She Walks!

Stella has not been the most motivated to get out and about on those two legs of hers and moving.  Maybe its the extra junk in her trunk, or maybe she just is super smart and realizes it is better to be carried everywhere than to be forced to walk on your own, especially now that we walk everywhere we go. ( Being that she still stares at her feet in astonishment that they are actually on her body, I'm guessing it is the previously mentioned trunk junk).

But, this past weekend we worked hard at getting her up and moving, and starting yesterday she actually pulls herself up on her own will, and moves those tree stumps for a purpose.

Not the best video, but it is all that she will allow me to capture of her new moves, and I just know that the Grandma's are dying to see...

~ Lo

IKEA-d You Not

4 Couch Pillows
1 King Duvet
1 King Duvet Cover
1 Set of Double Bed Sheets
1 Wine Rack
1 Set of Silverware
1 Large Mixing Bowl
1 Pasta Pot
1 Sauce Pot
5 Rolling Storage Containers ( and lids of course)
1 Toy Organizer Chest ( with containers to go with!)
1 4'x10' Area Rug
1 Set of Curtains
1 large, American style jogging stroller
1 sleeping one year old
1 cranky 2+ year old
1 husband (doing lots of head shaking)
1 wife, extremely dedicated to getting her new flat overseas to feel like home and decorated.

I kid you not, we got it all home. We got it all home via public transportation (underground train) none the less, not using one set of elevators or help from any sympathetic strangers.

Proof (us in front of our flat):

 And because two of the large bags that hit my shins the entire walk home aren't in the first picture, here's a shot of those as well:

But remember that anxious to be settled mom? She's sitting in her living room, with all of the toys tucked away in their proper place and enjoying a glass of wine from that wine rack.

~ Sure to be sore for days, Lane and Lauren

OSU/Michigan Game Day...London Style

As any die-hard buckeye Fan does, when Friday morning came, we quickly forgot about the Thanksgiving holiday, put a temporary hold on any Christmas preparations and dedicated ourselves to focusing on "The Big Game" for Saturday.....even being 68,042 football fields length away from home couldn't keep our excitement away from getting to watch our Buckeyes stomp on some Wolverines. We woke up in the morning to a few Buckeye Battle Cries, wore our Scarlet and Grey proudly out in town to get our breakfast and spent the morning talking to our friends and family back in Columbus as they headed to their 7am tailgates ( wow, how we were jealous).

Being that we don't have any sort of cable connection or internet as of yet, we were so grateful that our new friends Jessica, Josh and Caroline Brown invited us over to their house just 30 minutes away by train to watch their already-installed ESPN America that just happened to be playing the game. The Brown family was introduced to us by our good friends Ali and Morgan Nameth. They are doing a similar rotation for Josh's work and got here a few months before us, so they've been a great resource for "how do we do this" type of questions and American moral support. They are from Columbus, know some of the same people we do, and also have a 2 year old (that's the previously mentioned adorable Caroline) with another baby girl on the way in a few weeks.  Don't they sound like the perfect friends to spend the best Saturday of the year with?.......Here's the kicker, they are Michigan Fans. Jessica and Josh grew in in Michigan, went to the U of M and are as die-hard about their Maize and Blue as we are about our Bucks.  So we had to swallow our pride, head to their house and sit next to them on their turf while we watched our Buckeyes finish their bowl-game less season undefeated.

We made sure to be as obnoxious as we could with our OSU apparel ( they did the same in their team's colors in anticipation of us arriving):

The girls spent most of the time playing with Caroline's awesome toys... a welcome relief from the limited amount we have at our house:

Avery wanted to make sure she had good sportsmanship and comforted sweet Caroline when things weren't looking too good for the Blue team:

All Michigan jokes aside, we are so thankful that we have a slice of home in our new friendship with the Brown family. We were super grateful for their hospitality for the game, and look forward to having them to our flat next year to watch the Buckeye's beat the Wolverines once more ( hopefully actually being able to go to a Championship game after that game!) 

~O-H-I-O!!!!, The Flood Family

Felize Thanksgiving

Our first holiday away from home. The first time in 29 years I haven't been able to watch the Macy's Parade, eat my grandma's turkey shaped sugar cookies, or stuff myself with food that somebody else graciously prepared for me. Not going to lie, a few times today I teared up a little questioning why I am not home planning my black Friday 2 am shopping route with my sister and cousins.

Besides the first official appearance of homesickness, it was an overall good day. Lane had to work, so the girls and I took the short, uphill walk to our favourite donut shop ( which is essentially a convenience store, so don't picture us in a movie-like bakery eating gourmet pastries). We allowed extra donuts in our shopping cart today as after all, it is the one day a year we are trained to not feel guilty for eating a bunch. The highlight of our donut adventure was when somebody in front of us in line realised we were American, and wished us a Happy Thanksgiving.

