Exercise

This is the distance I had to walk yesterday, due to my car breaking down...for the third time! Time to take the car to a real mechanic! Since the place on base has screwed me out of a lot of money, we're going to try to file a claim against them. I had to walk about 2 miles to get back to my house. When I got home my foot was bleeding because I had to walk in thorns and thistles. But then I remembered that Ben and Ryan were going to be walking 20 miles...and I didn't feel so bad! 

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Car fun continued

We went to IKEA with our friends, Michael and Laura! Ben and I had never been to an IKEA before and we were very excited to go. Benjamin was having way too much fun or maybe he was just taking a break, either way we had a great day with some great friends. 

We ended up buying an accent table, wine rack and mirror for our bedroom. I'll post pictures of that later.

More car fun! *rolls eyes*

Ben hit another curb and the tire blew out!

We fixed the tire that night and in the morning, when it was time to get Ben to the airport, the car wouldn't start. We had a new battery but could figure out how to change it due to some heavy duty bolts holding it in place. Needless to say, Ben missed the bus and I had to drive him all the way to Heathrow. 

Happy 100th post!

Valentine's Day 2003

Valentine's Day 2010

For Valentine's Day, we decided to go to London to see the National History Museum and the Winston Churchill Museum and War Cabinet Rooms. For breakfast, I made some yummy pumpkin scones my mom bought and shipped us! They were delicious!

We went to start Ben's car and of course it wouldn't start, so we had to jump start the car. This is just not our week with cars! Now, take a good look at this picture and what do you notice about the car on the left. The battery to my car is located in the trunk. Luckily, we knew this from a previous experience. One day my car wouldn't start and it look us a while of searching and checking the internet until we finally figured it out. Crazy BMW!

We got the car started and were finally on our way to London. We checked into the hotel and went to the National History Museum. Here it is from the outside. 

This museum was PACKED!! We really weren't too sure why this museum was so swamped but we pushed ahead anyway. We saw dinosaur fossils, pretty much the highlight of the museum. 

This was an amazing animatronic T-Rex dinosaur!

Here is Ben with a giant sloth, this thing is massive:

Look closely and you can see something very scary in the background :)

The next day we got some breakfast at our favorite pasty shop. A pigeon flew in and wanted some crumbs. The place is THAT good...even the animals want some.

We went to the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. This museum was very interesting!

Here I am as we were waiting for the Underground. We also saw a tiny mouse!!

Happy 100th post!!!

Car fun!

Yesterday, I went to pick Benjamin up from the airport! We were so excited to get on the road, because Ben was ready to get home after a long day of traveling, almost missing his plane, etc. Not 5 minutes into our journey home and the car decided it didn't want to work again. Here's my car getting towed away :( Let's see what's wrong with it THIS time.

Just a few things

My phone:

And this is why I still haven't memorized my cell phone number...it's 10 digits long! That's how all the phone numbers are here. Ha! This is also why the equivalent of 911 has to be pre-programmed into your phone. To dial for an emergency on base you have to dial 10 digits! At the newcomers briefing, they joked saying if you could remember all the numbers to dial in an emergency situation, then you do not actually need 911.

The car I got is a Japanese spec car. All this means really, is that the steering wheel in on the right side on the car just like British cars. It also means that the car's speedometer is in kilometers instead of miles. This made for an interesting time, before we got a GPS to give us the correct speed in miles. You will also notice that there are 92,942 kilometers (not miles) on the car.

I love the bizaares here on base. Lots of vendors from all over Europe to come to sell their goods. Here a two of my favorite things I that purchased this time. This is a handpainted pitcher, that I think I'm going to use as a vase. It was only 15 pounds. My friend, Andrea, got the same one!

This is a serving platter that I've seen the British serve sandwiches and/or sweets on.

It was also only 15 pounds!

BMW love

We finally bought a new (to me) car!! This is the newest addition to the family. It's a 3 series BMW, right seat, automatic, 1997 and only 57,000 miles. It's actually an imported car from Japan. We got it for just 2,300 dollars (1,500 pounds). She's a beauty!

Right seat car! Now we "fit" in and British people will just think I'm a British person who can't drive very well!

This weekend was the RAF Lakenheath Holiday Bazaar! Lots of vendors from around Europe come to sell their goods. This function is co-sponsored by the Officers' and Civilian's Spouses' Club. I helped baked goods for the bake sale.

Here is what we got at the bazaar (we also purchased some Christmas presents for the family).

This is a cute little pumpkin. The fabric was soaked in pumpkin spice extract so it smells really good. I wish I would have gotten more! They are so cute.

This is pennant with the british flag in the background. The lady we bought this from kept saying these are "the heirlooms of the future". 

