Posts Tagged "US"

A Few of My Favourite Things: UK Edition

Posted by cafebebemama on Nov 3, 2011 in American Mum Me, Little Miss Adventures, Motherhood, NaBloPoMo | 8 comments

A lovely blogger suggested to me that I share some of my favourite things and/or praise of the UK in addition to the rants and criticism that I am quick to publish. She’s right, you know. In general, no one praises GOOD THINGS enough. We’re quick to point out fault and lay blame and shout when we feel that something is WRONG but we seldom take the time to CHEER the good stuff and give credit where credit is due. So, here are a few of my favourite things about the UK.

• Tea: I’ve never been much of a coffee drinker and to be fair, I drink tea the builder’s way: strong, splash of milk and 2 sugars. But I love the ceremony surrounding tea. Brewing a POT of tea (I rarely brew it in the cup) and enjoying it when it’s semi-hot is one of the great pleasures in life. I have found, when I’ve gone back to the US and even taken our favourite brand of tea (Twinnings Everyday Tea if you must know), the taste is never the same. Maybe it’s down to the milk or the water but one of the first things we do when we return home from a holiday is make a PROPER cuppa. Delightful!
• Appointments at our GP: Although I’m not overly fond of the capabilities of the GP’s at our local surgery, one thing is for sure, I’m always able to get an appointment either on the day that I ring or at minimum, within that week. Sure, I don’t always see my “assigned” GP but I get seen and get treated when I need it. This may be down to the area in which I live but it’s very helpful to be able to speak to a human at the other end of the line and get the services I am in need of.
• Our local village preschool/school: Ella’s preschool is literally a 5 minute walk away from us. We walk through the footpath at the end of our cul-de-sac, across the road, down a secluded, public footpath leading directly to the back of the school and we’re there. This makes the morning school run exceptionally easy and painless. When I had to pick up Ella early from school one day (she was poorly), I only had to dash out the door and I was there. No fuss, no muss. The childcare staff at Ella’s preschool are lovely, friendly and professional and always communicate what’s gone on in the day and how Ella is progressing. It’s the perfect transition to school and a different routine for us. Next year, Ella will go to the “Big Girl School” which is another 10 feet away from the existing preschool. I know her transition there will be a smooth one, thanks in part to the lovely staff and the brilliant experience we’ve had thus far.
• Family Time: I love how, in the UK, night-time and Sundays are Family Time. Shops shut at 5:30-6pm on the week nights and by 4pm on Sundays. This paves the way for families to be together and not have the lure (with the exception of Christmas shopping) of late night shopping every night of the week. Sure, it’s not always convenient but you learn to schedule yourself accordingly. In the US, most shopping malls, stores and groceries are open until at least 10pm (11pm-midnight during the Christmas shopping season) Monday through Sunday and many supermarkets are open 24 hours. Is this REALLY necessary? I think not.
• NHS: Yes, I am pretty critical of the care I’ve received with my pregnancies, however, I am so grateful that we have the NHS. We cannot afford private health insurance, full stop. The NHS is for everyone, regardless of income or circumstance. No, it’s far from perfect. But what is? The fact that we have FREE medical care and children, pregnant women and special cases get FREE prescriptions is pretty bloomin’ amazing. Thank you for being there when we need you NHS. We would never have the same treatment in the US.
• Weather: Call me crazy but I LOVE the weather in the UK. We live in the Midlands so it’s pretty mild here. I come from Wisconsin in the US. It can get many degrees below zero (Farenheit) regularly in the winter and the first snows can come as early as October and last until April or May. The ground FREEZES in Wisconsin. Autumn brings death…of grass, leaves, anything green mostly (except pine trees). Snow is something that is taken care of with GIANT SNOWPLOWS and school is never cancelled unless there is 3 feet of snow on the ground and windchill warnings from the Weather Service. I don’t have that here. I love the weather we have here. Don’t mind me laughing and giggling when more than one inch of snow is on the ground here…I do find the paralysation of the UK rather amusing with the threat of a few snow flakes!
• Bank Holidays: Bank Holidays are a thing of bliss and glory! They do not exist in the US. There are “national holidays” like Martin Luther King Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, etc but they are not always “days off” for everyone. Often they are, but sometimes they aren’t. Bank Holidays in the UK are plentiful and necessary. Come to think of it, the way the UK approaches holiday in general is far more healthy (albeit less productive economically) for employees and residents. In the US you are LUCKY if you get more than 2 weeks holiday (often unpaid) in the year. In most jobs you have to work for an employer for a set period of time (often a year) before you are even granted ANY holiday/vacation. Here in the UK it’s a minimum of 21 days which pretty much works out to around 4-5 weeks of (usually) paid holiday each year. And aren’t we all better off for it!

