Annoyance

I can't blog about the move today because we are really in a holding pattern until after the weekend. Today we are just livin it up in TLF w00t w00t!!!! Ha! Yeah right this place sucks. Doing laundry rocks too!!! Bleh!

-Begin Rant-
But that is not what I am going to blog about. Okay I don't know what kind of music you guys listen to, but my dial is usally set to the rock station here in Kansas City. Sometimes I switch it over to the pop mix station or the classic rock station, even country sometimes, but mainly it is the rock station. What I have noticed lately though is a disturbing lack of creativity. For instance, Kid Rock completely has bastardized one of the greatest southern rock songs of all time.

Then there is the band Disturbed who apparently have found a formula and are going to stick to it until thier 15 minutes are up. Short staccatto words with palm muted guitar licks and then a couple of seconds of soaring dramatic lyrics. I am sure it is just because "that is the way that guy sings" (according to my husband), but I can't help to notice all of their songs sound the same. Example #1
Example #2

Another band that is guilty of this is Nickleback. Example#3. No offense to anyone who likes Nickleback. I am just not a fan and I get the feeling of de ja vous every time I hear one of their songs.

A note to all bands. Please do something orignial. Have a sound, yes. Please also vary the music enough that you make so that I know I am hearing a different song. Take a lesson from Metallica, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, and the *gag* Eagles (my husband loves them, me not so much but they are a decent band), they all have destinctive sounds, but none of their songs could ever be mistaken for one another. Seriously, if I can't tell what song a band is about to play within 5 notes in, maybe it is a little to similar to another song they have written. Just sayin'
-End Rant_

Just Kill Me Now...Please??

Trying to get these pets to England is going to make my head explode before I get over there. The kennel we are using does not use the same animal agents as the airline we are flying, therefore, this is quickly becoming a gigantic pain in my ass. So far today I have been on the phone to the kennel 3 times, the airline 1 time and the cargo terminal at Gatwick Airport in London once. Because it is a Friday evening there, not much is accomplished. The cargo worker at Gatwick is now calling the cargo workers at Heathrow in London to find out why they can't get their heads out their rear quarters and help us out.
;
I also just shelled out money to the cleaning lady who is finishing up the cleaning before our final housing inspection. She got to witness my lovely tirade when I was talking to the airline. I won't say the name of the air line but it is the complete opposite of SouthEast (if ya get my drift). The Man had declaired that if I ever insist on taking the animals to another foreign country, he will take me out. Y'all got my back right??

Thank you guys so much for the words of encouragement yesterday. I just have to keep telling myself that in a week I will be in England and all this crap will be behind me. It just feels like it is taking forever, especially since I am stuck in TLF (which is basically a glorified hotel room with a kitchen) with two kids who will not stay quiet and are refusing to eat their dang chicken nuggets.

One other thing. I kinda did an inpromptu interview with one of the movers yesterday.
Me-*watching them load the large wooden crates on the truck with all my worldly possessions* "So do you enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles, cause you are really good at finding items to fit in there snuggly"
Him-"I used to really enjoy them, now they are too much like work. After 20+ years of doing this, I just kinda have a knack of what goes where."
Me- I bet you have seen some interesting stuff moving all these people all over the country!
Him- "Yeah you would be supprised at some of the ummm "toys" people don't hide. I like to go up to the lady of the house and say "ma'am we can't figure out how to get the batteries out of this.."
Me- You don't REALLY do that do you?
Him- "Nah we usually find the husband before the wife sees us! Ya know some people just let their freak flag fly a little too high!
Me- So do you wrap your presents a Christmas? I notice all you guys are really neat when wrapping all my items up.
Him- No way, that is the wifes job.
Another Mover Ciming In- I wrapped like 90% of the presents lastyear because my girlfriend decided to wait until the last min. I did a kid per night a couple nights before Chrismas Eve.

