I'm so proud of my little American!

We went to the parent teacher conference yesterday and I've never been so proud!
As soon as we walked in, she said "you must be Draven's parents!" having looked at Brandon haha!
She told us she took one look at Brandon and knew straight away who we are lol

She said he's a pleasure to have in her classroom, a fine addition to the classroom (I'm beaming!).  Then she said "WOW can he read!" haha!  I said "yes, he's been reading with ease since he was four years old" she told us she was shocked how he just knew everything already!

We were then given a piece of paper saying how many words per minute Draven is reading at the moment, and what they expect him to be able to read by the time he finishes first grade.  He's expected to be able to read 52 words per minute by the time he finishes first grade, however, right now at the start of first grade, he's reading 86 words per minute!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I took a photograph of this paper, I'll add it here later 

I'm so proud, so proud, so proud, so proud!!!!!

Labor Day Weekend offer - FREE DOMESTIC SHIPPING!

Don't forget there's FREE domestic shipping until Tuesday to celebrate Labor Day Weekend!  Just use code: LABSHIP

Also save $5 on this beautiful Humming Bird 11x14 Photo!  Signed and dated on the back by the Photographer. IN STOCK!  Just click the Photo below and it will take you straight to the listing in my shop

Both offers expire Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Heather Conway Photography LLC | Session Prices

Heather Conway Photography LLC - Session Fee’s

A $50 Reservation fee is due when securing your date. This fee is non-refundable. If the session must be cancelled for ANY reason, you will have the opportunity to reschedule another date.  You may pay via paypal to heatherconwayphotography@gmail.com (you do not need a paypal account to use paypal, you need to have a valid credit or debit card) or by cash, or by cheque

Package A – Mini Session $75

This fee includes the time of your photographer* and a low resolution disc. This package is designed for couples and individuals.  This package is 30 minutes long at a location of your choice.

Package B – Bronze Session $125

This fee includes the time of your photographer* and a low resolution disc. This package is designed for couples, children, Newborns and individuals.  This package is 1.0 hour in length at a location of your choice.

Package C – Silver Session $175

This fee includes the time of your photographer* and a low resolution disc.  This package is perfect for families [up to 7 people], couples, children, individuals and Newborns. This package is 1.5 hour in length at a location of your choice. 5x7 print included.

Package D – Gold Session $225

This fee includes the time of your photographer* and a low resolution disc. This package is perfect for families [up to 7 people], couples, children and Newborns. This package is 2.0 hours in length at the location of your choice. 8x10 print included.

Package E – Platinum Session $350

This fee includes the time of your photographer* and a low resolution disc. This package is perfect for events, families [unlimited amount of people], couples, and children. This package is up to 4.0 hours in length at a location of your choice. Three 8x10 prints included.  You have the option to $50 for each additional 30 minutes with this package.

You also have the option to purchase the High Resolution disc with a full print release which will enable you to print the photographs as often as you like at a lab convenient to you for an additional $150 to any package.

*The time of your photographer includes the time spent taking the photographs at the time of the photo shoot, and the time that it used to edit and process the photographs that are taken on the day of the photo shoot.

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LET'S CELEBRATE!!

To celebrate my family and I moving into our new house, I am doing a buy one get one free on all prints and pendants.
Just order the item you want, and chose another for the same value or lower and state which item it is you want when you checkout, copy the web link if possible.
Offer Expires on Monday, August 20th, 2012 at 8am Eastern time.
Please note, this is for prints and pendants only, iPhone Cases are not included in this promotion.

You can also chose photos from this page if you don't see them listed in my shop, I can create a personal listing for you, just send me a message saying which print and size you would like me to set up in the listing for you.

Please share this post onto your friends so they can also benefit from this offer, thank you :)

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Little moan about Etsy!!!!

I just looked on Michelle’s phone to check on my shop to see if I’ve had any messages or sales (Yeah I know, supposed to be using this time to chill from my shop).  No sales, boo!  Even worse though, I had a message from Etsy saying they deposited my earnings into my account twice last Thursday by mistake, so I can expect a debit from Etsy in the next 5 days!

Well thanks a f**king lot Etsy!  I don’t have money in my account to cover that!  We’ve been spending on the house and I’m all tapped out!  I can’t even go and put cash into my account to cover that and any charges that may incur because I have no cash left either!  I’m sure Etsy admin won’t read any notifications I have in my shop, but I have stated that I won’t have internet for the next week and the date from which that will apply, so I shouldn’t have even read that message yet, and wouldn’t know anything about anything coming out of my account, so their message to me is useless at the moment.

Ugh, I don’t know, this is just a little business vent between painting the kitchen.

