Yikes, 3 months since I wrote anything on here partly because we've been so busy and partly because since I last wrote anything I've been back to the UK twice and seen lots of you!
Anyway....so here is a quick summary of November, December and January!
I took Martha and Henry back to Aberdeen with me the first week in November. Fearne stayed here and went to a couple of different friends houses after school, she had a whale of a time. I went and looked at a few wedding venues, but mostly spent the week drinking coffee by day and wine by night...as well as lots of chatting with friends.
The end of November was Thanksgiving here and it felt a bit like there was a huge party going on throughout America and we hadn't been invited....very odd. So we decided to escape Houston for a bit and go exploring. We booked a little apartment on the beach down at Port Aransas and spent a few days playing on the beach in the sunshine, visiting an aircraft hanger and generally having a lovely chilled time.
We flew home mid December, spent a few days in Burgess Hill catching up with Chris' school friends, the girls got to spend a few quality days with Uncle Adam, we went back to Surbiton to some friends from Uni who live on the same street we used to live on and met up with Alison, Chris and baby Toby for Lunch in Henley on Thames.
Then we flew up to Aberdeen for a week to spend Christmas and New Year in Banchory, the girls had a ball playing with all their friends. The weather was absolutely fantastic, and christmas day was a sunny balmy 16 degrees....I've been told it was colder and more miserable in Houston!
Then we flew back down to Burgess Hill for a night and then on to Devon for a week to see all my family. We had a Mexican themed New Year party with my family, cousins and their children, and for the first year in about 5 I was actually still up at midnight....miracle!
So we flew back to Houston, thoroughly exhausted but happy to have fitted in seeing so many people. However we got a bit of a rude welcoming from staff at Houston Immigration, who took offense to Chris and I not being married and sent me off to secondary immigration because either he genuinely didn't know the rules, he couldn't read my visa or he really was just being an arse! His exact words were, 3 children, do you not think by now you should have done the right thing and got married........whether or not he thinks that, its none of his business and certainly not something you actually say to someone. I'm still debating whether to write a formal complaint, but a large part of me thinks whats the point, as we have found generally customer service is poor and they don't respond to complaint letters......still waiting for a response from the doctors about the way Fearne was treated when she had immunizations.
Anyway, 2 hours of waiting, my passport was stamped, only given 6 months this time and no one explained why they'd sent me there in the first place. Oh well!
What else...so we've had one holiday after another in terms of celebrations...Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and now Valentines and Mardi Gras....followed by easter a few weeks after that. For Valentines the girls have class party's in the morning and then dismissal....whats that all about. I don't understand why school is finishing early for Valentines day.......I'm probably mostly bothered because its a Tuesday and thats my day where I get to chill with just Henry and instead it'll be an anything but relaxing afternoon!
The girls started swimming lessons before Christmas, Martha could not swim at all, yet yesterday I watched in amazement as she swam across the width of the pool (about 10 metros) with her head under water and rolling onto her back to breathe without any prompts from her teacher. Fab....I am in awe of her teacher, who has her completely under control and doing what she's told.......I wonder if they do private swimming lessons in the summer in household pools?! Henry has started swimming lessons too, he loves them, particularly the splashing about and standing and trying to walk in the water...not so fussed about being on his back or being dunked under water on a regular basis. But he then sleeps for 2 hours afterwards so its definitely worth it for me!!!
Can't think what else...Chris is doing the BP MS 150 bike ride from Houston to Austin in April so he is starting to train for that at weekends. He was supposed to be biking into work this morning but it was pouring with rain and you can never quite tell with Houston rain what's going to happen. It can be drizzling one minute and down pouring to the point of extreme flooding the next...probably a good idea this morning not to cycle it was fairly treacherous. We're planning on going out to Fredericksburg for a long weekend so he can get some practice in there where there is nice scenery as opposed to Houston's suburbs and bayous!
Alison, Chris and Toby are coming for 2 weeks at the beginning of April which we are very excited about, hopefully going to try and do a trip to New Orleans while they're here, and a long weekend in San Antonio, before it starts getting too hot for any kind of sight seeing.
I think that's all that's been going on here for the last few months! Well apart from the usual stuff and my children all behaving like ragbags, all at the same time.
I'll come back and add photos on to here later as it's time consuming and quite often it doesn't work first time round.....and I need to go and meet a friend for a coffee or two!
Bye
Freya xx
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