Welcome Emmaline!

Emmaline Alice Snow was born on Friday Feb. 6th at 7:41 pm. She weighed 8 lbs. 13 oz. and was 20 3/4 inches long.

After a long and painful labor, we are happy to finally have Emma here!

I went into the hospital to be induced at 39 weeks. Since Isaac was also induced and everything went like clockwork, I was expecting everything to go smoothly with Emma. We arrived at 7:30 am and they started pitocin. By 6:00 that night, I was only dilated to a 5! Since this was my longest labor yet, I was getting very discouraged. And to make matters worse, the epidural only worked on half of my body.

Soon, the anesthesiologist came back in to redo the epidural. As soon as he put it in, I was dilated to a 10 and ready to push. The epidural never did take effect. Emma ended up being posterior (face up instead of face down) and her little hand was also up by her head. The back labor was excruciating, but luckily she came quickly after that!

We are so happy to have her! She has been such a wonderful baby so far and we hope she keeps it up! Cora, Abby and Isaac are in love with their little sister and always begging to hold her. CJ has been incredibly helpful driving kids here and there, packing lunches, doing bedtimes and naptimes etc. I have been able to rest and focus on little Emma. I love you CJ!!!

The true test will be next week when CJ is back at work.

Welcome to the world Emma!

Paris by night

Cora, Abby and I kicked off the new year with a visit to Paris. We went on one of those chartered tours with the guide and the bus and what not. That's right we were those people starring wide-eyed out the window on a foreign land. Paris at night is astoundingly beautiful. I highly recommend it. Remember to bring more jackets than I did, because it was freakin' freezing.

I should also mention the awesome ferry ride across the channel. We left from Dover, which was cool, because it has white cliffs. So, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of an English Channel crossing it can be a little bumpy. The boat has a food court in it where you can get all sorts of breakfast meats, especially the really dense ones, like english sausages. Well, I ate a belly full of english breakfast meats just before the ship left the harbor for open sea and gale force winds. We where then buffeted by the waves for a full hour. I spent the whole hour gripping a barf bag and humming to myself. The trip back was just as fun.

A Most Horrifying Halloween

We moved into our house on Halloween. Since we didn't actually have anything to move (except our 10 suitcases) I fooled myself into thinking that it would be smooth sailing. As we entered the house, we realized that it was freezing! We were all huddled up with our blankets and CJ was frantically trying to figure out how to turn on the heat! You would think such things would be simple, but it turns out that although they do speak English here everything is different! CJ worked his magic and we prayed that things would start warming up.


After we were settled into our house, we realized we were starving and didn't have anything in the fridge except some cold pizza. Now, pizza would have been fine if I only could have figured out a way to heat it up. We had no microwave and I could not figure out how to turn the oven on for the life of me! But no worries, we were having our church Halloween party and dinner would be served. The girls had been talking about the party for weeks and we had no dinner, so we were definitely going!

We only had a few small problems. First, we didn't know how to get to the church. We had been borrowing a friend's GPS, but they had needed it for the night. I called up a friend and her husband kindly agreed to drive to our house and let us follow him to the party. Problem solved. But as we were about to leave, CJ (who had been a little sick all day) began to get a fever and had a bad case of the chills in our freezing house. He needed to work the next day, so we decided it would be best for him to stay home.

Now things were starting to get a little scary. I had only driven a couple of times and driving in general is a terrifying thought. I weighed my options and decided that I had to brave the outing on my own with my three kids crammed in the back of our tiny British car. The girls had been looking forward to this for weeks and we had no dinner! I just had to go! Our friend finally arrived and we embarked on our 30 minute journey to the church.

I began following behind my friend, when my heart began to race. I had never driven at night before, and I hadn't realized how utterly horrifying it would be. Imagine racing along on tiny little roads at 60 mph, trying to keep up with someone in the pitch black! And on top of that, every time a car passed me, I was momentarily blinded and unable to see which way the twisty road was turning. Every time a car passed, I held my breath hoping they wouldn't hit me. The cars just looked so close! I had to stay as far over as I could! Unfortunately this made me hit the curb every once in while, which really gave my heart a jolt.

