Deck the halls...

...with excessive lights, of course! Starting with the big switch-on in Southlake Town Square at the end of November, where Santa showed up to flick the big switch to a huge crowd. In true Southlake style there was music from various choirs and bands, food stalls and plenty of activities for free (if you could be bothered to queue): tubing, building a snowman from crushed ice with Olaf, and crafts. The lights are very pretty and it was all very tastefully done.

The big switch-on in Southlake Town Square.

Not to be out done by Town Square, Southlake has continued to get brighter and brighter over the weeks running up to Christmas.

The kids and I took the dog for a walk around the neighbourhood, this is what we saw.

There was no chance we were going to be keeping up with the Jones's (top left photo is across the road from our house) when it came to the outdoor decorations, so we bought a mere 1300 lights and a wreath. Prepare now to be underwhelmed...

Ty Fisher

We have two artificial Christmas trees, one which we bought when we had a flat in Cardiff, but it was too wide to fit in our lounge in Marshfield so we had to buy a 'slim' one. This year we have two lounges, so the slim tree went in the kids lounge upstairs and the wider one came out of the box for the first time in 12 years to go in the main living room. It looks a bit lost, now I know why they sell 12 foot high trees in Costco.

We don't go in for fancy tree decorating, our tree is covered with an eclectic mix of baubles and decorations that have evolved into a potted history of our family. We have decorations from our B.C. (before children) travels; baubles from India and Russian dolls. Decorations that have been bought for the kids, and for me by my god-daughter, pines cones Evan & I collected at St. Mary's church that we took home and painted. Decorations that were knitted for us by Auntie Elaine and Eira (David's best friends Grandma) and of course all the things the kids have made over the years. There is even a history of Alice's craft phases: clay, hama beads, sewing and this year, of course, loom bands! This new chapter of our lives demanded a few new ornaments this Christmas. Can you spot them?

Thanksgiving

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, the thing I have have been most thankful for on our first Thanksgiving is the school holiday. The kids have just done 13 weeks non-stop at school and they are tired. This long term would be a hard enough slog for them in a familiar setting, but it has been a big change especially as they didn't get much of a holiday over the summer with the move. I'm very proud of how well they have adapted, taken on the challenge, made new friends and settled in, as it hasn't always been easy. Suffice to say this week has been a welcome break. I'm also thankful for having chosen such a friendly and welcoming neighbourhood as our new home, although when I think about it, the list of things to be thankful for is very long.

I don't think the Pilgrims and Wampanoags would
have had pink biscuits Evan.

First grade Pilgrim Fathers and Wampanoags

Thanksgiving dates back to a shared meal celebrating a good harvest between the pilgrim fathers and native Americans from the Wampanoag tribe at Plymouth Plantation in 1621. This story was relayed by the first graders at Rockenbaugh followed by some songs about turkeys going 'gobble gobble'. The kids then got to have their own little Thanksgiving feast in their classrooms, which they throughly enjoyed.

As well as celebrating Thanksgiving at school with Evan, I also joined David for his Thanksgiving lunch at Rockenbaugh - although in true David style he had his sandwiches. At Eubanks I had a Thanksgiving school dinner with Alice, which was better than it looked as it was served on a ploystyrene tray.

Alice with her Thanksgiving lunch

Turkey, stuffing, mash, gravy, green beans & brioche?

We began Thanksgiving Day with an unofficial fun run named the 'Turkey Trot', which is organised by a group of friends on the Rockenbaugh playing field. Coffee, doughnuts and run or walk as many laps as you want to do around the playing field. David set out to beat the record for most number of laps set by his friend Alex, and managed to with 20 laps (about 4 miles), it was reminiscent of Forrest Gump! We had a great time, and again the weather was glorious.

Doing the laps

Evan sports his race number

The young Turkey Trotters

Having worked up an appetite, I set out to cook a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We had turkey, stuffing, mash, green beans, gravy (OK, I did cheat and use Bisto, my anglo twist on a Thanksgiving dinner) and corn bread. Corn bread is more like a kind of gritty madeira cake, which was an unusual accompaniment to a roast dinner as it's sweet, but it went down well with certain members of the family. For dessert I made a pumpkin pie, of course!

