Breakfast with Santa

We took Jacob to visit Santa at Valley Lee Volunteer Fire Service. We had a yummy American breakfast (Jacob ate 5 sausages!) and then Jacob went to visit with Santa. Santa now knows Jacob would like a train so fingers crossed!

Christmas Tree

Painting up a storm

We have finished Jacob's Christmas presents and now we are making masterpieces. Jacob may well be a southpaw like his Daddy!

O Christmas Tree...

Here are Jakey and Daddy with our very own Christmas tree. We are in the car with it now and it smells amazing!

Naughty Daddy!

Making the journey to America

All aboard ship! Mummy and J are making the journey to Maryland. Ring that bell and set sail. St Mary's City has lots of fun things to do and see.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Macy's thanksgiving parade followed by a turkey dinner. It doesn't get better than that. All we need now is the snow.

Bumble bee!

J trying out the tiled floor for speed

Historic St Mary's City

Another Sunday adventure for the Pynes. The first capital of Maryland is only 5 miles from our new home. We are going to go back during thanksgiving weekend when they have loads of activities going on.

Bargain biscuits...

... Not!

Lost on the way to the library!

We have stopped for a brew as we got lost on the way to the library. We've got directions so fingers crossed!

Solomons Marine Museum

A beautiful day on Solomons

Visit to Annapolis

We stopped briefly in Annapolis on Sunday to have a walk around the old town and harbour. It was getting late so we didn't have time to do the full tour but first impressions were good. We definitely need to go back for the full tourist experience.

IKEA building finished!

We've finally finished the IKEA building! It has only taken two weeks and one return trip to get two leafs of the dinning table replaced. Bexx has built 80% of the stuff, Stew has built 18% and J has built 2%. At least one of the rooms in the house is still empty and the garage is full of cardboard.

Stew is still finding the 5:30am start difficult and is currently on a 6 day week. However, next week has a 4 day weekend for thanksgiving so we need to think of something to do. Maybe a road trip is in order.

Stew is missing bacon sandwiches with HP sauce (and real cadbury's chocolate). Bexx is missing Lancashire cheese, normal bread (that doesn't cost $4 and taste of sugar) and the gas hob. Jacob misses Melissa and Sun Pat peanut butter.

Bye bye for now and we hope all is well in the UK.

Nursery news...

Well, Jacob is having his first day at nursery today. We went on a tour of various places yesterday but plumper for one a 25 minute drive away. Oh well, i really wasn't convinced by the other places that had spots available. He was very excited this morning but wasn't too happy when I left. Oh well hopefully he will be making new friends and having fun by now, I will ring at 10:30.

So, I am having a chilled out brew in Starbucks before going to Lowe's (a great big version of B&Q) to buy a mop and a curtain pole. Woo!

Annmarie garden

We are at a sculpture garden. Mummy thought it was a park but Jakey hasn't noticed the lack of swings yet!

All tuckered out!

All the furniture building, cookie baking and television mending has taken its toll!

Ikea Boy

Things from home

Our things from England arrived yesterday, I think Jacob thought it was Christmas. He is keen to get upstairs to all his toys this morning but of course, Cheerios come first!

Our new car is fab, we took it for a spin yesterday to check out a daycare for Jakey. I doubt anywhere will compare well with Brookdale but he seemed to like it. We just need to get some more immunisations to bring him in line with the US. That'll be fun!

We are waiting in this morning again for the telly man, hopefully they will turn up this time! Later we are going to cross the scariest bridge in the world and visit a sculpture garden.

Hoovering

We are in the garage sorting out our car, and Jacob has found a Hoover! Henry arrives tomorrow thankfully.

Beach Walk

We waited in for the telly man today... But he didn't come so Jakey and I went for a walk down the beach. We collected lots of shells and stones and also made many footprints. It was really odd to see bright red maple leaves against the white sand.

Solomons Island Walk

A little wander along the boardwalk on Solomons Island. Jakey was puzzled at needing his coat on at the same time as his shades! It is getting cold here now, especially when the wind starts blowing. We soon after retreated to a nearby cafe for coffee and key lime pie. J had some crispies.
Bexx and Stew are going to go and get some much needed winter coats before the snow starts falling!
It is nice to see the autumn leaves falling and the trees in all the shades of red and yellow.

Sent from my iPhone

Solomons Island Walk

Jakey's Room

Here is Jakey in his room! He is very pleased with it.

