Back In Virginia

Our 3 years in England is over and we have returned to our house in Virginia. We will really miss the general pace of life in Croughton. It seemed alot slower than in Northern VA. We will especially miss the kids' school and the opportunity to visit places.

But we are happy to be back. We got back to the US on 13-July and for the next month lived out of a hotel while we cleaned the house and got it ready to live in. My mom and Jennifer's parents came down and the house was srubbed from top to bottom. Just that made things look alot better. However, since renters aren't known for taking the most care of things, the carpets were awful and there were many marks and some holes in walls. We got everything repaired and painted before we moved in and, the day before we moved in, the carpets were replaced. The house looked great.

Next up was arranging the delivery of our household effects (Sea Freight) and Storage. Those items came last week. 11 crates of sea freight came Monday & Tuesday and the Storage (7 more crates), items we hadn't seen in 3 years), came on Wednesday. Thursday was a "day off" from deliveries and Friday we got the new furniture that we ordered. Everything is here now. Now we just have to unpack it and find a place for it.

Our friends have been great by offering to take the kids on some says allowing us to unpack without little eyes, ears, and comments.

When we got back to VA the weather was HOT (90-100F) but the past two days have been cool (60's and low 70s). It also rained alot the past few nights (about 3 inches) though this area is still far below what it should be at this time of the year.

We've enjoyed walking in the woods again and seeing all the trees. Leo has ventured outside the past few days but always stays around the house. He's already made 2 kills: 1 toad and 1 chipmunk. We're hoping that he moves onto the snakes and mice soon.

There have been alot of deer we have seen around the house. 5 - 6 fawns total and a couple of bucks in a neighbor's yard. In fact, a fawn was about 10-20 feet from the house in the backyard yesterday.

The garden is a weed forest (7'+ high in some places) but the trees are doing well. We just picked the peaches on Monday and they are delicious!

That's all for now.