Easter Break adventures

We had a wonderful 2 week Easter Holiday. 

On Monday, Sam came with me into my school to get me room set up. We got all my boards re-done and ready to set up for the next term.  I did some planning and Sam organized and sorted out the supplies in the room.  It was really good to get it all ready.

Tuesday, Sam was able to get work at a school that was open that first week and I went back into my school to do more planning.  I went to the gym after school, Sam still wasn't feeling great. 

Wednesday was a splurge day.  We headed up to Oxford St in London.  We went shopping for a few hours.  Primark, Office shoes, Sports Direct, Oliver Bonas, we also went into the Disney store and there was a really cool set-up for the new Cinderella movie.  We headed home to eat and drop our stuff, then headed up to Sloane Square in Chelsea to see Natasha to get our hair cut.  It felt so nice to get all the dry, dead hair cut off.  Natasha did a great job on both our hair.  We were so happy with it.

Thursday Sam and I went to the grocery store to get everything we'd need for Easter dinner on Sunday, then I did some planning.
Friday morning we went to the gym, then in the afternoons I did some more planning.  I got my whole first week all planned out and organized. 

Friday night we met Ben and Laura up in Fulham.  We had a great dinner of Mac 'n' cheese and then went to Fast and Furious 7.  It was so good.  They did a great job with it and there was a really nice ending and good-bye to Paul Walker.  It was a great night. 

Saturday we had a lazy day.  We watched Bones and just relaxed at home.  We also cleaned the house.  It's never looked so good.

Sunday morning I got up and went on a shorter run, about 10 km. I'm tapering for my half marathon in a week.  When I got home I had a quick shower and then we got down to business.  Sam cut veggies for snacking on and I got started on the dinner.  We got everything ready to start cooking later.  Once everything was ready we started hiding eggs and chocolate for the Easter egg hunt.  There was 136 chocolates around our living room. The ham went in at 12.  We then got ready and had enough time to watch one episode of Bones before people started to show up.  We had 13 people (including Sam and I) for dinner. When everyone arrived we decorated hard boiled eggs for an Easter egg fight later (Sam's family tradition). Everyone was eying up the chocolate laying around the room, so we said they could start the hunt.  You should have seen how fast everyone moved.  I don't think I've ever seen 11 adults move so quickly in my life.  It was really funny.  Once we finished the hunt we played Cards Against Humanity for a little while.  At one point I had to get the rest of the dinner ready and Laura made dessert.  Dinner was a honey and brown sugar glazed ham, party potatoes, and broccoli and cauliflower.  It was my first time making a big dinner like that and it turned out really well.  I was really happy and everyone said it was delicious.  Laura made sticky toffee pudding for dessert which was also delicious.  We all just relaxed and chatted for a little while after before everyone headed home.  There was a little bit of clean-up, but everyone was really good about helping to clean up throughout the evening. 

Monday morning we left home pretty early to tube out to Heathrow to pick up our rental car for the week.  It was a cute little Citroen DS3.  I was the driver for the trip because Sam isn't 25 yet, so she navigated.  We roadtripped down to Cornwall in the beautiful sunshine.  We stopped in Bristol for a couple hours just to check it out.  We had a bite to eat, bought some books we'd been wanting from a little stand at a market.  It's a pretty place and it was so warm and sunny out.  We drove the rest of the way down to Hayle, the town in Cornwall that we were staying (along the West coast).  We had rented a room through AirBnB with a lovely couple named Mary and Pete.  They were so welcoming and interesting to talk to.  They had a puppy, Mabel, and 3 cats, Storm, Prasha, and Safi.  The room was very cute and the whole place was lovely.  We just relaxed Monday night, chatted with our hosts and then watched a couple episodes of Bones.  The internet wasn't super strong, so it was difficult to watch them.  Safi was very cuddly and came and stayed with us in the evenings and the mornings. 

Tuesday morning we watched an episode of Bones then went downstairs and were greeted by a lovely breakfast set out for us.  We had tea, home-made granola with yogurt, and croissants with jam.  We then walked out across the sand dunes down to the beach.  Their house was in the last row against the dunes.  It was a lovely walk out to the beach. Hayle is known for its 3 miles of sandy beaches, and it lived up to that.  The beach was fabulous.  White, fine sand, the tide was out and continuing out while we walked.  It looks almost tropical, not at all like the UK.  It was another gorgeous day.  We walked out and back one direction from where we were staying.  When we got back we called and book surfing for Wednesday then got our stuff together and drove into St. Ives.  It's a really cute little place.  The parking lot is up at the top of the town.  We walked the very steep 5 minute walk down into town. We wandered a little bit but were both really hungry so we found a grill to eat at.  It was really good food and we got a table right by the windows so we had a great view of the harbour/beach.  When we finished eating we wandered a little more then when down to sit at the beach for a while.  When we were sitting a stupid seagull flew over and pooped on us :(  We were not pleased.  We decided to head back to our place and read out in the sun in the yard for a little bit. 

