Tornado in Dallas

A warm 80°F and overcast day, brought in a severe weather system to the DFW area on Boxing Day. We watched the news and weather forecasting as the storm rolled over and parts of east Dallas were put under tornado warning. It turned out that two tornados touched down, ripping narrow trails of complete devastation through two Dallas suburbs, leaving 11 dead and 400 houses damaged. We definitely won't be taking tornado warnings lightly next time (http://www.nbcdfw.com/weather/stories/Severe-Storms-Leave-Damage-in-North-Texas-363566391.html?_osource=SocialFlowFB_DFWBrand). Today, just west of Fort Worth is covered in a few inches of snow. This El Nino is really bringing in some crazy weather.

Christmas Day

Christmas day began with the usual early wake-up call by three excited kids desperate to open their presents. The ensuing chaos followed, and cooking a traditional British Christmas dinner: Turkey with all the trimmings. The weather was sunny and a glorious 75°F so we decided to have our Christmas dinner in the garden, a first and probably a last with such unusual weather, so it had to be done. The passers-by on the path next to our house probably thought we were bonkers in our Christmas cracker paper hats, they're not a tradition here.

After dinner David and Evan decided to take a plunge in our pool, despite the water being rather chilly. Then we took Bess out for a stroll along the trails, the weather was so balmy it was surreal. In the evening we had an invitation to join our friends who live just around the corner. They had heated their pool and spa so the kids had a great time playing in it, as well as games of hockey and enjoying new Christmas toys. It was so mild we sat outside in t-shirts until nearly midnight, drinking and getting merry. It was a really fun evening and a memorable, if bizarre, Christmas day.

Swimming with friends on Christmas Day!

The North Pole Express a. k. a. Grapevine Vintage Railroad

Last year, having only been in Texas for a few months, I wasn't organized early enough to book the usual trip to see Father Christmas. This year I thought I'd get in early and book tickets for myself and the kids to go on Grapevine Vintage Railroad's "North Pole Express" train. This was really a trip for Evan as he's only 7; Alice, now 12, was a good sport and played along with it whilst David was somewhere in the middle.

I really like our neighbouring city of Grapevine, it has some character and history that Southlake, which was largely rural until the development of DFW airport in the 1970's, sadly lacks. The railroad came to Grapevine in 1888, leading to development and increased population of the area, buildings from this era still line Grapevine Main Street today. Grapevine was part of the vast 'Cotton Belt Route' railroad and the current station building, built in 1901, is called the 'Cotton Belt Depot'. The railroad suffered a decline in the 1930's following the great depression and the rise of the motor car and today it is run as a heritage railroad. The passenger service became known locally as the Tarantula Train, a label relating to the Fort Worth rail network, with eight lines branching out of Fort worth, resembling a spider.

The Grapevine Vintage Railroad today has two engines, a steam engine "Puffy" built in 1896 and a diesel locomotive "Vinny" built in 1953, which pull four Victorian styled coaches from the mid-1920's. The main route is to the Fort Worth Stockyards and along the Trinity River, with additional special wine-tasting, Halloween and Christmas excursions.

Grapevine is self-styled as 'The Christmas Capital of Texas' - they have the largest lighted Christmas parade in North Texas in early December (maybe one for next year), so it seemed like the best place to try and feel Christmassy in the unseasonably warm and sunny weather. The kids and I had a wander around Main Street and the station buildings and took advantage of the photo opportunities with the most enormous baubles we've ever seen.

In case you hadn't guessed, Grapevine is apparently the Christmas Capital of Texas. The Cotton Belt Depot is behind the baubles.

When we boarded the train I was delighted by the beautifully restored and maintained 90-year old carriages, which were tastefully festively decorated. We were greeted by 'elves' who then sang Christmas songs - some of which we had never heard of, although everyone else seemed to know them - as the train trundled on a short excursion north east along the line and back again. We had to laugh at the scenery, skirting the edge of DFW airport and the huge road network that surrounds it was not exactly pretty. 'Mrs Claus' made an appearance, moving through the train, greeting all the children and giving them 'I believe' bells. When we returned to the depot we entered the 'North Pole' following a snowy Christmas tree trail, the 'snow' being bubble foam, it was 75F! The kids then watched a short show with Father Christmas and a couple of elves singing and dancing panto-style. I thought it was very well done; David said it was 'lame', from a 10-year-old perspective, it was. Still, they all happily drank the offered chocolate milk, and the older two humoured Evan and I by having their photo taken with Father Christmas. It was all a good bit of fun, which we rounded off by a trip to Krispy Kreme doughnuts on the way home.