Rob dishes up the corn bread

Cheers!

Pumpkin pie!

Pioneer spirit for making the corn bread.

Visitors from the Taff to Texas

Our first visitors, also from Wales, were my parents. They stayed for two weeks and it was great to have them here - and not just because Rob & I managed to get a weekend off in New Orleans (more on that to follow)! The main aim of their visit was just to see where we are and I think they really enjoyed spending time with their grandkids and pottering around the local area. We did manage to cram in some touristy things too, like the obligatory trip to the Stockyards to see the cattle drive and rodeo in Cowtown Coliseum.

Monopoly, Newport style!

 

And my kids say I'm embarrassing!
(Only joking Dad, it's one of my favourite pictures of 2014)

Cowboy action in Cowtown Coliseum

Last night dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, yum!

Missing people is a funny thing. Alice asked me when we'd only been here a few weeks if I missed people from home and I had to think about it, which made me realise that I had to think about them to miss them as they are not as such 'missing' from my day-to-day life. I'm not expecting to see someone in a particular place, to then be jarred by their absence; they don't exist in this world, there is no constant reminder. Communication is also easy these days, Skype, Facetime and Facebook condense the miles. So it was strange when Mum and Dad left, we'd got used to having them around.  The day after they left I went in to the closet in their bedroom where they had hung their clothes, it smelled of their washing powder and I was instantly back in their house in Wales. It's all in the little things.

It's snowing!

Well I didn't think I'd be moving to Texas to see snow in November! OK, there wasn't much of it but I have seen UK schools closed with less snowfall. Mind you, had they closed, they have bad weather back-up days on the school calendar so kids, teachers and parents can catch up on their work. I wonder how that would go down back in the UK?

New Orleans

We have been keen to visit New Orleans for some time and considered it as a destination for Rob's 40th birthday, which falls around the time of Mardi Gras, but as his birthday drew closer the move to Texas appeared on the horizon, so we decided to wait. Our 13th wedding anniversary coincided with my parents visit so we took the opportunity of having babysitters and booked a weekend away.

New Orleans is one of those rare places in the USA with a long and rich history that is written all over it's streets and cultures. The city of New Orleans was founded in 1718, although archaelogical evidence shows the area was populated by native Americans as far back as 400AD. The position of New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi has made it both economically and strategically important, which goes some way to explain why it has gone through French and Spanish hands before being sold by Napoleon (along with an enormous swathe of north America between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains reaching up into Canada) to the Union in the Louisiana purchase in 1803. The port of New Orleans has been an entry point for the African slave trade, and is the site of the last battle of the War of 1812, in which the American forces defeated a British naval invasion 200 years ago. Although flooded numerous times over the years, in 2005 New Orleans was hit by Hurricane Katrina, the levees were breached and the city was extensively flooded. The scale of the disaster and the poor response of the Bush Administration (let's face it, 'W' was not exactly the best product of Texas), made international headlines for months, and the effects are still ongoing today.

New Orleans by day. We spent most of our time walking and chatting to locals in the art galleries.

Bourbon Street mayhem

This melting pot of native Americans, Africans and Europeans, has lead to the diverse culture, cuisine and architecture the city has to offer. The food was great, and the choices endless. We managed to forget to pack our Lonely Planet guidebook for New Orleans so we just followed our noses and ended up trying alligator sausages and traditional Creole gumbo's.

Of course New Orleans is probably most famous for being the birthplace of jazz. I was never a huge fan of jazz - I dipped my toe at Ronnie Scott's in London once but it was all a bit to stuffy for me, but New Orleans jazz is different, it's funky and you can dance to it. Music is everywhere you go in the city. We had a great time going from bar to bar, or simply standing in the street listening to the various club, street and marching bands. It really is a fantastic place for a night out, very casual but totally buzzing. New Orleans is the least 'American' place I have ever been to in the states and I loved it. We didn't get to see the Mardi Gras Indians though, maybe next time.

Music everywhere

Winter's here.

Winter seems to have arrived in Southlake. On Monday afternoon it was 27C, my parents dined al fresco in the town square, by Tuesday we were down to 6C.

