The Blue Room

Hello again! As promise, a few days late, here is what a typical day with 5 12-22 month olds look like. We start the day with breakfast, change diapers, have free play/craft time, go to the gym or outside, come back and change diapers, have lunch, take a nap, change diapers, eat snack, free play/outdoor/gym time, change diapers, and then play till the parents come home! Yes, that is a lot of diapers! Here are a few pictures of the kids and projects we've done. These kids are a lot smarter and more capable than I would have thought, it's been a good learning experience! (and I covered their faces because of the whole privacy issue. sorry)

playing outside with toys

they can blow bubbles!! or eat them, sometimes both.
it's always fun when they stick the bubble wand in
 their mouth and then blow a bubble without the wand.

He wanted to play dress-up,
but we only have 1 boy costume...
so he picked the bee dress

they can stack thingstaller than they are!

playing with Moon Sand...and they
 don't even eat it...much!

our little princess

the beast and pixie 

our little beast...
and wal-mart clerk on the side

playing music

doing an art project where you shake
a box with beads and paint inside

And I'm Back...the last 2 weekends of Sept

Ok, so I got a little lazy with this whole blog thing...I'm putting all my communication efforts into another venue, and if you know me at all, you know I don't have a lot of extra "I need to be a good correspondent" in me. So lots has happened between today and the 13th of September, I believe that was my last blog, so I'm just going to give you a few highlights. The 18th-19th we went back to London and stayed at a hostel. The day included: Primark (a giant mess of a department store, but it's SO cheap!!), a sweet shoe window display,

 a nap at our hostel, dinner at Med Cafe (over priced, and the waiter seriously wouldn't bring us our check. The guy next to us was in and out before we'd even paid. He kept trying to get us to buy drinks...we had to ask the manager for our bill. And he wasn't even hot.), drinks at The Sports Cafe...where they DIDN'T show the Husker game, and I was bummed. But we met some really nice English guys, so it was a good night. One of them kept doing the "moon walk"...but it was really him walking backwards. Hillary wanted a video, but he'd only do it again if someone else did...and guess who was that lucky person! See photo below for a view of my awful moon walk attempt.

 Then Sunday we got up WAY too early for Speakers Corner, so we film a music video in Hyde Park (it's on facebook if you want to see it.) The picture is us in Hyde Park.

Speakers corner was fun, but there were only 2 speakers, and not very many hecklers, which is the best part. But we still enjoyed it. Then we went to Wagamama's for lunch...and decided to go home early cuz it was kinda rainy and we were tired.

The next weekend, we went BACK to London on Sunday, to see the Great Gorilla Run and Henry IV part II. Unfortunately, the trains were under construction, so we got to the race right as it was ending. But we still got to see people in their costumes, and we did see one woman cross the finish line!

 Then we walked down to The Tower of London and cross The Tower Bridge-which I hadn't walked across last time, so that was cool.

 Then we found a little festival thing, and got some free beer samples, and I completed a puzzle and got a free 1/2 pint! It wasn't that good, so we used the beer to make a photo album, with our beers "posing as a couple" in front of touristy things.

We also found some giant balls that we climbed...boy we do the most random things! After a trip to Sansbury's for some cheap wine, we finally made it to Henry IV Part II at the Globe...sadly, it wasn't nearly as good as Part I...it didn't make sense and my love (sorry Paul) only had like 30 minutes of stage time during the 3 hour play. Not cool Shakespeare, not cool

 So they write this on the street to help tourists know which way to look because they drive on the wrong side of the road...this isn't gonna be too helpful.

  After Henry IV, we tried to catch an "early train" home but missed it by 15 minutes, so we had to wait 45 minutes for the next one. But the real bad news was that because of the construction, we weren't going to get home until about 1:30 AM, and we had to be at work at 8 the next morning. The taxi company had said to call before 11 to book a taxi, so we tried calling from the train, but no one answered. The only thing we could think of to get from the train station to base was to use an illegal taxi, which we'd accidentally taken on our way home from London the first time. But who knew, even the illegal taxis aren't out at 1:30 on a Monday morning. So there we are, standing at a train station with is deserted, with the exception of a few construction workers on the tracks, and the bus driver and lady who was helping people figure out where to do because of the construction who is talking to the bus driver. Here were our options: sleep at the station (outside, in the cold), call a lady I work with and wake her up, walk (but we didn't really know how to get back, and it is over 6 miles), or go ask the bus driver and lady for help. We decided to try the last one first, and bless their hearts, they figured out where Croughton was and the lady drove us there herself! She was just getting off work, and still had to drive an hour back to London, but she was kind enough to take us home first. And when we tried to pay her, she said the only thing she needed was knowing we got home safely. Talk about angles among us!!!