Internet at last!

Woo hoo, we finally have Internet access. We managed to persuade a very nice guy from AT&T to give us an iPhone, so we now have Internet access. All is good here, Jacob is settling in well now and thankfully has started trying new food.

I will take some pics of the house later, but it is still a bit of a mess so you will have to look past it!

Internet problems!

Hi all,

Just a really really quick one to say Hello to everyone, and to apologise - now we are in the house, we have no internet until it is connected, hopefully next week. We have been building furniture like crazy and the house is starting to look "some bit like". Longer posts next week!

Bexx xxxxxxxxxxx

IKEA

Well, we are now allowed to move into our house! It is fabulous, I can't wait to move in. We all trooped up to IKEA yesterday (Saturday) to kit Jacob's bedroom out, and get a kitchen table. It was a bit stressful but luckily it all fit in the car so we are going to have a quiet day building furniture and getting so that we can sleep in the house tonight. It got too late last night to manage it, so we decided to kip at the hotel. At least that means a good breakfast! 

Here is our house! 

And here is Jacob in his new car seat - note the cool dude sunglasses and cup holder! 

Hopefully one of us will update later with some pictures of inside the house!

Day 3 - Poorly Sick!

I am actually writing this on Day 4 but it's very early in the morning so I hope I'll get away with it!

We had a great morning yesterday, Jacob and I. First we went to Doskey Park, which Jacob loved, all though the temperature had dropped sharply so it was a bit chillier than expected!
We also went to Target, which was great! I bought all Jacob's bedding and towels, including a gorgeous "comforter", which seems to be the alternative to duvets here. It has appliqued corduroy cars all over it, with matching sheets etc. There was a car shaped bean bag but I resisted, however, I think I will be going back as it was just so gorgeous! I will post pics later, I have batteries now but someone (who shall remain nameless) has made the lens all cloudy.

However we got back to the hotel, and Jakey didn't seem well at all and was very hot. As it was Friday, I asked Stew to let me know how to go to the doctors' here. He didn't know so we wound up at the hospital eventually. They were really great and so much speedier than the UK, we were in and out within an hour, without the mysterious waits for who knows what that you get in the UK. Jacob is now on the mend with antibiotics, Tylenol and Medrin! I'd taken the Calpol to show them what I'd been giving him but apparently "Paracetemol" doesn't translate!

Finally, today we are going to the house again, we are not sure what for but we are hoping to be able to measure up and perhaps if we are lucky get access. If so, we will be moving in, so fingers crossed! Worst case scenario is still Monday so either way it isn't so bad.

Anyway today is the first day this week Stew has been able to have the yummy breakfast in the hotel so we'd best get up and at 'em! We will update later, and hopefully be on Skype later.

Day 2 - Outback

Yum yum! Just been for a lovely steak at Outback - a really good grill place in Lexington Park. Lovely salads too. A world apart from last night's disaster! We also popped into Michael's on the way home - WOW! A massive craft superstore, very exciting for me!

We also popped into our new house after Stew finished work - he chose really well and it is roughly 3x the size I was envisaging. I have no idea what we will fill it with but hopefully eventually we will get it sorted! Best thing is the big yard with a field behind it - it'll be great for J to run about on as he gets older. It also has beach access rights which is just a short drive away. Only problem is that we thought we would be in on Saturday but I can't help feeling it'll be Monday. Oh well it's all an adventure and I have a new strategy with the mad mattress tonight so hopefully the sheets *might* stay on.

Day 2 - Fairfield Inn

Well, last night wasn't a winner in terms of sleep - Jacob had a horrible cough all night and then we all woke up at 5am with Stew. Oh well. I stalled J for a while then got our breakfast. During breakfast Jacob kept saying "Go in Mummy's car" so I knew he wanted a sleep - almost got him zonko then made the fatal error of moving too early. So then we drove to Staples and bought a Sat Nav - a necessity! The driving was better in the daylight, although I HATE my hire car as it smells vaguely of fish and has no wiper on the back windscreen. What's that about?

Well we just got back and I put Playhouse Disney on and Jacob drifted off. Phew! I've put some laundry on (well, I think I have!) and am now setting this up for people to keep up with what we're up to. Now I am going to virtually SHOP till I DROP for furniture etc. Crossing our fingers & toes to be in the house on Saturday!