We have been asked by our landlord to put the 'hose protectors' on, these are a polystyrene box that has a plastic drawstring to hook on the tap and pull the box snuggly over it to be flush with the wall, apparently this will stop the taps freezing and splitting. I thought we moved from a cold country but this is a new one for me!

By all accounts it's unseasonably cold for mid-November, but it's not raining, so no complaints from me, even if the Texans do look like they are going on a polar expedition when they venture out of their cars. Now where did we put those hats and gloves...

Halloween

Our first Halloween in America was great fun. It started early at the beginning of October with big decorations going up on houses in the neighbourhood (http://taff-to-texas.blogspot.com/2014/10/halloween-already.html). We bought a few decorations for our house and Alice got to work making gravestones out of cardboard boxes (of which we have an ample supply), ghosts out of old sheets, and she cut bat shapes out of black paper to stick on the windows. Of course, we also made a Jack o' Lantern. We used the flesh to make some delicious pumpkin bread with a recipe my friend gave me after we went around for tea. For a first attempt we thought we did an OK job with the house.

In the weeks running up to Halloween a game went around the neighbourhood called "Boo", in which you anonymously leave outside someone's door a bucket or bag of Halloween treats and sweets with a note of instructions telling them they've been 'booed'. You ring the bell and leg it. They then have to put a sign on their door saying they've been booed and have to 'boo' two more people. The kids loved this game, deciding which of their friends to 'Boo', creeping up on houses trying (largely unsuccessfully) not to be seen, and the guessing game of who booed who at school and which houses had been booed.

On Halloween itself, the kids put on their costumes and we left a big bucket of sweets outside our house and headed out Trick or Treating. Everyone was out and about, those who didn't go out trick or treating sat outside their houses or stood in their doorways dishing out sweets to the kids, many of them were also in fancy dress. The kids managed to meet up with their friends, and one of them had a bit of a party going on in their cul-de-sac, so we hung out there for a while. The kids managed to collect and enormous quantity of 'candy', I think it will last them through to Christmas!

Ready to go.

Spooky stuff.

The first Trick or Treaters arrive.

The best costume of the night.

Evan with his loot.

The best decorated house in Southlake!

Evan with his Jack o' Lantern.

Alice amongst the graves.

How much stuff?!

The winding road to a drivers license

Having completed the online drivers education course (http://taff-to-texas.blogspot.com/2014/09/texas-adult-drivers-education-course.html) the next steps in getting a drivers license were to apply for a drivers license in person at a driver license office and then take the road test, simple enough.

My car is big, a 'minivan' (or MPV if you're in the UK) and I love it. It's great to drive, smooth, comfortable and it has lots of 'cheating' devices, like a parking camera and blind spot sensors that help you see out of it, because with the seats up visibility is limited out of the back. Not sure if I could use a reversing camera in a road test, I decided it was probably best to do the test in Rob's car, which is much smaller and easy to see out of.  However, when you buy a car here they give you temporary registration plates (or rather a laminated computer printout) to put in the metal frame that holds the plates until your car is registered with the Texas DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles). The DMV send you official plates with a registration number, which can take several weeks. You can't take a road test on temporary plates, drum fingers and wait (OK, I didn't literally sit and wait) for Rob's official plates to arrive...

First attempt.
I decided to apply for my license at the Fort Worth Mega Center as there are some road test slots available on the day. You can book a road test online, but not until you have already applied for the license. So a couple of weeks ago, capitalising on Rob's car being available as he was away with work, I thought I'd get it done. I filled out the form, gathered the necessary documents (passport, visa & I94 form, SSN card, two proofs of address/residence, car insurance details, then I always chuck in birth and marriage certificates for good measure, no such thing as too much ID in this country) and set off for the Mega center, which is half an hour drive from our house. Ten minutes into my journey I had to stop at a red light. Unfortunately the driver behind me didn't realise in time that he also needed to stop at the red light, a glance in my mirror gave me the split second knowledge that he was going to hit me.

Tools? Yes, a big mallet.

I was that behind that white line at the bottom of the
picture. I guess I can't do a road test in this.

