Unpacking

Since we left the hotel I've been attempting to unpack, while working and getting every thing straight. It's been a lot of work for sure. I finally got the internet turned on today (everything is slow to get done here.) The cable people should be here in the morning, and we have one TMO delivery Friday, it's either my stuff from Korea or Aiden's stuff, I'm not sure, but I do know they have lost the other shipment. Hopefully it'll get found sometime soon. Work is rough, there's a lot to learn and not enough brain cells to learn it.
That's all we've been up to, I'm hoping to take a trip this weekend or the next, just to get a break from the constant cycle I'm in.

Moving in.

The movers brought the first of the three shipments today. It's like christmas, I have all my furniture back! It's all over the place, nothing is situated, just in the right rooms. There are boxes everywhere, I'm hoping the un-pack fairies will show up there tonight (we're staying in the hotel one last night) and get it all put away for me. I was lucky, nothing major is broken, and there are only a few things missing so far, like the huge carpet, it wasn't in the shipment. After I unpack everything I'll file a claim and get paid replacement cost for anything missing/broken. I have to borrow a jigsaw to cut my box spring. It's about 3 inches too big to get it up and around the stairs (it's a pretty common dilema here). The guys showed me what I need to do to it, and I should be able to get it up there with no problems tomorrow. Aiden was super helpful, he carried in everything that he could, and wasn't in the way too much. I'm hoping he'll be as helpful with the unpacking. He was really excited that there were boxes with his toys in them, and when the trampoline box came out of the truck he wanted me to set it up right then.

The sneezing has got to stop. I've been loading up on Sudafed 3+ times a day. I don't know if it's a sinus infection now, or just the allergies...but either way I'm glad I have a doc appointment on Tuesday, cause I can't handle it anymore.

Oh, we won't have net/phone access for a while. I'm not sure how long, but hopefully we'll have something by the end of next week. I called and turned on the phone (just don't have a phone to plug in). There is a waiting period before we can get broadband, I'm not sure how long and I haven't had time to call them back yet, I'll try tomorrow.
That's it for now, it's about time for bed and we have another long day tomorrow.

Cars hate me!

So it's official, I have the worst car luck ever. Maybe I should take some auto classes so I can stop paying people to fix them, because they always break. I drove to work yesterday morning, every thing normal and fine. I had to go to try and get my email/computer access set up (which didn't happen anyway) and on the way back (all .5mi of it) I had a thud. Not just a tick or a funny noise, a loud thud. I could tell it was coming from the front passenger side (the left side here). I don't know crap about cars, so I asked the car guys at work (good thing I knew both of them before I got here and didn't feel bad asking). They instantly thought it was the cv joints. Then after driving it around the parking lot and then realizing it makes the thud even when the car isn't moving, just turning the wheel, it's not that. Well the day was already almost over so they said they'd get to it today. No one had time today, so I stopped by the car place on base to see what they thought. First thing they said was the cv joint, but I already knew that wasn't it, so they put it on the lift and the left spring that's right there where the tire is, yep it's broken, and rubbing on the brake line every time I turn left (that was the thud). So I spent a bit ordering new ones, might as well do them both, it wasn't too expensive, and luckily for me they are in stock downtown and will be here tomorrow afternoon. I have to be at the house all day for the movers, so I can't do anything with it tomorrow. We then walked around the corner and got another rental car. They can't fix it at the place I was at, so I called the auto-hobby shop on base, the soonest they can get it in is Tues. It's $65 an hour, so hopefully they'll be quick. I'm going to call one of the guys from work tomorrow and see if he has the time/ability to do it for me over the weekend. AAGGGHHH why do cars hate me? And I'll be calling the guy who sold it to me and telling him how much it is total, cause I'm thinking that after 3 weeks I shouldn't have to fix anything...we'll see how that goes.

