Living in America 2011

[MmeBucket]

We were a few messages away from being closed on the other one. Hope everyone finds me here.

Happy to hear that, spamm.

Been watching it all on the news, Spamm, dd got worried that our new cat would be scared - I explained that we're about 1,000 away! Just remembered that friends of ours were going to spend the weekend in N Carolina, so now wondering how they got on.

berri - Mad May Michigan Mumsnet Meetup? Marvellously Magical.

I used to live in a place called March, each March they would have a ___ (fill in the blanks, clue - the UK word for parade)

Hope everyone is OK.

Hello all - first day of school for my DS today in 1st grade, and all went great. I think he enjoyed it, although he seems really tired this evening. I am sure he will get used to it.

We had a weird situation come up - they sent his emergency contact card home for checking and signing. And they have listed his place of birth as Winchester, Ukraine - as I had put UK on the paperwork. DH and I have been giggling about it all evening!

Good news - we got notice this evening that our Green Cards have been approved and should be on their way shortly. Great news, because I am not sure I could stand to travel under advance parole again - the agonizing wait in the airport for 3 hours on return from our vacation in the UK (not Ukraine ) was a nightmare, even though we had been warned.

We did get to do our good deed though, we picked up a Polish student who did not have all his papers and so had missed his transport to Uni. He spent the night at our place and we dropped him there the next day, on the way to my parents' to pick up the dog. He was really sweet and we hope to have him to stay again on his way home.

kickass - hope your rash is better?

I'm glad everyone has escaped unscathed. There has been some extreme weather this year, hasn't there?

Glad your ds' first day went really well spamm and congratulations on the green cards!

Hope your rash is better, kickass.

We're just heading up to Portland tomorrow night after dh finishes work as our biometrics appointments are at 8am! We're turning straight back around as dd has her open house at Kindergarten that evening. I'm hoping I'll get chance to meet my cousin as she hasn't seen ds2 yet. We need to check the routes though as our normal one is closed due to a massive wildfire!

Hope everyone has a lovely evening.

tad, hope the bio thing goes quickly - you can never tell how long you'll be sitting around waiting, it's v frustrating.

spamm - great news about the green card. it really helped me to settle here once I knew we had some security.

my rash is better, but still itchy. feels like i have sand caught in my clothes. i'm on steroids & there's a warning that if you don't come off them gradually, you could have 'psychotic episodes'!!! I am being very good about taking them correctly.

did I mention that we've got a cat? Friends of ours had a boy 18 months ago & he's had endless problems with his ears. After various treatments it was suggested that they re-home the cat, so we took the cat on a trial period. their little boy has improved drastically - his speech, behaviour, concentration, breathing, sleep etc. dh, who is allergic to some cats, appears to be coping with the hair & dd is beyond delighted. The cat is called Tobey, he's golden & long-haired & tones perfectly with our carpets & furniture. He likes to sleep on the bed next to me and dd terrorises him, but his last home had 3 young kids so he just takes it.

Hope everything goes smoothly for you, Tad. We keep threatening to go to Bend, but never seem to follow through on that, so maybe sometime we can do a meetup.

Kickass, that is so lovely about taking in the cat.

Things went fairly well in Portland and had a brief wonder round a couple of shops. Hope the green card will arrive soon! Bend is lovely and well worth a visit, but I would get here by mid-October or wait until the winter if you like winter sports.

OK all - I am wondering whether somebody is trying to send us a message. After the heatwave, earthquake, and hurricane, we now have the Flood!

It was crazy, but I had to wade - yes, WADE - out of the office today, under mandatory evacuation, to get my car and drive home through mad rain. We had knee high water just outside the office, but luckily my car was on the 2nd floor of the garage. This is the car park opposite our office today!

Panda - if you are around, am thinking about you and I wish we could send some of the rain your way.

Hope you are all doing well - and nobody is involved in the big outage in California.

That would seriously, seriously, seriously freak me out, spamm. I'm glad you and your car were safe.

