Laundry battle

I never knew how easy laundry was in the US, until we got here!  This machine here is called an integrated washer/dryer.  It is supposed to wash and dry your clothes.  The problem is, to do this, it would take about eight hours, then you would have a load of clean, dry, and incredibly wrinkled clothes!  Also, this integrated machine is much smaller than US machines.

So, in order to not get behind with the laundry, I've learned, I just need to deal with getting the laundry out when it's not completely dry.  But, what to do with it, when I get it out of the machine has evolved.

First, I thought it would be best to just lay in out on our bed to dry.

Then I learned (the hard way) that some of the clothes share their colors with the white bedding (ooops).

After a week or so, I found the drying rack in the laundry closet, so that is what we've been using since.

So, now, the drying rack lives in the hallway or living room full time.  Why put it away one afternoon, just to get it back out the next day?!?

But, the clothes do come out quite wrinkly if I overload the machine.  This is a pair of the my jeans that came, mostly dry, out of the washer/dryer.  Why I do think it's ridiculous to iron jeans, i couldn't possible wear these without ironing them!   

In the last eight weeks, I at least know to only use the "Daily Clean" setting on the w/d machine, which only takes about 4 hours, but the clothes do come out quite damp.  This way, the only clothes I really have to iron are Kyle's work clothes and church clothes.  So I do feel like I've learned a bit, only to have to relearn it all over when we finally get into a house!

So to all our American friends and family, please remember this the next time you complain about doing your laundry!!

Fathers Day at the Highland Games

We enjoyed wonderful weather on Father's Day at the Highland Games in Aberdeen.  You can read more about the highland games here.  Here's a few pictures of our fun.

Too sunny to smile!  Great problem to have!

Hammer toss

Judges measuring.  The old Scottish men were so cute in their kilts!

A pipe band marching to the competition site.  They also had individual bagpipe competitions.

Scottish dancing competition

More dancing, wish I had a video of it, very fun to watch!

They also had carnival type rides that the kids enjoyed.  Of course they don't tell you how much they cost until after you put your children on! £2=$3 each per ride!

The big hit was a rock wall for children to climb, and J couldn't wait to try it out!  He waited at least 30 minutes in line to get a turn!  Before getting the gear on him, the guy walked J up to the height requirement pole, and he was just barely tall enough!

All ready to go!!

He did great!

Ready to come down, he really enjoyed just hanging out!

Other fun things the kids enjoyed were giant bubbles and a small 9-hole put put course.

By mid-afternoon, the kids were hot, tired, and ready to go home, but overall, it was a wonderful way to spend fathers day with a wonderful husband and father!

Adjusting to a Foreign Land

First off, if we haven't gotten to skype or facetime with you yet, I'm so sorry!  I'm not sure where the last six weeks have gone!  I never have been homesick before, so it's quite a new feeling.  The combination of missing everyone, living in FIVE rooms (the compartment), finding a new church, being unprepared to live with very few items that we packed in our luggage and air shipment for over 6 weeks (it will end up being 10-12 weeks), all the food stuff (more on that later), and well basically everything else that goes along with moving to a foreign land has been a challenge to say the least!

BUT...my world is slowing, VERY SLOWING, getting better.  Deep down I know that He put us here for a reason, and that most people would give anything to have this experience of living here, so I'm determined to stop sulking and make the most of it!  We hope to be into a house by the beginning to mid August, just in time for Jake to start Kindergarten at the International School of Aberdeen (ISA), as if there aren't enough HUGE changes going on!!

One of the biggest things to be thankful for is making a few new friends.  Most people who know me would be very surprised to know that I am quite shy and don't really like going out of my comfort zone.  Making friends is like dating, and that is something I was hoping I'd never have to do again!  Thankfully, there is a American Women of Aberdeen (AWA) group here, that has really made the difference.  Through that I've also found an AWA playgroup, as well as Aberdeen Women's Fellowship (AWF).

So as I adjust to life in this foreign land, I will try to be better at blogging about all our adventures!

Our Compartment :)

Welcome to our compartment, aka our apartment!

