The Call of the Stage

For the last few months Rayna has been working very hard and practising for her play "The Wizard of OZ".  Rayna played a munchkin and really enjoyed being on the stage.  On the final night we all went along to watch and were joined by papa Bobby and Marti.  The play was great and as expected Rayna did really well and made us all very proud.

 It appears that Raynas isn't the only member of the family that feels the draw of the stage.  Tyler was recently chosen to play the part of Mr. Muffett in his school play "Mother Goose Rocks".   As you can see from the video below, he was a star and performed fantasticly. 

It's Baseball Season

So it's baseball season and both Tyler and Rayna have decided they wanted to be in teams this year, Hannah decided against it.  Rayna plays for the Pretty Pink Panthers and Tyler plays for the Gators.

 Watching the games can be quite fun especially Tylers team who at the start of the season struggled to understand the rules, on hitting the ball and being told to run they would, in any direction they thought was good.  Also when fielding they would flock to the ball ending up with a scrimmage of kids all fighting to get the ball (more often than not Tyler would come up with it).

To help Rayna with her batting we went to a batting cage a week or so ago and her sister came along to try out to, you can see the video below of them hitting the balls.

Although we paid for an hour the nice man in charge allowed us at least an hour and a half.  After a few minutes both girls got the hang of it and really started hitting the ball well.

So far both Tylers and Raynas teams have only won one game each but they've been close in several games and are having good fun with their friends.

 

Hannah the Photographer

Hannah lines up another shot

 This weekend we had a senior shoot in Baton Rouge.  Rayna stayed at a friends house and Tyler was with his dad.  Hannah however decided to stay with us and come on the shoot.  It turned out to be a good choice as she had her own fun with a mini photo shoot with the girls who were happy to pose for her, inbetween shoots and her mum.

One of Hannahs shots of her mum

Here's one of Hannahs shot of her mum, I'm loving the action and the angle chosen to make the photography more dynamic and interesting.  I think we have a new photographer in the family.  

Hannah poses for her mum

 When we had finished the shoot the first thing she said was, when can I have a camera like this? Encouraging signs that she's really finding something she may enjoy and I'm guessing it won't be too long before she gets that camera she's been wanting.

A second set of wheels + Tyler plays in a mud puddle

Yay we now are officially a two car family so now one of us doesn't have to be house bound whilst the other is at work.  Oh thats another thing that has happened since we last updated, Martin finally got his permission to work in the US through.  Things are finally starting to get a little easier.

Our new wheels are a 97 Toyota Corolla, it doesn't have many bells and whistles but its exactly what was needed at this moment.

 On another note, we've had a lot of rain lately which has left us with quite a few very damp areas on the lawns and several mud puddles.  Of course just because its wet out unlike England it doesn't necessarily have to be cold, a perfect combination of a warm sunny day and mud puddles is something Tyler loves, not much of a favourite for his mum though :0).

Tylers School Trip to Baton Rouge Zoo

Waiting to be let into the zoo

Just before the Christmas break Tylers school organised a trip to the Baton Rouge Zoo.  It had been scheduled for a few weeks earlier but due to bad weather it had to be postponed. 

There were lots of animals to see, including birds, gators and several different types of monkey.  All too soon it was time to go home, but the children seemed to have had a good time and were all exhausted for the bus ride back.

Christmas is Coming

The house all lit up

At the weekend it was time to open the boxes of Christmas decorations and to set about making the house looking festive.  We have miles of exterior lights so next year we may really go for it.  It took most of the day to put up the exterior lights and Hannah and Rayna were a real help holding the ladder when needed.

The tree inside

Inside the house the brand new Christmas tree take pride of place next to the window.  the kids had great fun decorating.  Tyler was especially happy, when he ran out of ornaments he went on to use some of his toys under the tree.  First of all his cars then planes then finally they were joined by Buzz Lightyear and Woody.  They looked so good we decided to keep them there.  We also were able to add the decoration we bought in Scotland last year.  

Tyler adds his own ornaments under the tree

Just a few more weeks of school and we're all set for Santa to come calling!  Although if Tyler had his way he'd eat all of the chocolates in his advent calender to make it come quicker.