TLF- Day 1

Well we made it to TLF (temporary lodging facilities) last night and I am already ready to get the heck out of here. It isn't a bad place really, I just didn't get much sleep on the pull out couch. We decided to put the kids on the bed in the bedroom and to sleep on the pull out couch so we could stay up a little later and watch some t.v. after the kids went to sleep. Tonight I vote we take the bedroom because there is a t.v. in the bedroom too.

Today I will be supervising while the movers put my packed household goods onto the gigantic moving truck with KiKi and LaLa and The Man are going to be driving to St.Louis with one of our buddies to drop off the new Jeep at the port to be shipped to England. Then our buddy will bring them back to base.

The cleaning lady started cleaning our old house last night. I stopped in there last night and checked to see what they were doing. She had her husband, daughter, her daughers boyfriend all helping her clean the house. They were cleaning the bathrooms and the kitchen when I got there. Today she will be coming over once the movers leave to finish up.

I guess the one bright spot is that TLF has wi-fi and my husband is being a sweetie and letting me use his lap top to blog. I don't know if I will get around to reading very many blogs while this move is happening, but you all know I love you. I wish I had more time in a day to get everything read and commented on. Just bare with me for the next month or so. Also smooches and big thanks to all the guest bloggers who have sent me posts. They are all entered and scheduled to post. You guys are the best ever!

And the Answers Are....

For MaMa Dawg-
How do I feel about moving to England? Well actually I am really excited, scared, and stressed out. I know when I get there that the stress will go away, but until then I am a big 'ol ball of stress. Cussing when my kids are not around seems to relieve that sometimes.
Is this the first time I have lived in a foreign country due to the military? Yes. Well unless you count Texas or Missouri as foreign countries.
How do the girls feel about the move? LaLa is really excited. Her best friends (my best friend's kids) already live at the base we are going to. When she tells someone she is moving to England she says "I am moving to England and I will get to play with C and C"....like anyone knows who her best friends are. EDIT: About 5 min ago LaLa realized that we are not coming back to Missouri and that this isn't going to be her house anymore. She burst into tears and started asking what was going to happen to her friends and if she was going to be able to see them again. It broke my heart into a thousand different pieces. I know she is going to have to do this every few years and it is going to be rough on her. I just hope we can handle it each and every time we have to do it. It is cute. KiKi, well she is 2 so I don't know how much she actually gets. She can say England though.
How long will we be over there? 4 years. Longer if my husband really likes it over there and applies for an extension, or tries to get another European base (and actually gets the assignment).
If you send me money will I get and send you some Doc Martins? Yes I would, but I think you might could find them cheaper in the states. Everything is more expensive over there. Yankee Candles go for almost $50!
Steenky Jen-
Will I live on base? Most likely no. We are looking at living in a little village between the two RAF bases in the area.
Will I befriend Gwen Paltrow? I dunno, she doesn't seem like my cup of tea. Maybe I will find another famous US ex-pat who wants to be friends.
Heinous- The odds of losing the car..hummm..well knowing my luck very good. For a normal person slim to none.
Sprite's Keeper- I hope my girls pick up the accent as quick as possible. I know my friends little boy who is 5 picked it up really quickly and her daughter who is 9 also has it a little bit. My friend also has picked up a slight English accent and she has only been there a year.
Will the animals have an accent? Well I already imagine that my cat has a french accent. I imagine it could change once we get to England. I guess he could say "Oy, get me some water" instead of "Le Mew, water S'il vous plaite"
Will I say "God save the Queen?" No but my kids already say it around here.
Will I take loads of pictures and show them to you guys? Of course! Why else do you think my husband got me the coolest graduation present ever?
Lola- What will I miss the most about the US of A? Driving on the correct side of the road.
Do I like British humor? I love Monty Python does that count?
What the hell do they eat over there? Fish and Chips
CaptainDumbass-Where is my base? NE of London about 70 miles. Kinda in the middle of nowhere, but all Air Bases are in the middle of nowhere. Seriously. Right now my base is in the middle of nothing but farm land.