For lunch I went with the traditional Thanksgiving food. Turkey - though ours was sliced deli style:

Isn't Stella's Thanksgiving sweater cute ( not to mention her smile)? Didn't think about the fact that we were going to be celebrating by ourselves this year when buying this cute thrift-store classic:

So really it was just another day for us Americans here in England.... And in true Flood fashion we celebrated with a traditional meal that we always bow our heads and thank the lord for... Tacos (and some Goose Island Beer of course).

~Happy Thanksgiving, from all of us not-feeling like our pant buttons are gonna pop, Floods

When Dad's Away, the Girls Go to Harrods

I woke up in a nasty, sorry for myself, cranky mood today. There were some not so nice words to Lane, heavy sighs as I made breakfast and even a few muffled tears. Now that Lane is at work all day, and the girls and I are stuck in temporary housing in a not-so-kid friendly area, the day seems long. In order to combat my mood, I kissed Lane out the door, shook off the tears and did what any other woman in any part of the world would do.... plan a shopping trip. And since we have literally seen no London hotspots yet since we've been here, I figured I would kill the tourism/shopping need with one stop - Harrods.

My mood changed quickly.

As the girls and I pulled out of the underground station ( me literally carrying Stella in the stroller up a few flights of stairs as the elevator lift was broken) we saw something that seemed like it could only be a dream. The dark green Harrods signature awnings over the beautiful store windows already decorated for Christmas. To our overly-estatic surprise, this year's Christmas theme at Harrods is all based on the Disney princesses. I mean Disney meets Harrods? What could be better? Aren't these windows magical? They are modern-fashion focused representations of each of the princesses and each scene has the most amazing details about each princesses' story. Here are Avery's favorites:

Rapunzel

 Tiana

Belle and Princess Avery

After spending no less than 20 minutes walking up and down the line of princess windows, we could have gone home happy. Then we stepped into Harrods, dashed through the purse section so expensive I was afraid to even look at them and up to the Toy Kingdom. It too was decorated and ready for the girls to add lots and lots of ideas to their upcoming Christmas list. We spent the next hour walking around, playing with toys, taking part in demonstrations and trying to explain to a two year old why Santa can't bring her everything she wants ( I mean, his sleigh is only so big).

Stella appreciated the stuffed animals scattered around the store at her stroller-level, especially the dog "dug".

Toyed-out, hungry and exhausted already, we stumbled across our final surprise as we made our way out of Harrods - the Magical Disney shop that was put in to support the Christmas theme. An entire section of Harrods full of all things Disney - even a "glass slipper salon" and princess costume try on boutique.

It was a hugely successful adventure for the girls and I. I even escaped the dream-land spending under twenty bucks. Avery wanted a princess umbrella, so I thought it was a practical gift that she needed for the rainy London weather....... big mistake. Can you imagine a 2 year old with a new princess umbrella on the underground train? Luckily we made it without poking any eyes out. We have taken two further walks today with the umbrella held high above Avery's head (it was partly sunny and 54 today).

Off to dream of glass shoes, expensive purses and prince charming ( who just arrived home from work),

~Lo, Aves and Stella

Public Transport, Pancakes, Pints and our little Pick Pocket

To celebrate Lane's last day of "vacation" before he starts off to work tomorrow here in London, we decided to celebrate by taking a trip into an area called "the city"to locate the office in which he will spend most of his time in London. It was a wonderful Sunday morning, and here are the highlights of each member of our family.

Public Transportation: I am absolutely in love with having access to public transportation. I love getting my i-pad app that shows me all of the transportation methods out each evening and planning the following days excursions. Today was no exception as I quickly had to re-route our days trip from how Lane wanted to get there, into a more family convenient route. Nothing makes me feel more like a city-gal than arriving to a new location with ease. I think Lane is sick of hearing about how much I love "the tube". I think I am going to make my permanent screen saver the tube map. Sorry Avery and Stella, your screen saver is cute, but you can't get me across town in 20 minutes.

Pancakes: For those of you who know Avery well, you will know that the girl can take down a record-breaking amount of pancakes for a 2 year old. I have been working all week to find her pancake mix to make and before today I had only been able to find pre-made pancakes at a convenient store and have not found any maple syrup as of yet (it's hard to dig into a new grocery store with two kids and husband in tow to figure out where things are). Today we hit the jackpot at a breakfast spot that served not 1, not 2, but 5 silver dollar pancakes with warm maple syrup, all for the bargain price of about 3 pounds. My girl ate them up and then begged for more (thankfully for me, they no longer served breakfast when she was ready for helping #2).  The need to point out that Avery had pancakes for breakfast on this blog post probably seems trivial to most, but the smile on Avery's face when those pancakes were put in front of her and seeing her gobble them down ( she's been a little iffy on the food here) is something I will always remember.

