked her if I could come in and change her, she would repeat, "bye, bye, see ya soon." I giggled to myself. After 20 minutes, I finally went in. We finally ate and then we had to leave again. It was time for afternoon play group. I was going to walk, but I was so worn out, and it was already 1:30pm and play group had started 15 minutes ago. I knew it would take us another 20 minutes to get there. I was nervous that she would be exhausted and miserable but she actually did really well. She even was into the singing time.

Then we went home and both took a much needed nap. Mine was only about 15 minutes but it refreshed me. Then tonight I had the shoebox thing at church and another girl was able to get about 10 shoe boxes plus my six and all the stuff I had bought at the pound store along with things other people bought, we were able to put about 13 together. Plus people brought other ones they had made up already. I guess it takes up until April of next year for them to get to the third world countries.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit more restful. Not sure if we're going to play group tomorrow or not.

21Oct2008: Day 148: Downtown Chatham

Makenna said the cutest thing today when I picked her up from the nursery at the gym. As she was leaving she said, "bye bye everybubby" (everybody). I was just laughing quietly to myself.

In the afternoon, after lunch, we went to downtown Chatham to find the pound store I talked about yesterday. I found a parking space in a parking ramp and of course it was at the wrong end of High Street. I had to walk clear down to the other end to get to the store. It gave me a chance to see all the stores as I've never been on High St. in Chatham before. I was also able to pick up a couple more empty shoe boxes.

Makenna did fairly well in behaving in the store, even though she was out of her cart. She got to shampoos and found ones with Winnie the Pooh on it and that's where I lost her. I had to physically pick her up and she started her screaming bit of "Walk!" We left their shortly after and as we were walking back to the car, she walked into a jewelry store on her own. I had to go get her and she screamed "walk" again and I put her down when we got outside the store. She splayed herself out on the ground in front of the store and I said, as I was walking away, "when you feel you're alright, get up and come with me." I obviously didn't go too far and she eventually got up.

As we walk were walking up and down High St., she kept wanting to get into her stroller, but she would say "chip, chip" as she did so. When I told her I didn't have any chips she then didn't want to have anything to do with the stroller. It seems as though we've created a stroller/chip connection. It's our own fault. When we're out seeing things, and we want her to calm down and sit in the stroller, we offer her chips. I kept telling her today that I didn't think to bring any chips as we just got done eating lunch. So it was a never ending process between the her wanting to walk, but then wanting to get into the stroller until she found out I didn't have any chips. I finally did have to buckle her in the stroller and let her be mad. I knew part of it was that she was tired and needed her nap.

I hope to maybe go back to downtown...by myself...and do a little shopping. Maybe before Chris's parents leave, but they're still up North currently. When we were leaving the parking garage, I couldn't find where we pay, so I figured that we just pay as we exit. I got to the exit and there was still no place to pay. I tried backing up and I realized that wasn't going to help, so I just pulled over into the spots that said "staff parking." As I got out, a staff person came out of the office and I asked "where the heck do you pay for this?" He pointed me towards some doors that I had to walk through. So I had to get Makenna out, go pay, then get us all back in, back the car up and put the card in the slot showing I paid. Ridiculous! You think they'd have a sign saying where to go to pay. The only sign I saw was saying, make sure you pay.

One last thing, that just happened now...as I was sitting here typing this, we had kids outside who were busting up glass, I guess someones garbage, and laughing and running away. The fear was that they hit someones car with a glass bottle or something as a lot of people park on the streets here. It's sad to see that kids can be the same trouble makers every where in the world. I'm just glad we have a driveway and it's pretty dark so they probably can't even tell there's a car there. Chris said he saw someone go out and check their car and then run up the street after the kids, so someone may have very well had damage.

20Oct2008: Day 147: Wonderful

Wonderful! That's Makenna's new word for today. I think she picked it up from grandma Jones. They left on a trip up North today so Makenna and I tried to get back into our normal routine. Unfortunately, Chris took the car keys with him accidentally and it wasn't until I was trying to leave to go to the gym that I called and asked why would he do such a thing! I was frustrated and decided I would just walk, even though it was going to make me late for Makenna's nursery time. As I walked around looking for the stroller, I realized it was locked in the car...Wonderful!

So I called the nursery to cancel and reschedule for tomorrow and Makenna and I went to the park for a bit. It was a Fall day in that it was windy and a bit chilly but not too bad. I had her winter coat on her (thank goodness that still fits from last year). She actually climbed up the slide holding onto the sides all by herself! Even though she shouldn't go up that way, I couldn't help but be impressed that she did it. She even got on the swings and said "push, push".

Yesterday, I had agreed to meet Hannah's mom in downtown Gillingham, so this afternoon we went down. I had to carry Makenna on my shoulders like Chris does. All I can say is that I am not an Ox Mule that is for sure. My shoulders and neck were killing me by the time I made it down. It's about a mile walk from the house and her bouncing up and down on occasion didn't help matters. I knew she wouldn't make it walking all that way and I also knew that me carrying her in my arms wouldn't work either. Luckily the pain quickly subsided. I don't know how Chris does it.