By Popular Request

By Popular request there are two pictures which apparently need to be displayed. One I have no problem displaying..but the other I have reservations about. Not that I didn't love my costume, but I just wished that I was about 30 lbs lighter. OK I guess I should explain why this is too...when my husband was deployed to Guam I kinda sorta half assed went on a diet..not a real "diet" just a eat better and less kind of thing. No exercised involved. I lost 20 lbs. I have now gained that back plus about 10 and I am blaming the 10 on stress eating due to the move.
This is my family for Halloween. I am a Queen (of course), followed by "The Man" as Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th, Lala as a princess and KiKi the kitty. Aww aren't we so cute you want to puke.

Next, the new car. Isn't it pretty? It is an '08 Jeep Compass. I love it. I am sad that I have to say goodbye to it on Thursday when my husband drives it to St. Louis to ship it to England. Damnit! I only got 6 days to know you Jeep Compass and you have already been a good friend to me. You got me to Kansas City and back to get food dishes for the animals crates (apparently your pets have to be able to eat and drink on the flight too...lol) and you are magnificently clean, have a smooth ride and feel like a car not an SUV when I am driving you. I will see you again, good friend when you return to me in England.

OK...now I am taking requests. Is there anything you want to know about my move to England or anything in general you would like me to write about? Think about it guys, this is an open invitation to ask me almost anything. Of course there are some things I won't respond to, naturally.

My Parents (and my brother too) Visit

The past 4 days have been a whirlwind. We have done a lot of fun things and some things we definitely didn't plan on. Lets start with what we didn't plan on. We didn't plan on buying a car. The man took our '99 Jeep Grand Cherokee into the dealership to have some work done before we shipped it to England. When the mechanic called and said that there were over $2500 worth or repairs that needed to be done in order to be able to ship it. Ummmm yeah, not so much down with that. I told my husband to tell them to stop all work and we would be there to pick it up. We decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and trade in the Jeep on another car. Well the other car we ended up trading the Jeep Grand Cherokee in for was a Jeep Compass. I love my new car. It is so shiny. Oh and orange. Also very pretty.

We also didn't really "plan" to go to the zoo. It was more like "Hey what are we doing tomorrow? Oh nothing, lets go to the zoo." So we did. It was great. The weather was perfect and all the animals were out. My kids also kept complaining to a minimum. It helped that they had their own personal shuttle.

(The PaPa-mobile)

Lets see what kind of animals we encountered..

Lions
Tigers
And...well there were no bears...but this Orangutan apparently wanted to eat LaLa's head.

Now for the planned events...We did Halloween with the girls. LaLa was a princess (of course) and KiKi was a cat. They were entirely too cute. I don't think my parents have seen a crazy Halloween like we have hear on base in a long time. There must have been over 500 kids trick or treating just in my section of base housing. I had bought 3 HUGE bags of candy and they were gone in 45 min. My brother called my mom in a panic and declaired that he was out of candy and wanted to know what he should do next. Umm go inside and turn off the lights goofus.

Princess LaLa and KiKi Kitty

I guess that is all that really happened that was extremely noteworthy. Did I mention that my brother apparently takes facial hair advise from dead Russian Communist leaders?

Vladimir Lenin
My Brother...who I have dubbed Andy Leninovitch

The Last 48 Hours

In the last 48 hours I have...

1. Laughed my butt off with my brother.
2. Laughed my butt off with my mom.
3. Got lots of hugs from my dad.
4. Bought a new car. (in orange)
5. Drank beer with friends and sat around a fire.
6. Taken the girls trick or treating.
7. Had panic attacks with The Man.
8. Called England
9. Cussed about the stupid finance people at the car dealership.
10. Watched my brother play video games.

More details are coming but we are on the way to the zoo this morning. Then we are driving to the OTHER side of Kansas City to go to Cabelas. If you are in the area make sure you wave and say "hi".

P.S. My kids didn't get a lot of candy (a.k.a. the stuff I like) when they were trick or treating so I am thinking about going to Wal-mart and buying a bag of the good stuff.