The Great British Summer

First, let me start by apologising for the blog silence. Things have been so busy!! But, I'm back!

Seven years ago, I was travelling to London (with a side visit to Paris) to visit some friends. As I was in London, the city was bidding for the honour to host the 2012 Olympic Summer Games. On my side trip to Paris, which was also vieing for the honour, it was announced that London would host the Games. I was excited for London, but I never really gave it another thought. And now, by a twist of fate, I'm here to celebrate. And let me tell you, it's AWESOME!!

I vaguely remember the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996. It was the summer after my first year at college (university). I remember paying close attention to the women's soccer (football) team and of course I remember the bomb. But, other than that I don't remember much else. I feel so lucky to be here and be a part of it all. I've watched this beautiful city transform over the past year. Signs started going up in the tubes a couple weeks ago.

And despite all of the rain, the flowers and the city itself look wonderful!! In my work, I have been working on a variety of Olympic related issues for about a year. You'd be surprised how much goes into preparing for the games. Deliveries are suspended, routes are blocked and trains and buses will be delayed and crowded. Despite all of this, I feel like it's a small price to pay for all the FUN!! And the ability to cheer on our favourite athletes from our City.

Needless to say, the three of us are very excited! We're eagerly anticipating the 23rd, when the Olympic Torch comes right past our house!!! We'll be celebrating with lots of flags, our Olympic Tees, some lovely local friends and fresh British Bacon Sandwiches!! The following Friday will be the opening ceremony and we plan to watch it with some lovely friends. Then, on Saturday, we're heading out with a 3rd Galbraith, Grandpa George, to watch the cycling. There are some really great Brits, vieing for a medal and I'm sure they'll be some Americans too (don't worry, Evie and I have both flags). So, bring on the games!!

But, that's not the only thing that's happening/happened this summer. I know for most of my fellow Americans, the summer is almost over. You're in your last couple of weeks before the schools start back. We still have one week left of school here, but our summer fun started a month and a half ago with the Queen's diamond Jubilee.

For the past several months, as the City has been getting ready for the Olympics, you can see the Union Jack everywhere!! This is very uncommon. British people aren't quite as patriotic as we Americans. It has been a lovely change though. As the Queen's Jubilee neared, the flags started to come out in abundance! One day as I was walking to my schools, I happened to notice this in one of the store windows:

The words are all done in fresh English Roses!! All of the stores in that area had windows with fresh flowers for the Queen and some were just unbelievable!! It made me so excited for the holiday weekend to come. And what a holiday it was! We started with a BBQ at our house. All British food: some lovely British Sausages, British Pork Ribs on the grill and lots of Pimms! We had most of our NCT friends and kids were running everywhere, just the way a garden party should be. The next day, we went with our lovely neighbour Joan, up to London to see the flotilla. We couldn't see a lot, but it was so much fun to be in the company of 20,000+ happy people celebrating Her Majesty. The weather didn't cooperate too much, but it didn't dampen any of our fun. The next day, we went to a BBQ with some of our other local Americans. More babies and more fabulous food! Finally, we ended the weekend watching Her Majesty's service on the television and once the weather cleared up, we took a trip to our local city farm, Mudchute.

From the park, we walked under the Thames via the Greenwich tunnel over to see Grandma at work. Evie loved walking in the tunnel although she was a bit timid at first (it's a bit dark down there). Evie and I spent the rest of the half term playing and trying to avoid the rain. I had a big certification audit the next week with work, so I was furiously going over notes to make sure I had everything in place. 

On Evie's first day back to Yvonn's, when I went back to work, she was a bit unsettled (very unusual for her). The next day wasn't any better. By the third day, I got a text around midday that Yvonn had found a spot on Evie's leg and then a couple more when she'd woken up from her nap. Yvonn's daughter had the chicken pox about 4 weeks before. So, it was FINALLY Evie's turn to catch them. 

Evie caught the chicken pox. It was without a doubt the mildest case of chicken pox anyone has ever had. The picture above was the first and only day she actually felt bad and laid down. I was not completely convinced it actually was chicken pox and I took her to the doctor on the 5th day to make sure. But, alas it was and now it's done and we don't have to worry about it anymore! 

Ian also ran his first 10K during this time. He did brilliantly! He's definitely on his way to his first Triathlon. 

During Chicken pox gate, we celebrated Ian's 2nd Father's Day and an early birthday. We had to celebrate his birthday a week early because on his actual birthday we went off on the most fabulous trip!