We had to go to stores and ask for empty shoe boxes. They do a Christmas Shoe Box campaign where they fill a shoe box full of different things that someone in a third world country may need. This is what we're doing this Wednesday night at church, and I had agreed to get the shoe boxes and some stuff to fill it from the Pound Store (like our Dollar stores). I said I would try to get 10 shoe boxes. Well, I got 3 today...pretty pathetic. These places don't really sell shoes with shoe boxes. They put them on racks and break down the boxes pretty quickly. The one store I did find, like a Foot Locker type store, says they couldn't give me any because they give them to the customers with their "trainers" (sneakers). I did have one store who said if I came back Wednesday morning, they would save a couple for me as that's when they get a shipment in. I wanted to ask, "you get a shipment of two pairs of shoes?" Anyways, I'm hopefully going to try tomorrow in downtown Chatham as they have Pound Stores there and not in Gillingham.

I was able to buy a few things when we were in Brighton last week, at a Pound Store we found as we were walking back to the car, but I ended up buying more for us then for the shoe boxes. Plus, it's pretty restrictive what you can buy. No candy that can melt, and nothing that can leak. I think it's a pretty neat idea though and I had never heard of it, although they tell me it's a world wide campaign.

Well after the shoe box trip, Madonna told me she has an extra stroller she would lend to me to get me home, and her house was somewhat closer, and up less of an incline than it would be back to my house. So we went over there and the girls played for a bit. On the way, Makenna took over Hannah's stroller and sat in it, and I pushed her (and Hannah's baby sister,) and then I traded and carried Hannah, who is much lighter than Makenna. When we got to their house the girls laughed and played ball together. Hannah has a bouncy zebra toy that Makenna has back in the states and Makenna loved playing on this. When we were back in the states, Makenna wouldn't get on it for more than one second, by the time we get home, she'll be too big for it.

We stopped back at the park on the way home and Makenna climbed up the slide again, and even went on a part of the playground equipment that is like a balance beam in that it has a strip of metal that you walk across but it's enclosed by other metal bars. I usually helped her on this but today, she walked across it all by herself. It's neat to see her grow and learn and do things on her own, but hard to imagine her growing so quickly! One week from today and she'll be Two!!!

19Oct2008: Day 146: Rochester Cathedral

Today I went with my parents to the Rochester Cathedral for Sunday morning services. The Cathedral is a lot smaller than other Cathedrals we have been in lately, but it has a nice choir and it is still much bigger than St. Mark's that I go to other weeks. It was a nice service.

After, we looked around the Cathedral for a time. There is a new mural there that is apparently the first mural done in a cathedral in 800 years, in was completed in 2004. They spent a lot of time figuring out how to make the paint work. As soon as they painted it, then next day white dots appeared on the paint. Apparently, Michelangelo had the same difficulty. The fix was to paint it on special plaster while it is still wet. Then, the paint and the plaster actually bleed into the stone and become part of the stone.

Then we went to have lunch at an ancient Cafe that was right next door.

We walked around and Dad took a couple of pictures of the Castle and then we walked down High Street and back to the car. There was a craft show that my mother wanted to see at a local hotel so we went there and bought a couple of presents for Makenna's birthday coming up on October 27th. Mother bought her a Winnie the Pooh pillow and I bought a book of Faerie Tales. Then we went home.

It was the first time my Dad had driven around besides his trip from the Airport a week ago. It is really difficult to drive over here, especially when you aren't used to a stick shift as there are very few cars with automatic transmissions here. It is particularly difficult to keep to the right, for some reason if you are used to driving on the right side of the road, we tend to drive very far to the left. Inevitablely you end up hitting curbs, but eventually you get used to it and force yourself to stay more to the middle of the roads. The roads are so narrow over here and people park on both sides of the road that you end up having only one lane to drive down and if someone comes up the other way you have to squeeze yourself into an open parking slot or end up backing up. Anyway, Dad did pretty well, but his shifting skills are a little rusty.

18Oct2008: Day 145: Knole House

Today we went with my parents to the Knole house in Sevenoaks. It was a very nice fortified estate with a huge deer park around it. It was an estate that originally was started by an Archbishop of Canterbury. Apparently, though, King Henry VIII liked it so much that he forced the Archbishop (Cranmer) to hand it over to the king and he passed it on to Elizabeth and she gave it to Thomas Sackville, her cousin and counsellor. It has been in the Sackville family ever since. Apparently Thomas was the Lord High Treasurer for both Elizabeth I and also King James who followed. Since James replaced the Tudors he didn't care for reminders of the Tudors and Thomas was allowed to take any extra furnishings that were unwanted by the king. So, Thomas took as much furniture as he could and put it in Knole. It is now the largest collection of original Tudor furniture in the world. The furniture is now highly faded, but one armchair they were restoring and found that its interior was stuffed with the scraps from the original manufacture fabric. They used some of these scraps to cover the arms of the chair to show how much the colors had faded over the 400 years.