And that is all I shall write for today. Stay tuned, because tomorrow you're going to get to see what happens in between all these fun trips!

What a weekend!

Well, Day 4 didn't post due to technical difficulty, and honestly, nothing that exciting happened. I'll recap it for you: Went to work at 8:30. Had lunch in the coffee shop so we could use the internet, got to talk with my mom for a bit (who thankfully got my bank card situation figured out, so now i have money. thanks mom!), wrote an email or two, and then with 10 minutes left of break power went out all over base, so we left. Got back to school, the a few kids were awake from nap and upset about the lights going out, so I got to comfort crying babies. It happened off and on all afternoon, still not sure why. Exciting news was that one of the babies took her first step! I'd been working with her all week on standing and balance, and she took on little step before she wobbled over! Luckily her mom works at the center, so I paged her and let her know it happened. We worked on an art project involving a very cute sheep I drew, and one of the little boys has the best "baa" every...it's more like "BEH"...it's an intense sheep, I love asking him what sheep say. Friday night we spent a few hours on the internet, came home, watched 2 "Rules of Engagement" episodes...or the first 15 minutes, cuz we didn't have internet to refresh them...and then started S1E1 of "How I Met Your Mother." That show should pay Quyen, because of her at least 3 of us became addicted to it in Germany, and Hillary is the 3rd person I've got watching it. Good times.
Saturday was our big day. We finally got off base and into London! Here is what we did:
*went to the bakery by my old flat and got awesome donuts/my favorite muffin
*saw my old flat
*walked along Cromwell to Hyde Park Corner, took a few pictures of the cool gate
*walked along Piccadilly Road to Piccadilly Circus
*passed Harvey Nichols, which has awesome displays of statues made out of unusual materials, i.e. a piano out of tapes, a tree out of pencils, a mustang out of miniature toy horses, etc.
*Took pictures in Piccadilly Circus, including ones with a certain horse statue that is very, um, well endowed. (luckily Hillary had me around to remember these type of things)
*Walked to Trafalgar's Square, ate lunch on the round-about with the Statue of King Charles I on it.
*Got asked to take a picture of 2 Egyptian men, so then started asking about us...they wanted a picture with us, and me, being unable to say "no" to people, said ok...the first guy's hand very noticeably crept up my rib cage...no cool. They told us they were "glad to see us again." and "if you ever come to Egypt, I would love to meet you." yeeeeah, we booked it out of there.
*We then continued on down to Big Ben, and took a picture in one of the red phone booths in front of it.  This was probably the worst weather of the day, it spit rain for about 5 minute, but luckily stopped.
*We crossed the bridge to the other side of the Thames where the Thames Festival was going on. Along the way we had to stop so Hillary could take a picture pushing down Big Ben.
*Got our picture taken with the Subway mascot.
*Passed an ice cream van that said "Often licked never beaten" and of course had to stop for this photo op
*Got hit on by a zombie, who was promoting a show at a tourist trap. He had a bright red wig on, and when we asked if he was dead he said "No, the Gingers are a dying breed, and it's my mission to keep the population alive." When he asked us if we wanted to come inside and see the show, I said "Only if it's free," to which he replied "Girls, it's London. I can't do free, but I can do ya cheap." Still not sure what exactly he was talkin about in the last part...but we left too quickly after that to find out.
*We then wandered through the festival, seeing everything from merchant booths, and food stands, to jugglers, a bubbleologist (she was making bubbles), terrible hip hop dancers, Korean break dancers, Jive dancers, brides, crazy clothes, and improve actors. I accidentally took a picture of a girl with tourettes...didn't realize it till afterwards. She was dressed in a superhero costume, in the middle of a festival, I thought she was part of the festivities... until she started yelling profanity suddenly. oops.
*Eventually we made our way down to the Globe Theater, where we saw they still had tickets for the showing of Henry IV that evening...and we decided no time like the present, let's do it! So we got standing yard tickets for 5 pounds!
*Walked across the Millennium Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral. We were going to go find dinner, but decided that since it was already so late, we should probably stay close to the theater, so we walked back.
*Had tomato and mozzarella salad and split an "American Pizza" (pepperoni) with Hillary
*Got in line for the show...after killing an hour in the gift shop and looking at flyers
*Stood 2nd row in the Globe for Henry IV part 1. Neither of us have read it, or knew anything about it, other then what the flyer said in it's brief synopsis. We actually didn't intend to come back for part II because it's on a Sunday, and won't get done till fairly late...but MAN! The only shows that are on the same level that I've seen are "Much Ado About Nothing" at the National Theater in London, and Les Miserables in London. It was an incredible show. Like 40 minutes later we were still raving about it, so now of course we HAVE to go back to see Part II.  If I weren't completely in love with Paul, the guy who played Prince Hal would probably have to take a restraining order out for me.
*Had to find our way back to our train station by 11:30...we weren't sure when the last train left London, but we told it was sometime between 11:30-12:00...and the play didn't get over till after 10:40. Luckily the tube got us there with 15 minutes to spare!