The North Pole Express.

2015 is officially the wettest year on record in DFW

The storm system that rolled in on Thanksgiving afternoon continued to pour heavy rain over DFW for three days and earned the area some new record breaking statistics. Nearly eight inches of rain fell taking the yearly total to 57.95 inches, beating wettest since records began (in 1898) by four inches, and the year isn't finished yet.
(http://www.iweathernet.com/dallas-fort-worth/dfw-2015-is-the-wettest-year-on-record-for-dallas-fort-worth).

The magnitude of the rain when it falls leads to some flash flooding. It was clear this morning that the local creeks had flooded. The trails were covered in debris and branches were washed up behind anything that wouldn't move, showing the creeks had significantly overflowed. The rushing water had undermined the trees causing several to fall. I was glad we hadn't ventured out to walk the dog during the rain.

Bear Creek after the Thanksgiving storm

Despite the storm, and a cold snap earlier in November which killed off the remaining greenery on the grapevines and tomato plants, we still have some sorry-looking fruit clinging on in the garden.

December harvest!

Thanksgiving

Like last year, we started the day with our friends from the neighbourhood where we had our rental house, doing the 'Turkey Trot' fun run at Rockenbaugh. It's an excuse to get together and have fun under the guise of attempting to burn off some calories before the excesses of Thanksgiving begin. With the amount of cakes and cookies consumed by the kids, I think there was a net calorie gain, but hey, that's Thanksgiving!

Turkey Trotting

We popped home for a quick shower before heading to the Ruck's (lovely friends from David's footy/soccer team) for one of Carrie's father's legendary Bloody Mary's. They had a house full of family and friends and it was nice to meet some new people. The boys had a kickabout, despite the pouring rain that had just rolled in. We witnessed how to cook turkeys, eight of them I think, deep fried Texas style. It took the whole 'man-cooks-meat-outside' thing to another level. The turkeys looked amazing, but we were saving ourselves...

The Ruck's Dragon Tavern - The best outdoor man-cave I've ever seen!

...for what could only be described as a feast of epic proportions at Anmol (Rob's colleague) & Tom's in Aledo. We enjoyed a lovely afternoon and evening with the Mullins family, they gave us the true Thanksgiving experience, even though they claim that they under-did it by Tom's family's standards, I don't know if I'll feel hungry again!

We're resting before dessert. Evan LOVES the massage chair.

Tornado warnings

Last night we had our second tornado warning this month, which is unusual for this time of year. The first time I had no clue what was going on, the weather suddenly got stormy and we could hear faint sirens in the distance. I actually went outside as I thought the alarm might be coming from the house. If it wasn't for Alice calling me from school to say she had been locked in because of the tornado warning I would never have known. Thankfully the storm passed over very quickly and no damage was done.

The second tornado warning came at 3:30am last night. Rob and I were awoken by the loud 'amber alert' on our phones, which is a different sound to the alarm clock. A few minutes later Alice was woken by the alert on her phone. The three of us were in the lounge, Rob had the TV on trying to find out what was happening, we could barely hear the sirens over the wind. Suddenly the wind picked up and it became very noisy so I rushed upstairs to grab the boys out of bed, and we all piled into the downstairs toilet, which I assume is the best place to shelter as it's partially under our main staircase, in the centre of the house an has no windows. The kids thought their half hour camp-out was very exciting, Bess on the other hand was not impressed!

Downstairs loo camp-out

In the eye of the storm.

Halloween 2015

Halloween preparations have been in full swing for a month already with decorating the house and deciding on costumes. Yesterday we carved our pumpkins, roasted the seeds (Worcester sauce seeds being the best!) and made pumpkin bread with the pumpkin flesh.