We had a long weekend in Dorset with 13 adults and 11 kids. My lovely friends, Liam and Sarah, celebrated their 40th birthdays this year. In order to mark this milestone, they invited some friends down to a MAGNIFICENT house to celebrate with them. We had a welcome BBQ on the first night, a fancy dress party (costume party) on the second night, and a fabulous roast dinner on the last day. It was the most fun I have ever had with that many children and one of the best weekends I've had in the last 10 years. This is just one photo of the house:

There were 14 acres of surrounding property including an indoor pool, outdoor pool (where we swam with ducks), campsite with tree swings, trampoline and campfire (where we roasted marshmallows with the kids), a river and waterfall just to name a few things. It was magical!

We then managed to catch our breath and get a few things done for work and basically have a nap, the following weekend. But, there is no rest for the weary and we were so excited for our next events: Evie's first Wimbledon and a visit from Uncle John and Tante Marina!! 

Fortunately, we had a break from the rain and we were able to enjoy Evie's first Wimbledon in the sun!! It was made even better by a stranger giving us his tickets for court 1 (after we were inside) and Andy Murray's very cool rise to be the first Britain in a Wimbledon singles final match in 74 years. Also, very cool was our fellow American, Serena Williams' rise to a win. The whole venue was buzzing and it was a wonderful day. Here is Evie explaining that you have to be quiet whilst watching tennis:

Although it wasn't exactly 4th of July (booooo for the holiday being in the middle of the week!), we still got to celebrate with our fellow Americans. Uncle John and Tante Marina arrived on Friday with Marina's mother and niece (4 Americans, yeah). We toured London by bus (with an appropriately timed stop at a pub, it is Uncle John, you know). We then had the most fabulous and inexpensive dinner in London at Tayyabs (seriously, if you're in London go here) and finished off with some drinks before heading off home to get ready for our 4th of July BBQ. That's right, I have continued my tradition of having 4th of July BBQs in London. We had burgers and Sausages and lots of other yummy stuff. We decorated with the red, white and blue, we waived our flags, we drank some cool beers (thanks uncle John) and we relaxed and enjoyed being free in the land of the people we fought to be free from. Hey, the irony is not lost on me.

We then spent another day seeing the sites of London, walking along the Thames, checking out the Olympic rings on the Tower of London, enjoying Fish and Chips in Borough Market and ending with an evening of good wine and food with Auntie Jo! We headed out to Windsor the next day and enjoyed seeing the big castle!

And here we are, enjoying our final weekend before the schools break up for the summer. Evie and I spent the afternoon at the Museum of Natural History yesterday. It was really cool. Did you know that we only discovered dinosaurs in the last century. Somehow, I thought we had known about them for ages.

We hope to see Grandma and Grandpa on their return from a fabulous biking holiday and after that, we're just going to be counting the days until the Olympic festivities begin!

A Great British Summer indeed! 

What's in a Name?

Oh the joys of having a one year old who NEVER stops moving!! Thank goodness for Tylenol for aching muscles and University for preparing me to cope with less sleep.  Evie is a moving machine now and boy is she fast. She's also a bit heavier now, so the constant picking up has made my arms look better than Cameron Diaz at the Oscars. Seriously, I'm super strong. Evie has also started talking. Here is a typical conversation:

Me: Evie, Are you hungry?
Evie: No
Me: Do you want to go out side?
Evie: No
Me: Do you want to stay inside?
Evie: No (runs away)
Me: (chasing after her) Do you want to jump on the couch?
Evie: No (spinning in circles)

Just in case she you think it's that she only understands German at the moment, that conversation goes as follows:

Me: Bis du fertig?
Evie: Nein
Me:Wollst du mehr?
Evie: Nein (throws everything off her tray)

Seriously, you can't win. "No" and "Nein" are the words of the day. It's actually quite funny because I'm not convinced that she actually knows what "no" means each time she says it. Because sometimes she says it in this cute little girl "noooeeooeo". The other thing she has learnt is "hello". But, she has her own unique Evie way of saying it; "Helooooooooooo". She says that all the time, EXCEPT when she's supposed to say hello to someone. None of this is to say that she doesn't speak otherwise, on the contrary, she constantly speaks. It's just not in words that I (or the rest of the English and German speaking world) have come to understand as of yet.

Otherwise things are going well in London. Evie went to her first Valentine's Day party and made Daddy a card. Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday) rolled around again and Evie got her sweet and savoury crepes (pancakes to you Brits). She is a huge fan of them. I spent the day running around London making sure that the 3500 handmade organic crepes we served in our schools were happily received. It was a ton of fun all around.

