Brummie mummy stateside

A few weeks ago we had a whole day coming up with no work, school, social events or sporting activities. The weather was due to be good for the majority of this day so we wanted to get outdoors (After what has felt like a long Florida winter!)

Being one of the 1st hot days of the season we figured the normal sun spots would be crowded so I took to google to figure out a fun activity.

I came across geo caching as free family fun. Sounded perfect, if a little geeky. The kids confirmed they would love to do this after all 3 of them had apparently watched some kids doing it on kidsyoutube.

To start there is an app available to download that is pretty straight forward.

You can either use current location or search an area you’d like to explore. I looked down the east coast from the comfort of my sofa to choose an interesting route.

In the morning we packed a picnic and the kids all got note books to record their geocache findings. A 25 minute drive led us to our 1st planned cache.

Each cache has a location that you can navigate to via Google maps straight from the app. When you get closer you can navigate from the app to within a few feet.

Once your near the location click on the cache name.

From here you can read a description of the cache and also a ‘Hint’ if you need an extra clue to the location or description of what you are looking for.

Then simply press start and look! The activity log above helps to show if the cache is still up to date. If its been found recently there’s a good chance it will still be there. Also read some of the comments as they often give extra clues.

Once you’ve found your cache press the log button to say you’ve found it! This will mark a smiley face on your map so you know its completed.

The kids really enjoyed looking for the caches and it broke up the journey down to our final destination. It also took us to a few stops that we’ve previously just drove straight past (admired from the window).

The contents of the caches are nothing interesting so don’t expect real treasure! Most have a log to sign and a few little trinkets like McDonald’s toys. 1 of ours had a crust of bread 😂

I would say if you are doing this in florida look out as it often takes you into nature, yes really. This means possible snakes, gators etc. One of the caches we found we couldn’t actually look in as there was a snake on it!!

During spring break the kids and I will be looking for a few more caches with our free time. Leo even wants to hide his own – which I’ll have to figure out how to add.

To all my Brummie readers I checked the app and yes there are lots there too! Have fun exploring and finding “treasures” .

So it’s been a while since I last blogged! The holiday season here in the US kept me busy for a good while and I started a new job!

I’m happy to say I have a cozy job round the corner in the Noc at a wine market and tasting room. I know many of you will be reading that and knowing how well suited I am to a job that involves wine 😄

The job is more than serving wine though, it’s about being part of a team, building relationships with guests, building my knowledge of wines and getting some time off from the kids 🤣 with the added bonus I can now afford to get my nails done on a regular basis again, yay!

Queue new Hill household routine. I love a good routine and I also even enjoy organising and planning the new routine 😀 Allocating days for laundry, food shop, cleaning and factoring in extra curricular activities, work, socialising and family time. The 1st few weeks are always hard to get into though, then throw in halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas with all the extra volunteering and commitments. Follow that up with a 3 week trip back to the UK and my poor blog got left behind.

Happy to say my routine is now under control (touch wood!) We are all working together to be a two parent working household. Showing the kids the benefits of mommy working has played a big part in the easy transition of spending solo time with daddy. We try on weekends to treat the kids to a meal or snack out, a new toy or game occassionally. The girls are cheerleading thanks to my wages and now Leo can also finally do an activity too, baseball (He’s eagerly waiting to start this next week!)

Since my work is evenings Rob and I are not with each other as much. Rather than this being a problem though it’s turned out to be a positive. The evenings I’m home are spent actually being with each other instead of absent mindedly scanning instagram and playing silly phone games on the sofa. A nice perk of the job is getting to enjoy a good bottle of wine together!

So I’m going to get the blog, instagram and facebook active again with a few things to look forward to in the coming months….

England trip recap

Valentines US style

Spartan! I crazily signed up for a spartan sprint – 5k with obstacles. Happening Feb 24th

Poppy’s birthday March 6th

Family trip to the California mountains in March

The PPP2r5d family conference in San Francisco also March

Happy reading and don’t forget to comment any feedback please!

