The last eight weeks have been a BLUR!
The trip home went really well. The only "issue" came when Julian caught a glimpse out the airplane window and absolutely freaked out. Everyone kept saying it was his ears, but we really think he was scared. It was the most pitiful thing to see, but we managed to keep him calm as long as he didn't see any of the windows-- a stretch on an airplane! Julian's jet lag wasn't a problem at all. Within a week he was on a good schedule... if only his parents had it so easy.
Everyone keeps asking if we're experiencing culture shock. Understanding, of course, that the UK isn't that different from the US, I think it's safe to say we are experiencing "shock" in some areas. Mostly we notice how much consumerism defines American culture, especially leisure time. Over the last year we spent a lot of our time "out and about" in Edinburgh, but it wasn't always about spending money. Now that we are back home we are struggling to find activities that don't involve buying/shopping/spending.
Speaking of spending... we rented a house that's exactly between my mom's house and Jonathan's parents' house. It's cute and small and we have the dogs back. So my whole family is under one roof. Julian's world grows every day and it is fantastic to watch. He thinks his cousins are hilarious. Oh, and he is finally walking!
A couple of cruddy things happened too... not much of a welcome back to the U.S. of A., as you'll see! ;) I'll spare the gory details and give you the shortest version. Thing 1: all of our bank accounts were compromised and our money stolen. Seems that some person hacked into a bunch of banks and sold the numbers. As a sweet coincidence both of our accounts at two separate banks were on the list. Doh! After police reports, sworn affidavits, and lots of junk, our money has been returned. Thing 2: found out we no longer had health insurance when I got really sick. I've been on bed rest with pneumonia for the last few weeks. Yuck. We have a great doctor though. She wanted to hospitalize me but since we had no insurance she worked with me to let me stay home. My sister in law Mary said I faked the chest x-ray just to get a few weeks off! I know, it's the dream of every parent of a young child. ;)
Perhaps our biggest news is that Jonathan is now a full time freelance designer. We've talked about this for a long time, and the opportunity just presented itself. I'll let him post on that soon, but for now here's a link to his site: www.jstatondesigns.com. It's fab!