There! A few of my favourite things about living in the UK. I love living here and would not change our living arrangements for anything right now. Who knows though? There may come a day when we decide to (or have to) move to the US. There would be a lot of adjustment back to what I knew for so many years and I’m sure, Mark and Ella would find a whole new level of appreciation for some of the difficulties I have experienced here. We’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it. For now though, raise your tea cup and give a toast to the UK. It’s a pretty brilliant place to live wouldn’t you say?

Flashback Friday: Home is where the heart is

Posted by cafebebemama on Jul 29, 2011 in American Mum Me, Blogger Love, Flashback Friday, Little Miss Adventures, Motherhood, Travelling Adventures | 4 comments

This is one of my favourite pictures of Ella. It was taken in December of 2008 during our first visit back to the US with Ella. She was 6 months old and is sleeping on the shoulder of my Dad, Ella’s Grandpa. This visit was a special one for us. First of all, we hadn’t been back to the US since 2005. I had gone back to the US in September of 2005 to settle my life there before moving permanently to the UK to be with Mark, my then-fiance. Mark joined me for 1/2 of my visit and got to meet my family and see what my life was like in Wisconsin. We journeyed back to the UK in October of 2005 and didn’t go back until November 2008 as a family of three.

Ella had a WONDERFUL time on this adventure to my homeland. Everyone adored her and she succeeded in charming everyone she met. It was a bit of a bittersweet journey for us as my paternal Grandpa had passed away in March of 2008, prior to Ella being born and Ella also met both of my Grandma’s who may not see her again due to their increasing age and our lack of funds to travel back and forth to the US whenever we like. But everyone got to meet her at least once and that was the important part.

People ask me what it’s like being so far away from “home”. Well, for one thing, for me now, HOME is where the heart is. England is my home but America (specifically Wisconsin) is my homeland. Being away for 6 years now makes it difficult to feel that I belong in the US because I’m not there experiencing it on a daily basis. I have no clue what is going on in the US. Politics, celebrities, television shows, fuel prices, shops…not a clue. And because I’m not there on a regular basis, I don’t see a lot of point dwelling on it.

I miss my family, no doubt about that. Particularly now that I have a family of my own. Having my inlaws a 5-minute car ride from our house makes me painfully aware of the fact that I can’t take Ella to Grandma’s house for the afternoon or ring up Grandpa and Nanna Janna to see if they’d like to meet us for lunch somewhere. Ella misses out on valuable time with her Grandparents and that does make me sad. But what are you going to do? Our home is in England. Their home is the US. An ocean apart but never out of touch.

Skype is a saviour (when the connection is good) so at least the relatives can SEE Ella and she can establish a connection with them that does seem to carry through until the time that we finally meet again. But it is hard. For them and for us.

There will be no trips back to the US again this year. The last time we were back was October of 2009 when we attended my only brother’s wedding. More than likely, we won’t be traveling back to the US until Summer of 2012 at the earliest when we hope to take our family of FOUR back to enjoy friends, family and a Wisconsin summer. Until then, we’ll Skype and ring and hopefully have Wisconsin come to us when Bebe #2 joins our family.

Today is Flashback Friday! Take a memory from your past (any past…last week, last year, 10 years ago), write your “story”, share a smile with us and link it back for others to venture back in time to. Simple. No theme, no stress, no strain! Thank you, in advance, for sharing your life…it’s a pleasure to be invited!

US vs UK Christmas

Posted by cafebebemama on Dec 15, 2009 in American Mum Me, Little Miss Adventures | 13 comments

Little Miss' First Christmas 2008

As our fair Josie at Sleep is for the Weak is taking a holiday sabatical from the Writing Workshop, we here at Cafe Bebe are struggling for inspiration.  I’ve gone to Josie for a personal prompt and it’s a good one!  Her advice, US vs UK Christmases?  Which one is better?  What’s different??  Are you ready for a bit of Christmas cheer??

Here is what my Christmases were like in the US…it should be noted that I DO NOT SPEAK FOR ALL AMERICANS!