Hi, I have to blog about Thanksgiving now I’m living in the US! Its the start of the holiday season here.

Living in the UK I didn’t know much about thanksgiving. I’ve been in New York on the day, watched the Macys parade and shopped the black Friday deals. I didn’t take in much about the meaning, traditions or the food though.

My education on thanksgiving has come through Izzy and what she has learnt at school (honestly so far most of my American learning is through Izzy so primary school level!)

What Izzy and google didn’t teach me though is how everyone loves to celebrate Thanksgiving. The last 2 years we have spent the day with friends who have hosted and cooked for us. There’s no better way to spend an American holiday than being immersed in it with friends! So much food, drink and fun both years.

People travel for hours in the car or plane to be with family for Thanksgiving. It really is a holiday where everyone wants to be together. Friendsgiving is real here too, when you don’t have family you can be with, head to friends instead. They’re your chosen family anyway!

This year we are doing our own Thanksgiving! We’ve been invited to friends but I feel we’ve been so busy recently with me starting work, my trip to England and visitors we wanted to chill and be together. (Edit to add its been 5.5 hours of together and the kids driving me mad 😂)

I started off thinking we’d just have a normal day maybe chicken nuggets for the kids dinner but as I thought about it more I realised I have to do Thanksgiving. Our kids are English but they live in the US and enjoy being involved in all the events and traditions. I could hardly send them back to school Monday without having any Thanksgiving stories.

So I last minute prepped a menu and shopping list. There is no thanksgiving traditional meal in England so I am going American style. Cooking food that is not my norm including adding condensed soups to vegetables.

I enjoyed the meal prep the day before. Its fun to try something new. Then went off to work Thanksgiving eve. With a steady flow of wine buyers and lots of happy Thanksgiving wishes. We even prepped for the black friday wine blowout – will be my first black friday here not getting up at 3am to shop! I’ll be the other side this year and selling. Although I’m sure my credit card will get used still, the wine is tempting!

Appetizers and dinner went well! My pink bubbles helped the cooking process. Even the kids had red grape bubbles. Poppy apparently got drunk 🤣 The food although good isn’t really to our taste but I’m pleased I did a traditional dinner for the kids.

To end our Turkey day we headed out for a walk with Teddy. Let the kids run off some energy and get some fresh air.

I’ve wrote about Poppy our eldest child before .

https://brummiemummystateside.com/2018/06/18/poppy/

This blog is essentially about her too. When you have a child with special needs, a condition, a syndrome or an illness it can turn your life upside down.

Rob and I knew no different, Poppy was our first and what we thought “difficult” baby.

When I look at how our life has turned out we are better people because of her. We are a strong family unit, as a couple we have worked through difficult times and decisions. We are raising two other little humans that are incredibly open minded, show amazing awareness, they are compassionate, caring and sympathetic because of their sister and the role they play in her life.

The repercussions of having a child with special needs goes further than just our house. A family member wrote this for me, so you can read someone’s opinion other than mine!

We all want our children to be ok. When you realise that things are not as you thought, your life is turned upside down. Anger, guilt, despair. Rob and Michaela have been fantastic going on to create a wonderful family and have made sure Poppy is involved in everything. Poppy is very special, she remembers people, the whole family only get together occasionally and she has always been very excited to see us all. She is very sensitive, caring and loving. She sometimes has a meltdown for no real reason that we can see, but sometimes her frustration is about us not understanding her communication. I find that distracting her from the meltdown is often the best thing but sometimes you just have to ride the waves. Although she cannot always communicate with us properly, she totally understands what we say to her. When Poppy was diagnosed with Jordan’s syndrome it was a relief to finally put a name to the problem. However, because it is a very rare genetic disorder, we don’t really know what the future holds. Because of Poppy I am more accepting and give much more time to people with special needs. I realise we are all too busy getting on with our lives that we don’t always see what extra time people like Poppy need. We love her and treasure her.

We were given Poppy for a reason. We now need to raise awareness about her and her friends, our PPP2R5D family.