The place is filled to the brim with paintings, portraits, in addition to this furniture. There was even an ancient billiards table. Of course, we weren't able to take any pictures inside, which really stinks. I walked around the house about 5 times as Makenna lead me around on my leash. She was very good actually and didn't throw a fit at all. She showed me this one room that had the silver mirror and table that were amazing. The place had a huge amount of silver and porcelain in it as well.

The Sackville's still live there in apartments, but allow the public to come in and visit the more regal areas. The place also has a huge deer herd. The deer are quite small and very friendly, though they would not get too close to us. Makenna had fun chasing them around. There was a couple of males that have antlers like a moose, but are only may 1/5th the size. I've attached a video below. My dad said they were called fallowed deer, whatever that means, just the name of the breed I guess.

17Oct2008: Day 144: Royal Pavilion, Brighton

We were able to get out to a town called Brighton today. It's close to an hour and a half to get there depending on traffic. Chris's dad found a Royal Pavilion in one of his books and this place was certainly grand. I wish we could've taken pictures inside (I did sneak one at the very end) which I'll post. But here's a link so you can see some of the amazing architecture inside http://www.royalpavilion.org.uk/. If you click the link, I would definitely then click on the one that says "banqueting room." You'll see the in the lower right, a dragon, this holds an amazing chandelier in the middle of the room. So you walk in and see this huge light held by this enormous dragon. This is the picture I took inside (that I shouldn't have).

This place used to be a farm house and then King George the IV had it remodeled to look like Chinese architecture. The inside also followed a Chinese theme. What was amazing, was that the people who did all the renovating and decorating never had gone to China. King George used this home to meet with his mistress. Although, he had secretly married this woman many years before and had a child with her. He then married another woman, openly, and had another legitimate child, a girl, with her, but shortly after ignored this wife. It then went down the line of his family for a bit and then the town of Brighton bought it.

What else that was amazing about this place was that an arsonist set fire to the music room in 1975. After 11 years of restoring this room to look like it used to, and painstakingly fixing the ceiling that had gold shell-looking mosaic to it (over 6000 shells), a big storm in 1987 happened in Brighton and one of the big stone balls on a "minaret" (whatever that is), blew off and fell through the ceiling in that same room. I would be like, "OH MAN?!?!?!" That sucks! But today, you'd never know a fire or a stone had ever hit this room.

In fact, while we were there, in another room, they were restoring some gold looking paint on to some woodwork and they showed how they were able to find some original wall paper and are planning on restoring the room to this original wall paper. I do have to say, the English certainly love their history and do a lot to preserve these types of houses, castles, etc. to keep it's original authenticity to the best of their ability.

Makenna was fairly well behaved except for her step fetish which meant standing near the steps for 15-20 minutes at a time while she went up and down them. Then I literally had to drag her off of them and show her there were other steps in the house. So she could go up and down those while I looked in that room. When I asked her to come where I was and away from the steps, she would turn to me and say "bye-bye". We try that whole "bye-bye" thing with her so that she thinks we're leaving and sometimes she turns it back on us.

We did stop in the Brighton Museum which was right there but it wasn't all that exciting. In fact, we were only in it for maybe 15 minutes. Makenna had more fun chasing the pigeons and other birds outside so we let her do that for a while before returning home.

This picture was too cute not to add. We stopped at a pizza/pasta bar for lunch and Makenna really enjoyed the Ziti noodles in sauce. She practically had a whole bowl full.

16Oct2008: Day 143: Meerkat Award

Today was just a day at home. I got some cleaning done and five loads of laundry and still have at least 3 more to do. The clothes line can only hold about two to three loads so the others will have to wait until tomorrow if it's nice outside, or unless we go somewhere, which I hope.

We waited for a plumber all darn day who never showed. That was extremely frustrating. I wanted Chris to call and ask when or if he was even coming and to tell him we have a life. Chris said that he'd probably say the same thing. True, but it's like the whole Cable Guy thing but this guy never shows.

Plus Makenna was miserable for most of the morning. Trying to still get over this stuffy head cold she has. Once I found one of those punching balloons and gave it to her, her whole world was bright.

Chris had to go into work this afternoon for an awards ceremony. It's called the Meerkat award and he actually gets a small meerkat statue. It's supposed to symbolize a group working together and great effort, looking out for one another. If you've ever seen Meerkat Manor on Animal Planet, you can see how the meerkat's look out for one another and work together, especially when defending against rivals. Going into work meant that he didn't get home until about 8:30pm though!~

15Oct2008: Day 142: St. Paul's Cathedral & Wicked

Oh what a beautiful day. Whether wise, it was gray and rainy at times but it was a great day to get out with my husband of five years. Just him and I. We took the train down into London...again. Then took the Underground to St. Paul's Cathedral. Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures inside.