Some other notes, we get our furniture tomorrow. I need to try and get the rest of our stuff out of the hotel by Sat morning, cause I'm paying for it right now (the AF only paid for 15 days) and it's adding up quick. There is a place on Feltwell (just up the road, an other base) that gives you appliances, transformers, microwave and wardrobes for free while we're here. Well normally they deliver, but since they don't have any wardrobes right now (on back order, so we have to closets or hanging of any sort) they called me today and said they can't deliver just the microwave and transformers, I have to pick them up. They couldn't have told me that when I was there on Monday and had the time to take them to the house. They called today around 130, I had a 200 appointment and they close at 330, I couldn't make it by then....so we'll be in the house all weekend without a microwave (looks like more PB&J to me) or anyway to plug in anything. Nice. I hate this place already...customer service is non-existent, I'm broke, the cars broke, and I'm still not sure what the heck is going on at work.

I sit at work in a "class" learning more numbers that anyones brain can possibly hold. Between trying to learn things there and trying to get situated in a house I'm about to lose my mind. Poor Aiden is dealing with this all well, but I know I've been snappy and grumpy lately. I'm not sure how this weekend is going to go yet, we have no TV (well no cable and I hope I have a DVD player in this shipment) once his DS dies I won't be able to charge it, and he's only got a few toys to play with.
He is liking the CDC so far, it's only been 2 full days though. He doesn't like that they make them rest, even though he falls asleep, or that they have vegetables with lunch, but other than that he's playing well. His "teacher" said he's adjusting a lot better than most kids do, he just has to get used to the routine.

Oh and to top off my wonderful broken car day....promotion results came out today and I didn't make it, again....guess 3rd times a charm.

Our new home

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/atc.rachel/AdventuresInWonderland?authkey=Gv1sRgCJnCsZfL5LrD-QE&feat=directlink

I still don't know how to put pictures in this thing, so you'll just have to click the links until someone teaches me how (hint hint bloggers).
So there are a couple of the house, I thought I charged my camera before we went out there, but it died. I did get the whole downstairs though, and upstairs isn't anything special. We've got 3 bedrooms off the landing, one bathroom that has a tub but no shower, and my room has a bathroom with a shower and no tub. It's almost like it was made for us. Aiden will have his own space and I'll have mine. My room is decent sized, it will fit all my furniture, and the other 2 will fit what needs to go in them. My first shipment of things will be delivered on Friday!!! It's all the furniture and everything that was is storage. I can't wait to get my things back.
It's a 20 minute drive out there, which isn't too bad right now, but when we only get 7-8 hours of sunlight in the winter it's going to make the days even longer driving, plus after driving in the dark once I'm not sure I want to do it all the time. Another thing that worries me about being so far out is if something happens to the car and we're stuck, it's about 3 miles to a town in any direction.

I figure by the time we get fully settled in we'll be moving again. I'm on the wait list for the brand new houses on base. Right now it's at about 18 months, but coming from Korea I get 12 months credit towards that, so in 6 months or so we'll be moving. The houses are really nice. We'll lose a bedroom, but we'll have a lot more of the things we're used to, like a full sized washer/dryer that doesn't take 2 hours just to wash! And they are both 110v and 220v so we can use our old appliances and things, as well as any we get before then. Plus with school/childcare and work I think it'll be easier to live on base, and then we can get away on the weekends.

I'm planning for us to take the Harry Potter trip in August or October...more likey the latter as it's going to be over a grand for just us 2 (and I can use it as a birthday present, I'm such a mean mom). They do a 4 day trip up to the castle where parts of the movie were filmed and a full day on the Hogwarts Express. I think if we go I'll be more excited than him!

That's it for now, I'm off to get things ready for work tomorrow, it's my first real day going in, I'm sure it's going to be a blast.

I'm allergic to the UK

Well maybe not the whole UK, but something for sure. I've been sneezing like crazy for the past few days, my eyes don't stop watering and I carry kleenex with me everywhere. The Claratin is helping some, but I'm still a mess.