Wednesday morning we got up and headed to Godrevy where we were supposed to meet the people for surfing.  The guy who ran the place happened to be there and told us that it had been moved to their other location because of the water, so we followed him down there.  Turns out their other location is just a little further down the beach from the place we were staying.  It was another gorgeous day as we were getting all our stuff; wetsuits, booties, gloves, boards.  It's been a while since I've surfed and Sam has only gone once and we don't know the water so we decided to do a 2 hour lesson instead of just renting the equipment.  It was a good choice.  We were basically on our own but with suggestions and help if it was needed as we were put into the "advanced" group (as in have surfed before).  The waves were as perfect as the day.  They started off about 6-8 feet and by the end were 10+ feet.  We had so much fun.  Both of us  got up and had some great rides.  Sam stayed in a little closer with some other people that hadn't done much surfing and I headed out to the bigger waves with some others.  By the end, even with the booties, my feet were super numb.  When we took off our booties they were white...0 blood flow.  Took a good hour and a bit to have them feeling normal again.  After surfing we headed back up to Godrevy to have lunch in the cafe (which was recommended to us by Mary and Pete).  It was really good. Then we did a little walk around the point to see the cliffs, which were gorgeous...reminded me of the Cliffs of Mohr in Ireland a bit, we saw the beach that was covered in seals and the seals in the water, and we saw the Godrevy Lighthouse.  It was really windy up on the cliffs so we didn't stay too long.  We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the backyard in the sunshine reading our books.  We had a couple ciders too...tried the Rattler which is brewed in Cornwall.  We spent a bit of time on our last night with Mary and Pete figuring out which was the best way for us to head back to London the next day.  We had some interesting conversations with them.  They are very nice people and their pets were wonderful.  We definitely got our fill of animal love.

Thursday morning we took our time getting up, packing up, eating breakfast, and then we got on the road.  We decided to stop in Bath on our way home.  It was a good drive and another nice day.  We had lunch out on the patio of a place in Bath when we got there.  It was a really nice lunch and then we did a bit of a wander.  We had been to Bath briefly last year but hadn't seen much of it.  It's a really pretty place and has an interesting history.  Most old buildings there have windows that were bricked up in the 17th century because of a window tax that was implemented.  Some of them have windows painted on the bricks.  We made the rest of the drive back with no problems...a little bit of congestion but no real traffic.  We returned the car, shuttled back to Heathrow and took the tube back home.  We watched a couple episodes of Bones then headed for bed. 

Friday I headed into school to do another day of prep.  I'm feeling a bit more ready, for the first week at least.  My classroom now feels more like my room.  I'm still freaking out about it. There's a ton of stuff that I need to figure out and learn about the system here.  I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. 

Saturday was a very very lazy day.  We did laundry and watched Bones and had an early night.

This morning we had to get up early to head over to my half marathon.  It was sunny and warm when the wind wasn't there.  The course was a really pretty one around the Thames and over 2 bridges.  It was a double lap course.  Sam was an awesome cheerer!  I saw her 4 times around the course, including at the finish line.  I felt like I was running really slow/dying during the run, but ended up running my best race every.  I went in hoping to get under 1:50 (based off my runs over here I thought it was possible) but thought that under 1:55 was more likely.  I ended up beating my old PB by about 8 minutes...I got 1:46.  I was so happy about it. 
We walked to the bridge to bus home.  On our walk home we decided to stop at a new dessert place that opened up 2 blocks away from our house (up oh).  I figured I deserved dessert for lunch after my run.  I had a hot white chocolate chip cookie dough with ice cream and Sam had carrot cake. 

We have since been relaxing and watching Bones.  I am going to be sore tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

We out.

Lisa and Sam


Pictures to come.

Slammin' in London

Hello all...

Bi-weekly update time.

It's been a pretty crazy couple of weeks.  Last week we went to the gym after work Tuesday and Thursday like we usually do.

