Thanks to my family for telling to keep blogging - I am glad to know this thing, after a whole year, still gets read! I suppose all of these blogs will now be forever etched in internet history and will be like a virtual diary for my future kids to laugh at when they get old enough!

Well I've settled into my new job fairly seamlessly. It's a whole other world at this school... I think back to the experiences I had during my first year teaching. Chasing children across a field trying to bring them back to class, being bitten, being ignored, being appalled by behaviour... all of these things are just a figment of my imagination now (yet burned in my memory...) Of course the children I teach now have their own special issues, the biggest problem being that they are loved and spoiled TOO much which make some of them detestable. However, I could think of much worse things to deal with on daily basis.

We've been looking for a new flat. My friend from Teacher's College is moving here on Tuesday and he, Barret, and I have decided to find a flat to accommodate the three of us. We've got one nearly secured - just still waiting on references and other sorts of things to come through. It's actually been really stressful. I really hope we get it though, because I am absolutely SICK of living where I live. It gets scarier every day... I wont get into too much detail so that you all can sleep at night - but it's just not good. The new place we've (nearly) got is even closer to my work (awe-some!) and is in a young, hip part of the south west called Clapham. Much safer, more fun, and way closer to everything we enjoy. If we do get the flat and everything works out move in date is Nov 2nd (yay...great birthday plans...moving!). Will let you know how things pan out!

Even though we have just settled in from our trip to Canada this summer, we have another adventure coming up at the end of October. Barret has been an absolute gem and worked tirelessly to plan us a 6 day trip to the Canary Islands. These islands belong to Spain but are off the west coast of Africa. We are going to the popular island of Tenerife and during our time there it will be about 28 degrees. Ahh... I can't wait to enjoy it in our private POOL!!! (Yeah, Barret pulled out all the stops this time!) So excited!

Barret and I have been thinking about different things to do around London to keep ourselves active, learning, and making the most out of our potential final year here. Today we bought a joint membership that allows us unlimited access to the Tower of London, Hampton Court, Kew Palace, Kensington Palace, and the Banqueting House in central London. All of these palaces hold so much history and the membership was unbelievable value! We went off today to Hampton court where we got to see King Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine Parr - his 6th and final wife. Today we decided just to go for a few hours, since now we have unlimited access to the palace and don't have to get sick of it all in one go! We also checked out the most famous maze in history - the Hampton Palace Maze. It was pretty cool, but not really that hard... It was a good day!

Anyway, just a quick update - will let you know about the new flat!

Love and miss you all

amy