Our family ornament

Central Christmas Parade

Getting ready for the parade to pass

 So its the time of year for the Central Christmas parade.  This year we met up with Chelsea and Josh with Braydon.  Tyler was with his dad for the weekend (much to Braydons disgust).

It's not Christmas till you've seen the Coca-Cola truck

 As always much candy was thrown and caught as well as several nice toys, that the kids managed to get.  As an added bonus Chelsea decided to treat us all with some of her latest dance moves (watch the video) ;0)

 

Cheering for beads / candy

Trick or Treat

All dressed and ready to trick or treat

Haloween night is a much bigger event over here in the States than it is in England.  Many of the houses make a great effort and decorate and all the children go door to door collecting candy (sweets).

In the picture above you can see this year Hannah wore her Zebra costume, Rayna was a fairy and Tyler was a Ninja.

As you can see in the video Dawn probably got the biggest scare of the evening.  Everyone had great fun and the kids now have enough candy to last the whole year. 

Homecoming Week

The Door to Dawns Classroom

Dawn as the fairy godmother

Last week was "homecoming week" at the school Dawn teaches at (Central High).  Homecoming is a celebration of the football team and includes a day of festivities, which included various displays in the school gymn then a parade around the school on floats (made by the students) and finally ending in a football game.


This year the classes were tasked with decorating their classroom doors in a theme.  Dawns theme was Disney and she and her class set about creating their own version of Disneylands entrance.  All of trhe students faces were photoshopped onto a Disney character and added to the door causing much hilarity throughout the school.  

As you can see Dawn was characterised as the fairy god mother from Cinderella.

The football game was a real close game with Central really struggling in the first half.  The second half they found their way and just managed to come away with the win in the dieing seconds.

One of the floats to celebrate homecoming

School Trip to Port Hudson

Hannah, Rayna and some of their friends

Last week, Hannah and Raynas school took a visit to Port Hudson where they were taught all about life in Louisiana during the civil war.  It was an open day so Martin went along and enjoyed learning all about the historic site.

There was much to see but the most popular part was probably watching the big cannons being fired. 

 


 

Getting ready to play town ball

Watching the blacksmith work

Some of the children learn about the medical treatments on the battlefield

Learning about the rifle

Eating lunch at the end of the day

A Visit from Hurricane Isaac

Hannah and Tyler maker their own entertainment

 One of the drawbacks of living in a really hot state located near the sea is the threat in the summer of Hurricanes.  This year we were visited by Hurricane Isaac.  As hurricanes go this was a reasonably light one, although it stretched out to cover 400 miles across.  The problem with Isaac was it was very slow moving so when it came with its winds of upt to 100mph and its torrential rain it stuck around for the best part of two days battering the towns nearest the coast..

We're lucky that we live far enough away from the coast that by the time it reached us it had lost a lot of its power, eventually being downgraded to a tropical storm.

 

Our house - you can see next doors gate on our drive

 We lost power for about 4 hours which again isn't bad as some who lost it for days but those 4 hours were long enough with Tyler continually asking for us to turn on the TV and asking why we couldn't cook food.  

As you can see from the video above taken this morning we were lucky that Isaac eventually moved on, much longer and we could have been flooded. The ditch out the back is about 5 foot deep and 7 foot wide so you can imagine how much water it's holding.    I think some of our neighbours across the street may not have been so lucky.

Thanks for all the facebook messages and rest assured we are all safe and well.

UPDATE

After promising he wouldn't get wet we let Tyler outside.

Hmmm he needs some work on keeping his word ......

Back to School

Dawn, Hannah, Rayna and Tyler all ready for the first day back at school

Well, after an amazing fun packed summer filled with such excitement and fun it was time to return to normality.  After a tearful farewell at the airport saying goodbye Nan, Grandad and Kelly at the start of the week all thoughts were now on starting the school year.

It was especially exciting for everyone as the girls moved to a brand new school and Tyler now has to wear uniform and travels to school on the bus.

Tyler gets off this bus on day 1 (still wearing shoes!)

