Just a Few Pics

Here are some pics of the boys I look after. This was taken around 6:30 am.  I have a "not-before-7" rule where they can do what they like, but I don't play games before 7 am.  Why they wake up before they need to is beyond me.  They don't need to be up before 7:30.  I couldn't help but snap a pic of them entertaining themselves.  Jack (older one) is filming Jude.  Jude is the sillier one who does all sorts of funny faces and voice impersonations.

The boys' birthdays are just one day apart so they share a birthday party.  This is the birthday invitation their dad made on the computer with the numbers on their jerseys showing how old they're turning.

And they brought me a T-shirt, pencil, and bookmark back from Malaysia.  I didn't realize that the building from the movie Entrapment was in Malaysia, but I recognized it right off from the movie.

Shortened Break Almost Over

Gosh, my 3 weeks off paid vacation turned into 2 weeks when I realized I had gotten the uni Easter Break mixed up with the kids' school break.  I'm not quite sure what I did with my time off, either.  I know I slept a lot at first, then had trouble sleeping the rest of the time.  We had a pizza and movie night on Easter Sunday with friends over, but we got to talking so much that we didn't get around to watching a movie even though lots of intriguing ones were brought.  Once we realized that we didn't really have time for a movie we played Apples to Apples.  It was still fun.  Adrian won and stayed the night.  The next day we watched the 11th season of Mash that Adrian brought over.  I hate that I only have the first 5 seasons over here.  I love that show.

I've been to a few softball practices which are over now.  Now it's just games and tournaments.  I have one game a week from the first week of May, but they're all on weeknights.  It's nice that we'll still have the weekends open for St John or camping etc.

Our friend, Micaela, Tim, and I went to the Roald Dahl museum in Great Missendon on the 12th.  It was small, but cute and worth the trip.  We went to a Chinese Restaurant afterward before heading back on the train, and Tim left his bag with ipad in the restaurant!  We didn't realize until we got off the train in London.  Since we had to go back the next day for the ipad we decided to make a camping trip of it and break in our new tent.  Other than being too cold at night we had an awesome time.  The only campsite around the station (2.3 mile walk away) was a farm with a small field where caravan vehicles could hook up.  We had the only tent there.  The farmers were very friendly and didn't mind us touring the farm looking at the animals.  The pigs seemed very interested in us and the geese were a little too interested in Yasmin.

Tim and I are working at the London Marathon next Sunday.  It's one of the biggest duties of the year.  I'm really looking forward to it.  I just hope the weather warms up.  It's been annoying lately.  The sun shines for about 5-20 min, then it clouds up, gets cold, maybe rains for 30 min, then cycles through again. I really hope the crazy weather fixes itself before Yasmin's bday because we're planning to spend all afternoon in an open field.

Expectant Moped and Easter Break

Well I didn't get the nannying job.  I wasn't really happy with the circumstances.  The interview was last minute and the lady at the agency didn't ask me about my schedule before booking an interview for me, so I had to go in between two St John duties that I had already committed to.  I had the Bop Friday night until 3 am, the interview Saturday morning at 10 am, then the Crystal Palace football duty 1:30-5:30.  I was kind of sleep deprived and just wasn't thinking on my feet.  Of course I thought of loads of good answers to the questions after the interview.  I'm going to keep looking for full-time jobs, though.  I wasn't actually looking before.

Tim just found out today that he didn't get his job either.  It really sucks because it was pretty much everything he had already done voluntarily.

I went ahead and ordered my moped last week, though.  It's supposed to arrive in the end of April, so I have until then to do the one-day course, find a helmet and lock, secure insurance, and anything else I might need to do for it.  The moped will help me cut down a lot on travel time and costs.

This is the start of my 3 week holiday from work.  The family is in Malaysia (the mom is from there) so I get to sleep in for 3 weeks, which is awesome!  We got Yasmin's birthday presents this week.  A bacon-flavored nylabone and a huge compressed rawhide bone that should take her a while.  We got some doggy chocolate for Easter while we were at it.  I thought it'd be fun to do something like an Easter egg hunt for her with the chocolate.  We're having a movie night on Easter and Rachel Bales is coming over to meet some Brits. : )

Tim and I are going with a friend from LINKS to the Roald Dahl museum on the 12th.  It'll be a day trip.  I think it's mostly a kids' museum, but I bet it'll be fun anyway.  I also found out that I will be able to be assessed at the new standards for first aid before the London Marathon.

Our friend, Ashley, is coming down in the end of the month on Yazzi's birthday for the weekend!  I'm hoping to see how he takes to softball at the Sunday practice.  On the Saturday he's going to a medical type conference so we were thinking about checking out the St John museum with some people from LINKS.

It looks like we have lots to look forward to in summer too.  Ashley invited us to Cornwall where he lives to go sailing, the olympics are bound to be eventful, Coldplay is coming to a stadium in London and I plan on signing up for the St John duty to go for free, and then Laura, Cassidy, and my parents are planning to visit.  In between Tim and I plan on finding some decent camp sites to try out our new tent.  Exciting stuff!!

Yasmin is doing well.  A cop came 'round yesterday to get an "impact statement" from Tim and me about the impact made on Tim and Yasmin short-term and long-term regarding the assault on the train.  They caught the guy and he has yet to plead guilty or not.  It sounds like he may plead not guilty based on the fact that he was drunk, but I don't see that going well for him.  Until this is over though, he's not allowed to go on the same route on the train that he did when he met Tim.  Yaz has gotten to go to the park plenty with the sun we've had lately.  We found a rubber stick in a shop today and got it for her.  It's even shaped like a stick with random knobs and the minute texture.  She loved it in the park.  Our park is too well-groomed.  It's hard for us to find decent sticks bigger than twigs for Yaz to fetch and chew on.