Local Grocery

We haven't received our car yet so we rely on the local shops that are within walking distance.  Here is a picture of the little market down the street.

  

It's only a three minute walk down the road.   This is great because our fridge is very small which requires several trips a week to the grocery store.  We have found most of what we need.  They even have avocados so we were able to make one of my favorites, guacamole.

Above is a picture of the view looking down the street from the little market.  I love the architecture here.

Lawn Bowling

We finally made it over this weekend to do some lawn bowling at Kelvingrove Park.  The kids had a blast!  There is a white bowl called a jack, that sits out in the grass.  Each player has four bowls and rolls them to try and get the closest to the jack.  The tricky part is that the bowls are asymmetrical so as they roll, they follow a curved path.  The bowls are heavy for their size so it was a little more difficult for the boys to roll them.  Alyssa could barely lift the bowl so we helped her roll hers.  We did pretty well for being beginners.

Meet Henry

I'll share a slightly embarrassing story with you.  The temporary housing we are in is kind of like a hotel.  We have housekeepers that come daily and make the beds, change out the towels, and do some basic cleaning.  A few days into our stay, one of the housekeepers approached me and asked if I wanted her to hoover.  What?  I just stared at her with a blank look.  She had to ask me three times before I finally figured out what she was talking about.  Oh, vacuum. Now I know!  Here is a picture of a popular hoover here.

Meet Henry the Hoover!  Devon went to Costco this morning with Jonathan and informed me that they also have a pink version, Hetty the Hoover.  It just cracks me up that there is a face on the canister!  I don't have a picture of Hetty, but she has long eyelashes.

Lollies

One of the first new words the kids learned here was lollie, the word for popsicle in the UK.  They sure enjoyed them, no matter what they are called.  I'm not sure if my kids are able to make normal faces for pictures.  They always seem to turn out silly.

The Views

Here are some pictures from the front of our temporary housing.  From what we have read, this row of buildings in the West End of Glasgow, was most likely built around the 1870's.  There are several old churches near here.  Most have been converted into office buildings.

Here are some of the views from outside our front windows.  

We don't have a car yet so this location has been perfect.  We are within walking distance of the shopping district on Sauchiehall Street in one direction, and Kelvingrove Park in the other direction.  We have a small grocery store, Sainsbury Local, around the corner, which has been convenient since our refrigerator is on the small side.

Botanic Gardens

On Sunday afternoon, we decided to take a walk to the Botanic Gardens, at the West End of Glasgow.  It is near Glasgow University and is a pretty popular spot on the weekends.  There are tons of benches around to sit and enjoy the surroundings.  The kids had fun checking out the trees and flowers, and reading all of the signs.

Kobe reading all of the signs

Alyssa insisted on bringing her hairbrush

Devon has some serious matching skills...or not.

Kelvingrove Park

We took a stroll to Kelvingrove Park on Saturday afternoon.  We were hoping to do a little lawn bowling, but the grounds keeper was gathering the equipment as we arrived.  The park is absolutely enormous, and the River Kelvin runs through it.

The kids had great fun.  Kobe kept saying, "Take a picture of that Mom.  Oh, and take a picture of that."  It was a beautiful day with no rain!  That doesn't happen very often.  

We took a little rest once we arrived at the portion of the park for lawn bowling.  The picture below is of the kids and Jonathan on the bench.  There was a small patch of colorful flowers and Alyssa really enjoyed looking at them.  She kept running around the patch to get a better look.

On our way back we found a little play area.  You can see below the really unusual slide.  Kobe is climbing up as Devon has just exited the slide. 

You can see how Devon's body is twisted.  The slide is so long that they caught serious speed as they were coming out.  Right before we left they decided to go down together.

Alyssa wasn't interested in the huge slide but instead played on this strange web that you could climb on.  Kobe and Devon had a few tries on it as well.  We'll have to head back to that park before we move to our house.

First Day of School

The boys started school this morning.  It was a unique experience getting ready with the uniform they wear.

Devon wasn't too fond of the tie.  He kept complaining that it was choking him.  Kobe was really excited but Devon was a bit apprehensive about starting  school, which is extremely unusual.  Usually Devon is our brave one and Kobe is the worrier.

Their uniform is grey slacks, "smart" black shoes, "smart" grey slacks, a white shirt, school tie, and navy sweater.  They can wear polo shirts on gym day and they have a school sweatshirt as well.

        

Devon is in Primary 2 (1st Grade) and Kobe is in Primary 4 (3rd Grade).  They arrived home with smiles on their faces.  There are only about 400 students in their school which is a nice change from their last school that had 1200.  I think they are going to enjoy their time at Primary School here.

Our Apartment

The outside of the building we are living in is more than a hundred years old, but the interior is very modern.

The photo on the left is of the entryway that has a door to the living room, master bedroom and  on the right is a photo of the stairs that lead to the two upstairs bedrooms.


Below are photos of the living area.  There are two large windows that look out to the front of the building.  The windows are original and are a bit frightening.  There are no screens so we only open them about six inches at the most.  Luckily the windows are wood and very heavy so the kids can't open them on their own.  The window sill is very low and deep, and we once found Alyssa walking across it.  Yikes!  Don't worry.  We're very vigilant about keeping the windows closed when Jonathan and I are not in the room.