We went out on Wednesday with Ben and Laura, Luke and a couple of their friends to a book slam.  We had no idea what to expect when we went but it was really cool.  The MC was an Aussie comedian and she was hilarious. She did comedy bits to start and between each other the other acts.  The first act was a young male poet who read us some of his poetry.  The next was an author who read a chapter of her book "The Girl in the Red Coat".  Then the middle act was a young musician.  She had a lovely voice and the 2 young men she had backing her up were very talented as well. The author came back on after to read another chapter from her book.  Then there was a slam poet/singer from New York who was really impressive.  Her poetry was really deep all about her personal experiences.  It was a fun evening.

We had a lazy Friday night and Saturday morning.  Sam went out on the town with a friend Saturday night.  I went for a run around Tooting Common Park Sunday morning and then had an interesting afternoon outing.

Work that week was busy.
Sam started the week with a couple of different schools than she's usually in and spent one of those days in SEN (which is the Special Educational Needs program some schools have) where she worked with two boys with Autism, then she was at her favourite 2 schools for the last 3 days of the week.
I had a horrible week...2 new schools for me and in classes that were just a bit nuts.  I was in my friend's year 4 class Monday and I bow down to her for being with them every day.  It's a very tricky class. I was in another year 4 class for Tuesday-Thursday.  Their class teacher walked out partway through the previous week so they had had new people in every day since.  So I was in for 3 days and my first day started out with the Head Teacher telling me I needed to go sit in the staff room for the first 45 minutes of class so he can talk to the kids alone about their behaviour.  They weren't bad on Tuesday but got progressively worse until I left on Thursday.  Some really nice kids in the class, but also some just crazy ones.  Friday I was back at the school from Monday with both year 3 classes for half the day each.  It was one of my least favourite teaching weeks here this year.

Sam has been getting progressively more sick throughout the week, and I'm feeling a bit off too. I went to the gym Tuesday and Thursday I stayed after school and did a cardio kickboxing class with some of the teachers/staff.  I signed myself up for a half-marathon on April 12 around Putney and Fulham.  First one on my own!  Kinda nervous.

This week Sam had a hand-over day on Tuesday...She is booked for 2 weeks in a year 1 class right after break so she went in to meet the class and the teacher and get all the plans for the time she was in.  It's a lovely class and amazing TAs so she's looking forward to it.  Monday and Thursday she was in her favourite school, Wednesday she was in her other favourite school, and Friday she did a trial day at their sister school.  It was about 1.5 hours each way though, so even though it was a great school she decided to turn it down.

This week I was in my favourite school all week.  I was in Year 2 Monday and Tuesday, they were a bit crazy but a funny class.  Wednesday I was booked somewhere else...I got almost to the school then got called to go to my fave school, so then I was in year 4 in the morning and year 1 in the afternoon.  Thursday I as in my favourite class at the school, one of the year 6 classes. 
Friday was a bit of a crazy day for me...I was booked in for reception for the day.  When I arrived the head teacher was in her office with the PPA teacher and wanted me to join them.  They've been struggling to find a teacher to take over the year 3 class after Easter break for the rest of the year (I've been asked multiple times since half term break but it wasn't what I really wanted to do.  So we had a discussion about the trouble they were having and how she was hoping to let the parents know who would be teaching their kids after break before they left.  She was wanting the PPA teacher to take the year 3s and me to take PPA if I wouldn't take the year 3s. The PPA teacher has basically planned her entire term for the different classes so really didn't want to change.  So I told her I'd think about it until break (recess) and let her know.  I decided to take the year 3 class (school website https://williamdavisprimaryschool.wordpress.com/).  I'm a little overwhelmed right now but I'm sure it'll go well.  I stayed with the reception kids until lunch then was given the afternoon to start planning.  The staff at the school is amazing, the TAs in my class are wonderful.  I love the school too.  So I planned for the afternoon and then after school for a while.  A bunch of the teachers were going out to the pub beside the school after they finished at the school so they invited me to join.  I got Sam to come up and meet us too.  So we sat and chatted and had some drinks at that pub, then a couple people had to head out and the rest of us were starving so we headed down the road for some food.  So we went to this street food market and got awesome food and talked more.  Then we moved to a Rhum bar nearby and had another drink.  It was such a fun night.  They are great.

After we were exhausted and headed home.  We were exhausted by the time we got home and I had so much going through my head with all the class stuff.