Happy Birthday to Mom

So I've been in touch with my friend Les, or Ollie as everyone around here calls him, we went to high school together, ran into each other at Keesler a few years ago in tech school and just have kept in touch since. He got out of the Air Force a year or so ago and now works on RAF Feltwell (just a couple miles up the road) as a civilian contractor. Well he and his girlfriend, who is a teacher on base, stopped by to say hello the other night, then Aiden and I went over to his house for dinner Friday night. He had also invited his friend Walter, we call him Wally, and I mentioned that Sat was my birthday. Well Wally took it upon himself to organize a last minute Barbie (BBQ) Sat night and also invited Aiden and I out for the day. He's an older guy, the pseudo dad type, super nice guy though.
So Sat afternoon I met him up at the house and Aiden and I piled in his car. We went to Hunstanton, which took about an hour or so to get to, and spent a few hours on the beach. It was a beautiful day, so there were tons of people out. As soon as we got out of the car and Aiden realized it was the beach he started taking clothes off. I made him leave his pants on, and he played in the water for a while. The water was chilly, but warmer than the Pacific ever was. When he was done in the water, we got him a towel and some dry shorts (had I known it was going to be so nice out I would have packed a change of clothes, but I didn't.) We got some ice cream and walked around a bit. Aiden also got to ride a pony on the beach, got some candy, something they call "rocks" it long stick candy, we haven't opened it yet. He also got to go down a big slide a few times and got some pirate toys, he loves the eye patch. We didn't walk to far, cause at one end there was an amusement park, and I didn't feel like spending all day there, there was also a marine museum of sort, but we didn't go in. I figured we'd save some things to do next time, cause we will definately go back before the end of summer.
We drove back to the house, and I brought Aiden back to the hotel to get a bath and cleaned up. Then we went back to the house for the Barbie. It was a house that Wally is house sitting for the weekend, so there was a trampoline and swingset, which Aiden had a blast on. It was just just us and Les and his g/f and one other friend of theirs. Aiden spent most of the evening on the tramopline taking turns beating all of us up.
Wally's trade/hobby is glass etching, so in the time between dropping us off and us showing up he went and made me a gift. It's a wine glass with "R. 26th birthday" and "England 2009" etched in it. (He didn't want to spell my name wrong, so he went with R.)
I had stopped and got an ice cream cake at the commissary, Aiden wanted me to get balloons and party hats and everything, but I talked him out of it all.
It was a good day and much better than turning 26 sitting in the room.
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/atc.rachel/Birthday?feat=directlink

Childcare

It's been a lot easier than I expected finding childcare here. I put him on the Child Development Center (CDC) wait list, and even though they are only open 0630-1800 M-F, I figured it was something if I couldn't find anything. I called all the base home providers and none had openings or were willing to work with the crazy schedule I'll eventually be on. I posted an add on the local yard sale website, asking for info, and had two offers from stay at home moms to work around my schedule and keep him. I took him over to one ladies house (Jenn) while I had appointments one day, and he liked it there (she has a trampoline and a Wii). I still haven't met with the other, but we haven't had time. I got a call from the CDC on Thursday that he had a full time spot there, so I went ahead and enrolled him. I should be working 8-4 for the rest of the summer while I'm in training, and since it's a set rate based on my rank, it's not very expensive. Jenn is really nice and has said she'll work with me whenever I need care outside of the CDC hours. So within the week I had it all covered. Once he starts school she'll be able to help me out if I work swings/mids or weekends.
He's never really been to the CDC before, but we got to walk around and meet the "teachers" and he liked it. Another good thing is that almost all of the kids in his class will go start Kindergarten with him, so he'll already have friends.
I talked to one of the single moms that I'll be working with and she's been 8-4 the whole 3 years she's been here, with the occassional odd shifts, but I was glad to see they won't try to screw me over like Nellis did.
I start work again on Wednesday, which will be hard after over a month of not working, but the sooner I start the sooner I'm not in training anymore.

Houses, houses everywhere.