This year we spent Halloween in our new neighbourhood of Timberlake. Whilst Alice and David went trick or treating with their friends, Rob and I took Evan out with our neighbours and their two sons who are just a little younger than Evan. As usual the kids came home with an enormous bounty of sweets and chocolate. Our neighbours set up a barbeque in our cul-de-sac, so we ended the evening sitting around a fire pit eating hot dogs and getting to know everyone.

National Walk To School Day

Rockenbaugh once again took part in the national walk to school day. Everyone met at Wentwood Pool, just around the corner from our old house, and walked to school from there. The morning was extra special for Evan as Rockenbaugh's boy scouts got to say the pledge then lead the walk by carrying the US flag. Evan donned his uniform and took his turn carrying the flag, he loved it!

Dinosaur Valley State Park

Dinosaur Valley State Park, just south-west of Fort Worth, is an area of parkland where fossilised dinosaur footprints have been exposed in layer of limestone rock. The Paluxy River has eroded softer layers of mudstone to reveal impressions from several types of dinosaur along it's banks and beds.

Whilst still shallow, the level of the Paluxy River is currently higher than normal following the high rainfall Texas received in the spring, so many of the footprints were under knee-deep water. However, there was a fantastic park ranger who walked, or waded, the five of us up the river showing us the footprints of a family of four Acrocanthosaurus, relatives of the Tyrannosaurs, which were 18 inches wide and over two feet long. Standing in a 113 million year old footprint of a dinosaur, with claw prints still clearly defined, was just awesome. The ranger also showed us footprints on the banks from Pleurocoelus, a sauropod related to the Brontosaurs.

The ranger showing us the Acrocanthosaurus footprints, and Evan stepping in a Pleurocoelus footprint.

The kids also enjoyed cooling off in the river and jumping into the Blue Lagoon, a deep pool in the river. And of course we had the obligatory ice creams.

Dinosaur Valley State Park also had plenty of living creatures to see. When we drove up to the main entrance there were three hanging hummingbird feeders and several hummingbirds flying back and forth right in front of our car. There was also an enormous, 2-3 inch long spider hanging from the State Park sign, we had to get out and have a look at him on our way home. You can see it hanging above the 'N' in dinosaur in the photo above, thankfully it tuned out to be a relatively harmless Yellow Garden Spider. All in all it was a fabulous way to spend the Labor Day holiday, also my birthday!

Back to school

So that's the summer finished! Evan woke up at 5:30am, which for him is unheard of. Apparently he couldn't sleep as he was too excited. I'm not sure if the enthusiasm was for going to school, or just travelling on the yellow school bus for the first time, either way there were no complaints from me, what a difference a year makes! Alice and David were less enthusiastic, but I ran the gauntlet of being 'embarassing' by taking a picture of them getting on to the bus.

The obligatory and seemingly international front door photo

Blighty

This year we spent pretty much the whole of July in Britain. It was really great to see everyone but it was also a hectic and exhausting month. I calculated that I'd had slept in eight different beds, and that was just me. Rob travelled with work at the beginning and end of the month, the boys camped, and the kids had various sleepovers at different friends houses. Plus a night on a plane.

Stuff of dreams: Sunday Roast

They raced Grandad up Billy Wynt

We spent the first week in Wales, staying with my parents, eating them out of house and home, and visiting friends. On our first weekend, Rob and the boys went camping in Abergavenny on the annual legendary Dads and Lads camping trip, whilst I went out for dinner with a group of girlfriends (special thanks to Danny for letting me sleep in his very comfy bed) and Alice had a sleepover with one of her friends. 

Dads & Lads camping, Abergavenny

Beautiful Brecon Beacons

The following week we were thoroughly spoilt by our wonderful Marshfield friends. The Martins hosted a curry night - ticking off part of our British food bucket list - and put us up for the night. The Mauds held a BBQ, in which we were incredibly lucky with the weather, having spent a fair amount of time looking out of the window at the rubbish weather and wondering what to do with ourselves.

I miss these lovely ladies!