My work has been fantastic the last few months. We are making great strides in our quest to bring people around to healthy, freshly prepared school meals and I've been getting a lot of great ideas from my colleagues in the US, who are admittedly having a harder time, but getting things done nonetheless. I have been working on some exciting new things and that's why I've been a little quiet in the last couple of months. I hope you'll keep an eye out for some great new changes after the Easter Break :)

So, what's in a name? I can hardly speak about names without mentioning the giant elephant in the room, my name. Even though Ian and I are married, I chose to keep my last name. It doesn't bother me in the slightest that Evie and I don't have the same last name. I am very well aware that she is my daughter as I carried her for 9 months and 2 days (I will never let her forget those 2 days) and I have the scars from childbirth to prove it (another thing she won't get to live down). As I wear a wedding ring (most of the time) everyone kind of assumes I'm married. If they didn't know, I would tell them. Strangers being unsure if I'm married isn't high on my priority list of things to worry about. I kept my name because I like my name. I have a very common first name and my last name has always been what made me stand out. I've had it for almost 35 years and I'm kind of used to it and everything I've ever done professionally and personally has included that name. So, I wanted to keep it and I did. If someone wants to call me Mrs. Galbraith, I'm not going to stand up and shout about my feminist right. However, the reality is that most people that know me are more likely to call Ian, Mr. Teichman. Something I'm sure, he could care less about. I don't recommend trying this though, unless you're Spencer.

But, that's not really what I had intended to speak about with regards to names. I think when you have a child, everyone wants to know what your children will call each Grandparent/ Great Grandparent/Aunts etc. While you're pregnant, this is the last thing you think about (you have that whole watermelon coming out of a lemon hole thing that consumes you). Some people really fret about this. I can't imagine why. I mean just take may case for example. When I was younger, my Great Grandmother came to live with her daughter, my Grandmother. Most of my family is of German descent and is VERY tall. My Grandfather was over 6 feet tall and my Grandmother used to be over 5'6" which isn't too shabby for a gal. My Great Grandmother however, was minuscule. She was maybe 4'10" with heels on. She was very tiny compared to everyone else around me. So, I started calling her little Grandma and everyone (my parents, aunts and uncles, etc) started calling her that. Now, that would have been fine, she was old and little and very sweet and it was a sweet thing for a baby girl to do. However, that's not where it stopped. If she was to be Little Grandma, then there of course had to be a "BIG" Grandma. So, I started calling my Grandmother "Big Grandma". And then the rest of my family started calling her that too. The poor woman. My Grandmother is so dignified and proper and not in any way physically "Big", but she had to endure being called Big Grandma for years! My Little Grandma died when I was 6 or 7, that's a long time for a woman to be referred to as "big" by her entire family! She often tells this story of one day after my Little Grandma had died, she and I were shopping in the grocery store. I had gotten separated from her and was a bit scared. So, I screamed at the top of my lungs "BIG GRANDMA!!!!!". Just in case you're unsure, I should mention at this point that I am very loud. My lung capacity is gigantic and years of singing, cheer leading and well, just being American have left me with the ability to project my voice to the edges of football fields and over crowds of quiet French people. It was loud and my poor Grandmother had to come shrinking over to find me. Later that evening when we were home, she told me that it was OK if I just wanted to call her Grandma from now on. I'm pretty sure that I still called her Big Grandma, at least intermittently, for at least another 2-3 years. So, I TOTALLY understand why Grandmas are a bit worried about what their Grandchildren will call them.

Evie is very lucky, she has two Grandmas, a Grandpa and two Great Grandmas!! How cool is that? Her English Great Grandma is going by the uber cool "Gigi". Her American Great Grandma, well thankfully she doesn't get called "Big Grandma" anymore, will probably be called "Grandma E" as to be honest I can't come up with anything else yet. But, I'll keep working. So, the Great Grandmas and the Grandpa are taken care of. But, what about the Grandmas? This is the most critical of name choices. It seems that they both really like Grandma. So, they both can be called that. I'm pretty sure we'll be able to keep it straight. But, just in case, my Mother in Law has come up with the BEST way to tell them apart. My Mom is coming to visit on Tuesday and of course, with any impending visit we talk to Evie about who is coming. So, in doing this my Mother in Law came up with "Grandma America". I think this is just awesome. First of all, it sounds like Captain America, awesome. It makes my mom sound like some super hero Grandma, again awesome! And it puts America in there, which always makes me super happy.

So, I think we have successfully come up with some fabulous names. Well, that is until Evie starts speaking properly and then decides to call them whatever she wants. Let's hope for their sake I can steer her away from the likes of "Big Grandma".