Things I've learned:
*you can say "no" when someone wants to take a picture with you
*gingers are not allowed to die in order to keep their numbers up
*sometimes people with tourettes like to wander through festivals and fool you so you take pictures of them and get teased
*the lemon muffin at Bakers Oven takes as good as I remembered it tasting.
*Walking for 6 hours makes your feet HURT
*Buying 5 pound tickets for the Globe is worth every cent.
*If you are trying to give away a book you've read to people on the train, don't say it was "quite ordinary" and "I didn't make it to the end." not good selling points
*Never buy postcards for more then 15p. We found a place selling 12 for 95p, it was awesome.
*Round-about make good picnic sights
*People were crazy things in big European cites
*it is possible to do 13 hours worth of sightseeing/ play watching in a day, but do it sparingly!

Sunday
Today was about being lazy and catching up with people. Slept in till 10:30, had breakfast, edited all my pictures from yesterday (both took over 200), went to the library and used the internet inside for a while. Went home, made some dinner and then went back to the library to skype people. Got to talk to the newly engaged Katie Baker (YAYAYAYAY) who asked me to be a bridesmaid :). Got to talk to Paul for a long time today, which was very, very nice. Talked to Sarie for about an hour at the end of the night, unfortunately we could only type, our internets weren't working well enough to see/hear each other. I also uploaded the last of my pictures from this summer, pictures from the airplane as i landed, pictures from on base, and pictures from yesterday to my facebook. If you aren't my friend...well I'm surprised you know about it...but you can ask me to join so you can see them, so I can send you the links. I'm going to try to upload a few of my favs to my blog too. After we got home we at a snack and watched 2 more episodes of HIMYM.
Learned today:
*It is very nice to have internet for more then 2 hours again
*After a full day of walking, your body hurts
*We need more time in our weekends
*People upstairs use the 2 machines in the laundry room too...Sunday is not the day to do laundry.

Onto Day 4

Day 4
First of all, the Huskers are NUMBER 6 (or 7 in the coach's poll)!!!! They'd better be this good next year, that's all I have to say on that. (Just saw this today, sure the news has been out most of the week, I'm just behind the times here)
Well today Hillary and I were in the classrooms all day, either observing or being "mentored"aka getting to know the rooms we'll be working in most of the time. From what we've gathered so far, we'll both be floating among the three rooms, but I'll spend a little more time in the 1 year old room, and Hillary will spend more time in 2 year olds and the preschool room. Compared to Baumholder, this center is almost unnervingly quiet. It's so odd only having 24 kids in the whole place, it's going to take some getting used to. The preschool room has a Laney, Leala and Leila...yeah, that's not cool for someone who doesn't remember names well. And two of them have strawberry blonde hair and one of the second two has 2 was of pronouncing it...depends on which parent you talk to. So kinda glad that's not my primary room, I don't think I'll ever get it 100% right! The Blue Room (1 year olds) has a total of five kids enrolled, and they seem like a pretty tame group, which will be a nice change after Baumholder. (I LOVED my preschoolers, don't get me wrong, but it's kinda nice to not have to stress out as much) . We are still getting adjusted to how things work in this particular center vs our previous ones, which is one of the hardest parts of starting a new job.
We didn't get much done on our To Do list today except get the toilet fixed...which we did, and are very thankful for. You never really appreciate indoor plumbing until you don't have it. Tomorrow we have to go get a mail box, sign up for a horse riding trip in Wales (for Hillary's 23 B-day), and other errands that are too trivial to mention. But the library is open till 8:00 tomorrow, so we can run around base and still sit inside for once and have a few hours of internet.
We made goulash of black beans, corn and sausage tonight for dinner (or rather Hillary did), which was very yummy. The goal is to eat as cheaply and healthy as possible this time around, which has been achieved so far.
We still haven't left the base yet, we probably won't till Saturday. We don't really know where the town of Croughton is compared to the base, it's not like Baumholder where you could see it and had to go through it to get to work...the base here only has a 3 mile perimeter, so it's pretty small.
Well, that's about it...sorry it wasn't an exciting post, but today wasn't a super exciting day. Hopefully tomorrow will produce a good story or two.
Toodles!

