Anniversaries and Birthdays

This month has a few anniversaries. It was our second anniversary on the 9th. We went to a very nice restaurant, which I'll review in another post.

We picked up our turkey for Christmas today. It was sourced very locally, Copas Turkeys, in Cookham Dean. Copas celebrates their 50 year anniversary this year. We got a lovely free-range bronze turkey from them. If you want to see our turkey enjoying its free range life, check out the start of this BBC video. It is GIGANTIC though. It could feed the entire village, not just the 4 adults and one child who will be here. You can't see it exactly, but it's inside this box. I'm also holding my yummy complimentary mulled wine, which also helped widen the smile on my face.

Speaking of Christmas, the Queen sends a Christmas message out to her subjects every year. Another gold anniversary (50 years) this year marks how many years it's been televised. To celebrate this, this year you will be able to watch her speech on YouTube. The royal family now has their own channel there - www.youtube.com/theroyalchannel.

I think it's cool that the Queen has her own channel, but I don't think it's as cool as my channel - www.youtube.com/showem06. I'm pretty sure Lena's grandparents would agree, since nearly all the videos feature her. In fact, here's the latest one:




And of course, the big birthday today, amongst all these anniversaries was Lena's! She had a very nice day, thanks. Here she is enjoying her birthday cake.

In case I don't make another post beforehand, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

August Long weekend

This is the start of the August long weekend here in England. Notice I say England, because it's not a UK holiday, Scotland had their August bank holiday at the beginning of the month. We aren't going away mainly because we are looking after the neighbours' pets for a couple of weeks and I don't think they'd travel well. Anyways, we had our summer holiday back in July.

So to celebrate 3 days in the comfort of our home, here's a little video of Lena and I reading, taken today. She's become really interested in books recently, getting quite excited when you read to her. This is a quicker version than our normal sessions, but I kept it moving quick to hold your interest. Still, unless you really like babies or are closely related to her, you still might find it a rather long minute.

Feast Day

The weather has once again turned glorious and we enjoyed pancakes with maple syrup out on our patio this morning. We are also heading out for dinner somewhere tonight, but it's being left a surprise for me. Details another day perhaps. And here is a video of Lena feasting on butternut squash puree.



Enjoy your meals today.

Fun things to do with small children

This post has nothing to do with our move to England. But it's funny. There is a bit of harsh language, so you might want to take older adults out of the room.



After the fun of recording Lena when she was angry, I know what I have to look forward to.

Silly little camera

I bought a little video camera to take videos of Lena. A couple you have seen, as I put them up on the web. Unfortunately you won't see any more for a while, as it seems the cheap little video cam really was cheap and crap. Vivitar is the manufacturer, and it's a Vivitar DVR-510. Basically, it won't turn on. Even with fresh batteries. What a piece of junk! Now if I was back in Germany, I would just send it back to the guy who sold it to me and demand my money back. Because in Germany, all goods sold automatically are guaranteed for 2 years. What was this, 2 months maybe? Now, if it turns out that it's simply the brand-new Duracell Plus batteries that I bought which are at fault, I'll take it all back.

Hmm, upon fiddling a bit with it here beside me, it seems that it might not be totally broken after all. It seems it turns on about 20 seconds after pressing the button. And about another 15 seconds after that, the screen lights up to enable you to actually do something. Well, that makes me happier than I was 10 minutes ago, but it's still going to be annoying if it takes half a minute to get the thing to working level. Okay Vivitar, I won't plot to destroy you and your factory just yet, but you had best start making slightly higher quality goods...

Hanging Out

My mother-in-law is here for the next little while, so my posting might be erratic for a week or two. Or I might find I have more time than I thought and be able to post lots. Either way, here's a little video of Lena and I hanging out together on the bed. All my videos are a bit dark because the video camera doesn't do well in anything but the brightest light, my apologies. The volume is okay at least, you can hear Lena talking with me.

Friendly Smiling Post

Just a nice little video to start your week off.

Video Premiere

If everything goes according to plan, below this text there should be a video for you to watch. I bought a cheap video camera off of eBay to record Lena moments. With so much of our family living so far away, I thought they might enjoy more than just still pictures. Of course, our friends and random strangers who come across the blog might enjoy it too.

Forgive the poor quality of film-making, I was still getting used to the camera and wasn't paying enough attention as to where my subject material was in relation to the camera lens. Just click the big play button on the screen and you should be able to see it.

EDIT: Well, I can see the big empty space where the video should be, but it's not showing up nor playing for me. Let me know if you can see it.