I am officially the WORST blogger in the history of blogging! I think I wanted to do this for people at home who might be interested(!?!?) and to keep a record of what we've been getting up to in this weird and wonderful world that is the United States.
But now this place feels like home. We've been here for seven and a half months and all those things that I thought would be funny to blog about have now become normal...! Despite the familiarity of it all I'm determined to try again, kind of like a new years resolution.
We are surrounded by a good 8 inches of snow at the moment and the place is looking rather beautiful. Today was bright with sunshine and blue skies, I just wished we were in a ski resort or that I had some langlauf skis! It's also really really cold so I think we'll be all white for a while!
The latest recruits have arrived and I spent yesterday persuading them to join our English class. There seem to be some very nice new Internationals, especially our Brits/Bavarians who have been staying for a few days while they get settled. I've also been getting some baby sitting practice in with Jasper (gorgeous 4 month old)!
Girlie cinema trip tomorrow night to see The King's Speech and to indulge in some Britishness! For now back to the fire side and a toasty hot chocolate! x

So much time has passed since I last blogged that I've forgotten what's been going on... Got out of sync with the writing as had to return to England for 2 weeks.
Have been back in Kansas for three weeks now and we've been extraordinarily busy! "too blessed to be stressed" though, I quote from one of the police men on the Fort Leavenworth Post gate! Followed swiftly by "have a great day ma'am", which I fully intend to do! We have joined the FL Hunt, which involves signing up for the '8easy' which is getting to know your horse/riding lessons/hunting etiquette etc. It is brilliant. J has a horse called Tucker (the bucker) which doesn't bode well (though he's more like a comfy old armchair) and i'm on the Artful Dogder! J has taken to it like a duck to water, I on the other hand came flying off the other day having attempted a jump at a canter and landed very heavily on my ass! Still hobbling around three days later! Good to get the first fall out of the way I feel... hmmm?!? The first of many apparently on Dodger! J has bought a set of golf clubs and has been bullied into playing a competition - could be entertaining, he's not a natural golfer(according to him) though his driving is significantly better than mine as I almost took the nose off the lady teeing off next to me!
I'm settling well into my 'Internship' with Robin. We are having a wonderful time and she is teaching me so much - anyone need an interior designer? Watch this space.It's such fun spending someone else's money on lovely stuff!
We attended the Military Order of World Wars Ball in Kansas City a couple of weeks ago. Not a patch on our Military balls but great fun none the less and a very ecclectic mix of Internationals and Americans. Sooo many Canadians! Topped off with a drive thru McDonalds on the way home (where's the kebab van and cheeesie chips when you need them?). We've been BBQing with the Aussies, drinking wine with the Israelis (genuine Israeli wine!) and keeping it real with our fellow Brits!
Teaching of the International wives starts next week as does the quilting! So we're going to get busy and next weekend is Independence weekend which will see us off to The Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri for a drunken (sorry mum) time with our sponsors. Happy days!

An exciting week has just passed and the hunt for a 2nd car! Armed with a Craigs List of rusty old trucks longer than my arm, we set off on an intrepid adventure. Into Missouri we went, miles from anywhere, down a dirt track, and there we found Dora the Ford Explorer! A charming couple(?!?), living in a tiny shack, which they both struggled to get in and out of, were getting rid of their 11 yr old SUV. She is apparently perfectly sound, just a faulty brake light and the engine light warning flashing... "oh that's been on all the time we've had it"! 1 mile down the road and we stop to get a new bulb, but it's not a faulty bulb, then we try to change the fuse, neither of us have much car knowledge! 2 hours later we're cruising home, in convoy, but Dora has no number plate so we were a little concerned about being pulled over. Anyway, we made it home and J has been tinkering away with her for most of the weekend and she is now totally road worthy, taxed and plated up and good to go, as they say! So, i'm an independent woman now and it couldn't have come a minute too soon!
Today saw us girls proudly admiring our husbands as they collected their Honorary Citizenship of Leavenworth! We dined with the mayor and his colleagues (think we got the bum table!) and J received a nice certificate and a coin. Tomorrow sees the start of the wives orientation! I have no idea what this entails, except name tags and much coffee drinking. It will be a good chance for us internationals to get to know each other. Then following this more ice-breaking with each other and more meeting of sponsors. Life is really very good right now and we are feeling very lucky for it. The deck is looking like a jungle, with tomatoes and 'erbs and lilies, a new hibiscus (the raccoon has stayed away so far) and a beautiful purple Angelonia! oh, and i'm becoming a bit of a sewing geek and am almost done running up a pair of roman blinds! (quite the perfect house wife!? ha ha). In fact while searching for 'blind rings' the man in the hard wear store directed me to an '-poultry' place. I couldn't quite understand and asked if this was where they kept chickens... he really meant upholstery! Yikes, I must get better at this.
Also have a potential voluntary job on the horizon in an interior design shop... maybe she'll pay me in kind? Here's hoping!
xx

4th July weekend - Independence Day

Sorry about the delay, again. Rather dampened by the torrential downpour, we avoided the hugely advertised Post fireworks, for Independence day, and saw a few pathetic sparklers shooting up from our neighbour's driveway. must have been for health and safety reasons, but they set them off at about 5pm... a little disappointing, fireworks in broad daylight! However, i think my brother more than made up for it in NY where they saw a display of 40,000 fireworks! there have been a few more American flags around, if you could squeeze them in, but apart from that nothing out of the ordinary for this glorious weekend in the land of the free.