The kitchen is decent sized but the appliances are much smaller than we are used to.  We have to shop for groceries every other day because the fridge is too small to fit what we need. Luckily there is a small market about a three minute walk away.  One thing lacking is a garbage disposal.  From what we have heard, even the newer homes don't have them.

You can't see it, but the washer/dryer is in the cabinet to the left of the stove.  It is VERY tiny!  This has been a challenge for us.  I just did a load with 15 kids shirts and it was almost full.  It also takes FOREVER to dry!  With a large family, the washer and dryer combo is frustrating having to wait for an entire load to wash and dry before we can start another.  Hopefully our more permanent home will have them separate.

One very quirky part of this house is that the floors are not level.  I'm not sure if it is common with homes this old or if this particular one is unique.   As you walk from the fridge to the oven, there is a nice uphill slope.  The kitchen table is on a slope as well.  One end is a couple of inches higher than the other because of the flooring.  It feels funny sitting at the higher end of the table because it feels like I'm going to fall off of my chair.  We found this quite amusing!

Our New (Temporary) Home

We made it to Glasgow on Monday morning!  We were driven to our temporary housing and the kids couldn't figure out what was different about the car.  When I told them the driver seat was on the right side and we were driving on the opposite side of the road, I received blank stares.  Maybe if they drove they would notice but it sure is weird.  I'm not looking forward to learning how to drive here but I'll save that discussion for another day.

Our temporary housing is near Kelvingrove Park and the City Centre.  We arrived with our massive luggage only to find out that we were on the third floor of an old Victorian building.  Old Victorian building = no lifts (elevators as we Americans call them).  My quads were on FIRE after walking up and down with our bags, some of which were 60+ pounds.


The original details of the building are incredible.  I wouldn't want to live here long-term but it will be fun for the next few weeks to experience an older building.

On Our Way

Sunday morning we woke up at 4:30 am so we could get to the airport.  The luggage was overwhelming--five suitcases, two duffel bags, one laptop case, one camera bag, four backpacks and three car seats.  That was fun!  We made it to the airport at just the right time.  Our flight to Newark was five hours and the kids did great with minimal fussing.  DirecTV is worth the $6 I tell you!


Once we arrived in Newark, we took the Air Train to another terminal so we could meet my dad and his wife, Cheryl.  They drove four hours from his home in Pennsylvania so he could see us during our layover.  We were only able to visit for a little over an hour but it was great to see them again.  

Alyssa loved all of the attention.  She was making everyone food and acting quite silly.  Kobe and Devon enjoyed the attention also and had to show Grandpa and Cheryl their new Kung Zhu pets.

We had some pizza and ice cream in the food court and headed back to our terminal to board our flight to Glasgow.


Our flight was delayed about half an hour and the kids were getting restless.  They were chasing each other around so we had to go for a walk to burn off some of that energy.


We finally boarded the plane and started our last leg of the journey.  We each had TVs with On Demand entertainment.  What a lifesaver!  The kids could watch movies or play games.  They really enjoyed that and I even got some sleep on the seven hour flight.


When we arrived in Glasgow, we were pretty exhausted.  It was 7:30 am local time and it was nearly midnight for us.  While at the customs counter, Alyssa curled up on the carpet and tried to take a nap.  She must have been tired to do that!  Our driver picked us up and took us to our temporary housing, an old Victorian home near downtown Glasgow.

Living In a Hotel

Since we moved out of our house, we had to stay in a hotel for a week and a half.  Jonathan was working in Scotland most of that time.  Luckily we were at the Residence Inn which had two rooms, a living area, and a kitchen.  The boys were excited because there was a TV in each room.  At one point all of the TVs were on and each kid was watching their own show.


We survived the week by keeping busy.  Kobe had a Cub Scout activity at the San Diego Botanic Gardens and we went to Sea World with some cousins.  We also did some swimming and visited the park with some friends.

Alyssa enjoyed sleeping in the big bed.  She would set herself up with all of the pillows and watch a princess movie.

Here is a picture of the boys after one of our activity-filled days.  They crashed out and didn't wake up most mornings until 8.

It was so nice not having to make beds and do dishes for a week.  By the end we were all ready to move on to something different.  It was a weird feeling selling both of our cars and packing all of our remaining belongings into a few suitcases to fly to our new home.  

Moving Day

We started the moving process the last week of July.  We had movers come and start packing our things.  It was a bit overwhelming as we had to decide what to store and what to ship.  Of what we shipped, we also had to decide what we needed now to send in the air shipment, and what could wait for a few months to be shipped by sea.

Our kids stayed with some family for a couple of days while we dealt with the packing.  They came back the morning of the last day when they were loading the truck.  Poor Alyssa was so sad that she couldn't find her bed.  She wanted to lay down and couldn't find anything because all of the furniture was wrapped.  She ended up laying on the floor and taking a nap.  

We spent the next couple of days cleaning.  The boys had great fun trying to keep themselves occupied.  They created a few extra messes for me to clean up.  Oh well.  What can you do?  They made this tower of cups and spread a few chocolate sprinkles on the floor.  Good thing we hadn't vacuumed that room yet.

I had a few women from church come and help me finish cleaning the night before I had to turn over the house.  They stayed for several hours and it was a huge help.  I finally turned over the keys  and we stayed at a hotel until we left for Scotland.