Wow, what a place! This is the fourth cathedral to St. Paul that's occupied the space it's in. The first one was in 604 AD. The one before this current one was destroyed by fire in the great fires of London. This one was built from 1675-1710, by Christopher Wren. He is buried at the cathedral but his tomb is very insignificant. His monument of greatness, so to say, is the church itself. There was one statue that was saved from the fire that's on display in the church. It had a broken handle and a little charring but it was amazing that this one out of all of them, survived. A lot of tombs and crypts were lost in the fire as they fell through the floors.

It's also held many celebrations of sorts and funerals of famous people, like Winston Churchill, and the marriage of Prince Charles & Lady Diana. They also held special services on Sept 11, 2001. It also had this section in the very back of the church dedicated to the Americans who lost their lives in World War II. What was most amazing though is the dome. We were able to walk up to different parts of the dome. The first part was really neat. It was called the Whispering Gallery. You could walk around it and if one person stands one one side and another person on another side, across from each other, you can hear someone whisper. So Chris walked over to the other side of the dome and I clearly heard him say "Teri, can you hear me." Unfortunately, he couldn't hear me. I'm not sure why. But you have a lot of people trying this out at once so you hear a lot of voices. Did I mention that it was 259 steps to get up to this point and it's a spiral staircase?

We foraged on and went up to the next section, The Stone Gallery. This is outside, but above the whispering gallery. It was another 117 spiraling steps to get to this section. On this section, you could walk around and see down into London. We were higher than the front of the church itself. It was windy and a bit rainy but it felt good as we were sweating from the first 200 plus steps.

Then up to the next level, again spiraling staircase, but with straight walkways in between to give you a break, of the 152 steps to go up to this last level which is again on the outside. It's called the Golden Gallery and runs around the highest point of the outer dome. It was actually quite dizzying to look up. Then it was back down all 530 steps and needless to say, our quads were quite sore! This picture to the left is from this top most level of the cathedral.

After getting back down, we walked more along the main floor and then went down into the crypt. We only had about 15 minutes or so down in the crypt as they were closing the cathedral for a special service. It worked out well for us anyways because we had to leave to grab the underground to get to the Apollo Victoria Theater for the play "Wicked". We grabbed food in the train station that was right there and then went over to the play. Our seats were actually pretty good. We were about 15 or so rows from the stage. The play was really good but at some points where they were singing, it was a bit hard to understand as it would get loud.

We got out about 5:15pm and walked around for a bit to see if there was some place to eat. We decided to take the train back home and grab dinner their. There is a restaurant that we've been wanting to try. The train we got out of Victoria station was a bit different from the usual trains. It was nicer, had tables between the seats and was so long that at different stations, pieces broke off and went different ways. So I got nervous that we might be in the wrong section to continue onto Gillingham and that it would break off and go another direction. But we asked someone who said we were fine. Then the train was running late as it was behind another late running train and they said over the loudspeaker that someone died at the Rochester Train station so we don't know what happened exactly.

We finally got home, and made it to the restaurant and had a nice peaceful meal. I really enjoyed taking the time to refresh and renew by having this wonderful day out and it was great to go home and see Makenna so excited to see us. We're grateful to Chris's parents for being willing to take this day to watch her for us. They did tell us that at one point, Makenna was sitting up on a chair and saw the bag of chips. She asked for chips and they said no as it was almost time for dinner. Makenna found a pence (penny) on the table, and dropped it on the floor. So when grandpa bent over to pick it up, she quickly grabbed the bag of chips. Almost two and finding ways to be sneaky....boy are we in trouble!

14Oct2008: Day 141: British Museum & Boat Ride Down The Thames

Another day in London. By the way, I added pictures and more comments to yesterday's blog. Today was MUCH tougher with Makenna. On the train in, she was putting up a major fuss. Again with wanting to get out and walk at every stop. Chris finally soothed her enough to fall asleep. So we got off at Charring Cross (where we did yesterday), and walked out into Trafalgar Square right to the bus, since we knew where to get it now, and we had a 48 hour pass that we bought yesterday. But this time, we switched from the Red Line bus to the Green Line bus to take us up to the British Museum. Unfortunately, some little kid got on the bus and started yelling down the stairs (as it was a double decker) and woke up Makenna. We got off, grabbed some lunch and then went to the museum.

It had lots to look at so we took a flyer that told us some of the most interesting things to look at. One was the Rosetta Stone which helped them to decipher hieroglyphics. It was the same proclamation written three times, one in hieroglyphics, one in the common Egyptian tongue (Demotic), and one in Greek. It was created in 196 BC, how they know this, I have no clue. I guess the British were able to get the stone when they beat the French. That's what was amazing about this museum, was that a lot was just taken from places that the British invaded or beat in battles.