I continued to follow him for another 10 minutes when we came to a T intersection at a very busy road. My heart started to beat a little faster, knowing that I would have to try hard not to loose him. My friend turned and my heart sank once more as I realized that I would have to wait for another opening to turn. After a few seconds, I turned and realized that there was another road to my left. Oh no! Did he go straight or did he make a second turn? I had no idea! I continued going straight, but soon realized that I had lost him! I had no idea where he was, I had no idea where I was, and I had no idea how to get home. I didn't have a cell phone and I didn't even know who I would call if I had had one! The only thing I could do was to start praying that we would be able to find our way home again. I told the kids that we were lost and I asked the girls to say a prayer. We must have had angels watching over us, because somehow I miraculously remembered the way home and we got back safe and sound!

We ended up eating cold pizza and trick or treating through our neighborhood. The kids went to bed full of candy and happy, but my heart was still racing a bit. Happy Halloween!

Our House

Sorry about the long absence in blogging! We have had quite a roller coaster of events.... moving into our house, finding a school for the girls, figuring out our British appliances, our hot water heater almost exploding, and trying to cope with no Internet, TV, and toys!

We are happy to finally be back on line and we are beginning to get things figured out. We moved into our house on Halloween and that was quite the experience! (Read my Halloween post) Anyway, I promised some pictures, so here it is!

An evening with the boys

Last night I inadvertently took Isaac to a bar. So he and I were hanging out at this on-base wal-marty type store. Its where we take him for fun because A) they have tricycles there for him to ride and we have no toys what-so-ever and B) shockingly, Isaac is not really into seeing places of historical interest. So, I walk he rides. Anyway, its around dinnertime and I decide to be bold and get Chinese take out in a nearby village. Its pitch black by 6:00 PM here and I got lost and had to return home empty handed. On our way home I see this charming little Inn and restaurant. I look through the window and see a ton of kids, so we head in. It turns out the restaurant is full, but 'no worries mate' says the dude, we got plenty of room in the back. The back turns out to be a full on bar. Next thing you know I'm surrounded by Americans with crew cuts and Harley shirts drinking and carrying on. Good times. The food wasn't bad, who knew eggs and peas would go together so well. Issac made me snap some portraits of ourselves. Cheers. C.J.

Bury St. Edmunds

Yesterday we took our first road trip (just 30 minutes away) to an adorable historic town called Bury St. Edmunds. We visited the market where we bought hats, mittens, homemade doughnuts and lots of fresh produce.

(on our way to the market)

We also visited an old monastery built in the 9th century. It is now comprised of only ruins and inside has been turned into the beautiful "Abbey Gardens".

Welcome to England

We finally made it to England and we are beginning to get settled. We have been staying on base in temporary housing. Although the housing is very comfortable and spacious (for a hotel) we are dying to get into our own house.

Our temporary housing has only 2 bedrooms, which has proven to be difficult for jet lagged children. I had no idea how long it would take us to get adjusted to the 6 hour time difference. The girls, CJ and I would have adjusted more quickly if it wasn't for poor little Isaac. After many sleepless nights we are happy to report that we are finally all back to our normal sleep habits.

Now that we are adjusted to the time, we are trying to tackle the driving, house hunting, and school searching. We found a house and are planning on moving in later this week! It is an adorable little house and I will make sure to post pictures and tell everyone all about it once we move in.

I still have not dared to drive off the base. Besides driving on the wrong side of the road, the streets are incredibly narrow and everyone drives terribly fast. The speed limit for most of the narrow roads is 60 mph. The street signs were a mystery to me when we first got here, but slowly I am starting to decipher them.


My goal for this week is to find a school for the girls! Cheerio!