Since I was free from in processing Monday, we had scheduled to look at some houses, well 6 actually. Since I turned down the crap-tastic base house they offered me, I only get 15 days paid for in the "hotel" so I'm in a hurry to find something and get moved in.
A local real estate company does a lot of letting (renting) for base people. Someone came and got us here and drove us to some properties I had seen on their website, and a few that weren't listed yet, but were in my price range/areas I wanted to be in.
A little background info on the area: There are villages, towns and cities. The only difference between a village and a town is that a town has a market. Not a store, but a weekly outdoor market, and to have one it has to be approved by the Queen. A village is generally smaller, but they have the rest of the stuff a town would. Cities are just the larger towns. The closest city is Bury St Edmund, it's about 20 min, we went there on Friday with the base new-comer tour. It's still smaller than a US city, but there was a McDonalds (we ate at a pub so we haven't tried it yet) and all the other normal city stuff.
So back to houses, the first one we looked at was larger than the box on Sat, but not big enough to accomodate all our stuff. The second was nice, it was older, but had enough room and nice big yard, it went to the top of my list. The 3rd is the one we're getting, and I'll get pics Monday when we get keys. We went to 2 others, and the 4th was nice and big too, but wasn't going to be ready in time. The 5th was nice too, but I had already began planning where to put furniture in the 3rd one, so we went and did the paperwork to get it. It takes a little while to get things done, since it's off base, the housing office has to have a base inspector do a "life safety" inspection, which wasn't until Thursday. Everything went well, and we signed the lease Thursday afternoon.

The rest of the week was boring with appointments and base stuff.

So after the first week of running around like crazy trying to get in processed and get things figured out, we took a break for the weekend. Saturday we looked at the first of the houses I wanted to see. It was like a shoe box with doors. The kitchen was huge, but the rest of the house would not have fit my furniture, so we passed on it.
We went to the movies and saw Up, which was cute, and just hung out the rest of the day. There is a park right outside our building, so we've been spending a decent amount of time there. Sunday was another lazy day, we ordered pizza and rented a movie. Aiden has time adjusted for the most part, but still doesn't get why he has to go to bed when it's still light outside.

Driving and weather in the UK!

So driving....it's obvioiusly different, but I had no idea what I was in for. I'm glad that everything is in MPH, but that's about the only thing the same as the states.
The roads around here are not what I expected. They are mostly 2 lane country roads, there aren't shoulders anywhere, and they are windy and bumpy. Except in residential areas where the speed limit is 30, it's 60mph on all the crazy roads. The first time I ventured off base I was scared to death, but it's pretty easy to pick up. I'm going to have to adjust to going so fast on such little roads, cause everyone was passing me (you can pretty much pass every where). I used the GPS, cause street signs are usually hard to see, and it was one less thing to worry about. Aiden said it felt like the train, he was having a blast in the back, while I had white nuckles clenching the steering wheel.

The weather is quite different too. Over the course of a few hours it's go from sunny and warm (well 65 is warm) to a thunderstorm with hail, then sunny again, then some more rain, then cloudy without rain back to a thunderstorm. It's impossible to dress for the day and be done. We've already learned to layer up, always carry an umbrella, and play outside while it's sunny, cause it won't last. The first week here was more sunny than rainy, which we liked, and it's been random since. Aiden keeps asking why it's raining again.

I started the base in processing today. Aiden didn't want to stay at the house I took him to, he cried and cried, but eventually calmed down. They do a 5 day class type thing, and all the base agencies that we would need to visit come to us. I started in the middle of the normal cycle, so first thing was the driving class/test. (We are allowed to drive for 30 days before we have to pass the test.) I was a little nervous, everyone else had the "Highway Code" book since Monday and had been reading through it. We had about an hour "class" where the guy went over the basics before the test. The "national speed limit" is 60MPH, and the sign is just a white circle with a black slash, it's odd. The rest was rules and signs, and I didn't think I had a chance at passing the test, but I did! So after a 1 hour class and a 50 question test, I'm licensed to drive here...Crazy!
We had a couple other briefings, and then were done around 2pm. I got Aiden (who was very glad to see that I did come back, after Korea I'm sure he thinks I'm not going to be back for a while everytime I leave him.)
I spent most of the afternoon/evening on the phone trying to secure a car and childcare.
I looked at 3 cars before I bought one. It's a 2001 Ford Mondeo (the Taurus of Europe). It had decent miles and is in good enough condition. I like it, it's easy to drive. It's an automatic, which is uncommon in the UK, so I'll be able to sell it easy when I find something newer to buy.

