Living in America 2011

[MmeBucket]

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

Thanks for the tip, blackcurrants! I went onto MeetUp.com when I moved to London then forgot about it but agree it's a good way to start. Will do the region-specific as I know how proud NYers are about their territory!

7 months is hilariously fun most of the time, as DS has just enough chub for me to pinch all day long and is generally very happy (and messy from the eating)! I imagine that 15 months is fun AND very busy!

it is indeed!

Wow, the temperature just dropped here in NJ, and by dropped I mean plummetted. I must dig out my proper winter stuff (lots of deeply unsexy thermals) because a longsleeved teeshirt and hefty fleece (covered in peanut butter and the magic insulating yoghurtsmear) is NOT cutting it.

How's everyone? Has fall really arrived for you all?

rainy & dull here & getting colder, but not yet properly cold.

i'm teaching 2 students who recently moved here - one from belgium, the other from atlanta - i keep telling them, buy a GOOD coat. the first winter here i didnt have a proper one, and I was so miserable! i remember going on a field trip with dds class to a local park when it was around 0F.

now i have snow boots and a lovely lovely snow coat (fondly strokes the coat)

It has gone from really warm/hot to more than a little chilly this week. I hope we don't have a really short fall.
ckny - I'm in the South, Arkansas, to be precise. I have actually traveled fairly extensively around the US although there are still a few states in the Midwest that I haven't made it to.
New York is so amazing! I have never lived there but would love to do so at some point.

Another southerner here checking in - South Carolina.
The temps have really dropped here this week, but still comfortable upper seventies and sunny during the day. A nice change after blistering heat and humidity!

heh, I would be jealous, Hootie, but I can't cos I rather like these crisp autumn mornings.
My turn for a lie-in this morning, so when I surfaced around 8am I found DH had put the heating on. As he said, "I can't be a proper dad cos it's before 1st Nov!" But yes, summer has officially gone.

Looking out the window it looks like it will be a very crisp autumn day, shame there are not piles of leaves to kick through yet. We went to trunk and treat at my dd's school last night and I got to try out my fleece lined tights, they were cosy. Must remember where I bought them!

i think we're further ahead with fall - plenty of leaves here, heating (set to 68, so not that high) kicks in every morning, and by the time I get home from work the house has cooled back down to low 60s or high 50s.

this weekend is dry & sunny - temps in the low 60s, so we're rushing around doing the 'winterization' this weekend. dh has just walked past me with a look - guess I should get back to it.

Ckny1, Oregon is very nice. I am also partial to parts of upstate New York and lots of New England, too. I hold on to this bizarre dream of moving to Maine someday.

I feel like jumping in on the travel thing, too. I've been to 30-I-forgot-exactly-how-many states. If you go from North Dakota all the way south, I haven't been to any of those, and have missed multiple states in the South and West Virginia.

It kind of feels like fall here, but it is warm enough I opened a few windows in the house today. Fall can come in exactly one week, after the DC's last soccer game, which they'll both have at 9 in the morning. Then we're on to indoor sports.

I agree with MmeBucket - Oregon is beautiful! The trees have gone a gorgeous colour here and the sunshine is really helping it look stunning!

And in other news - we've got our green cards! Thank goodness for that! So excited and we are going out for dinner tonight.

I've only been to Oregon, Washington, California, Hawaii and spent a couple of summers in Wisconsin as a kid. Does driving along the Idaho side of Hells Canyon for a couple of hours count?

That absolutely counts.

Congratulations on your green cards! Have a wonderful dinner.

Yeah, congrats on your GC, jenny! It seems you've been to the most exotic parts of the US so far (minus Wisconsin! :) )

Bucket, I also dream of just visiting Maine, as well as the rest of New England.

It's been sunny most of the week in London so far so I hope it'll stay like this until we leave (sometimes I think it's a myth about the rainy weather in the UK). Am getting a bit sad...

Okay, should start our packing today for our move this week, yikes! :)

yay congratulations of your Green Cards :)

I have always fancied Maine too - I blame my own cold (often snowy) North Yorks childhood, Maine looks like Northumberland to me, only (of course) bigger. I have a friend who's just moved there for a year's contract (She's from Herts but was working with me in NYC), and she says so far it is absolutely beautiful and already nearly 10 degrees (F) colder than NYC!