BBQ at the Mauds

After a busy week we headed to Essex to see Rob's brother and his family. On our way we dropped into Maidenhead to see my sister-in-law, Jodie, who was 34 weeks pregnant and stuck Wexham Park Hospital due to bleeding caused by placenta praevia. You can read all about Jodie's story here: http://www.maidenheadmum.co.uk/coping-with-placenta-praevia-a-pregnancy-update/.

Whilst in Essex we continued our gastro tour of the UK, being thoroughly well fed with a big barbeque and even a proper pub dinner for Rob and I.  We managed to fit in a day trip to London, the boys went on the Emirates Stadium  tour whilst the girls shopped on Oxford Street, before we all met up and went to the London Dungeon, which was superb, once you got over the expense of the tickets!

Fishers in the Dungeon

Cousins commentating for the Arsenal

Then we headed to Warwickshire and spent four days with Rob's parents. We had a day out at Warwick castle, which was awesome, visited the motor Heritage Museum at Gaydon, and the Hatton flight of locks which I went up as a child on our family canal boat. Rob and I also managed to have a night in Stratford-upon-Avon, we went to see the merchant of Venice at the Royal Shakespeare company theatre. Along with a golf lesson, numerous games of 'Uno' and an evening at Cafe Rouge where Rob, Alice and David sampled the escargots, it was an action packed visit!

The next stage of our tour took us to Kent to stay with the Lairds: my friend Jane, who I lived with for 6 years through University and afterwards. Jane and I managed to squeeze in a cheeky Thai dinner with our other best friend Jenny, who lives close by. It was so lovely to catch up properly. On Saturday, the rest of our university gang came to spend the day with us and have a barbeque. It's been over a year since we have seen most of them, when we camping together last summer (http://taff-to-texas.blogspot.com/2014/06/camping-in-uffington.html), but that never seems to matter, they're the next best thing to family. We played games, a never-ending rounds of football and tennis, and ate and drank too much. We spent Sunday relaxing and taking the kids out on the Laird ponies, Millie & Nutmeg, which they loved.

We've made a lot of people since we graduated!

Riding Mille and Nutmeg

Back to Wales for our last week. Rob had to work, so he spent three days at the office in London. I visited friends and enjoyed another night out at Jamie's Italian in Cardiff with girlfriends, whilst the kids had various playdates and sleepovers with their old school friends. A quest for proper 'fish 'n' chips' took us to a windy Porthcawl, the epitome of a British seaside town complete with fun fair and RNLI life boats. We even managed to visit Rob's uncle, Roy, which was quite an achievement as we rarely saw him when he lived just 15 minutes away from us in Marshfield, he's the busiest octogenarian I have ever met!

Jamie's with the girls

Porthcawl

The plan for our final weekend was to visit my brother, Rich, in Maidenhead, as Jodie had finally been discharged from hospital. On Saturday morning, as we are due to set off, Jodie was admitted back in to hospital as a precaution following a small bleed. We were keen to get the cousins together, our three with our niece, Anya, before we went back to Texas so we decided to stick with the plan. Seven of us set off for Maidenhead taking both a car and my parents motorhome for extra beds. We took the kids to the park and had a barbecue. The kids had lots of fun together, though we were disappointed and worried that Jodie was back in hospital again.

Fun with Anya

I woke at 6:30am on Sunday morning to my phone ringing, it was Rich. He was already at the hospital. Jodie had had another bleed in the night and the doctors had decided to go ahead and do a C-section. In the meantime Rob left for his flight back to Texas, he was going to work on Monday. By 8am I had a new nephew, four weeks early, and two days before we're due to fly back to Texas!

Mum, the kids & I had to dash back to Wales, leaving Dad with the motorhome and Anya. We pack all our things and return the hire car before heading back to Maidenhead on Monday morning with the hope of seeing the baby before I go back to Texas. On Monday afternoon Mum, Alice and I were allowed into the neonatal unit to see little Adam. We couldn't have been more delighted to have had the chance to meet him before we flew back to Texas, we didn't think we would get to see him on this trip, it was the icing on the cake!

The little man, Adam.