 The first day seemed to pass without incident and everyone managed to get on the right buses and arrive at the correct locations.  We were especially pleased that Tyler managed to travel on the bus on his own and even managed to still be wearing his shoes and socks at the other end, something we never thought would happen!

As of yet the girls seem to be loving their new school and like their new teachers very much.  Tyler also enjoys his new school, however he's been getting coloured paw marks on two of the days he's been so far.  Different coloured paw marks mean different things but anything other than white is not good.  But we're working on that.

After all is said and done we're not doing too bad, the early mornings are starting to become habit again and next week the homework starts.

Tyler leads his class mates off the bus into school

A day on The Water

Sitting in the shade enjoying a chat

One of the things we did whilst everyone was over form England was to take a trip down to visit Paw paw (Dawns dad) and Mimi. Whilst there we had the Louisiana equivalent of fish and chips (fried catfish and fries).

The children were all fascinated by the dragonflies and Tyler couldn't resist getting wet (what's new about that).

Hannah shows a dragonfly and Tyler gets wet

As a great treat we went out on a party boat had a look at some of the natural habitat and some of the animals that lived within it.

Rayna takes a turn at piloting the boat

Our Wedding Day

Well we did it, on July 28 2012 after months of paperwork and forced time apart we finally managed to tie the knot.  Our wedding was a fantastic event surrounded by family and friends who we are very grateful for their gifts and shared time with us.

It's been a very hectic few weeks and so we just wanted to get something on the blog so we could keep it up to date.  There's just a few pics on here but as we work our way through them we'll add some of our favs.

 As you can see from these pics the kids looked amazing and did us so proud playing their parts in the wedding day brilliantly, making us so proud.

Journey Back to the USA

Trying to get some sleep at the airport

OK so we all knew the flight back to Louisiana was never going to be easy.  With 8 people, 10 pieces of checked baggage and enough hand luggage to bring across huge amounts of possessions.  Added to that I (Martin) had to go through an immigration check in as I was travelling on my newly acquired K1 visa,  it was always going to be a challenge.  However little did we know of how much of a challenge it would turn out to be.

So the initial getting to Heathrow wasn't too bad although the check in was a bit complicated as a lot of our stuff was cross packed in all the suitcases, (when you move abroad its cheaper to bring an extra suitcase and pay than to ship anything by about £100).

The airplane (American Airlines) was hardly modern and only had one screen per every 30 or so passengers so unlike other times we've flown you have no control over what to watch or when. For a ten hour flight this was pretty poor but somehow we managed it.  So we eventually get off the plane in Dallas and head for the dreaded immigration.

As previously mentioned Martin was travelling on a K1 (fiance) visa basically meaning that I was intending to marry and stay in the USA.  Although i had been a little nervous about the whole thing it actually wasn't too bad.  I handed over the unopened envelope and was escorted to another waiting room with approx 15 other people.  We all sat looking nervously at the window and after a few minutes my name was called.  After a quick chat with the immigration officer and a few forms being signed I was sent on my way to catch up with the rest of the family (Nan, Grandad, Kelly, Dawn and the children).  Checking my watch as I left the room I saw we had about an hour and a half to get across the airport to catch our next flight to Baton Rouge.

Unfortunately the weather had other ideas and a huge storm caused many flights to be cancelled (including ours).  Now we had to queue to get a place another plane, nothing was flying to Baton Rogue so we opted for a flight to New Orleans (after arranging for Dawns dad to meet us there).

With 20 minutes to go before the New Orleans flight we were informed that this flight and every other flight had been cancelled till the next day.   More queuing and trying to get confirmed flights ended with Dawn and 2 of the children confirmed for the 7.30am and the rest of us on standby.

So now we attempted to settle down to sleep in the airport, the staff did supply camp beds and thin blankets but needless to say there was not a lot of sleep for anyone.

We managed to get Tyler onto the 7.30 flight with Dawn and the girls which left Nan, Grandad, Kelly and Martin now needing flights.  Kelly managed to get on a flight at about 10 (she had to fly on her own).  Nan, Grandad and Martin finally managed to board a flight at about 12.30.

All in all a nightmare of a journey, we had attempted to fly on no less than 7 flights which were either cancelled or full, we were so happy to get home.