That means she's going to have a VERY cold Dec-March, I suspect. I can't really get my head around that kind of cold!

But over here (last winter anyway) I found that you spend so much time in cars or in warm rooms that you don't really notice the cold. But god forbid the heating broke down.
Tadjennyp how did you end up in Wisconsin for summers as a kid? Just seems a very random place to holiday. And big congratulations on the greencards!
States that I have been to: NJ, NY, Washington State, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC. Think that is it. I really want to do New England in the fall, maybe next year. In fact I'd like to see as many different places in the states as I can, so perhaps will try and persuade DH to do a roadtrip next year.

frida I would also love to do a big roadtrip across the states. When I was 16 I did a mini-one with a friend of mine, we got to Oklahoma and then turned around (we hadn't told our parents ) ...

I'd really like to do that this coming summer, depending on how TTC goes.

tad, Hell's Canyon is an awesome rafting trip if you ever get the chance.

I'm tempted by the idea of a road trip, but there are some very loooooong stretches with not much to do, so you have to plan carefully.

hi all - can I join? We're moving to LA in Jan/Feb, DH is there at the moment, back in a few weeks so I'm single parenting our toddler while 35 weeks pregnant and it's really hitting me how much help and support I have at home and how on my own I'm going to be when we move.

But we're going for the adventure, think we're intending to go for a few years, and if we're going to do it, now is the perfect time for our family.

Read the last few pages, one thing that does attract me is the opportunity to travel throughout the states and maybe some of central america - I am actally generally really excited, but our visas are yet to come through so am also a bit nervous that we're making all these plans but until I have that visa I'm not convinced it's happening!

Will prob just lurk for a while but hope you don't mind me asking advice in the run up to our move (might get the whole baby birthing out the way first!)

congrats on your soon-to-be addition, Girlwith - we moved here with a sense of "heck, we don't have any kids yet, why not?" and we both like it a LOT.

I bought bags and bags and bags of halloween goodies at the wholesale place we use this weekend. Then, in Target, DH muttered about how we don't have much storage space and we shouldn't get too much in the way of decorations. The ONE string of pumpkin lights we ended up getting looked SO paltry and pathetic compared to the houses that are done up beautifully on our street (we're talking whole graveyards, noises, smoke machines... my DM would call it "very ott" but I think it's fun) that we actually took them down again, and are still debating whether to go fully-Halloween-crazy, or get two glowing pumpkins for the steps and be done with it.

(glowing pumpkins! Yay!)

We also bought ds a costume. Last year he didn't have one, this year I spent $10 on one that looks like waistcoat-hoodie, and is a lovely little dog with a cute tail. He looks great in it (of course!) and doesn't automatically try to pull it off in rage... which is good! I am starting to look forward to all the kids on our block getting dressed up, it can be extremely cute. Does anyone else on here get into the spirit of the thing?

I'm really excited about Halloween in the states because it's also DS' birthday so hopefully next year (when he's 4) he'll think it's all for him rather than his birthday being overshadowed by it

AND we're hoping this baby will be born a few days late so next year her birthday will be on thanksgiving!

Ds2's 1st birthday fell on Thanksgiving. We made a turkey-shaped cake with pumpkin added to a white cake recipe. He loved it!

a turkey shaped cake? amazing! We still have DS's first birthday pumpkin outfit I'm hoping just to resuse for DD

Congratulations, GirlWith! Very exciting year to come for all of you!

Blackcurrants, I'm with you on the excitement of dressing up our LOs and having trick or treaters (though in NYC not many, though the 6th Ave parade will be a blast!) My feeling is that if you carve the coolest pumpkin (s) ever, that should do as opposed to wasting your money on decorations.

Thanksgiving is my absolute fav holiday, so I'm excited to be home for it this year and for my DH to experience it, finally! Wish my b-day would fall on it! :) (Though shouldn't complain as it's 2 days after Halloween, which was fun growing up).

the mums at dd's school are spending days decorating the school for halloween - so far we have a life size mummy, black curtains draped across the hallway & patterned boards covering all the walls.

the lower school have a whole day of activities - dd hasn't realised yet quite how much fun she'll have!