Amazing Nina

At school I have LOADS of friends one of which is called Nina. Nina is SO amazing! I cant describe her but I will give it a whirl. She really really dark brown hair and her eyes are brown. She is the SWEETEST person you could ever meet! She always has this attitude that life is full of love and she is always SO outgoing! I could go on and on about her BUT why don't I just show this pic!

-Sloane

Halloween

Hello!

This is Sutton. Halloween is a bit different here in England. Not as many people participate in the candy giving so you can only go to decorated houses. Also not as many people dress up. Sloane and I went trick-or-treating though. I was a Greek goddess and Sloane was a cat. I went around with my friends and Sloane just went around our house. We got some candy but we don't actually know what most of it is.

Half-Term Break

We have been the worst bloggers lately, but we have had a good excuse.  The girls have been off of school for a week on their half-term break, so we have been too busy to blog.  There is a lot to catch you up on, so I will try to hit the high points of last week.

• On Saturday, we finally took the girls to the Brighton Pier.  The Brighton Pier (actually the Palace Pier) is a really just a giant carnival on a pier.  There are shops, rides, arcades, restaurants, food stalls and even a roller coaster.  The girls had a great time, and we were glad to say we had finally been to the pier.

• Monday, we took the train to London and went to the British Museum.  Sutton was really excited about seeing the Egyptian and Greek exhibits, so that is where she wanted to go.  We spent most of the day there, but we still didn't see nearly all there is to see.  After the museum we walked to Covent Garden and looked around a bit.  It was really crowded because all the kids here are on half-term break at the same time, and the whole city is packed with families and kids.  We ate dinner at a place called Wahaca that our friend Joe suggested to us.  It is the closest thing to good Mexican food that we have had since we moved, so it was quite a treat.

• On Wednesday, we stayed in Brighton and did some local sightseeing.  We went with our friends, the Steells, to see the Royal Pavilion.  The Royal Pavilion is an amazing pleasure palace built by King George IV when he was still the Prince Regent.  The Pavilion is in the middle of town, and it is one of those amazing buildings you walk by all the time but don't know much about.  I am so glad we went - it was really interesting and the kids even liked it.







Keith thinks they lit Big Ben up
in honor of Baylor's big win!


• Thursday, we returned to London to do some sightseeing.  Since the girls had never really seen London, we thought the easiest thing to do to give them an overview of the city would be to take an open-air tour bus around town.  It was super touristy, but it turned out to be a great way to see everything in one day.  We even took a short boat ride on the Thames, and that really covered it all.  By the end of the day, we had traveled by train, bus and boat (not to mention a lot of walking!).

• Friday was a pretty quiet day because we were all really tired.  Sutton had a slumber party Friday night, so we invited a family from church over for dinner.  They have a daughter Sloane's age, so we thought the girls would have fun together without a big sister hanging around.

That about covers our half-term adventures.  Sunday was Halloween, but I will let the girls blog about their first Halloween in the UK.  

Keith's Birthday

I tried to convince Keith that he needed to blog about his own birthday, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen.  I will help him out.  Saturday was Keith's first birthday in England, so he got to be in charge of what we did all day.

Well, I say he got to be in charge, but really the girls convinced him we needed to go to the Grand Opening of Krispy Kreme in Brighton on Saturday morning.  I am not sure that would have been his first pick of where to eat breakfast, but Keith is a team player so we celebrated with a box of a dozen doughnuts.  Thankfully, we walked to town to Krispy Kreme, so at least we felt like we worked off some of our breakfast on our uphill walk home.

After coming off our sugar high, it was time to eat again, so we packed a picnic lunch and headed to Devil's Dyke.  Devil's Dyke is a beautiful spot on the South Downs that is just down the road from where we live.  It really is amazing to be able to drive just a little way out of town and be in the most scenic place. 

It was a beautiful day on Saturday, so we enjoyed our lunch with awesome views overlooking the valley.  After we ate, we walked a little, but the girls weren't up for too much of a hike.  Keith and I will definitely be going back to do a little trail running.  I just hope we haven't missed the last of our good weather.

We couldn't go out to eat a nice meal because Keith wanted to stay home to listen to the Baylor game on the computer.  Of course we can't get Baylor games on TV, but we usually listen to them on the computer if it is a day game.  Isn't technology great?  Too bad the Bears couldn't come through with a win.  That would have been a good birthday present for Keith.

To top our day of eating off, we had pulled pork tostadas and guacamole for dinner.  I also made my Mom's Coca-cola chocolate cake to top off the night.  We all felt a little sick after eating so much all day, but it was all worth it.  It was a great day, and we all had fun spending time together celebrating Keith!

Sloane's big news!