English week...

This past week has seen the arrival of 160 British Majors from Shrivenham to Fort Leavenworth (something that happens twice yearly). A few old faces from the past have appeared and new friendships have been forged. It is a little weird to have this English invasion, so soon after leaving Blighties dusty (?wet) soils, but nice all the same. We were invited to a traditional Kansas 'smoke-out'/BBQ on the Brit's first night in town, 2 Americans and about 15 of 'us'! Jeannie, the quilting queen, hosted us beautifully and even the burnt baked beans tasted good. Thursday night saw us lording it up at some cocktail party hosted by the Brits, and then down to the High Noon Saloon, our local drinking establishment, for some local beer and Kareoke! Our bank manager is also the barmaid there! It is a great place from where to people watch, but I was suffering from very sunburnt legs, and when we tumbled out into the street at half ten I was expecting to see some tumbleweed come whisping down the dark alley and some drunk rednecks to pounce on us! We eventually found a taxi and made it home.
Since then the course, for J, has really started. We had an International students Ice Breaker BBQ on Friday night and wandered round with name tags on trying to make friends! From a quick glance the Aussies seem great fun, the Spaniards, the French canadians and the Danes. The Bangladeshis also seemed lovely and I can't remember many of the others, we met most of the African students in one go, all the men, didn't seem to have any wives present. I think it's going to be a fun year getting to know them all better. This seems to be just the beginning of the gettin' to know ya functions!
Sunday was spent with our sponsors at the Kansas Royals v St Louis Cardinals baseball match - the local derby, so to speak, and we won! It was a great experience, our sponsors could not be nicer and we were with her Rotary Club, so were well looked after!
J has gone on a tour of Kansas City with his class mates today and I am home alone... prepping for a barbie for some Brit mates and doing some work!
p.s. Tomato plants coming along nicely, no real tomatoes as yet!

Yikes! Have been very poor at updating the blog! last time I started to write was a slightly shameful day on the sporting front for England! Though we didn't leave the England/USA match with our heads totally down, a draw is better than a loss... i think, it was pretty embarassing to be a minority group amongst a lot of locals! And there has been little good sporting news since then. I don't really care about football though, am currently listening to a live feed from Wimbledon which is much more exciting! Makes me feel very far from home though.
We have been in Kansas for almost 3 weeks now and last week we had a little escape to Chicago. What an amazing city. An architectural and cultural feast! We dined on Monet and Matisse at the Art Institute and drank in the art deco and post modernist buildings. We managed to fit in a lot of good meals and a baseball match too, at the iconic Wrigley field, home to the Chicago Cubs. I had to get myself a cap (i'm a true fan after all), which no doubt will go down well when i wear it to the Kansas Royals game on Sunday. The drive took nine hours each way which seemed like nothing. We broke it up with a few obligatory stops at road side diners and we even saw some Amish folk.
Back in the epicentre of America now, and happily J still hasn't started work. We joined a whole gang of Brits at a true American 'Smoke out' on Saturday night which was a delicious treat and Jeannie (our hostess) is my key to a future of quilting and teaching!
The tomoatoes are doing well on the deck. The hibiscus, however, has been completely demolished by some nasty racoon and is just a cluster of twigs now. Very sad. On a good note though we have discovered a supermarket selling more than muffin mixes... aspargus and artichokes! Hurray! xx

Leaving TJMax the other day we were engulfed by extreme, humid, heavy heat and the sky was black. As we headed home the radio was alive with tornado warnings and things were getting a little fruity. Having supper with friends later that night we couldn't decide whether it was the margaritas taking effect or if the sky really had gone green. This is what happens when there is a tornado coming! The air was completely still, no birdsong, nothing... we waited... and waited... and thankfully no tornado came (by this time we had of course forgotten what we were waiting for!).

We have just driven off the forecourt and onto our drive way in our new SUV! Sadly not as big as the rental truck, but I think it will do! We also have a house full of stuff! Our container arrived yesterday and we spent a long time unpacking and trying to find homes for things. Pictures still to be hung and shoes to be stowed into my walk-in-closet, all in good time!

The tomatoes are all nicely potted in and the hibiscus is flowering!