Its nearly Christmas......

Hellllooooooo

This is the 3rd blog I am updating tonight, getting quite into this blogging, good job I have Uni revision beginning in January, so you can all stop getting annoyed with my endless tirades of nonsense.....

So Oliver finished school on tuesday.  He went in for 1/2 hour of lessons, then had chapel service.  As I was driving in to school, people were already parking up in preparation for going to chapel.  I felt a bit bad for Oli, as there is no way Seb and Isaac would sit through an hours church service.  When I returned to pick him up at 9.45, the car park was heaving, they were even parked on the road leading up to school.  Drove into school, car pool lane was blocked by people parked in it.  By the time  I got Oli, it was 10.15.  Thank goodness for Lego Star Wars videos on Youtube to keep Isaac and Seb happy.  Tuesday afternoon we headed to Legacy Park to meet up with the boys from Oli's grade.  Must have been about 15-20 6-7 year old boys.  Thank goodness this park has a fenced in area for younger kids, and an open area for older kids.  Plus the water feature and pond.  Eventually got talking to some of the mums, am now able to pin point the mums of the kids who he speaks most frequently about.  They all seem very pleasant. One of the mums had brought cupcakes for all the kids, and another was selling the school Christmas ornaments.  A nice keepsake memento.  Oliver and Isaac ended up playing pooh-sticks with the other boys, cue wet feet from Oliver.  Its December FFS!!!!!  It didn't phase him though, luckily it was a nice sunny day.....

Wednesday we had my lovely friend Donna round with her boy Leo.  They both had a good time (I think....)  Then went food shopping in the afternoon (yawn), all the boys were fabulously behaved.  So they got M&M's as a treat for being so good.  Lets see if they are as good when we do the Christmas shop over the weekend.......

Thursday, we went to the Barton's.  I have not seen Anna for what feels like an age, it was so nice to catch up with her, and nice to meet Dave's parents.  The boys were pretty well behaved, and Anna even let Oliver use their iPad, and Isaac use her iPhone, while Seb played trains upstairs with Jack.  Again they were all really good, and we ended up staying longer than intended. Because of this, it was lunchtime when we left, and it was raining (don't know what that has to do with anything...) so we decided to get a drive through McDonalds for lunch.  We headed out in the evening to Roper Mountain Christmas lights.  This is a science place that every year puts on a massive display of lights for people to drive through, very impressive.

Oli and me on the ice

Bambi

Oliver meets Father Christmas

Today we had a last minute call on Rachel coming round with Riley and Layla.  My boys were again very well behaved, and Sebastian and Layla had great fun chasing each other around.  Paul managed to get out of work early, and we headed to Greenville for a late lunch at the Carolina Ale House.  Greenville set up an ice rink in December on Main Street, so we headed here after lunch.  Isaac was not up for it, neither was Paul, so Oli and I headed out on the ice.  For what we did, it was a bit pricey, but it was nice to give Oli an experience he has never had before.  We did one lap, with Oli holding on to the side the whole way round.  I was quite grateful for this, as it has been a long time since I skated in any form. Admittedly, he didn't fall over once, but Paul did remark that he was like Bambi on ice.  I was going to go and do a lap after he had had enough, but thought better of it.  I would have ended up on my arse, and it was freezing cold.....  The boys then got to meet Father Christmas, albeit briefly, as he prepared his sleigh to ride people around Greenville.

Now we are into the preparation for Christmas.  Most of the boys pressies are wrapped.  THey all have one more each that need to be wrapped/moved/made on Christmas eve. A big thank you to all that have sent us cards from the UK. Really excited about our first Christmas here.....


Also really excited about my sis-inlaws 12 days of Christmas blogging challenge.  Please see my entry, with links to other peoples.  This is good fun, please feel free to read, share and participate!!!

Mountains and eggs

Evening all

Well life is pretty good here in Simpsonville.  The weather has been lovely, the kids are settling in to school, and we are loving the house.

Seb on a dinosaur at Simpsonville City Park

Wednesday, was pretty normal, take the boys to school and preschool, then Seb and I trooped of to Walmart, we needed some extra things as well as normal shopping.  Had to buy a mop and bucket to do the hard floors, and Paul wanted a thermos cup for coffee in the mornings.  You very rarely see anyone without a huge drinks cup of some description.  We need to get used to taking bottles of water for the boys with us everywhere we go.  In the summer they will be a necessity.  Came back, Seb had a sleep, I cleaned the floors, then went and got Isaac.  We had lunch, then while the boys watched TV, I cleaned the bathrooms.  It is working cleaning little bits of the house on monday, wednesday and friday.  I try not to do any cleaning on tuesday and thursday, but I am quite relieved I don't have any Uni work to fit in at the moment.  Once I had finished, we headed to Simpsonville City Park.  It is 5 minute drive away, and is next to the police and fire station.  The fire engines are so cool out here, lots of red and glistening chrome.  Haven't checked out the calibre of the actual firemen yet...  From here we went and got Oliver.  Isaac has developed a habit of falling asleep on this journey.  We tend to leave the house at 2.40, gets us to school for just after 3, and we are home by 3.30, as long as we don't hit any traffic, or Oliver remembers his car pool number....

