The King's Room and the Other Guest Room

We really need to come up with a cool name for our second guest room. The King's room just sounds so illustrious compared to the "other" room. Nobody will ever want to sleep there.

This is the view of the two guest rooms from the hallway. As you can see, there are windows looking into the King's room. The reason for this was to signal to the servants when Lillie Langtry was "entertaining" the King. They would know not to bother them when the curtains were closed.
We found a new bead spread at TK Maxx...Obviously the same thing as TJ's in the states. It's only 5 minutes from our house, so I'm sure I'll do a bunch of bargain hunting there!

I posted pictures similar to the next two before, but this is what the whole room looks like.

AND...the other room. We put our old bedroom furniture (Jordan's stuff from home) in this room. It's a really pretty room with lots of natural light. We just haven't done much with it yet.

This room has it's own bathroom attached.

New stuff!

We finally bought some new bedroom furniture! We feel like "real" grown-up married people now! Here are some pictures of our new bedroom...

This is what you see as you walk in. To the left is a fireplace, and above it we have a beautiful picture of the flat irons. (I forgot to take a picture of that) This way, I can still wake up to see the Rockies every morning. :) The vanity is an antique that stays with the house.

This is taken just as you walk through the doorway.

Our pretty new bed. We have plans to buy some new bed linens sometime soon, but this works for now.

The view out of our bedroom window. :)

Just our luck

I went to my first wives' function on Monday night, which was at the bowling alley on base. I had a lot of fun and met a bunch of wonderful girls. I can't wait to become closer with everyone! We bowled two games; the first was "funny bowling", where we would throw the ball differently (granny style, after spinning around 5 times, opposite hand, etc.) for each frame. The second game was just normal. As it turns out, there were prizes for the top three bowlers. As it turns out...I won first place!!! I bowled 224 over two games, 101 on the first game and 123 on the second. Not my best, but I just could not believe that I won! I got a box of really good dark chocolates and some new slippers and pedicure stuff.

In addition, Jordan entered a pool for March madness, and he's currently in 2nd place! So much for trying to keep a low profile for the first few months! :) We're keeping our fingers crossed for Syracuse right now...

Then, on Tuesday night, we went to a Quiz Night at The Bell (a nearby pub). You pay 1 pound per person to play, and each team has a chance at winning the pot. That night it was about 25 pounds. The trivia questions are about things like current events, naming a famous person in a picture, history, and naming a song title and artist after hearing the first 10 seconds. Being the only American team there, we of course lost terribly. But we had a great time and met a bunch of local people. We are planning on making quiz night a weekly event on our calendar. After the quiz was over, they sold tickets to have a chance play a "higher or lower" type of game. The pot for that was 195 pounds, so we each bought a ticket for 1 pound. To my surprise, my number was picked! Unfortunately I did not win the pot, but it was still exciting to be chosen!

Loving the local area

The past week went by really quickly. Jordan went in to work every day last week to complete his computer-based training, and I stayed busy unpacking boxes and cleaning at home. The house is looking more and more friendly with each day that passes! We should be ready for visitors in no time.

Here we are enjoying a pint at our local pub, which is called "The Cock". They allow dogs, so Cooper loves it there. He is (of course) able to win over the hearts of each person that enters.

Two weekends ago, Jordan played lacrosse with a Cambridge team. It's a club team for the university, but he is allowed to play in some of their games. He was extremely tired after the game, but he played well and had a lot of fun. After the game, we went to a local pub with all of the players. Lacrosse is a winter sport here, so the season will start up again in October.

The weather has been really nice lately, so we have been trying to enjoy it as much as possible. This past weekend, we ran a few errands in the Miata while enjoying the sunshine. We refer to nice days such as the one depicted below as "top-down days". The hedge rows on the sides of the roads are just now starting to turn green so the scenery is amazing.

Cooper loves driving around with the top down too!

"Go faster, Dad!!