• The official Christmas shopping season begins the day after Thanksgiving.  Every shop in the land is open at 5 or 6am with “Door Buster” sales and all sorts of incentives to get silly shoppers out of the house at ridiculous o’clock.  Thanksgiving is usually the 4th Thursday in November- this past year it was the 26th of November so “Black Friday” was 27 November.
• We usually got our Christmas tree after Thanksgiving and decorated it then.  My brother and I would help with the decorating along with my Mom.  Dad did the technical stuff like stringing the lights.  Outside decorations usually were hung when it was pitch black and howling with snow for maximum effect.  I recall making hot chocolate a few times for my Dad while he was stuck outside in the misery.  But, oh, it looked so pretty when he was done.  In addition to the tree and outside decorations, we also had a nativity set that was placed under the tree.  It generally was my job to set it up…occasionally I messed about with the figurines and put them in odd places.  You have to have a bit of levity at Christmas!
• Advent calendars of the chocolate variety were a tradition thanks to school fundraisers.  I seem to recall more than one season where all of the chocolates disappeared within days of Advent beginning.  I do not recall how that happened.  As I was raised Catholic, Advent was a bit of a big deal in the church we attended…Christmas was about Jesus after all, not SANTA!  I didn’t really care who it was about as long as presents were involved.
• Christmas Eve was when most of the fun happened in our family.  When we were younger, we attended the Christmas Eve Children’s Mass at our church (my brother is 6 years younger than me) which was always quite entertaining.  And I was always happy that church was out of the way!  We would then go home and usually have my Grandparents over for present opening.  You see, in our family, the main present opening took place on Christmas Eve.  I know a fair few American’s who did this!  I don’t know exactly why that was our family’s tradition but it was.  My brother and I would take turns passing out presents which were under the tree and then the fun would begin.  We would all take turns opening a present and ooh-ing and ahh-ing over everyone’s presents.  My Grandpa would always ending up wearing whatever he got which was quite amusing as the layers accumulated!  I would stack my presents in an orderly pile and take extra care opening the paper (don’t tear it!) and not peeking as I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.  We usually had to have an intermission part way through (sometimes the present opening took 3 hours) and we’d always have hors d’oeuvres to keep us sustained through the marathon present opening.  Christmas Eve dinner was usually pretty casual.  No turkey for us that night…it was usually a Christmas Day feast.
• Christmas Day we would come down from our rooms to find that Santa had visited and left us “Santa” presents in our stockings.  These were usually the smaller presents or “stocking stuffers”.  I never knew that Santa was supposed to bring us our big presents.  I do remember the year that I figured out that Santa wasn’t real (DISCLAIMER…SPOILER!!!).  I looked at the gift tag on one of my presents and realised that it was my Dad’s handwriting…fun over.  No more Santa.  I had it sussed!  I never spoiled it for my brother though.  I think he still believes…don’t tell him!
• Christmas Day was usually about food and playing with presents and napping.  Not a bad sort of day.  In latter years, as a family we would go to a movie on Christmas Day.  I recall seeing “Hook” one year.  There was also American Football to watch and traditional movies like “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” or “A Christmas Story” (two of my ALL TIME favourites) as well as “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on 34th Street”.  I always looked forward to the children’s Christmas movies- “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”, “Frosty the Snowman”, “A Charlie Brown Christmas”…ahhh…childhood.  By the way, there is no Boxing Day in the US.  The day after Christmas is when everyone starts taking back the Christmas presents they hated or capitalising on the After-Christmas-Sales to shop for the next Christmas.  Don’t you love American capitalism??

Our First Christmas Together 2005

My UK Christmases- 2005 to Present:

• In the UK, Christmas Eve IS NOT CHRISTMAS.  But in our household, it is.  On Christmas Eve we have, since my arrival in 2005, had our own, private Christmas on Christmas Eve.  It’s when we give each other our presents but as we can’t afford to give each other presents anymore, it now becomes when we open the pressies from the American side of the family.  Little Miss’ second Christmas will begin Christmas Eve at our house with the presents we have for her.  That’s enough Christmas for us!
• My Hubby’s family is where we spend Christmas Day and Boxing Day and on and on.  We head over to his parent’s house (all of 5 minutes away) in the early morning.  This year my Hubby’s twin sister and her family will be here from Australia to enjoy the holidays with us.  There will be 3 children + Little Miss so it should be great fun!  And as Little Miss will understand a bit more about presents this year, there are bound to be lots of photo opportunities.  Before present opening, their family tradition is to have the following for breakfast:  Crumbed Ham, Pork Pie, pickled onions and a few other bits and bobs.  As I’m not keen about pork pie, I mainly have a ham sandwich…for BREAKFAST.  I’m still not used to this tradition.  I believe we will have a Little Miss adapted breakfast of either Eggy Bread or Pancakes.  Maybe that will become the next tradition.
• Present opening with my Hubby’s family is much like mine, thankfully.  Everyone takes turns and oohs and ahhs.  The children get the most, the rest of us get a few.    My youngest nephew is the constant recipient of “Sit Down”, “Stop Twirling”, “Don’t kick your brother/sister” and I’m sure this will remain the tradition this year.  He’s 8 now so those kicks hurt a bit more. 
• After present opening there’s a few hours of down time for present playing, napping, eating while my Mother-in-Law prepares the Christmas dinner.  Christmas dinner is traditional English- turkey, stuffing, potatoes- mashed & roasted, parsnips/carrots, leeks in white sauce, bread sauce, brussel sprouts (yuck) and assorted other veg.  Christmas pudding, mince pies and my niece’s birthday cake are the dessert options.  I’m not a fan of Christmas pud or mince pies so I feel a bit sad when it comes to pudding…there’s always my niece’s cake though!
• I love Boxing Day!  I love that there’s just one more holiday after Christmas here in the UK.  We generally spend it with Hubby’s family and it is centered around eating most of the time.  I really think that the US needs to adopt Boxing Day…it’s a lovely holiday.  Do you know the historical significance of Boxing Day?  Apparently, back in the day, it was the one day off each year for the servants.  The masters/mistresses would bring the servant’s presents in a BOX and they would get the day off.  Hence, BOXING DAY.  If you know another answer, let me know.