Well, I have a little 3 year old angel right now wanting to hug his mummy, so over & out bloggers!

Day 6 in the house

So it’s not quite been a week yet since we moved in.  We planned to move in last Sunday, August 5^th, but I had a doctor’s appointment the next morning, and the house wasn’t quite ready yet for us as had no hot water yet, so we moved in on Monday.  I got up, got ready, got the kids ready, went to the doctors and came back to the new house.  Shane’s dad, John had been staying there all morning waiting for the gas man to come and put the furnace back on, but I guess “morning” out here in America to people that come out to your house for something, means the same as “morning” in England, it means the afternoon!  The gas man showed up at 4pm!

So after my doctor’s appointment, me and the kids stayed at the house and never looked back J  Shane came straight to the house after work.  I’d got our bed ready to sleep in, the kids bed ready, and all was ready to live in!

We’re not getting the internet hooked up until next Tuesday, so that means no Netflix either!  Which is fine, it gives us time to paint the kitchen etc. and I have time to write stuff like this in “Word” ready to copy onto my blog once we are connected.

It’s sort of refreshing, having no internet or TV.  I’m on Etsy all the time checking my shop and sorting it out, as well as Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter in order to promote my shop as much as possible, but of course being on those sites also leads to many distractions.  I find myself browsing people’s photographs or commenting on people’s status updates or responding to comments on my own photographs and status updates.  I never quite put the work into my shop that I could be, due to my own distractions.

So anyway, when I’m on a long flight or something, put aside my fear of flying, which I think I’m over now anyway, I like being disconnected from “the world”.  I like the opportunity to sit back, ready some trashy celebrity magazines, chill to a Sudoku book and do some “break from life” activities.  Things I wouldn’t usually have time to do in my day to day life.

So by having no internet or TV right now, I have no choice but to forget about my shop, forget about promoting my shop in any way I can.  I can’t even get Photoshop to work right now on my new computer.  While I found that extremely annoying at first, I’m somewhat pleased I can’t work on any photography for now.  The photographs I’ve been taking in the meantime, such as the Humming Bird that’s been coming to greet me every day, just have to sit on the back burner for now until I can get my Photoshop working again.  So I have some work built up for me when I’m reconnected, which I’ll be ready for by then.  Therefore, housework and fixing the place up aside, I’ve been using this opportunity to feel like I’m taking a break right now, like a super long plane journey.  I’ve been playing solitaire on my new computer, the only time I ever play that is when the internet is down, but I love the game, I always have!  I’ve loved the use of my Sudoku book.  And thoroughly enjoy relaxing in bed to a celeb magazine.  In fact I even treated myself to a $12 thick mag/book of celebs when they were younger.  I love all that crap haha!  I should use this time to read some of the novels I’ve not had time to read over the past few years, but meh, I’m lazy ;)  I’ll make time for my novels in the near future at bedtime.

I’m so mad right now about my first yard sale experience!  Around the corner (American corner, Shane will understand what I mean here, sort of an inside joke between us) there are a couple of girls having a yard sale.  I went over there to have a look at some stuff; as I approached I saw they had a futon! Fantastic! We needed a couple of those for the guest room (I can’t believe we’re going to have a guest room!).

So I’m thinking it may be $100 or so, so I started looking at some other bits and bobs they had, found some cool make-up then I realized they had two boxes full of make-up, so I’m nosing in there when some guy started asking them about the futon!  I’m thinking “oh crap! I didn’t get over there quick enough, stupid make-up distracting me!” again with the distractions!  He decides to buy it! Damn!  Like an idiot, I take a look at the price… $20!!!!  Double crap!!!  It was brand new too!!  I’m kicking myself now!  So I try to console myself by thinking “well, you want two futons, ideally black metal base, this was wooden and the mattress was an ugly green! You didn’t want this anyway, really.  It was just an amazing price for a brand new futon!”  Yeah I’m still mad at myself!

Well, at least I got 3 brand new lip liners, a brand new lipstick, 2 new nail varnishes and an xbox controller (regular xbox, not for the 360 we have… d’oh!) all for just $2! Score!

So that was the first yard sale I had a wander over to by myself, I’m not put off, I love having random “car boot sales” to go to out here J  In fact I look forward to having one myself one day!!!  We’re on a fairly busy road too, so it’ll be great!

Ewe, I just applied the lipstick, beautiful dark chocolate brown color, REALLY thick and hard to apply and it STINKS!  Not the nice lipstick smell either, it smells REALLY bad!!  It must be years old or something.  Shame, the color is lovely!