We live about 5 minutes away from a town called Newmarket, which is England's home of horse racing. Each morning, the horses can be seen crossing the streets to go to the heaths for training. After 1:00 the fields are open to the public and dogs are allowed off leash. We have been taking Cooper several times a week so he can meet some new doggie friends.

Cooper, with Newmarket in the background.

He thinks of this place as Heaven.

A few pictures!

I was finally able to load my pictures onto my computer! The ones of the house are from when we first looked at it, so it will look different once we're settled. I didn't take all that many photos during our first visit, so there are many more to come.

This is Jordan starting up the Miata for the first time! Now you can imagine how hard it is for him to get out. BTW, the car's name is Inez. :)

Our house has a name too!

Our house from the front.

This is what you see right when you walk in the front door. The archway to the left is a sitting room, with french doors leading out to the back yard. The doorway to the right is the bar, and in between is the cloakroom.

This is the bar. See the glass windows to the left? That symbol is the Prince of Wales' Feathers. As I mentioned before, this house was built for Lillie Langtry, King Edward VII's mistress. At the time that they were involved, King Edward was the Prince of Wales. Our L-shaped couch is to the left of the bar, and we have our TV set up across the room.

This is the fireplace in the dining room. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the dining room itself, but it has a baby grand piano in it, and big windows looking out over the garden. If you look closely, King Edward VII's crest is carved in the middle of the mantel!

This is the view of our back yard, but there is more on the other side of the hedge on the left. The garden on the right is now beginning to sprout, and daffodills are starting to bloom.

This is a sitting room right outside of our bedroom. You see this room right after you climb the stairs. I forgot to take a picture of our bedroom, but it's to the left of this room, and it overlooks the back yard.

This was the King's bedroom. We are now accepting reservations. :)

Also in the King's room.
The fireplace in the King's room.

All moved in!

Yesterday was a big day! Our household goods were delivered in the morning, and I got to play director as the Englishmen brought each box and piece of furniture into the house. Our landlord's wife (Anne) came over right away to offer tea to all of us--so sweet! I was holding on to Cooper when she brought the tea in, and she asked, "Would you like a sausage?" I responded, "No thank you, I'm fine." Anne and all of the movers immediately stopped in their tracks and started to laugh. Anne then told me that she was offering the sausage to Cooper. I totally thought that she was offering me breakfast!

We spent the better part of the day arranging furniture, and I'm slowly getting the kitchen put together. The hardest part is that there are no drawers in the entire house! Our kitchen has plenty of cabinet space, but for odds and ends drawers are extremely helpful! We are thinking of getting an island for the center of the kitchen, so that will help. The kitchen is currently painted red, which we plan to change once we're all moved in. I hope to get pictures up soon.

Last night was our first night in the house. I have never lived in an old house before, so I'll admit it--I was nervous. However, it went fairly well. I didn't sleep all that well, but all things considered it was a good night. I didn't hear any noises or see anything funny, so I was fine. I hope that once we're completely settled it will begin to feel more like "home", and I'll be able to just relax. This morning, we woke up with the beautiful view of our back yard through the bedroom window. It instantly put me in a good mood. I cannot wait until spring when all the flowers in our garden begin to bloom. We both showered, and learned that we will definitely have to get used to the lack of water pressure. As the previous tennants so eloquently put it--the shower feels like 10 midgets peeing on you! Hah!

Today, we're off to the commissary to buy some groceries. But we have to be careful not to buy too much--the miata's trunk is only big enough to fit about three purses...

Road woes, credit cards, and The Langtry

Jordan and I both passed the driving test on Thursday, so we should be receiving our USAFE driving permits soon. (Believe it or not, I actually scored slightly better than he did!!) We are both becoming more comfortable driving on the left hand side of the road. The main thing that gets us is that the blinkers and windshield wiper controls are switched on our little car, meaning that the windshield wiper is on the left and the turn signal control is on the right. You can always tell we're Americans when we enter a round about with wipers on full speed on a sunny day! Yeah, it's embarrassing. In addition, I am constantly fighting to stay in the middle of the road. You wouldn't think that sitting on the other side of the car would make such a big difference, but I constantly feel like I'm too close to the center line. Jordan always has to remind me to stay away from the curb.