So once I got up and around in the morning, it was time to get some things started. My sponsor (he's awesome) came by and dropped off the boxes I had mailed to him. Then he gave us the 10 minute tour of the base. I was driving the rental so I could get used to it, and it is different. drving on the left hand side of the road, on the right of the car, shifting with the left hand....I'm glad the rental was an SUV cause I hit a few curbs. Round-abouts are the main intersections here, and even though I've dealt with them before, I was scared to death. We stopped by my work to let them know I was here, and then had to turn in the rental, so I had to drive off base, by myself, following him to turn it in. I was paranoid the whole time and glad to get back in the passenger side.
I had to start inprocessing the next morning, so we got another rental on base (it's much cheaper) and did a few more errands on base. I spent over an hour trying to find childcare for my inprocessing, and managed to get someone to keep him for a few days. We also went to the CDC on base and put him on the wait list, and signed up for hourly care for the days I didn't have covered already.
Aiden was a trooper the whole time, falling asleep on and off all day. I let him get an hour or so nap in the early evening, then got him up for a while to try and fix his sleep schedule. Another thing not helping with that is the sun. The sun comes up around 0430 and doesn't go dowm until 930 or so. It's not fully dark until after 10pm! It's been a whirlwind since we got here.

The Trip Over the Pond

So we started our trip to the UK on May 31st. The flight was the first for Aiden in a long time, he flew when he was 2, but doesn't remember it. Once we boarded and got situated (the nice man who had the window seat next to us let us slide over so Aiden could look out the window) Aiden was ready to go. Taking off was fun, he was scared to death and clung to me with his eyes shut. Once we were off the ground he started looking out the window and got more nervous the smaller things got. He told me we were going too high and needed to be lower. He was a little nervous the whole flight, but was really good and played his DS for most of it (thank you Nintendo folks). Landing was a lot like taking off, he was freaked out. Once we got to Dallas/Ft Worth we had a little over an hour to get to the other side of the airport to catch our connection. Aiden thought we were back where we started and didn't believe me when I told him it was a different airport. He had spilled apple juice in his lap on the the flight, so he was walking funny and we had to find a bathroom to change clothes in. We made it to the next terminal in time, they had already started boarding, so we didn't have to wait. If you know Aiden you know he doesn't like to wait. We got situated again, this time in the very last seats on the plane. Taking off was a bit easier this time, he knew what to expect, and once we were in the air he played some more. At dinner he got upset because they didn't have ice cream for desert, but eventually ate. I got him to lay down as much as he could, with half his body on me, and he did get some sleep, I tried, but there was too much going on in my head.
We landed at London/Heathrow around 1100 am on June 1st. We should have had plenty of time to catch the 1230 base bus, except we didn't get off the plane until almost 1200. There was a problem with the jet walk, so they had to get air stairs and bus us to the terminal. We got through customs quick and our baggage was already off the plane so that was quick. It was 1225 and I thought we were going to make the bus when someone had to go. We ran to the bathroom, pokey took his time and when we finally walked out of the terminal it was 1235 and the bus had left. Luckily for us, my sponsor was awesome and was waiting for us. We rented a car and he drove us to the base. It was about a 2 hour drive with traffic and everything.
We got to the base and checked into billetting. The room (rather rooms) we have are really nice. We've got 2 separate bedrooms, a living room and a fully stocked kitchen. We went over to the commissary to grab a few things to get by and then came back and crashed. Aiden fell asleep around 7pm, I went not long after. Eight hours later, Aiden was wide awake and ready for the day, at 2am. I'm glad I packed his movie case, I put one on and slept on the couch while he watched. He never did go back to sleep that night. Oh, travel is so exhausting.