There was an Egyptian section with mummies, Sphinx and a section from Mexico with a turquoise serpent and masks. Also Roman ruins and statues. A chess set made from Walrus Ivory that was found in Scotland, and also this strange art:

It was a bit hard for me to really remember a lot of this as Makenna was wanting to just go up and down the stairs continually so Chris, who filmed and got to read most of the different things, should really be writing this blog today. But he's extremely worn out - which we'll get to later.

We left the museum and let Makenna run around the park for a bit and then caught the bus again to get down to the Tower of London. That's where we picked up a boat trip down the Thames into Westminster. It gave us a different view of things, and there was a guy who gave a pretty funny commentary on the different buildings we saw along the way.

As most of us were fairly tired out, we grabbed the underground again to get to the Charring Cross train station. We caught the train and unfortunately, we got on a different one then what we are used to. It started stopping at all these stations I have never heard of and I was very nervous that we got on the wrong train. But Chris looked and found that there are three different lines that all end where we needed to be - Gillingham.

This train trip was the worse yet with Makenna. She was just screaming and yelling and crying and no matter what Chris did or said, it couldn't stop her from throwing a fit at every stop. I'm sure the people on the train won't soon forget this ride. Chris was very patient with her in trying to get her to calm down. I lost my patience back at one of the early stops. I think that it got up and walked off. She finally fell asleep, which was what the real problem was, but it was only for a few minutes. As soon as the train stopped...yup...she started all over again with the crying and screaming of wanting to get off and walk. Luckily, we only had two more stops at that point. She was very alive and awake once we got off and she could walk.

We got home around 8pm and Chris and his dad went back out to pick up some food at one of the "fish and chips" shop. Makenna wasn't much for eating, more for carrying on like she did on the train, so I just basically put her to bed. That's what she desperately needed, and we all needed the break.

Tomorrow is another day in London for Chris and myself. I can't wait to be able to take a peaceful train ride without all the screaming and fussing and being able to walk around without chasing a child, being able to see things without constantly worrying where she is or catering to her needs, and just enjoying the scenery.

13Oct2008: Day 140: London Big Bus tour and Kesington Palace

We went with my parents to London again today. We purchased tickets online for the Big Bus tour. We got on the train out of Gillingham and then road it in to Charring Cross, the last station. They have pretty good rates on the trains if you go in a group of 3 or more (buy 1 get 1 free) also if you travel off peak (after 9:30) it is cheaper still. We got a train ticket and all day riding on any bus or underground we want for about £8 each, which is next to nothing compared to what you can pay if you do it all separately. People who living in Gillingham take the train in to London before 9:30. so I guess that is why it is off-peak.

Once we got off the train we talked to a bus driver that was just sitting near one of the big bus buses at the train station trying to entice people to buy tickets. He told us to go to the National Museum to find the place to turn in our online tickets for real tickets. We walked around for 1/2 hour before we finally found a pickup point. There were people at every stop which we had seen the day before, but today it turned into quite a challenge. But, we got on board and they gave us headphones and a map. We sat on the bus for probably 2 hours travelling around London seeing most all of the sites in central London and hearing stories. Makenna was very good throughout until she needed a nap. We put her into her cart and she fell asleep after crying for 5-10 minutes and slept for probably an hour or so. It was a double decker bus and you get a much better view from up stairs, but we didn't want Makenna in the cold, so we stayed below.

We got on the blue line which took us around central London and then out to Kensington Palace. We got off there and had lunch at a Wegmans-like store.

Then we walked over to Kensington Palace. We were able to get in for half price because the train tickets get us buy one get one free. (I know I talk a lot about money...sorry...it is just scary because the people here earn about half what we make in the states and get taxed probably twice as much due to the national health care system. I'm amazed how they can afford these prices! But, I suppose it is the tourist trade more than anything that drives up prices.)

Kensington Palace is not fancy in its architecture, but it is quite nice inside. It was the birthplace of Queen Victoria and she lived there until her late teens when it became apparent that she was going to be Queen, then she moved to Buckingham Palace. They had the place furnished and built up as it was when Kings and Queens lived there. They had the state rooms and apartments and an audio guide to go along with it.

They also had this display of clothing from Victorian times and what people wore to the Royal Court. They even had some displays showing how lace was made. It is quite detailed and fine work. Apparently, it was quite a business, but young women ended up getting ill and many dying during working on this finery because it was very poor conditions that they worked in. Some of these dresses were extremely ornate and very expensive so they tried to cut the cost by having the places they made the garment be extremely poor conditions.

They also had the Debutant exhibition where there were many dresses and scenes setup from 1958 show how young ladies were displayed in front of the Queen on their 17 birthday. I found this exhibit boring but Chris's mom liked it. They also had a section with Princess Diana but it was of her dresses that she wore to certain functions. You would think this woman just mainly went to the movies as that was what most of the dresses said they were from - premieres of different movies.