So a little history before I go into the fundraising details… I stumbled across a facebook page around 2 years ago when I’d googled (Again!) to find some information on Poppy’s gene mutation.

The page was titled PPP2R5D Families.

Simply, a page of families that also had children with Poppy’s genetic condition. I was so excited to find the page I called Rob and we both joined the group straight away.

Fast forward and we have got so much from that group. Seeing and reading about the other children, all their similarities and their achievements.

We are so looking forward to meeting the majority of the 72 families in San Francisco March 2019 at the 2nd family medical conference!

The conference is being arranged by Jordans Guardian Angels (JGA) The charity set up by Joseph Lang in honor of his daughter Jordan, one of the 1st children to be identified as having gene mutation PPP2R5D.

Jordansguardianangels.org

Finally meeting all of these children that we have watched grow over the last 2 years will be an amazing experience! Being able to see them all together is so exciting!

We are being given the opportunity to talk and bond with parents in our situation and for Izzy & Leo they get to meet other siblings with a sister or brother just like their Poppy. This is an invaluable experience for us and all the other families.

Whilst we are at the conference we will learn about the research that is underway to try and find a cure for this gene mutation. Poppy will have the opportunity to give samples to be used as part of this research. Imagine being 9 years old and helping to potentially cure not only her gene mutation but also some forms of cancer and Alzheimer’s!

We are so grateful that the charity are paying for families to fly from around the world and providing us with accommodation for 3 nights to attend.

Now JGA have been doing an amazing job of finding grants and funding to start their medical research but the money will go quickly. We want to repay their kindness and raise the funds back for our flights.

Hence our fundraising efforts! Rob completed an obstacle run at the beginning of November with a friend on behalf of JGA. So far a total of around $1600 has been raised with some match funding from Deutsche Bank!!

Next up a little party with Poppy as the VIP guest. I decided to do an event in Nocatee since Poppy is pretty popular round here! This event will be a fun few hours for friends to have a few drinks, sample some food, hopefully win a raffle prize and bid on our silent auction items. All the items we are giving away have been donated after a simple post on a local facebook page – our community has been amazingly generous!

What feels more important to me about the event though is the information and the awareness that people will leave with. Poppy has an extremely rare and some what invisible condition. Unless people ask, they don’t know the details. So we will inform our community about Jordans Syndrome, about the gene Ppp2r5d and the research being conducted.

I’ve been banging on about my trip back to the Birmingham for months now and today is finally the day!

I’ve had very mixed emotions about leaving. Obviously mega excited to not only see my family and besties but I actually get to help my oldest friend walk down the aisle and marry her fella, at last!

Then there’s the feeling of leaving behind the kids and Rob. Of course I’ll miss them immensely but its also the fact I am a control freak. I’m having to let go of them and hope their world continues as normal. Simple things, will they have the right school books, enough outdoor time, too much tablet time?? Being a stay at home mom I’ve controlled what they do or don’t do for years now. Like running a small sometimes manic business 😂

But don’t worry I haven’t left them to muddle through, oh no no no. Rob and his mum (who kindly booked her annual visit to coincide with my holiday) have a manual. Raising little Hills. A full schedule and info pack, including Teddy info!

Will they read it?? Who knows. Fingers crossed someone, even if its Izzy may glance at it just so they know at least after school activities and pick ups. I have also stuck post it reminders around the house 😁

I do know my kids will be well loved, thoroughly exhausted from role playing and will have full bellies. So I am going to try and let them be. I’ll enjoy myself whilst they get to see a bit more of daddy and having nanny Jen for company.

I’m sat at Jacksonville airport writing this and it’s dawned on me I won’t have anyone to talk to for almost a whole day. Such a strange feeling! As I sit here I see people mingling and hear conversations. When you travel with 3 kids you see & hear nothing outside your bubble. Too busy watching & entertaining kids to care what’s going on around you.

I’m going to take the time to sit and relax while I can. Lots of catching up to do in Birmingham and fun with friends then before I know it I’ll be back in the chaos with Rob and our kids ❤

Stay tuned for more Brummie blogs when I land.