Saturday morning we started to plan out our 2 week Easter Break.  We booked a trip to Cornwall for the second week off.  We have rented a car and have booked a place to stay near one of the best beaches down there.  We're going to go Monday-Thursday next week.  We were talking with one of our friends and she came into some free tickets to a rugby game at Wembley Park Stadium that afternoon.  So we got ourselves ready and headed up there.  We met Amanda at Westminster to tube up together.  Turns out the friend that had the free tickets is an old friend of mine, Sergio.  So it was really fun to see him too.  It's been about 6 years since the last time I saw him!  There were about 10 of us that went.  It was lots of fun.  Wembley Stadium is huge and our seats were 2 rows from the top.  It was actually a great view of the stadium and field.  It was the Saracens vs the Harlequins and the home team (Saracens) won.  It was a fun game.  A record number of people in attendance; 84000 people!

After the game we headed down and Sam and I went to Meghan's place to have dinner with Megs and her mom.  We haven't seen Meghan in almost a month so we had a lot to catch up on.  It was really nice.  Late night by the time we finished all of our talking.

This morning I got up and went on a big run (last big run before my half marathon in 2 weeks).

I will be tapering off now in preparation.  When I got back we had food and are now relaxing and figuring out our week.  I need to go into school a couple days this week.  Sam is going to come and help me set up my classroom tomorrow.

It's going to be a nice Easter Break.  I need to do a bunch of planning and organizing for school now, but the rest of the time is going to be a lot of fun.  We've got tickets to see Fast and Furious 7 on Friday with Ben and Laura.

  I'm so excited.  It's the last one. We're also having a huge Easter party next Sunday...games, Easter egg hunt, big dinner.  We're really looking forward to it.

Hoping everyone is doing well!  Almost Happy Easter to all! 

Thanks for reading.

We out!

Sam and Lisa

The Amusement Park Life of Sam and Lisa

Hello all.

Here’s our latest update, sorry it’s been a while.

We’ve had another roller-coaster couple of weeks here in London. 

Work has been consistent.  We’ve both had lots of work.  We’ve been in good schools for the most part, gotten to go back to schools we like. 

February 20-27

We had a pretty relaxing last weekend of break. 

I went for a good run around Tooting and Clapham on the Saturday.

Sunday we went out to Hampton Court Palace area to cheer Laura and Natasha on in their half marathon.  They did great, then we went for brunch after at a pub in the area. 

The first week back from break was a little shaky work-wise.  Sam was booked for 2 weeks with the same class but when she showed up it turned out that it was for the 2 weeks after Easter Break.  That whole first week if we weren’t pre-booked then calls came in later than usual.  It was a bit odd.  Since half-term calls have been later in the morning than we like to get them.

February 28-March 6

On Saturday we met up with our friends Alex and Amanda for brunch in Streatham Hill at a cute little place called Perfect Blend.  It was so nice to see them and catch up.  There’s been so much going on with both of them.

I had a great run from home up to Tower Bridge then took the tube back down and met Sam at the grocery store. It was a gorgeous sunny day.   

We ended up going to a pub in Tooting with Meghan to watch the England vs Ireland 6 Nations Rugby game.  It was really fun.  Super crowded so we had to stand, but there were some great people standing around us that answered questions we had a chatted with us. 

On Monday after work we went to the gym for a personal training session.  It was a really great workout. 

Antonio finally returned from Italy on Tuesday.  We sat down and chatted with him and found out that he was going to have to return to Italy for good and that he just came back to talk to us, try to get in touch with our landlady, and to post an ad online and try to find someone to move it.  We posted the ad and got a message to see it on Thursday.  I went to the gym Thursday after work but Sam wasn’t feeling great so just went home.  She showed the girls the place just before I got home, unfortunately they didn’t take it. 

It was International Book Week this week and both Sam and I got to dress up in a school we were in.  I got to dress up as Where’s Waldo (they call him Wally here) on Thursday with a year 2 class, and Sam dressed up as Fern (from Charlotte’s Web) on Friday with a year 4 class.

Antonio left early Saturday morning for Italy again.  We’ve been unable to reach our landlady so we don’t know exactly how this all is going to work with contracts and stuff. 

I signed up to do Tough Mudder in Dublin July 12^th, Sam is still deciding if she’s going to do it too. But I signed up with Natasha and Jorgin so I’ll have people to do it with either way.

