Our Weekend.

Friday afternoon our friend Luan (from York) came for a visit. We had a great time catching up - the last time we'd seen her was when we visited her in November of last year. She and I had a fun time playing with her iPhone when Nid went to football that night. I would never get ANYTHING done if I had one of those. The games were completely silly... but addicting!

Saturday morning I fixed an all-American breakfast for us. We had bacon, scrambled eggs, buttermilk biscuits (made from scratch), and pancakes (made from scratch). There was going to be sausage gravy (made from scratch), but the other stuff took so long to fix that I didn't fix that in the end. As it was we had plenty of food left over.

In the late afternoon Nid and I walked to the grocery store. We had just left the house when we saw a young man running up the street towards us. He was running in the road, which was strange to me. He looked over his shoulder and I thought "what did he do?" but didn't say it out loud. Then another 50 feet down the sidewalk we saw a guy handcuffing someone on the other side of the street. My first thought was that something hinky was going on, but then Nid made the more logical conclusion that he was an undercover cop. So I was right, that guy did do something, and he was running from the cops! Oh, the drama. Then we saw a lady running up the sidewalk to the other two. I looked back as we got the corner and she must have been the other cop as she was standing there with them. There was a family standing down at the corner near the entrance to the park looking up the sidewalk, so we think something happened there. Crazy.

Then in the grocery store there was more weird. It seemed like everybody in there had a baby or young child with them. Apparently Saturday afternoons are family day. I don't think I've ever seen that many children in one place outside of a school.

We bought some chips while we were there, but I didn't try them until this morning. I have written about the crazy chip flavors they have here in England before, but I'd never tried any of them before. Because of the World Cup this year, Walkers has started a new contest with 15 new flavors.

The flavours are:

• English Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding
• American Cheeseburger
• Argentinean Flame Grilled Steak
• Australian BBQ Kangaroo
• Brazilian Salsa
• Dutch Edam Cheese
• French Garlic Bread
• German Bratwurst Sausage
• Irish Stew
• Italian Spaghetti Bolognese
• Japanese Teriyaki Chicken
• Scottish Haggis
• South African Sweet Chutney
• Spanish Chicken Paella
• Welsh Rarebit

 Interesting, right? And some are just flat out gross. So, because we are a multi-national family, we got these:

I tried them this morning. I started with the English Roast Beef & Yorkshire Pudding because that was Nid's bag and I just had the one chip. OMG. It really tasted like roast beef and Yorkshire pud! I couldn't believe it. My mouth started watering and I was a little bit freaked out. I could taste potatoes and carrots. I tentatively tasted the American Cheeseburger. Again, I was surprised. I could taste the mustard and pickle. Actually, it had a bit too much pickle for my tastes. At first I wasn't going to eat them. One was enough from Nid's bag and one was enough from mine. But he didn't want them and the longer they sat there the more I ate. I'll never get them again, but I am glad that I tried them.

Saturday night we also watched a movie. Kick-Ass. I was doubtful. I was not interested at all. I was wrong, as it turns out. It was more interesting than I thought it would be and I even stayed awake for the whole movie (barely), which is more than I can say about most movies and TV we watch these days. The movie was funny and entertaining, and definitely for adults. It was crude, violent, sexual, and there was a lot of very bad language in it, including from the 10 year old girl! I don't need to hear that. It does not make a movie more "realistic" to me, as I do not associate with the type of person that does that much cursing in public. Briony had gone out with friends the other weekend and they were going to see it. The theatre actually sold her and one of her friend tickets, but they would not let her other friend in so they had to trade the tickets in for another movie. Here in the UK it is rated 15. That means that 15 year olds are allowed into the movie by themselves. Briony is not 15 until next February. I do not think that she should see this movie now or in 10 months. I do not see what difference 10 months will make. In the US it is rated R, which means that no one under the age of 18 can get in without an adult present. I realize that things are more out in the open here in the UK, that there is more sex and foul language here than in the US. I am regularly surprised by what I see and hear though, and I am glad that by moving to the US we can preserve our children's childhoods a few extra years.

This reminds me of something I learned about a while back. The Page 3 Girl. The Page 3 Girl is a topless model that is featured on page three of many British tabloid newspapers. I first read about this practice in a blog that I read called Pond Parleys. The link directly to the post I mention is here.  It talked about Page 3 Girls and a How-To segment on a morning news show about how to... Well, I'll let you click and read all about it yourself. Let's just say they weren't wrong when they titled the post Never In America! My only experience with Page 3 Girls came while we were at the Embassy for our interviews. I was sitting, looking around at everyone nearby, too anxious to focus on the book I brought. To my right, and one row up was a guy reading a paper. But what I really noticed was the full page photo of a nude woman. Her breasts took up most of the page, and this is a full sized tabloid, maybe 15 inches tall by 10 inches wide (definitely bigger than the Enquirer in the US). I am pretty sure that my jaw dropped. I felt violated. I felt angry. My children were sitting right next to me and could easily have seen this same thing. I am not a prude, I do not feel that we should be ashamed of our bodies. HOWEVER, I do not feel that that means that we can display our private parts for the world to see either. You can read a brief history about the girls here, or about the short lived Page 7 Fella here.

I'll end this blog on a good note, and share with you all how our new house is coming. My dad and sister have been painting and getting it ready for us. We picked blue for our bedroom and light yellow for the bath. My dad is giving the kids fresh white for now, and he is going to let them help him paint an accent wall in a color of their choice in each of their rooms when we get there. They are very excited about that, and I am excited that I don't have to paint at all! Until I decide to do the kitchen cabinets and some of the other wooden furniture we have...