If you want our address, just let us know.  No, I do not have any idea how long we will be here, it's all dependent on when we find a house, and how soon we can get in that house.  I'm pretty sure we will be here until at least after a special boy's birthday.  Also, we don't get to see any of our sea shipment items until we move into a house.  Glad I have a few toys hidden still, so they don't get bored with what they have here!

View from right inside our front door.  The kids room is immediately to the left (out of view), then the family bathroom, and the laundry closet.  The main living area/kitchen room is at the far end.

Kitchen side of the room (door to get in is at the right and currently closed in picture).

All appliances are hidden!  The freezer is the funny little door on the far left with the clear drawers.  The fridge is to the right of double convection ovens.

I'm actually getting used to the tiny fridge!

Living room, dining room side.

All the rooms have a door, kinda weird, but I'm getting used to it.  The main living room is to the right, our bedroom is to the left.

Our room.  VERY hard getting used to sleeping in this bed, which is probably about a queen, maybe a smidge smaller (UK bed sizes are different, much smaller than US sizes).

The ONLY dresser in the apartment (to left of bed)!  Top drawer is extra toiletries that aren't used daily, middle drawer is HIS, bottom drawer is mine.  Hard going from a very large dresser AND chest of drawers to this!

My closet

My "vanity".  Neither bathroom has outlets in the bathroom, so this is where I get ready!

Only enough walking space at end of the bed!  Our bathroom to the left of closets.

Our tiny bathroom, his side...

her side

So thankful this shower has decent water pressure!

Laundry closet with INTEGRATED washer and dryer.  What that means is that it takes FOREVER to wash and dry one tiny load of laundry!  THIS DRIVES ME BANANAS!  I try to do one load everyday, or I get behind!

Family bathroom, basically the kids bathroom.  As you can see we use their shower for bike storage and laundry drying.

Kids bedroom.  The left closet has extra clothes from airshipment, plus bulky suitcases.  The right closet is for their clothes (see below).  Thankfully the management company traded out the double bed for two singles for us!

Kids toys and play space!

Besides being on the small size, I really do like our apartment.  I love how the living room and kitchen are in one room, it's where we spend the majority of the day.  I do loathe that it sounds like a heard of elephants when the kids run down the hall.

House Hunting

For the past two weeks, we have been living in an apartment as we try to find a house to lease.  We've looked at 10-12 houses, but we are still looking!  Aberdeen has a very limited number of houses available to lease and many are on the market for less than a week!  We found several that we liked, but while we waited to hear back about our favorite house, the other two got leased, and we finally found out our favorite was above our housing allowance.  Here are just a few pictures of the many things we found while house hunting.

This semi detached house has only one garage, which is the norm for most Aberdeen homes, if they have one at all.

Many have LOTS of windows to let the light in, which is great except in the summer when there is less than 6 hours of darkness!

Some of the amazingly updated kitchens....oh how I would love a kitchen like this!

Double sinks....a rare find!

AMAZING crown molding on a terraced home that is nearly 150 years old!  Terraced homes are a bunch of town homes all squeezed together, there are 10-15 on a block all connected. 

All homes have radiators here (the long white thing under the window sill).

I don't even remember how many different "coloured" carpets we found!  (Should I start spelling words the British way?)

Aberdeen is known as the granite city and many houses are made with granite.  The biggest man-made hole in Europe is in Aberdeen where the Rubislaw Quarry was utilized to build most of the stone buildings in the 20th century in Britain.

Many homes have entire rooms full of windows.  I guess this way you can enjoy the outdoors, without freezing your behind off!

Many homes have unique and colorful colour schemes in the toilets (what they call bathrooms).

A separate washer and dryer, even if they are small, are quite the luxury from "integrated" washer & dryers, more on that later!

Every home needs a built-in sauna, right?!

Who doesn't need a bidet in their home?

A common sight is having a sink/vanity in bedrooms.  I'm not sure why this house had two bedrooms with them though, since there were 2 full baths and 2 half baths.

Heated towels racks, a must in every house we saw!

Every single garage we saw was exclusively used for storage!