Sunday in DC

A family day out at the zoo was enjoyed in the sunshine (especially by Stu, as it's all part of the Smithsonian and is free). You will note that the new Hello Kitty handbag is now a fixture.The balance of the Grandad's pennies earnt for leaving them alone in peace and quiet for 3 years was spent at the zoo shop. Olivia, her mother's daughter, opted for a blue elephant necklace that she wished to wear with her new blue/green birthday outfit. Eloise, her father's daughter, opted for an ill-fitting black t-shirt with a pink and gold tiger on it. She now looks like Shiloh Pitt Jolie and it's difficult to identify boy or girl. Great news for Stu, she kept it immaculately clean as she wishes to wear her new favourite t-shirt tomorrow (the day we meet all the Embassy bods). In DC all the cool people hang-out in Georgetown on Sundays. Not quite hanging out of the windows - but we are all learning.

FOD - The smithsonian Institute was endowed in 1864 by Englishman James Smithson (who never visited the US) for the 'increase and diffusion of knowledge'. Not sure about that, but the free zoo is great.

Only in America pt 3

Not wanting to be labelled 'one-sided', only in America can you go to a museum and see actual artifacts that have taken their countrymen to the moon (or a tv studio in Nevada if you are a conspiracy theorist). Top work, cowboys!

The Birthday...

The big day finally arrived after an, unbeknown to Olivia, 48hr slip. Much excitement and many squeals followed (including during an otherwise quiet breakfast serving in the hotel restaurant). Unfortunately for Olivia, but not Stu, the preferred choice of the Natural History museum was shut for emergency repairs so we had to go to the Air & Space museum. The below picture is of the girls playing in front of the infra-red camera, note, it is only our children who were pulling their tops up to expose their hot tummies. No pictures were taken of them showing their bottoms, but we can assure you all they were red too.A not so quick dash to a large toy store produced a barbie laptop, walkie talkies, strawberry shortcake (or gateaux?) characters and a new Hello Kitty handbag from all of her birthday money. There was also the obligatory birthday carousel ride.

Olivia did ask loudy why the White House was so called. After some stuttering Stu announced it is because well it's a house and well it's white. Fortunately no more questions followed.

Olivia's birthday dinner was actually a Mad Hatter's tea party in a private dining room that we were lucky enough to find! She really wasn't sure that the magic would last long enough to keep the table, chairs and all the food hanging upside down.FOD - With 130,000,000 books, manuscripts and microfilms the Library of Congress is the world's largest library.

End of week 1.

Work has started, networking has started and our first road trip has started.

4 days this week of work, but when it takes almost 3 hours to get issued with a family pass, you can imagine that progress has not been huge!

We (adults and Big H) went for our predecessors leaving dinner last night in a great local restaurant while the girls had a 'sitter'. We were late leaving as Stu was blagging an early flying package and tickets to a 'tail gate party' at the next college football match with his new American Sqn boss. We can say he tasted leadership, creep!

Friday saw us travel upto to DC (just 75 mins north) for our Embassy arrival weekend. As you can see, all the family settled quickly into their new 5 star surroundings, especially the super chilled Harry. Everyday is a school day, if you are going to allow the children to eat room service in front of cartoons so you can have a quite meal alone later, after the rugrats have gone to bed in their own room, don't wait for the lady to ring the door bell, it attracts the little blighters like flies around a light! Learning has taken place.

Tomorrow is Olivia's birthday (yes we know we are cruel for 'delaying' it 2 days but she doesn't know and it's soooo much more convenient!) so it's a busy day of shopping, smithsonian museums and chocolate cake.

P.S. Child snatching is not a huge problem in the States. We (OK Stu) left Harry on the pavement outside the hotel with the luggage for the porter to deal with. 5 mins later and only when the receptionist at check in, questioned if we had 2 or 3 children was the (slight) oversight noticed...

Only in America Pt 2

Now then, we couldn't prove it but we think that this car is not owned by the son of God. Let's face it, although he is never reported as being materialistic, you would have thought if your Dad had created such things as light, the earth and man you wouldn't knock about about the washington freeway in a Nissan.