March 7-15

We had the most amazing weekend, our Country to Country (C2C) weekend.  We woke up to bright sunshine.  We watched a couple episodes of Gilmore Girls, had our tea and breakfast and started getting ready to go.  Amanda decided really last minute to come to the concert too and managed to get a seat really close to where we were sitting.  The concert started around 4:30 but Sam Hunt was playing on a pop-up stage before so we decided to go early to see him.  We got all countrified and headed up to London Bridge to get wraps then over to the O2.  Amanda met us there early and we got some pictures out in the sunshine.  We figured out where the stage was and made our way over to it…there were already a fairly big group of people there but a big space right in front, so when we figured that the guy before Sam Hunt was close to finishing we snuck right up in front of the stage and sat down so that people couldn’t get mad at us for pushing in front and ruining their view.  Another large group of girls joined us up front too (most sounded American or Canadian, maybe an Aussie as well).  They were all in veterinary school in Scotland.  Sam Hunt was amazing!  He played for about 30 minutes.  When that was finished we were exiting the crowd and ran into Meghan and Marina and Mar’s cousin and his friend.  We grabbed drinks and appies with them before going in to find our seats.  We were all in the same section which was really nice so we hung out with them until people started to show up.  We had great seats to the side of the stage with a really good view.  Day 1 had more chill openers and energetic main performers.  The opening act was Brandy Clark.  Very good singer but we didn’t really know much of her music and it was a slow for a concert.  Sam Hunt played a really short, full acoustic slot between the first 2 singers.  Again, he was amazing.  Lee Ann Womack was the second opener.  We felt very similar about her as we did about Brandy Clark.  Great singer but just didn’t know much of her music and slow again.  But she finished with I Hope You Dance so that was good.  Sam Palladio (who is on the TV show Nashville) played a short set before the main 2 came on.  He had a cool sound, kind of indie-country.  Then the main two…Florida Georgia Line was phenomenal.  So high energy, even their slower songs aren’t slow.  We didn’t sit down their entire performance.  They were amazing.   Then Luke Bryan came on and was also just amazing.  He has a few slower songs with was a nice change of pace, but we were up and dancing for most of his performance too.  It was such a great night; one of our best in London for sure.  After the concert we caught the tube home with everyone.  It was a long day (didn’t end until around 11), but we had nothing in the morning so could rest up for night 2. 

Sunday was a lazy morning day then we headed for the concert that started at 4.  Day 2 had more energetic openers and although not chill main performers, definitely not as crazy energetic as yesterday.  Day 2 opened with Kip Moore, who was really great.  He kept it high energy and is very country. I was up for his whole set. A UK duo came out for the short set between openers, Ward Thomas.  They weren’t great, looked awkward.  The second opener was Brantley Gilbert.  We only knew 1 or 2 of his songs and he was very rock/indie rather than country.  His performance was very loud and hard to hear words, but apparently he’s huge over here.  Before the main performances came on was a UK country duo, The Shires.  They were quite good, a great sound.  The main two for Day 2 started with Jason Aldean.  He was so good.  Lady Antebellum finished off the night.  They were great too.  I was on my feet for most of both of the main performances again.  It was an amazing weekend.  We had so much fun.

We did our weekly grocery shop on Monday after work and hit the gym Tuesday and Thursday and had great workouts. 

Friday was Red Nose Day in the UK.  The Comic Relief Foundation does it yearly to raise money.  You pay a pound to get a funny nose; the schools let kids wear red and silly clothes when they pay a donation.  It was fun.

Yesterday we decided to go with Ben and Laura and their friend Luke on a day trip out to Canterbury.  It was about an hour and a half on the train to get there.  It was a really cute little town.  The first thing we did when we got there was find a cool looking pub to get a drink.  The pub had board games so we asked each other Trivial Pursuit questions for a while.  When we finished we walked further into town and went by the information center to find out what there is to do around.  We went from there into the Canterbury Cathedral.  There was a huge choir practicing for their performance that night so we got to hear that for a while and that was really interesting.  We then wandered through and entertained ourselves with stories.  After we finished we headed to a pub that was recommended for traditional English pub food, The Parrot.  On our way there we found this really cool tilted building that was a second-hand bookstore.  It was super cool.  We found some really entertaining books.  The Parrot is in the oldest building in Canterbury. It had low-ceilings, hops hung up along the rafters, a little wood burning fireplace.  It was super cute and we had great food.  When we finished we wandered through town to get to the wall on the far side.  It wasn’t super exciting but we walked along it and then up a mound that gave us a great view of the town.  There was a maze playground in the park there so we went through that.  We ended up walking along the water back into town and deciding to head back into London.  It was a great day. 

Today I went on a great run up through Tooting Common Park and Clapham Common Park.  Ran down and met Sam at the grocery store to do our weekly shop. We are relaxing today, making plans, booking some fun events, figuring out money a bit.  

Thanks for reading.

We out.

Sam and Lisa