They did finally have Queen and King State apartments to look at. That's the part Chris talked about above, where they set it up to look like they used to back when the King and Queens lived here. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't show the section where Princess Diana lived in.

After, we left and went back to catch the bus tour but unfortunately, the bus we caught only took us around the park (where we just were,) and not back to where we needed to be. You could tell the driver was frustrated but he was still nice enough to drop us near the Underground. Plus, we weren't the only ones who didn't realize that this bus didn't take us back to Trafalgar Square. So we grabbed the underground, hopped onto another one and then got to the train station. Luckily these train passes get us on the underground for free. Makenna was a handful on the train on the way home. She wanted to "walk, walk, walk" at every stop. So every time the train stopped she wanted to get off and go for a walk. We finally got home at 7:30pm and then had to make dinner. Tomorrow will be another fun-filled day in London.

12Oct2008: Day 139: Cantebury

Today I went down to Canterbury Cathedral with my parents for Sunday Service. It was interesting. We got to sit in the Choir or Quire as it is sometimes spelled. This is the area where the Monks used to sit before King Henry VIII abolished most of the abbey's. It was close to where the Choir actually sits and they have a very nice boys/men's choir. The Archbishop actually gave the Sermon and also gave us the bread, so that was kind of neat. I walked around with Mom and Dad for a while afterwards and we took the audio guide tour. It is amazing how they were able to build such a building back as early as 1100 and the fact that people worked on it knowing that it would never be completed within their lifetime shows real dedication.


The audio guide pointed out how many faces were destroyed on the tombs and such. Apparently, the puritans came through and wanted to destroy any image of Christ or Mary or the disciples because it was idolatry to them to have statues and images of them. Also, during the disolutionment at King Henry VIII's order most of the Roman church related items were destroyed. It is a shame that people could destroy such remarkable art.

Teri ended up having to walk to church and it was actually a fairly warm day so she was quite worn out by the time she made it there. She wasn't that mad at me, so that was nice.

11Oct2008: Day 138: London - Westminster and National Gallery

Today is Teri and my 5th wedding anniversary. It doesn't seem like it has been 5 years, but the engraving in my wedding ring says that is was! We bought tickets to Wicked! that we will be going to this coming Wednesday. It is supposed to be the number one show in London right now. So, we agreed that we wouldn't get anything special for each other besides that, but Teri got me a card that was nice. I forgot to get her a card...ugh. But, I am taking off all week, so, hopefully, that will allow my brain to work better! We will go out to eat one night this week, but I don't want to stick my parents with Makenna until they are more acclimated to her antics. We are giving her antibiotics right now and she doesn't like it much, so I want to get through that as well.

Today we got onto the train at Gillingham and went to London Charring Cross station and then hiked over to Westminster. We had hoped that Dad's collar (he is a priest for those of you who don't know) would have gotten us all in for free, but no such luck. But, wow, is that place worth every pence! It is wall to wall ancient tombs, carved statues, and monuments. There is more ancient stuff in there than any museum you can go to. The other cathedrals pale in comparison to this place. Most others have probably 5 to 6 major pieces of art, this place has hundreds. They had an audio guide that was very well done as well. King Henry VII tomb is there as well as 10 or 15 other kings and queens. Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Mary I tombs are also there. They were half sisters and daughters of King Henry VIII and adversaries in life, but they are buried together in death.

Cromwell was even buried there for about two years, but after his death the Royals took back over and exhumed his body and put it up on a pole and decapitated it. Real nice. They did leave his daughter's tomb alone that is also there, though, so that was nice. Unfortunately, they don't allow us to take pictures or film in the church, so, I can only show you the outside. But, for some reason, I'm not able to right now...I'll have to try tomorrow.

We also went to the National Gallery where there are a huge number of paintings dating from the 1200's on up to today. Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Monet, Da Vinci, all the big guys, though, not a lot of any of them. It is a very nice museum, but again the Louvre blows it away as if it were a gnat. Sorry Brits, the French have you beat on museums so far.

We walked a lot and Makenna was very good today. She cried a bit when she was ready for a nap, but we just locked her in the stroller and lowered the back down so that she could lie there and just let her cry. She fell asleep after a few minutes both times. She is a chip hound though...if you let her see potato chips, especially salt and vinegar, she just won't give up on them until she gets some..."Chip! CHIp! CHIIIIPPPPPP!" Ugh. But, Teri actually got her to eat a fruit and fiber bar today on the train home which I was surprised about.

We are going to go down to Canterbury tomorrow for services, though I've seen that Cathedral twice already, it is a nice one and I'm looking forward to going to services with my parents as I haven't done that in years.

