Better late than never!

Some more photos on our move back to the UK

I so meant to post this....well about 4 months ago now - where does the time go!

After 4 weeks in a container, our furniture arrived into Felixtowe in the UK. We didn't actually see it arrive, but Henry and i took a trip down to see where it did. He was amazed at the size of the cranes and all the ships and tug boats.

We moved back into our

house in August, and those of you familiar with American sized trucks....how well they fit American sized roads! Well we had the biggest lorry arrived to deliver our furniture - but our village has TINY roads...enjoy the photos of the fun the drivers had!

This was the lorry turning to go back the way it came as there are weight restrictions out of our village in all directions except 1!

Oh yea, and in this picture you can just about see our little house behind the huge lorry! The house is actually 3 stories high!

Henry starts school

This post is a little belated...but better late than never!

Henry started school on the 3rd September 2009. One very excited boy rand down to school in his very smart school uniform! Very eager to learn...or rather "play" as we were told by Henry!

Needless to say, three weeks in, he is loving it. Finally making some friends, and even coming home with homework!

We are back...I think!

After what seems like months away, (well it is over 2 months since we left the USA) i think we can finally get back to this blog!

We have done a fair bit over the last few months that has not been documented, so i'm going to attempt to catch up with our activities in the next few posts.

Just as an idea i'll finally get around to blogging our trip to Niagara falls, our move from the USA to the UK. A visit to the Postal museum, a fish and chips art project, Henrys first day at school and his new found hobby of horse riding........

Takes a deep breath and gets typing!

Happy reading!

The great move has begun

On Monday this week (the 6th July) the movers arrived to start packing up all our worldly possessions. In the space of a day, everything was wrapped ready for loading the following day. We were left our beds for the night. Amazingly Henry coped really well. Made rather a lot of chat with all the guys doing the packing, and made sure all his toys were loaded safely into the boxes.

Yesterday everything was packed into the 40ft container that arrived early in the day. On the way into the USA we brought only a 20ft, but with new beds and other furniture we are taking home way more!

Henry had a pretty special day, what with getting rides on the mover's trolley, and getting to ride his trike flat out down the ramp from the container to the drive (before taking a nose dive over the handlebars)...he just would not be told it was not a good idea!

However, the highlight of his day came when everything was loaded. Garry the foreman helped Henry into the huge cab and let him start the engine. He then showed him where the air horn was and Henry blew it so many times i think we let the whole neighbourhood know we were going. His face was a picture.

I have loads of pictures to add to this blog article, but have no way of getting at them right now, so i will update this post when i have the pictures.

We all waved goodbye to the container before making our way to temporary accommodation in the apartments where we started when we arrived in the USA.

Our container is going to take approximately 4 weeks to reach our house in the UK.

If you would like to track it, check out sea rates.com and put in the container number as GATU4295280 with the shipping line as MSC. We expect the container to leave New York next week by ship. This is the ship we expect our precious cargo to be sailing on.

4th July celebrations

For our family, the 4th of July was one last chance to spend time with our friends and party before moving back to the UK. So this year we did it in style!

On Friday the 3rd we started with a trip to Arlington Park race track to watch a couple of races and then wa

tch the fireworks. We went with friends of ours and Henry's great mate Derek. When Henry & Derek get together, you can be guaranteed high jinks will follow.

Given the confined space we managed to secure at the race track, Henry, and 4 other kids all under 5 managed their boredom very well. Glow sticks and lollipops were a great help.

The fireworks were fantastic, Henry realy enjoyed them this year, and we eventually rolled into bed at 11pm.

On Saturday 4th we watched the Arlington Heights parade with more friends. Henry loves the spectacle of it all, and the fire trucks were a big hit.

After the parade we walked over to the Frontier days fair, where Henry had a blast on the mini roller coaster, dodgems, slide, and he & Kevin even managed to get me on a very whirly waltzer ride.....Henry enjoyed it far more than i did!

The afternoon saw us at another party on our street, which eventually saw us home at 11pm. Needless to say we all slept in late most of the weekend.

When Henry is old enough i look forward to explaining to him about the 4th July, i'm not sure we will get away with the celebration when we get back to the UK though!

A good excuse for a party!!!

The fun

This week, Henry and I had a great send off from a large number of my mom friends. With overcast weather, we had a great afternoon play date in the back garden. 21 children raging in age from 1 - 7 played great together (well most of it) for over two hours. I got a chance to catch up with all my mom friends who have been of great support to me in the last two years, and Henry got to play with so many people!

The swing was a big hit, the ball pool was completely emptied and the sand pit spread across the patio mixed in with cake....but it was great!

A note about our move

After two and a half years living near Chicago in the USA, we are finally moving back to the UK. Before moving to the USA Henry was barely two years old, i worked part time and i had never even heard of home schooling.

I have however, always known that i wanted Henry to enjoy life, and Kevin & i are both keen for Henry to have every opportunity possible to experience everything that life has to offer.

In the couple of years i have adjusted to being at home with an increasingly active toddler, who has a mind of his own, can be as stubborn as they come......that said, the love he offers and joy i get from watching him experience all that we do together far outweighs his moody moments!

When we return to the UK, Henry will start school full time in September, and i am sure i will be lost without him. I fully intend to keep up with lots of family activities at the weekends though, so that we can all continue to learn together.

This is us...Henry & Charlie

Henry & Charlie out on the beach in New Zealand.

Welcome to our Blog

Ok, here goes, i'm going to attempt to capture some of the fun stuff Henry & i do at home in our spare time together.

Henry, an active 4 year old does not like to sit still, hates to think he is doing something that may cause him to be "learning" and seems to have the attention span of a gold fish! He is a very hands on kind of person and would much rather sort beans into pots than circle things the same on a page in a book. Therefore i've deveoped activities towards his style of learning and we both enjoy it a lot more.

So.... all of the activities are highly rated by Henry! I'd like to think that they have all developed his skills in numerous areas as well, and he has probably done "learning" without even realising it.

Whilst i'd like to think i am fairly creative (and my husband will vouch for that with the amount of crafts materials overflowing from drawers in our office) i use numerous resources for my ideas. We love our local library and visit nearly every week, i have just subscribed to "Mailbox" a teachers ideas magazine, and i trail the internet endlessly looking for ideas and activities.

Henry & i both hope you enjoy looking at what we do and that you may like some of the ideas enough to give them a go yourselves.