The first week

A week of firsts in our first week.

First Abby actually got bored of shopping, it will never happen again but when you have to shop for all new bedding and they use different words for everything it can be frustrating. Add in the cost, it may be the land of the free but not when it comes to cotton. Polyester, very cheap, cotton children's duvet cover and sheet around $250 per bed!

Stu had to do his first 'in car salute' back to the gate guard as i

s customary and expected here, unfortunately all the family saw him flustered and flapping, trying to do a 'british one' in cramped conditions whilst trying to pull away - he hit the roof of the car with his hand and wheel spun away with comedy movie style effects leaving the guard shocked and Abby crying with laughter.

Stu got asked for his id in the restaurant, Olivia had a tour of her excellent looking new school, Eloise lost her beloved elephant and we all went to the diner for cw0ooofee and cake, except they didn' understand the word cake and even less the second attempt of gateaux. We all learnt a lot of american. Cake = dessert and gateaux = shortcake. At one stage the waitress was stood in the middle of the diner asking loudly 'does anyone know what he is saying'.

Eloise's gurning practice is endless but we really feel the time and effort is being rewarded with some spectacular results.

We saw our first real life Amish family going about there business in town, we didn't have the camera with us but Abby was seriously considering getting them to pose for 'a blog shot'. Don't imagine that would have translated well into Amish language.

Oh and Olivia asked for the first time 'why that man had a big girls pony tail'. He was a 6 foot 5 massive rastafarian. Joy.

Living out of 10 suitcases is not easy! Still only a few days left until we get our pad.

Solomans pictures

Solomans pictures

Eloise's gurning practice has Harry in stitches everytime.

Solomans Island

Well our first weekend in the States is also Columbus Day weekend. We decided to drive the 10 mins over to Solomans Island for a bit of a break from all the required retail therapy. A few points to note:

1. It's been 80 degrees since we arrived with not a cloud in the sky (pic 1)

2. There was a most random parade 15 minutes after our arrival (we believe that the two events are not linked).

3. The parade photos are the first in the other new regular blog feature - 'Only in America' (pic 2-4).

4. Olivia wanted to show of her new sunglasses whilst Eloise was desperate to get seen in her new 'witches hat pushchair' (pic 5).

5. We went to a great crab and oyster 'shack'. Only bad news is that 'is there nothing Olivia doesn't like that we do?' (previous post).

6. America, land of the big sky and great sunsets...(previous post)

FOD - Columbus Day celebrates the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, specifically the Bahamas, which occurred on October 12, 1492 in the Julian calendar and October 21, 1492 in the modern Gregorian calendar. 47 States celebrate Columbus day, Hawaii celebrates it's discovery by polynesians and South Dakota and Nevada celebrate 'Native American Day'.

A new blog feature.

For blog regulars the FOD (or Fact Of the Day) will appear occasionally, but there will now also be a couple of new regular features.

The first of these is 'Products / Services Which Wouldn't Sell Well At Home'. For example:

Day 1!

Well, we are finally here. Today saw family C move themselves, 10 suitcases, 4 pieces of hand luggage, 3 car seats and 2 pushchairs (sorry - strollers) to Maryland. We hadn't quite comprehended how much space that all took up, but neither had the Embassy travel section! After an hour and a half at the hire car company, we finally found one that could take it all (just). The picture just doesn't do it justice, it was huge.

Not only did we find the load capacity limits of various hire cars, we also found the stamina levels of our children. After getting up at 7am Olivia was still going strong and asking for a story 'because she wasn't tired' at 0230 the next day, picture 2 was taken at 0231.

At the airport Immigration Point, Stu saw the immigration official stapling white cards into our passports. The Embassy had pre-warned us that these pieces of card were essential in our dealings with any and all US agencies in the first few weeks. Stu said to the very stern chap 'Ah - the white cards, the Embassy has told me that those pieces of card are more important than life itself'. There followed a short pause. The official stopped his rigorous stamping duties, looked up and very seriously stated 'that simply is not true sir', he then looked worryingly at the children before continuing with his stamping duties.