Oliver in his 'Cavs' t-shirt, it is the schools football team.

He didn't on thursday, so I had to get him from the 'wait zone'. It is nice to know that if carpool fails, and a child is a little forgetful sometimes, that there is a backup plan.  Oliver is enjoying school.  He tends to get 2 homework sheets a night and is expected to read for 15 minutes each night, monday to thursday.  On friday he wears a different t-shirt, all the pupils do.  He came out on friday to say Alexander had the same t-shirt as him, and that he was playing with him and Carson at lunch, so I think he is making friends.

Isaac seems to have settled well too.  He deals with carpool really well, and his teachers seem lovely.  He has planted some carrots, spent time in the outdoors classroom looking for bugs, and learning about 'Fall'.

I tried another Zumba class on thursday.  This one is at a local baptists church in their sports hall.  This church is huge, it has buildings on either side of a cross roads, massive!!!  The session began with a bible reading, and the instructor asking if everyone was ok, and if there was anyone we needed to pray for.  This was followed by a prayer.....  Not your usual class.  It was good though, a cross between the 2 classes I have been doing in the UK, and lots of tracks I recognized, with different moves of course.  There is no charge for this class, you just have to make a donation.  It is held twice a week, tuesday and thursday, so I think I may have found my class...

Friday I took Isaac and Seb to get more shopping before getting Oliver, they just love the big car trolleys, and they are really good in them.  Almost makes food shopping pleasurable.  Paul came home early from work, and we Skyped with the Goslings.  It was Keith's birthday, so by the time we did it, at 4.30 our time, it was 9.30 their time, and they were well on their way.... Hope there weren't too many sore heads the next day.  Was nice to see all the Goslings.

Yesterday we met up with the Barton family at Legacy Park.  What a beautiful park.  They brought doughnuts too, yummy, thanks guys!  Isaac had a fall off the play equipment, and had 3 eggs come up on his head, one right in the middle of his forehead, and 2 smaller ones on the left hand side of his face.   He was running around playing football within 5 minutes, so he is ok.  Was just quite a shock, might have to get some of the portable cooling packs.  My children are quite accident prone, so would probably be a good investment.  After we left them, we headed to a eatery called Tavern 24, I had the most delicious burger, Isaac even ate chicken as well as his chips, and Oliver finished all of his.  The waiter was really nice, and for once you didn't feel hurried out.  There was a big local football game on, and this place had TV screens everywhere.  Think we will defiantly be back there again soon.  From there we went to Costco, what a place, was nice to find nappies and wipes at a reasonable price, they are quite expensive over here.  They seem to sell loads of different things.  I am planning on going back in a few weeks, just before Isaacs birthday, as they have loads of cheaper toys. Might even get some for Christmas (I have already started....)

Oliver at the vantage point

Today we decided to take a drive. Paul had been told by his work colleagues that this was the weekend to head to Asheville, NC, as it is the pinnacle Fall weekend, when all the trees were changing colour, but had not lost their leaves yet.  They weren't wrong.  Took us a good hour and a half to get there, Isaac and Seb both slept on the way up.  The scenery was amazing....  So beautiful.  Once we got there, we headed along the BLue Ridge Parkway, further up in to the mountains, I can't even try and describe how beautiful it was.  We stopped at a vantage point near the top, it was an absolutely amazing view.  The boys didn't really dig it, but it was sooooooo pretty.  We came back into town down Town Mountain Road.  So beautiful, with quite a few houses built into the side of the mountain, amazing.  We stopped at a McDonalds on the way back home, so at least that perked the boys up.  They had a play area inside, so they got to run off some energy...  Got back here for about 3.  Quite a drive, but well worth it.  I look forward to doing it again, maybe in the spring.

In other news...... Paul built the second desk for the office room, looks really cool.  He also fixed the Mac's cracked screen (thanks cat), and got a new keyboard, so it is working perfectly again.  I have heard from my parent person at Oliver's school, such a nice idea.  Oliver has had a message from his best friend at Georgian Gardens, thanks Alfie, you made his day.  Have been to a few second hand/thrift/antiques shops, so am getting little additional extras for the house.  We also bought some pumpkins and basketballs last weekend, which the boys (and Paul) have been loving.  Isaac has been invited to a birthday party at the beginning of November.

Three monkeys at the new computer desk, this has our computer from home, which the boys can use in their computer time.

Think that is all, sorry for the essay.  Was thinking of doing a post midweek this week to discuss what it slowly becoming something I seem to be spending a lot of time doing.......Shopping