Before puting a deposit down on our new house, we had to set up a bank account at a local bank. We sat down for a meeting with the banker last Wednesday, and she helped us set up what they call a Pounds Account. We will get a new ATM/debit card with an electronic embedded chip, which the local population affectionately refers to as "pin n chips". They begrudgingly refer to our lowly American cards as "swipeys". What a difference a swipe makes!

We received the keys to our house on Friday, and have since brought in some of our belongings. We bought a new tv, and then went to the thrift store on base and found a green chair that we instantly fell in love with. So for now, our beautiful house contains a few suitcases, a tv, and one chair. We bought some primer today, and plan to begin painting a couple of rooms tomorrow. The movers are scheduled to deliver everything on Monday, and we couldn't be more excited! We cant wait to make our new home "ours". Oh, and Cooper absolutely loves it too! We brought him over last night, and he ran around like a child on Christmas morning. He thinks the back yard is the best thing since t-bone flavored treats.

Unfortunately, we will be without internet in our home for a while... For some reason it takes about 3 weeks for everything to be set up in the UK. For a country that's obsessed with the superior quickness of pin n chips over swipeys, you'd think the could find a better way to get internet in your house.

We love and miss everyone back home, and we'll try to keep you updated as often as possible!

We're Finally Here!

After looking forward to being in England for the past 8 months, we are finally here! To be honest, our first day here was a bit rough. We landed at Heathrow at about 9:00 AM last Wednesday, and soon found out that our dog Cooper would have to be kept in quarantine for 24 hours. If you understand our relationship with our dog, you know that we were just devastated. Our veterinarian in Columbus had post-dated some of the official paperwork, saying that we would treat Cooper for ticks, fleas, worms, etc. between 24 and 48 hours before our flight over the pond. We thought it sounded a bit fishy, but she assured us that she had never had a problem doing this. The quarantine office said that the vet should have given him the medication instead of us, so they kept Cooper in quarantine for 24 hours after they gave him another dose.

The next day (Thursday), a friend brought us down to London to pick up a car that we had already purchased and of course to rescue the Cooper dog! The car is a silver Mazda Miata! It's really fun to drive, but it's a bit of a challenge driving on the other side! Jordan has to use the roof of the car to hoist himself out of the thing, but we're really enjoying it! After picking up the car, we stopped in Windsor for lunch, had the most amazing Thai food and walked around Windsor Castle.

In other news, we already found a house, and we hope to move in early next week! Typically, people stay in TLF's (Temporary Living Facilities) for at least a month after they get here, so we are moving quickly! The house is called "The Langtry", and it was built in 1895!! To see some pictures, go to: http://www.propertyindex.com/RR1541389/KENTFORD/100
I wish I could post pictures that I took myself, but my computer hook up for my camera is with all of our household goods. :( Anyway, the house is amazing. It has 4 big bedrooms, 2 1/2 bath, a beautiful garden, full bar, big kitchen, and PLENTY of living space. In addition to that, it was built for Lillie Langtry, one of King Edward VII's mistresses! (For more about Lillie: http://www.lillielangtry.com/) Apparently there used to be an underground passage from the cellar to the corner pub, so that King Edward could stumble back to Lillie's house without anyone seeing him. There are so many cool things to tell about the house, but I think I'll wait until I can load pictures to explain.

All in all, Jordan and I are doing really well. We can't wait to be settled again--we've been living out of suitcases for the last 6 months! We are so excited to start this new adventure, and hopefully we'll see some (if not all) of you here in the near future!

I hope to keep everyone up to date on what we've been up to on here. I know we'll have lots of stories to tell!