Country Living!!

We're settled into our new home now ... and have picked up our wheels ... so are fully mobile and functional ... just waiting for the shipping ... which should have arrived somewhere in the States today! We're enjoying our home a lot ... and Abigail seems to have settled well in her new brightly coloured room! She now sports four teeth very proudly ... the bottom two arrived on significant days for us ... the first on our flight over and the second, the day we got the keys to our new home!

As Mark doesn't start in the hangar until October 19th we're trying to make the most of this time as a family to get to know the local area and experience as much of small town American life as possible! This week was the Coshocton County Fair ... which is a big deal out here, lasts a whole week and kids get that time off school!! We saw lots of animals there but were fascinated by all the fruit and veggie displays as well as some of the super-sized categories that people entered ... check out Abigail with the pumpkins!! There were also rows of half-eaten cookies which had been judged on previous days and even a 'giftwrap' category!!

We have also been enjoying the 'fall' colours and some of the amazing countryside which is right on our doorstep! There is truly an Autumn season here ... and it's beautiful! This afternoon there was an MMS family Wiener Roast and Hayride (for the uninitiated among you a 'wiener' is a hotdog ... it had us slightly confused as we had to bring our own ... but we worked it out!) It was a great chance to meet some of the other MMS families in a lovely setting and Abigail had a whale of a time on the hayride pointing at everything, giggling and jiggling around!!

We also visited Roscoe Village which is a 'old style' America with some of the traditional crafts, leather work, black smith and shops which sell more traditional goods ... it's just on the outskirts of our town and has a big apple-butter stirring festival later on this month ... watch this space as we hope to go!!

Another more practical thing we've done this week was to join the library ... the local one is quite impressive ... a good selection of things for us and for Abigail ... and with a limit of 100 items on your card I think it will keep us occupied for quite a while!!! Unbelievable!

Home Sweet Home!!

Hello Again!! Well ... we've achieved quite a lot in a short space of time since our arrival in America!! We're learning the many occasions when English words that we use aren't English words the Americans would use (and vice versa!) ... for example over here a 'pocket book' is a handbag ... or when we say we're going to have some tea ... they think we're just having a drink rather than some food in the evening!! It definitely makes life more interesting!!! Other differences include drink cans being 25ml larger than in the UK (so Jenny rationing herself to one can of coke a day ... gets a little bit more to enjoy out here!!) ... no complaints there!!

As well as sorting out the details of our new lives here ... we've had some fun goofing around as a family too!! Here's Abigail enjoying a jumbo pair of oven gloves ... which she thought were hilarious!! On a more serious note though we've done a lot since we got here (thank you for all your prayers about the details!) ... we've found a car (just waiting for the money to arrive so we can go and pick it up!!), taken and passed our written and practical Ohio State driving tests ... (the most nerve racking part of the whole moving across the world thing!) ... and found the new Beckwith family home!! See below!

We picked up the keys and signed the contracts this afternoon and will be moving all the furniture we bought from a departing MMS family tomorrow!! Then it'll just be case of waiting for our shipping to arrive from the UK! We have had a tentative date for our things to arrive in the USA ... 10th October ... it'll then have to clear customs and be brought to Coshocton ... which we're hoping might only take a few weeks ... so please keep that in your thoughts and prayers as we'd rather see it sooner than later!! We'll leave you for now with a couple of pictures taken on our front porch this afternoon ... but will be back once we're settled in our new home ... with internet up and running!!