Wetting the baby's head

Cousins in the pub - one missing now!

Everywhere we had been we were treated like royalty, celebrating our homecoming with much food and drink at every stop on the tour. Landing back in Texas, we felt the need for a diet and a 'dry' spell, our livers had worked hard enough! My Texas British friends had the same experience, a cup of tea being the only drink we were interested in.

As much as we enjoyed our trip, it felt like we had been away for a long time and we were glad to get home. 'Home' has become a term that we seem to use for wherever we aren't: Britain when we're in Texas, and Texas when we're in Britain. Going home (I'm writing in Texas) can be strange. It's a reminder of all the things we've left and all the people that we love and miss. But it also reminded me how much better life is now, not because of the lifestyle or the Texas weather - as much as I love it and talk about it - but just the fact that, excepting the odd trip away, Rob now comes home every day, sees the kids and we have dinner together. A simple normality that for many years we didn't have.

Leaving our new house

Having been in the house for just a couple of weeks, we begin packing again to go to the UK for a month and the enormity of leaving this house, with lots of things that can go wrong and which I don't really understand, dawns on me. What happens with all our post, the mailbox will be full in a day or two? Oh we can get the post office to hold it. We can also have the local police check on the house every day we're away (what would we do without the internet?). We booked a pool company to maintain the pool whilst we're away, only to be told the pool isn't working effectively, valves need replacing. Then I realise the upstairs air conditioning unit isn't working properly two days before we fly out, by which time Rob has already flown out to Europe with work. Faced with the prospect of baking our house at 100F for a month, there ensued a panic to get it mended. Phone calls to the home warranty company ended up with the repair guy leaving the house just a couple of hours before we left for the airport. Anyway, we're here at the airport now, and I'm really looking forward to seeing all my family and friends again. Chocks away!

Checked in and London bound at DFW!

More Taffs in Texas

This weekend we had another visitor from Wales, not directly from Wales but welsh all the same. Originally from Swansea, our university friend, Meirion, now lives in Kingston on Thames. An avid supporter of Welsh rugby, he visited us regularly to watch the Wales international matches so it was like nothing had changed, except now we know that he doesn't just visit us for the rugby! We gave Meirion the full Texan of experience by taking him to the Feedstore barbecue and he managed to see an armadillo, although he was mainly pestered by David and Evan to throw them around in the pool.

The Feedstore, a great place to meat!

Kiddie catapult

Timarron Tiger Sharks

The Timarron Tiger Sharks are a locally renowned swimming club that offers swimming lessons and swim team sessions every summer for 6 weeks in the Timarron community pool. Evan started swimming lessons in the UK but they fell a bit along the wayside with the move. Although he can manage in water he cannot swim strokes properly, which is a pretty important skill here! I signed Evan up for swim team, which meet for an hour in the morning on four days a week, and also for two weeks of afternoon group swim lessons. Under the tuition of local swimming legend Coach Murphy, Evan's swimming came on leaps and bounds.

Lessons are underway...

Evan takes the plunge at his first swim team session

After three weeks Evan felt confident enough to take part in a swim meet at the Carroll Senior High School Aquatics Center, where the pool is enormous and deep. The heats are all timed, and there's a huge scoreboard showing the results. Evan did four heats and although he's not fast, he completed all his races and really enjoyed himself.

Swim meet at the CISD Aquatics Center

For me, sitting in the sun by a lovely outdoor pool watching swimming lessons is a far cry from the hours I spent in Cardiff leisure centres watching their lessons, then trying to get the shivering kids dry and dressed in a cold cramped dressing room.

This is the life!