Here I am, Sloane Cameron, telling a bit of my life. I finally got the guts to Blog and here is what I have to say. A lot of things are really cool here, but the thing that I like most is school. I know what you are thinking, school = boring, right. Well think again...these are the some of the things that makes school so...brilliant! The food is pure heaven.. it always comes with a dessert, the teachers are super nice...there are 2 American teachers, and lastly, the classes are so much fun! Enough about that....here comes the big news! At the end of school, before we leave, our teacher always says class announcements - like...Its so and so's Birthday-or-there is a note home I need you to get before leaving...but one day Mrs. King says,"the Class Representative will be elected tomorrow." With that in mind, I went home and I started on my speech. It turned out pretty good, I said stuff about my old school and how I would bring some of that stuff to England. (I already brought those shapeable bands to my school...what more could you ask for?) Well lets cut to the chase..I won! ( We are American people - that is pretty cool you have to admit!)

I will keep "y'all" posted on this and will hope to have another section in the blog.

-Sloane Cameron

Anakin Returns

Our landlord's cat will not go away.  I am not sure if he thinks his family still lives here, or if he doesn't care who lives here and he just wants to come back.  Anakin is the pretty black cat in the picture who belongs to the people we are renting our house from.  Paul, Anakin's owner, just moved a few streets over from us, so Anakin has found his way back "home".  For some reason, he didn't come back until we had been living here for a couple of weeks, but now he has come back everyday.

It is actually kind of sad because Anakin will sit at out garden door or window and just stare at us.  Sometimes he will meow and claw at the cat door or window.  The worst was a couple of days ago when it was cold and rainy outside, and he just looked so sad and pitiful.  We have been e-mailing Paul when Anakin shows up, and he comes to get his cat.  He said that he has been locking his cat door so Anakin can't get out, but somehow he is still showing up over here.  He must be a very clever cat (or very stupid - I am not sure which).

Anakin is not the only cat we have in our garden.  Pretty much all of our neighbors have cats, and they all just walk around everyone's gardens.  Sloane loves all the cats and somehow knows all of their names.  Maybe that is why Anakin keeps coming back; he just wants to hang our with all of his buddies.  I wonder what all these cats are going to think when Lucy gets to come over in December.  She will either scare them all off, or she will just join the cat party out back.

Mexican Fiesta

I have been trying to cook this week now that we have a more fully functioning kitchen, but it is still a challenge trying to navigate the grocery stores.  I mean, I can figure out the grocery stores just fine - it is just a little difficult finding what I need for the recipes we are used to.

Today it has been cold and rainy all day, so of course Mexican food sounds perfect.  Well, let me tell you Mexican food is not that easy when you live in the UK.  We were all so excited when we first discovered that ASDA (a large grocery store that is owned by WalMart) carries a whole section of Old El Paso items.  This Old El Paso is not the same as our Old El Paso.  Who knew that they would change their product even though it looks the same.  It has not taken us long to get smart and discover that things are not always what they seem over here. 

This is US OEP Enchilada Sauce -
notice it is in a can not a bottle.

For instance, we bought the Old El Paso Enchilada sauce today, so that we could make beef enchiladas for dinner.  I should have been wary when the directions on the bottle seemed really different, but I wasn't going to let that stop me.  I have made this so many times, I knew I could wing it.  When I opened the bottle though, it just looked a little different (of course).  I read the ingredients and saw that there was milk in the enchilada sauce!!!  What?  Who puts milk in enchilada sauce?  Oh, wait that is right, the English put milk in everything.  I am not joking about that - there is milk or cream in and on everything over here.  I am the first to admit that the dairy in this country is to die for, but seriously, let's leave it out of the enchilada sauce. 

This wasn't the first time we have run into this problem.  The first week we lived here (when we were living on frozen food), we ate a frozen lasagna, and it was the first lasagna in my life that I just couldn't eat.  It had some sort of cream (not cheese) sauce in it.  I thought it was just a bad cheap lasagna, but that is the way they actually eat it here - I have seen the jars of cream sauce next to the spaghetti sauce.  As an aside, I think it is probably Bechamel sauce, and I am very sorry if that is how you make your lasagna and now you are offended.  I personally do not like it, and I am pretty sure the Italians would agree.  You are really messing up a good tomato sauce.

I will definitely have to make my lasagnas from scratch in the future.  Come to think of it, I am going to have to be making a lot of things from scratch.  If any of my Texas friends know how to actually make enchilada sauce, can you please e-mail me the recipe.  Also, if you have the recipe for Velveeta, can you send that too?  How in the world am I going to make chicken spaghetti and queso without it? 

Speaking of queso, Keith bought this "cheese sauce" that looked just like queso, and we were so excited about eating it with our enchiladas tonight.  When he went to heat it up in the microwave (and actually read the directions), he realized it was to be served cold.  That is because it was made with mayonnaise.  See what I mean?  Hilarious!