Moving, Movies and More...

I'm sure it comes at no surprise that we moved again. You'd think we were experts by now, but in actuality, we stink at it. Seriously, it's hard every time. It's a long and drawn out process. The boxes are ALWAYS heavy, and you wonder why you have half the stuff you have, AND it doesn't seem to matter how sure you are that something will look right in the place you put it, a day later, you move the furniture again. 

Because we are expats over here and almost everyone attending the kids school is an expat, it's a very common question to ask, "so...are you settled in yet?" 
The mom's are easy company to be with when it comes to moving 
because they have all been there many times. 

So....we boxed, we cleaned, we went through drawers, cupboards, and shelves over and over to be sure everything was out of Kilmacoe and 
we moved to Virginia Water; about seven or so minutes away. 

One new addition was that our things from the States came! My friend Caroline was right..It was like a little Christmas seeing all our things again. This is what it looked like when the movers left some of the rooms. The movers opened up boxes and dumped them into heaps all over our house. 
(At least it was a strong motivation to pick things up as fast as we could.)

I have become quite fanatical when it came to getting everything (I mean furniture) that we needed in order to get settled as soon as possible. We couldn't bring lots of our big furniture because it just doesn't fit over in these home. They have an Expat page on Facebook where people sell their used items and England has a sort of "Craigslist" called "Gumtree" over here where I scoured the listings. I got six beds, a TV, a fridge freezer, a wardrobe closet, bunk beds, a loft bed, table and chairs, a vacuum, curling iron, mop, chest of drawers, etc. etc. etc. Spence was so sick of driving all over the cities picking things up, but when I showed him how much I spent...it was all good. His grumpiness turned into a smile when he realized I paid a fraction of the price for items we needed. 

Anyway, will send a few pictures of our new place when I get all unpacked. 

I must say...the welcoming committee here is unbelievable! We had a dozen children ringing our door bell asking for the kids to come out and play. The weather has been so beautiful, they kids would just run to the green space and play football, tennis or play on the jungle gym with the other children. 

Funny Story: I went to a "Mum's Meeting" to get to know the other mothers from the third grade (Ty's grade). One of the mothers said to me, "On behalf of many of the mother's here, thank you for moving into Virginia Park. All our little girls are thrilled Ty has moved into the neighborhood!" 

The community pool and courts

The kids are full tilt into activities.

 I thought I'd try to get a few on here of them for you to see. 

Ike's football game huddle

 Yep! It rains!

Ohhhh! But it's so pretty

Joshy and Ty at Cub Scouts

**Anne is playing in the Rock Band and is Dancing. I'll get some of her next practice. 

I went on a walk around Virginia Water Lake with Alyson and some of her friends. This is where I love to run in the mornings but it's usually dark, so it was nice to go during the day to see it better.

Golden Hawks
Ike plays for a great club basketball team called the Golden Hawks

John Amaechi (a pro NBA player) helps coach his team. Ike loves it!

Quick Story: I went to another "Mum's meeting" with the 8th grade mothers, and there were about 25 women attending the little get-together. One of the mother's asked me,"Now who's your child?" I told her Ike. She said, "Ummmm I know that name. Wait! Is he the one who doesn't swear??!!" I was so surprised I laughed a little and said, "Well, he's not supposed to! But yes, he doesn't swear." She made such a fuss about it with the other mom's, it was quite hysterical. Ike is building quite a little reputation for himself! Nice work bro...

We have gotten to spend some extra time with Richard and his girlfriend Sea'a (sp?) They are our friends from China. Richard just joined the church and attends Royal Holloway and Sea'a came over to visit him. 

We went and had Korean BBQ with them.

We also had a great FHE night with them and the Carrol family - Jason, Stephanie, Lauren, Emily, Zachary and Colbie - the Sisters (Hurst and Green) were there too. It was such a fun evening. Richard had never had a FHE night, so we taught him how we did it.

Lots of laughing and cheering as we played Jenga!

Sea'a made the crazy moves work and was so good at the game. 

Then we came back to our place and I taught her how to make chocolate chip cookies. She had never made them and was seriously so cute learning how to do it. She was hilarious when she tasted the cookie dough. She ABSOLUTELY loved it.

We got invited by Sarah and Matthew Knight to go for walk around the Thames in Staines. It was such a beautiful day. I did not want it to end. The kids really enjoyed it too.

On Friday, Spencer had a work meeting in London, so I tagged along with him. Our date: Riding into London together and riding out together!

Right when we got off the train, I headed to The National Gallery Museum (I got to see Seurat, Renoir, Van Gogh, Monet, Rembrant- Fabulous!) Then I went to the Apsley House (Wellington's house who beat Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo), the Wellington Arch (a beautiful war memorial) and then walked around Hyde Park.

Spencer walked to his meeting then rode a bike back!
This totally reminds me of when he used to ride his roller-blades to work at the 
Bank of Montreal - in his suit!...To save gas money. lol 

Lights Camera Action!

Yesterday, Corrine invited me and two other girls (Emma and Natalie) to be "extras" in the film "Miss you already". She was invited by the director (Kathrine Hardwicke - Twilight) to come to the film site for the 'galla scene' - it was a charity auction for an actual charity called "Thirst", who collect funds to build water wells all over the world for people to get clean drinking water. Corrine has done work for the film by designing aids for the actress Toni Collette to explain breast cancer to her children. Corrine has developed her own charity around breast cancer awareness, so they contacted her to do this work for the film. It was kind of fun because Drew Barrymore, Toni Collette, Patty Considine and Dominc Cooper were also in the scene and we got to sit at the table right next to them. We got some sweet shots. Even funnier...I didn't realize who Dominc Cooper was (maybe an extra?lol), and before the scene started, I was chatting a bit with him about his hair and his day. 

 Wardrobe

 Getting Breakfast

 Kathrine Hardwicke - Director

The Galla Scene backdrop

They did our makeup and hair 
Corrine, Emma and Natalie

 Setting up the scene

 Corrine talking with Toni Collette

 Drew Barrymore and Dominc Cooper

 (I'm pretty sure she was also trying to sneak shots of us when we weren't looking :))

Our work: we sat and sat and sat and sat for about six hours. They reshot and reshot the scene getting it from all angles and focusing on lots of different people. We were told to mime our talking and conversation with each other. Believe it or not, it wasn't glamorous and a bit tiring. But...It was fun and I'm so glad I got an opportunity to see how filming a movie works. I have no idea what it will be rated because they 
don't even rate it until they finish making it. 
Corrine will probably be in the scene with a good shot of her. 
My debut, on the other hand, will probably be a nice shot of the back of my head! 
Thank you Corrine!! It's fun to hob-nob with an upcoming star like you! 

Futbol Game!
England vs. San Marino
Bishop Knight and his son Matthew invited us to go to our first futbol game at Wembley Stadium. England won by a landslide 5/0.

Wembley Stadium

It seats 90K people - 51K were there last night
We got to see the "wave" go around three times. The kids were loving it

I think they were worn out...

A great big shout out to the amazing South family and my darling niece Vanessa!
Hermana South left for Peru to serve a mission
We love you Nessa!