10Oct2008: Day 137: Sittingbourne and the search for Great Grandpa

Today we sat around most of the morning vegging. My mother went back to bed for about an hour trying to work off their Jet Lag. We decided after lunch to head out to find Sittingbourne cemetery where my Great Grandfather is buried. He caught lockjaw playing football (soccer)after running into a fence and died. Apparently, he was really well liked and the football teams in the area put together some money and that is what my Great Grandmother used to come to the United States. So, we set out to find his grave. We found the old homestead and took a wrong turn and hit a dead end. Coincidentally, a Funeral home was at the end of that dead end, so we took it as fate and Dad went in to see if they could tell us where the cemetery was. The lady in there actually gave Dad a map of the cemetery and directions to get there. We found the area where he must have been buried. My mother remembered a picture of the grave and that there was a cross on it. We looked at every grave that had a cross, even righting a fallen over one to see the names on them, but in the end none were his. My mother remembers it likely being a wooden one and for that reason we think the cross must have disintegrated many years ago. We counted out to the 81st plot, which the documentation said he was buried in, at least what we thought was the plot and sure enough there were several unmarked graves, one of which must have been his. So, we gave up...a little disappointed.



Here is Makenna playing on top of some poor dead person's grave. Sorry dead person...

9Oct2008: Day 137: Baappa?

We made it to our Thursday group and boy did I think I was in for a rough time. She was whiny, crying, needy, wanting to be picked up and that was all before it even started. Luckily, Madonna (Hannah's mom,) took her for a bit and got her to try and join in. We went to the park as usual after, but when Makenna was done, she was done. She started walking out of the park area and towards the car on her own. I had to go chasing after her and she of course, found it all very funny.

We then came back expecting to see grandma and grandpa Jones as they were arriving today. They didn't arrive until much later in the afternoon so I was able to put her down for a nap for a bit. Makenna was very excited most of the rest of the evening when she awoke to see them and did a lot of dancing, falling on the ground, playing her music toys and running around. Anytime they walked out of her sight, she'd start asking "baappa?" for grandpa or grandma.

They said they can see how she's changed, not to mention her wide vocabulary, even though they can't understand her. Heck, today, she was so excited, I couldn't understand her either. They got to see her go on the naughty step and her insatiable urge to change movies every 5 minutes. I told them wait until we go out on a sight-seeing trip and see how fun she really is (obviously a sarcastic tone is supposed to be taken here). Not sure if we'll get out anywhere too exciting tomorrow as they need to adjust to the time difference, but possibly a short trip around the area. They both have ancestors that came from this area that we live in so we might just go look for some gravestones.

8Oct2008: Day 136: Poop!

I realize the past couple of days have been somewhat about Poop since Makenna has had a runny abundance of it, but today, she had none...Yeah! The real reason I put that as the title though was because we were outside in the backyard and there's a birdbath that she can't resist getting in to.

So I finally said to her, "Makenna, that's where birds poop, it's gross, don't play in it, and DON'T put your mouth on it!" She started cracking up laughing and started saying "poop!" For the next 5 minutes or so, she kept just saying "poop" and laughing her head off. I guess it was good in re-directing her but it again got me thinking of how kids find the sounds of bodily functions funny as they grow older, and some never seem to grow out of it, but how at almost two, does Makenna know that it's potty humor--to use an appropriate metaphor. I guess maybe it just sounds funny?

I was also happy because Makenna actually asked for bread and she ate some rice. So there was no having to sneak food in other forms of food to help her digestion. The problem now is fighting her and holding her down like a prisoner to force antibiotics down. More gets out of her mouth from her spitting it out then down her throat, but I'm of the mind set, as long as she gets a little, it's better than none. Hopefully it will kill this congested cough of hers. I even told the pharmacist that she's never been so sick until we've moved here. Granted she plays with a lot of kids and goes to play groups and the nursery so she's exposed to a lot more germs than she was when we were back in the states.

Today was a beautiful Fall day. We walked to play group in the afternoon. Well, I walked, she rode in the stroller. It was cool, but not cold and the sun was shining. It's a wonderful change from the past cold weekend. I was able to get a couple loads of laundry done and hung out.

Then tonight after giving Makenna a bath, where by the way, I gave her her medicine (figuring that she could get it through osmosis if not by mouth), we came down stairs and she wanted to sit on my lap and lean against me as she watched a movie. I absolutely loved being able to spend that time with her. I know that in another 10-13 years, she'll probably want nothing to do with me as she'll be in her teen years. So I try to enjoy every moment like this as possible.

7Oct2008: Day 135: Hap Buday

Makenna knows it's getting close to her second birthday. She loves to hear me sing Happy Birthday. She usually requests it by saying "Hap Buday." There's a Curious George Book that has a part where George is getting ready for a birthday party and every time we get to that page, she starts saying "Hap Buday" and wants me to sing the song. Then she claps and says "yeaaaahh." I ask her how old she's going to be and she says "two."