The truck driver took care of the situation, calling the police and clearing the debris from the road. Two Policemen on motorbikes arrived after a few minutes, they reminded me of "CHiPs" (if you aren't old enough to have been watching TV in the early 80's, you'll have to Google it). They asked me to drive the car into a supermarket car park just off the junction, and when I parked and rolled down the window he said "Excuse me ma'am, do you know you're driving with your trunk open?", ha, funny officer, funny. The two officers took down and exchanged our information, strangely enough I had every piece of ID and car documentation possible sat on my front passenger seat. Then they tried to wedge my boot (or 'trunk', depending on your side of the pond) closed and I had to drive it home. It popped back up after a few minutes. This car has only 2000 miles on the clock.

Second attempt.
Not to be put off, I headed down to the test center again the following day, but in my car this time.  When you enter the drivers license center, you have to log in on a computer with with your phone number. The last 4 digits of your number are then displayed on screens in the waiting room, and you wait for your 'waiting time' to decrease which is simultaneous with crawling up the queue line, something akin to waiting for your stuff in Argos, but without the added excitement of getting a new iron or storage boxes. Except today the 'waiting times' are getting longer, apologies, there's an IT issue - argh!

Waiting... what did people do without smart phones?

After an hour or so, my number comes up. Documents are scrutinised and scanned, information tapped into database, they take my photo and fingerprints and I have to read a specific line on a sight test. I get all this for $25, and three goes at the road test. There are no road tests available today though, so one is booked for 10 days time. Halfway there at least.

Third time lucky
Rob's car still not being fixed, I took the test in my car. I arrived 20 minutes before my test, as directed, and was sent around to the back of the building to join a car queue.

I'm the only person sitting behind a steering wheel who a) doesn't
have a Mum or Dad sitting next to them, and b) witnessed the 1980's.

The tester checks over your car registration and insurance documents, then you have to flash your indicators, press your brake lights and honk your horn before she gets into the passenger seat. You then have to drive forward, stop and slowly reverse for 15 feet before pulling forward to parallel park in a space marked by yellow posts. Halfway through my parallel park I knew it wasn't right so I asked if I could start again, she let me and it went in perfectly. Then we set off to drive on some real roads, allegedly. Over half the test was on back roads where there were no road markings, or on quiet 2-way roads. We did a few right and left turns, went through two sets of traffic lights and a 4-way stop. She said she she could tell I'd been driving for a few years, and that was it, my license will be sent in the post. So out I drive, back into the real world, where I won't have to parallel park until I go back to the UK, and roads look mainly like this.

Dallas driving.

Partial solar eclipse

Another celestial event this evening, a partial solar eclipse with the moon covering about 40% of the sun. We made a 'pinhole camera' to look at it and, despite my reservations, it worked well.

The State Fair of Texas

Giving it large with Big Tex.

The kids had a day off school today, a teacher training day which also coincides with Columbus Day, so it was a perfect opportunity to use the  free tickets for the state fair the kids had been given through school. The State Fair of Texas (http://bigtex.com/) is held at Fair Park in Dallas and runs for 3 weeks every October. In true Texas style, it's big (and there's enough parking). There are numerous shows; music, dog, police and bike displays to name a few.  In  the agricultural section there are prize livestock breeds on show and a children's farm. Exhibitions,  shopping, an enormous food hall,  and even a 'skyway' cable car across the site add add to the line-up. We tried 'Funnel Cake', which is basically doughnut batter poured though a funnel into a big squiggly nest shape, fried then covered with lashings of icing sugar, the kids loved it and we had to go back for another one. All good stuff, until you get to the unavoidable enormous fairground area where heamorrhaging money is order of the day. Although kids love them, I have to confess I'm not the greatest fan of fairs, to me they are just noise, bright lights, junk food, dodgy looking rides and games with naff prizes. However, even with the free tickets for the kids (otherwise $43 for them to get in) $5-6 per child per ride is daylight robbery. One ride kids, and we'll go back to Six Flags in the holidays.

Hanging out with the police.

The dog show.

Scoffing funnel cake.

Some cows that have got the hump.

Alice and David have a go on the pirate ship.

Halloween already

"Yeah, we'll go for it on Halloween this year kids", after my walk with the dog around the neighbourhood, I'm slightly regretting this 'when in Rome' approach...