Settling In

Day 3 (plus 1 and 2 recapped) 
Blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog. say that out loud. Blog is a very funny sounding word. And so begins my adventures in blogging. Honestly, I'm writing this more as a journal so I can look back on it later and remember what I did and how I felt...but if you like me enough to sift through my random thoughts and pointless stories, I hope you'll find something worth while here. 
I've been back in England for about 41 hours...and it hasn't been the smoothest 41 hours of my life. First I didn't realize that I had landed in the wrong terminal at the airport, so I almost got left. Well actually, I did get left for about 15 minutes, but luckily that's right about the time I called a Camp A person back in the States and she got ahold my the driver (who's cell phone I was unable to call from a pay phone. annoying.) , so they turned around and came back for me. I landed at Heathrow at about 7 a.m. and didn't meet up with Hillary and the driver (Keith, a nice semi-retired British man) until about 2...so it was a stressful morning. Once we got to base, Hillary and I unpacked our suitcases and set up our rooms. Housing here is really nice, partly because they recently remodeled our rooms so everything is relatively new. We each have our own bedroom, complete with a sink/vanity, walk-in closet, and 2 nice dresses...and of course a bed. We share a bathroom and kitchen, and both are nice. The kitchen has a dishwasher, but from the looks of the dishes, it doesn't really work. The bathroom has a towel warming rack, and by the way my towel was nice and warm this morning, it DOES work. :) Really the only downfall is the walls are pretty thin and the internet situation absolutely sucks. Sometimes we can get it in our rooms, but you have to pay for it, and it's rather expensive, especially considering it only works half the time. I bought it yesterday to let everyone know I made it home and was unable to find a signal for about 4 hours. Not so cool. But it's nice to know that should I need to get on at night, it's more of an option then it was in Baumholder.
After settling in, the girl next door came over and introduced herself. Her name is Tiffany, and she seems really nice. She told me a little about base, places to shop, things to do around here, what to expect with the weather...the "welcome to your new home" basics. It's always a good feeling when you know there are people around who can help you if you need it when you get to a new place, so that was lovely.
Hillary took a nap while the previous paragraph was happening...after she woke up, we ate some cereal for dinner and talked about watching a movie, but that never happened. We called it an early night, but I ended up talking to Paul on skype for half and hour or so, so I went to bed around 11:30...about 33 hours after I woke up Sunday morning, and got maybe an hour or tow of sleep on the plane. Needless to say, I was pretty tired. I dreamt I was still in Colorado this morning, and it took me about 10 seconds for me to realize where I was this morning. 
We started work today. The Center has about 24 kids currently enrolled, but not all of them come everyday, I'd say there were about 18 today. There is a preschool room, a 2 year old room, and a 1 year old room. Since it is such a small center, there aren't a lot of staff, and they are actually slightly understaffed... there are about 6 teachers we know about so far. Everyone there seems nice, it should be a good place to work. The building itself is wonderful. The hallways are decorated with old fashion toys and the rooms are open and spacious. No more annoying room layouts with unnecessary walls and places for kids to hide. Today we observed for a little while in each room, read training material and spent about 4 hours getting our base passes. Unlike Baumholder, we have access to everything on base, including the shopping centers and things like book rentals at the library! 
AFter work, we went to the commissary and stocked up on food. After that we went home, cleaned out a bag of gross, moldy, sprouting potatoes and the fridge, and reorganized the kitchen ( I just typed chicken instead of kitchen...that's odd). Next we went to find internet...turns out the library closes at 6, except Thursday when it closes at 8. I think Sunday was open pretty late too. But everything else closes just as early, so it looks like we'll be sitting outside the library if we want to use internet for more then an hour and fifteen minutes everyday. It's not TOO bad to do that yet, there is a picnic table under a little roof right outside, so as long as it isn't too rainy and windy, we should be alright. But even tonight, it was pretty chilly after the sun went down. We walked back sometime after 8:30 and it was like a ghost town, there was no one around. It was odd. We made some pasta for dinner and watched the first 45 minutes of The Holiday in honor of being in England. Then we sat around and complained how much we miss our boyfriends and how long distance relationships suck. But we can't complain too much, we're the ones who wanted to come here, and once we get into a routine and start to go do things, it should get better. But this time is definitely gonna be a lot harder than last time was.
And to top off the not so smooth 41 hours...the toilets here don't really have a lever you push down to flush, they have buttons you push...well guess who's toilet decided to break when she pushed the button tonight? If you guessed me, you're correct! All I did was push the button like normal...and now we have no toilet. Hopefully they get that fixed tomorrow or we could be in trouble. 
If you are curious about how to contact me...cuz you probably are if you are taking the time to read this...hopefully we can get a box at the post office tomorrow...they don't have one set up for us like in Germany, let's hope there aren't any problems with it. And they don't seem to sell phones here, but as soon as i find either a charger for my old one or just buy a new one, I'll let you know!
Well, I think that's enough info for one night. 
Loves and misses