We also made a trip to the doctors as she hasn't stopped running from the wrong end, and she had this horrible rash that looked like welts. He said it's just some sort of infection and gave us antibiotics, diaper cream, and some pedialyte type substance, in powder form. I tried the whole giving her toast and a banana but she wouldn't go for it so the doctor's was the only option. She still wouldn't take the pedialyte drink and we had the force the antibiotic down her.

I tried being sneaky today, trying to get her to eat other foods to help her. I bought Naan bread as she loves this type of bread, and I made a piece of toast. I tried swapping out the Naan bread with toast and she didn't go for it. So then I squished up pieces of toast inside the Naan bread and I was able to get a few pieces down that way. Then I also bought a fiber bar hoping she'd think it was like a cookie or candy. She took one bite and gave that back to me and said, "done." So then I squished little pieces of the fiber bar into a cookie and was able to get her to eat it that way, but I'm sure four or five tiny fiber bar pieces aren't going to solve my problem, rather, her problem.

I gave her fruit tonight and cut up banana and thought she was going to eat a piece but then she put it down at the last minute. Sometimes she'll eat bananas and other times not. Unfortunately, this is one of those "not" times. As for the pedialyte drink, I tried making that the only drink option but that didn't go over. She would take one sip and say, "done". It's great to see them grow and learn, but it's not great when they can catch on to your tricks.

6Oct2008: Day 134: Mundane Monday

Well, those faithful readers can see that this was a bit late in being posted. It's not because things happened and it got to crazy to post anything. It was because not much really happened.

Chris went out of town for the day for a business trip and got home late and Makenna and I just had our usual day of going to the gym (nursery for her,) and then hanging at home. She still has a cold and now we have not only a runny nose, but also a runny butt--if you catch my drift. She seems in good spirits regardless so that's good. I'm just tired of changing yucky diapers. She's still not as ready as I thought she was for potty training but hopefully before her third birthday.

We're also trying to get the house ready for Chris's parents who are coming on Thursday and staying for a few weeks. We're excited to have live-in babysitters for a while! Obviously they're going to be out and about sight-seeing too but they'll be here for our fifth wedding anniversary giving us a chance to go out--alone--up through Makenna's second birthday.

I also got a chance to talk to my mom to hear about her crazy, but usual, life. It was good to talk and reminds me how much I miss home at times. The one thing I'm going to find hard is to get back into a routine when I get back home. I used to go to bed fairly early and get up early to work out. Now I go to bed around 11pm, sometimes even later and get up later and work out and then if needed, take a short nap in the afternoon, when Makenna does. I still appreciate the opportunity to be here though and to see all the wonderful history and different landmarks.

5Oct2008: Day 133: More Pictures from Yesterday

Today was a day at home for Makenna and myself. Our church has General Conference twice a year which is broadcast from Salt Lake City but because of the time difference, they don't show it here until night time at the church. So I figured I'd just get it online later. I miss being able to just watch it at home with my family, doing impossible puzzles or playing cards.

So I thought I'd just include a few more pictures from yesterday's trip. I know Chris thought the whole Stonehenge thing is over-rated, which it is to some degree, but I still found it absolutely amazing and just to think of all the work that went into creating this weird monument of sorts for some purpose that we just don't really know. One-third of each of the stones that are upright, are buried below ground. So considering that this is over 5000 years old, they didn't really have the normal tools that could help them do that easily. Plus, the stones that lay across the top of the upright stones are actually hooked onto the stones. The upright stones have a bump on top and the ones that lay horizontally have a hollowed out area that the bump fits into. I didn't know that, I just thought they were balancing on top. If you look at the picture above, the farthest stone on the right that has the horizontal piece attached at the top, you can see a bump to it. The audio tour was neat, what I could hear of it. Since it was really windy and as Chris said, Makenna walking "against traffic" so to say, it made it difficult to concentrate on what was being said.

The thing I thought that was neat about the cathedral was a couple of the tombs that had skeleton-like figures on top instead of the nice carved figures. The one on the left is what you typically see but the one on the right was eerie. I'm not sure why some people would choose, if they chose, to be a skeletal figure compared to a nice ornate casket. The other really neat thing that this cathedral had was a reflecting pool and when you look into it, you can see the stain glass windows.

The only other thing Chris forgot to write about was Friday night. We had people over from his work. Just a small group to eat chicken wings. Of which, Chris made a huge mess. He took the seal off the bottle of Frank's Red Hot Sauce and was shaking the bottle and somehow the cap was loose. The mess was all over him, me, the wall, the floor, the brownies, the curtains, and other various things. We're still trying to soak some clothes in bleach to remove it. We have to try and find something to clean the walls. I think the curtain, which was white, is pretty well cleaned, better than it was. As for our clothes, well, his white T-Shirt might be a loss, and we haven't soaked my shirt or his shirt yet. We put on stain remover and washed but it's still noticeable to some extent. Unfortunately, I accidentally erased that picture of sauce all over him. But you can just picture it.