This is how I’ve celebrated Christmas in the US and in the UK.  Which one is better?  Well, the Christmas of my childhood when I didn’t have to worry about money, health, fitness or happiness!  All I know is that Christmas is about family and children and I’ve got a great one in store next week.  Little Miss celebrating her second Christmas, my sister-in-law and family home from Oz, all of the immediate family present and healthy…what more could we want?  Well, maybe my American family to turn up on the doorstep as well but I’m guessing I won’t get that wish.  I’ll settle for a phone call and a “Happy Christmas” from my gorgeous girl.  That’s all I need to be happy this Christmas!

My Hubby Christmas 2005

Baby Jogger City Mini

Posted by cafebebemama on Oct 18, 2009 in Out and About, Product Reviews, Pushchair Queen | 4 comments

Baby Jogger City Mini

We purchased the Baby Jogger City Mini after having a travel system and wanting to have something lighter and less bulky and sufficient for an upcoming trip to the US.  The Baby Jogger City Mini has more than exceeded our expectations and we are very happy with our “find”.

• STRENGTHS:  The Baby Jogger City Mini is very lightweight (7.6kg) and has an amazing, patented quick-fold technology which allows you to fold the pushchair with one had.  The Baby Jogger City Mini adequately tackles urban and rural terrain with ease and has a decent sized shopping basket to allow for storage of purchases.  The seat reclines virtually flat with an easy adjustable strap allowing for a number of recline angles.  The seat also has a vented panel which allows for climate control and a weather panel which can keep your child protected yet properly ventilated.  The Baby Jogger City Mini canopy hood is exceptionally good as it comes down quite far which protects from UV Rays yet has 2 viewing windows which allow you to see your child at all times.  The handlebar is rounded and lightly padded which allows you to push with comfort.
• WEAKNESSES:  The harness of the Baby Jogger City Mini is extremely adequate and secure but the padding on the crotch strap wore out quite quickly.  In our Baby Jogger City Mini, the storage basket strap frayed and ripped within 5 months of purchase.  The retailer we purchased it from replaced it without difficulty so this was easily remedied.  The raincover is a separate accessory to purchase.
• OPINION:  We are immensely happy with our Baby Jogger City Mini and only wish we had found it sooner.  It’s particularly effective when folding and storing it as you can fold it with a pull on a strap in the seat with one hand and thanks to it’s lightweight quality, it can be easily lifted with one hand and stored in the boot.  This is very helpful when you have one child on your hip and shopping to be put in the boot as well.  We’re looking at the next model up for a future purchase and if we ever need a double pushchair, we will definitely consider the Baby Jogger series first.
• TECHNICAL STUFF:  Weight- 7.6kg; Dimensions- 75 x 61 x 107cm unfolded, 77.4 x 62 x 21.5cm folded; Colours- Orange/Grey, Green/Grey, Black, Red/Cream; Accessories- raincover, universal mounting bar, child tray, parent console, liquid holster, changing bag; RRP- £199.99
• RATING: 5 out of 5

Baby Jogger Official Website

Kooltrade Limited- UK Distributor

Changing Bag Dilema Solved

Posted by cafebebemama on Aug 25, 2009 in Uncategorized | 1 comment

The lovely postman made a delivery this morning!  I love it when the postman rings!  He came bearing two gifts:

1) A SnugBaby sling from the lovely Claire.  She is one of my Mumpreneurs featured on my main site, Cafe Bebe, and asked me to trial one of her gorgeous slings.  I’m quite intrigued to do this as Little Miss is nearly 15 months and has never been “worn”.  We’ll have great fun trying this out.  A review will follow on Cafe Bebe.  Thank you Claire!

2) A SkipHop Duo Deluxe changing bag!  For a second I thought, “Hey- some wonderful company out there read my Changing Bag Dilema post and sent me a Skip Hop!  But then I realised from the label, addressed to my husband and myself, MY MOM sent me the Skip Hop!  My Mom, who’s all the way in Wisconsin in the US.  How wonderful is my Mom?  So thank you Mom.  We’ll put the Skip Hop to good use and will show it to you when we come to the US in October.  Love you!  A review of the Skip Hop will follow on Cafe Bebe.

What a great way to start the day!  Any more presents are more than welcome.