Hope you are all ok spamm and you have somewhere to go if you are evacuated from home too. Wish they could gather all the rain and dump it on the wildfires in the rest of the country.

In good news: dd started Kindergarten today and loved it!

soooo,

I have been asked to do an audition tape for Cupcake Wars!!
I don't have an asst. baker & I'm all in a tizz.

Woohoo! Go Kickass!

While Cupcake Wars isn't my favorite show, you need to go find yourself an assistant, and audition. Our family would happily watch and cheer you on.

Happy your DD loved Kindergarten. It seems to be a trend, as mine hasn't stopped talking about it or her first bus ride all weekend.

OK, found an asst. Got the taping done. discovered that the camera person got 'pause' and 'record' mixed up so there's all the crap in between & hardly any of the actual stuff we wanted. Sorted that out.

Now I can't get the video off the memory chip onto the computer.

IF this was a practical problem, I'd just deal with it, but cos it's technology I can't & it totally frustrates me. I have til Tuesday to get this done.

Bollocks.

So how did it go, Kickass?

Yeah - Kickass, am dying to hear. I love that show, and it would be fab to say: I "know" that person!

Keep us updated! Let us know if we need to vote for you!

Hope all is well with everybody else. Off to eat my curry - Yummy!

got it done in the end, but with all the probs I had, and the tight deadline, it's nowhere near as good as I'd like - and, of course, I've thought of some better ideas since!

anyway! emailed it off and have heard nothing.

no idea if I ever will. no idea how many people they get to do tapes, or how they chose or anything!

I'm sort of assuming that if I hear nothing, it means they're not interested.

If I do end up on the show, I shall be telling EVERYONE, promise.

In the meantime, my teaching job is keeping me busy - off for 'outward bounds' team building thing next week - I get to sleep with the kids and everything. I suspect I'll be tired when I get back.

Can we e-mail them and tell them we want to see you?

How's everyone else? We have soccer here, so 4 days a week of practice, games or a combination of both. DS had a game tonight, and I was really impressed, because there were Biblical plague proportions of gnats flying around the fields, and all the players just got on with it, even though they were a bunch of easily distracted 7 and 8 year old boys. His team is rolling this year. They play the first half, and go up by so many points, the coach will tell them to quit scoring and just pass the ball around.

Omg Mmebucket - 4 days a week is impressive. It must be exhausting for the family.

DS, who is 6, and I went for our first bike ride together today - was so much fun, despite the fact that he started whining on the way back, because he was tired. I now have a sore bum, I have not been on my bike for at least 12 months.

I also made him try on all his autumn clothes this morning so we could put the ones too small into the charity box and buy him some more that fit him. He has been pulling his underwear out of his bottom for days, because they are so small, so I had to do something quick, it was getting too embarrassing.

Anyway, hope you are all well! Take care.

can I join you all? I have been living in the usa for seven years (nyc and now nj) and been on mn for three -cant believe I haven't found this before!
DS as 14 months and DH has taken him and the dog to the swings. . . may try for a bit more kip. . . I hope everyone has this lovely autumn weather we're having!

Blackcurrants - the thread is slow right now, it comes and goes, but stick with, everybody is great and lots of nice stories and support for each other.

I have been here nearly two years, just outside DC. Has been lonely but gets better very day.

Hello to everybody else, hope the new school year is going ok.

Hello blackcurrants! This thread has been incredibly slow over the summer and the first month of school.

We are doing swimming lessons twice a week and starting soccertots next week. The baby just gets packed along wherever we are!

Have you heard anything yet kickass?

hello! I have a bike too, and ride it as part of my bike-train-train-subway commute. So far I have chickened out of attaching a seat for DS but I do fancy the idea. Our new suburb is just far enough from the post office etc. (20 min walk)for DS to be grumpy in his pushchair before we even get rou.d the shops. DH needs the car to get to work. . . I was spoiled by nyc public transport!