Omi visits!

In August Omi was able to visit!

waiting for Omi's taxi with Monkey

We took her to all of our favorite places, and showed her what our day-to-day life is like in Newbs.

Sun in the Woods pub (perhaps not so sunny that evening)

lunch in our kitchen

brushing teeth

Thatcham Discovery Centre

playing with Legos at home

Tuesday open-play at the Children's Centre

Omi and Zoe

July randomness

And now for our monthly purge of photos and videos.

bubbles in the backyard

July means lots of:

practicing on the bike

Picnicking

explaining something important

British strawberries really are the best

homemade muffins

Cold treats

 

 

 

Playgrounds

Sleeping

collapsing at the end of a trail of loved objects, in the future guest room

(note she's clutching a library book) the easiest way to get her to take a nap these days

Basically, enjoying this beautiful weather.

queen of the mountain

Hot air balloon in our backyard!

Well, not quite our backyard, but nearly!

Note that these pictures were taken at 8:20 in the evening, after Zoe had taken her bath and gotten into her pajamas.  We're thankful for blackout shades :)

Donnington Castle

really tiny Zoe and Kyle

We are lucky enough to have a 14th c. castle ruin within walking distance of our new home. Rumor has it some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales may even have been written on the grounds! 
We're going to try to pattern our weekends into one day of travel/ spending money elsewhere (i.e. Windsor yesterday), and the next day a bit more local (Donnington today!).  It was a bit rainy, so we didn't stay long, but it sure was neat to see.  Apparently on a clear day you can see for miles which quite makes sense for a castle location (and probably a reason why the castle held out so long during the English civil war!).

The Bachelor Pad

notice the dip at the doorway step

Our temporary apartment, home for the next month or so, is located in the old Phoenix Brewery.  It's a bachelor pad, complete with a mega-TV, mega-cable service, a bean bag, a small kitchen with few cooking utensils, two double-bed rooms, and one large modern bathroom. Take a look for yourself:

 

the kitchen:

there's a fridge/freezer on the left, 

a water heater in the upper cab straight ahead,

a dishwasher in the lower cab straight ahead,

and a washer and dryer to your right

 

 yes, even with that large TV, she's watching an iPad;

notice the pillows in the background are being used

as leapfrog lily pads for entertainment purposes

 

 fancy-schmancy bathroom, with fancy-schmancy tub -

the shower?  your usual European corner claustrophobic pre-fab unit

swallowed by the bean bag,

or the bus as Zoe calls it

 nap/rest period?  yeah, not going so well.

here, she was changing her baby's diaper and wiping her bottom.

apparently, her baby must have had diarrhea.

Our first week

Welp, Friday, the day after we arrived, Kyle got right into the swing of things and went to work, so Zoe and I did some more exploring and grocery shopping and enjoying the absolutely perfect weather.

Check out that three story slide structure in the background!

DISCLAIMER

only watch the following video

if you feel like getting a bit queasy 

That weekend we took our first country road adventure to a pub located about a 1/2 hour away (called the Swan Inn like a million other pubs in England - did you know that all swans are property of the Queen?  Yup, someone even goes around and counts them every year.  No stealing from the Crown!).  Country roads here are scary!  I really don't think that I'll be driving much over here. I was pretty much sitting in the center console.

We went on a nice walk on a footpath (footpaths over here go through all sorts of private property - open the gate, walk through, close the gate so horses and cows don't get out, and continue on your walk!), even exploring an old 13th century church yard. 

 We then returned back to the temporary-temporary apartment to pack everything up in our rental car and move a few blocks over to our temporary apartment (a.k.a. The Bachelor Pad).

this is our only shot of the temporary-temporary apartment