Cows, poisonings and barbecues. ..OH MY!

It's all been go today, honestly. I've had no time to put my feet up all day, except now. CRAZY!

Susie is a really early riser so to try and make a good first impression I get up at 6 and I am reading to go by 6.30. I was very proud of myself. I thought I'd done a really good job. I had an amazingly rewarding breakfast of two waffles, eggs and sausages and practically a jug of tea to get me really raring to go. We were planning on going to the supermarket first thing but Susie wanted to check her debit card statements, so she tried to log on to the internet. It turned out that their phone and internet service provider, Verizon, did not receive a payment from them and therefore with no notice cut their phoneline and cancelled their internet. Charming. It took AGES to sort it out, seriously.

I vaccuumed the entire house to get rid of all the dog hair in preparation for our guests this evening, unfortunately, I did it with too much gusto and vaccuumed up one of my socks, thinking naively it wouldn't be a problem, I continued, only to find out that it had jammed and overheated the entire cleaner. I enlisted Susie's help in a dramatic rescue mission to free the sock of its hairy dusty prison. We were successful.

I then got really excited, cos we had to go out and feed the cowies for the first time since I've been here. I have missed them so much, as soon as they saw hay they were galloping across the field to eat. They are SO CUTE. The babies are adorable, they were very curious of me, but as soon as I started singing to them to started to get really intrigued, and some were really brave and wondered up to greet me.

We started to make some preparations for today's barbecue early on, so we cut some fruit and veg for some salads. Then we had to go get some stuff from the supermarket, so we hopped in the car to safeway and had a little exploration of the MASSIVE varieties of food they have on offer, honestly, it's crazy how much stuff people have to choose from over here. In some cases the products did make me feel slightly nauseous, the sheer size and horrible fatty nature of them was kinda icky.


This photo made me lol so much, how many classic American stereotypes can you see on this packaging?


So after we bought a freight train's worth of food and groceries we went back home to start making the potato and macaroni salad for today's barbecue. There was a lot of work to be done so we got right on it. I had to peel and slice the boiled eggs while Susie in classic Susie fashion was doing everything else. I do worry about how hard she works sometimes.

As we were cooking, one of Susie's dogs, Frankie, was crying and howling and pathetically loafing around the kitchen area. This is highly unusual behaviour for Frank, and we started to get pretty worried. Susie felt round his tummy area and noticed that it was very tight, she told me to look around places where he might have found something to eat. Then it dawned on me.

Oh crap.

I brought a massive bag of pick and mix sweets from England with me. A HUGE freezer bag full of fizzy cola bottles, apple laces, gummy snakes, licorice wheels, gummy bears, and drumstick lollies. He had eaten the entire bag. He finally puked and the smell was horrible. It STANK of chewy cola bottles, basically, his puke stank of the smell of pick and mix sweets. Poor little guy, his pulse was RACING. Words could not describe how guilty and terrible I felt, I nearly killed Frank, I poisoned him! DEFINITELY not the best thing to do on your second day. He seems to be doing alright though.

We ate a quick lunch before my cousin Jake and his family arrived. He has a wife called Stacy, a daughter called Roz and a baby called Rex, named after my uncle, his dad. I'm REALLY not gifted with small children, so I laid low while he played with all the noisy toys. Greg and Lindsay arrived later and she looked fabulous! I've never met Lindsay before and it's been a good ten years since I saw Greg so to see them was really good. They all seemed very cheerful and happy, and when Rex arrived we went straight to cooking the meat. Rex's dad, Bob, arrived shortly afterwards and we had a chat about Kettering. The food was AMAZING, REAL burgers, REAL hotdogs, REAL company. Lindsay and I had a good chat about my plans and how exciting this trip is gonna be for me. I must say I agree, it's going to be fab.



By the time everyone left, I was completely knackered and ready to call it a night, but I had to get on and blog about today. I chomped down a popsicle and sat down in front of the laptop to talk to you guys. We don't really have a solid plan tomorrow, except that we are going to Rex's rental lot, which means another early rise, so goodnight!