Pet Love

A bit of pet love on my doorstep

Bess has been groomed twice since we've been in Texas and they've both been pretty awful haircuts, even though my instructions are clear. All I want is for her to be shaved all over, no beard, no bushy tail and no shaggy ears, yet she has emerged looking like a schnauzer or a badly shorn sheep and I've taken to the scissors to sort her out. To top it off most groomers require a kennel cough vaccination every six months even though the manufacturer recommends this to be an annual vaccination. With the weather getting warmer and Bess's coat getting longer, I booked a different groomer yet again, only to discover that her kennel cough was six months and one day ago, they won't take her without a booster. Argh! Mobile groomers do not require vaccinations since they don't mix dogs together, so I booked 'Pet Love'. Although this was an expensive option, we did at least save the cost of an unnecessary vaccination. Along came a very friendly lady in a purple van and parked it outside our house. She vanished into the van with Bess for two hours. It was like a caterpillar to butterfly transformation; out came Bess, clipped exactly as I asked, smelling great and wearing a Texas cowboy bandanna. Result!

A pampered pooch

Moving in

A lovely gift of drinks chocolates, pool toys and
goggles for the kids from the previous owners.

The day the kids finished school was the day we got the keys for the new house. The kids all did a half day at school, and in the afternoon David had a 4th grade party at Timarron pool and Alice had a friend over and they were going pool party too. In the midst of me packing, the kids loaded up the car boot with swim stuff, snacks and drinks and we left in a rush for the pool. Except my boot was still open and as I reversed out of the garage the door bent back against the garage wall above the door and it wouldn't stay closed, argh! This was doubly frustrating as I needed my car to move boxes over to the new house. Moving day was set for a week later to give us the chance to pack, and my intention was to pack up a few boxes every morning and take them over to the new house and unpack them whilst the kids play in the pool. Everything had to come out of the side doors of the car as the boot was held closed with duck tape, it was back-breaking but we managed it. Rob took several car loads - and I've got a big car - over the weekend, so that when removal day came around, my kitchen, most of our clothes, and a lot of stuff that could go in the numerous built-in cupboards was moved and unpacked. The removal men mainly had to shift all the big items of furniture, they started at 8am and it was done and dusted by mid-afternoon. The week-long moving process has left us absolutely exhausted, and there's still lots to unpack and sort out, boxes that haven't been opened since they were packed up in the UK. Our rental house needs to be cleaned up too, which I'm really struggling to muster the energy for.

Moving again. Bess is enjoying the space of the empty house but the kids have to eat their pancakes standing up.

It feels glorious to be in our own home again. There's still lots to do but the house is lovely and the kids are really enjoying the garden, pool and trampoline, something our rental house lacked. Here's their first plunge...

Durham Court Cinema night

We have become friends and been accepted into the fold of a cul-de-sac just round the corner from where we live, and they regularly have things going on in the street. Last night, one of the families decided to have a cinema night for the kids on their front lawn. They put up a huge screen and projected a film, and they even had a proper popcorn cart. The kids thought it was absolutely brilliant, whilst the parents enjoyed having a drink and get together. We love living here!

Watching the film

Film has finished so they're moved on to dancing in an attempt to stay up later.

School's out for Summer!

So that's it, their first year in the U.S. education system is complete. It's been a busy year, with lots of changes and challenges, but also lots of new friendships and fun. Both Alice and David will be moving on to new schools in the autumn; David into 5th grade at Eubanks Intermediate School and Alice into 7th grade at Dawson Middle School, making them 'leavers' again this year. Both Alice and David had a traditional graduation ceremony, walking up on the stage and shaking hands with school principle and receiving certificates, although no mortar boards, thank goodness!

6th Grade Graduation at Eubanks Intermediate School

Leaving elementary school is seen as a big step up, next year in fifth grade they will have different teachers for each subject, timetables and lockers to contend with. In addition to the graduation ceremony, Rockenbaugh also has the 'Fourth Grade Clap Out'. All the kids, teachers and parents line the halls and clap the 4th graders as they file out of the building, it was really touching. In the pictures they're all wearing swim gear and carrying towels as they're going on a trip to the high school aquatics center for a final afternoon of fun, which was reportedly 'awesome'!

David in the Fourth Grade Clap Out at Rockenbaugh

Evan will be back at Rockenbaugh next year for second grade, although new for him will be traveling to and from school on the bus, and new classmates, as they mix up the kids every year. But before that they have three months off for summer, I'm wondering whether I'm going to survive...

Saying goodbye to their fantastic teachers Mrs Clardy and Mrs Brannon, and Officer Art