A windshield is now a wind screen

Yesterday, we picked up the car from the Vehicle Processing Center. It was so great to see the car and know that we don’t need to worry about finding rides and whatnot. However, there was of course one small problem! The passenger ride mirror was broken! Somehow, the shell of the mirror was completely gone. The mirror was being held on by two zip ties. Wonderful! Pictures to come soon. The car is in the shop getting an MoT (which is equivalent to get inspected in the states). It also has to have work done on the headlights and needs a rear fog light. We can’t wait to have the car back.

We went to Cambridge this past weekend for sushi with some friends. It was not as good as the place we always went with Brusle in Texas. That was some good sushi (although the dish I always got was not technically “sushi”). We are told that Cambridge is the place for shopping. It was a very beautiful place! We can’t wait to go back and probably will this weekend.

We move into our HOUSE on Wednesday but our things will not be there until Thursday. We are thinking about staying in the hotel for one more night on Wednesday because if not we won’t have ANYTHING! No blankets, television, dishes, towels, etc. I also want to stay in the hotel because I want to watch American Idol with comes on AFN. But also because we won’t have any of our stuff :)

AFN is the Armed Forces Network which is like having very, very basic cable. I believe we get nine channels. Two are sports, two are slide show presentations for the two bases, and the rest are a varied arrangement of lots of different shows. For example, we took a nap yesterday and woke up at 4:00 pm to David Letterman. Went we got back from dinner at 8:00pm we walked in to Oprah. Starting at 9:00pm it’s Jay Leno, then David Letterman, then Craig Fergueson. It’s a pretty crazy schedule over here. American Idol does come on Wednesday at 6:00 and results show the next day at the same time. Whew...that goodness because they don’t play AI on hulu yet.

Car: We get to pick up the car on Tuesday! They have to do a lot of modifications on Winston so we can drive him. They have to change the lights in the front and add a fog light on the back. The fog here, we are told, is pretty thick.

We are going with some friends to Cambridge today for sushi. Cambridge is about 25 miles about from Mildenhall. Yay for our first trip into England.

RAF Mildenhall

Welcome to RAF Mildenhall!!

















We took these shots as the plane was getting closer to London!















The base: is located in a very rural area. We always see cute little rabbits running all over. There are also fat birds that we believe are peasants. It was sunny the second day we where here. We are told that it never downpours but it was be drizzly all day long. We really have experienced much rain. I'm sure we will get our share of rain! Everyone here is so nice. That's really good news. If you look in the pictures you can see the bunnies!

Driving: We took a short class on driving yesterday. We didn't have to drive with an instructor. Really? That seems sort of crazy. That seems lots of crazy. Well there were thirty questions. A lot of them were about the signs...there are a LOT of signs! The other part about driving is the roundabouts. We never stop at the beginning of a roundabout or a Brit will smack into you. They just yield to the right but it's not a Texas yield. You just have to get in the roundabout and GO. Oh yeah and you have to drive on the wrong side of the road!! I missed three questions and Ben missed two. I think we didn't pretty good. Oh and the instructor said that the better driver you are in the states the worse driver you will be in the UK! That's great to know. Ben says I should do great over here. Hmm... I don't know. The instructor was telling us about all these Americans that have died because of their driving in the UK. That was kinda scary. For instance, if a deer (which over here are the size of small dogs) were to run out you just hit it. You can NOT swerve off the road because they don't have shoulders on the any of the roads here! Some guy died by swerving off the road to avoid a deer. Also, it is illegal (this is coming from the base) for American's to pass someone on the road on a two way street. The reason is because we are sitting on the wrong side and we can see if it's safe to pass. It makes sense but a lot of people died doing that! Scary! I've heard and are now seeing that Brits drive SLLLLLOOOOWWWWW!!! Great...I thought we left that in Texas!

House: Okay so I called to find out where our stuff is and we got good news and bad news. Pick which one you want to hear first....okay...

Good news: Our household goods (these are the goods that left the US on a slow boat to China...not really :)) are here! Yay...exictement....joy...and they will be delivered the day after we move in, April 22nd!!

Bad news: The first shipment (these are the most important items! These are the items that we were to get first so were talking like kitchen appliances, towels, blankets, my BIKE, tv, you get the point) is NOT HERE!!!!! It's still in customs because they are "backed up" NOOOOOOOOO. Hmm... not sure when we will get those things. :(

Job: I'm going to go up to Lakenheath Elementary sometime next week. That is the ONLY elementary school on Lakenheath. The other one is like 20 minutes away. Don't think I could make it there on my bike. Which by the way...bikes are not allowed to ride on the sidewalk. I have to ride in the street like the cars do. I don't know if I like that law. Anyways, so LES is like a 5 minute ride! Awesomeness. I'll probably have to sub or volunteer but I'll let you know when I go up there to talk to them.