Pints: Remember above when I said we "hit the jackpot" at breakfast this morning? Let's just say the Flood family fits in well here in London where it is socially acceptable (and very common) to have a large pint of Guinness on Sunday morning at 11a.m.  Don't worry Lane, nobody's judging here ( especially not me who was across the table from him here with a pint myself!)

Pickpocket: Many times we've been warned upon coming overseas that we needed to be mindful of pick pockets when out and about. Those less-than-moral people who creep around on the tube, streets and in crowded areas and steal wallets, passports, anything they can get their hands on. Well London, the most adorable, bright eyed pick pocket has landed in town and is ready to get into your personal belongings to find something to take home. Her name is Stella, and her conveniently located position sitting in her stroller allows her to get much-too-friendly with your briefcase or shopping bag. She does not discriminate in her sneaky ways - she's even willing to grab at the crutches of the handicapped man standing next to us on the tube to see what they are all about.  I wish I had a picture of our little thief, but I am too busy while in public trying to tuck her hands in her stroller blanket to reach for my camera.

We had a great outing today, and have already decided to make our breakfast spot a family tradition to share with our visitors when they arrive. Hopefully we will have Stella under control by then, or maybe she can snag us some Christmas gifts.

Off to bed, it's a work day for Daddy tomorrow,

Lauren and Family

Packed, Traveled, Temporary Settled and Happy

This is what it looks like when you pack up a family of four into an obscene amount of baggage. 4 Suitcases, 4 Extra Large Duffels, 1 Double Stroller, 1 Single Stroller, and 6 carry on bags (400+ lbs...not a pound of free-checked baggage to spare)....

And this is what it looks like right before that family gets started on the 14 hour journey "across the pond" to a new country....

I will not be posting pictures of what we looked like at the end of that journey as it was not pretty at all.  The good (unbelievable actually) news is that we made it, had absolutely no issues along our way, and are settling into London quite well.  It's the end of day four here, and since I've taken only minimal pictures ( none that interesting), I will do a brief synopsis of what has occured:

Sunday 4/11/12 (No, we didn't arrive in April...that's how they write out the November 4, 2012 date!)
- We were exhausted, so after arriving to our short term apartment ( very nice - pics to come later!), we settled into some movies, refreshing showers, and many naps.
- We Facetimed with pretty much anybody who would answer... and have decided that technology is going to make this long distance relationship with our family and friends much more manageable.

Monday 5/11/12
- We took our first journey around the area we are staying, Canary Wharf in South East London. It is a business district and we found a wonderful mall area with a really nice grocery store.....though the quick-moving business people on their lunch hour were not so thrilled about our giant American-super sized double stroller taking up the store and mall hallways and our $50+ lunch of burgers and fries pretty much guarantee that this location will not be a Flood family favorite.
- On the way to the park we found our little slice of home here in London - ASDA. ASDA is Wal-Mart in London. It is owned by Wal-Mart, has the same generic-type off brand foods as I buy often at home (at the same price), and I am pretty sure you would be able to find a "People of ASDA" website with the same sorts of grotesque images of exposed, overweight individuals as you can at home. Needless to say, we felt right at home, did a larger grocery shop and strolled back to our flat happily.

Tuesday 6/11/12
- I spent all day with our relocation specialist looking at flats, cottages, some dumps that I wouldn't have lived in on campus, and a few really promising rental locations.  Let's just say the rental market here in London gets you no where near the space, quality or locations you would get in Columbus. We'd be sitting downtown in a very nice sized apartment for the prices we are paying for a small flat here.
- Avery spent the day, and most of the evening making us take her on "Alligator" (Elevator/Lift) rides down to the recycling cans here in our building. She is lucky that her Mum and Dad are drunks thirsty individuals, so she'll have plenty of cans to keep her busy the next few weeks.

Wednesday 7/11/12
-We stayed up late and woke up early to the US presidential election results.... that's all I will say about that.
-The four of us ventured over to our chosen area to view a few flats that we are interested in. We found a decent sized, three bedroom (we only expected two!), flat in West Hampstead that we really like and are putting an offer on. Here in London, you negotiate and put offers on rentals as you would for purchasing a home in the states. This is an un-welcome aspect of our experience here so far as we just last week sorted out the sale and negotiation of our own home, and now we find ourselves nervously waiting again for this rental. We do have two backups that would suffice, but absolutely love our first one. It has a huge dining table ( anybody want to come visit for Thanksgiving?) and it even has a small private backyard garden and patio we get to use!
- First fully home-cooked meal. Spaghetti....was great to sit down as a family again here in our temporary flat....though we miss terribly our dog Brody and talk about him after every meal as we pick up corn, cheerios and milk spills.

Tomorrow we are going to find something "touristy" to do, as Lane's vacation days here in London are now limited as he starts work this coming Monday.....

Doing great, but already missing familiar faces,

Lauren et al