I really enjoy typing on here about stuff.  I was never much of a blogger; I set up my blog initially for this reason, to keep my family up to date on our life in America.  But I created the blog long before we moved, years before.  We decided to move in 2009, we didn’t move to America until 2012!  But this is nice for me because I don’t have many friends around here yet.  So typing on here about things is a way of expressing things I may say to friends I have face to face.  I miss chatting to Ali Turner who lives opposite us in England.  We used to catch up frequently over coffee.  We both shared a mutual appreciation for coffee, photography and avoiding housework.  That’s not the case for me now though since I love doing housework here, I really do!  But I’m open to expect this could be the novelty of having a new house that I appreciate, and the novelty may wear off.  I hope not, and I genuinely doubt it would wear off.

I miss catching up with Keely and her daughter Ellie.  Keely and I go way back.  If it wasn’t for her, I may not be here today with Shane!  She played a HUGE part in Shane and I getting together.  Neither Shane nor I had the money at the time in 2004 for a flight either way to meet up.  We’d spent so much time on the phone together, that Keely said she’s tired of seeing me pine over a guy I’d never met in person before, however she knew our feelings for each other were no joke, so she gave me her credit card to book Shane a flight to England.  Shane and I paid her back as soon as we could shortly afterwards.  She even took me to Heathrow airport to meet him.  We made it such an exciting time.  We booked us a hotel room at the airport so we could have a few drinks and pamper ourselves a little before we got him the next day.  I remember her doing my hair etc. ready to meet Shane in person for the first time.  It was amazing, and one of the best nights of my life.  The anticipation of knowing I’m going to see the man I’ve already fallen in love with before even meeting him in person, in less than 24 hours!  It was wonderful.  Shane and I knew long before we met in person that we were in love.  It was love before first sight! Haha!

The next day when we went to the airport to pick up Shane, we were both looking for a guy with bright post box red hair!  Shane of course was wearing a baseball cap, so we could’ve missed him but his skateboard in his backpack gave him away!  I couldn’t believe he was here!!!!  I ran over and we hugged.  Kind of a movie moment haha!  But I remember thinking his weird mint chewing gum almost smelt garlicky!!! Haha!!!

I remember him asking where he could get a bottle of coke.  Now that would make my dad laugh!  In the years since we’ve been together, my dad has always said “Shane always has a bottle or a can of coke in his hand, coke addict!” haha!!  As we walked over to the little shop in the airport, I remember looking over at Keely and giving her a HUGE grin, like “he’s here!!!”  She gave a mutual grin back, happy to see us together at last!

On the way back in Keely’s car, Shane put his arm around me.  If felt so natural and right, like we’d been doing that for years!  And I had known him for years, sort of.  We started chatting on yahoo chat 5 years earlier in 1999.  My yahoo name was miss_bungle_uk, his was bunglevolante.  We got chatting in yahoo metal chat as we both shared an equal love for the band Mr. Bungle.  I still have a few friends from those days now, on Facebook.  There’s Dan in California, I’ve been talking to him for years, and Shane does too now.   Also there’s Matt Thompson, who I’ve known for about as long as I’ve known Shane.  Only he lived in England.  Welwyn Garden City I think, and worked in Hertford, ever so close to where I lived in England.  Strangely enough though, we never met in person until after Shane and I were married.  Then we went to one of his DJ gigs in Camden.  Since then we’ve actually bumped into him a few times at some gigs such as Mike Patton’s Peeping Tom and such.

When we got back to the house I shared with Andy Morland, my sisters showed up straight away to meet Shane!  They’re a couple of pisstakers, so I’m sure they were there just to laugh ;)  While Keely, her daughter Ellie, my two sisters and my sister Pauline’s girlfriend, Sarah, were in the garden, Shane and I shared our first kiss together in the living room.  It all felt so right, as strange as the situation was, it was just right!

Seven years of marriage, a 6 year old son and a 3 year old son later, we’re still head over heels in love with each other!  I really couldn’t be happier.

It’s not always been rosy and full of blissful happiness.  We’ve had our fair share of fights in the past.  We’ve had some outstanding arguments!  We went through a very dark patch in 2008 which very nearly broke us for good.  But thankfully we got past that and it just made our relationship even stronger.  We still had some crazy fights since then too, but we rarely seem to argue anymore, and if we do have a disagreement, give it 10 minutes and we’re both saying sorry to each other and hugging again.  I love where we are now in our marriage, we’re extremely close.  He’s stood by me through thick and thin, literally haha, he still loved me when I was weighing a huge 259lbs!  Thankfully love really is blind J

I wish my Granddad could’ve met Shane.  He would’ve got on with him very well.  My Nan’s always really liked Shane too; she told me herself that my Granddad would’ve loved Shane!  He really would have, I can just see them talking together now in my mind’s eye.

My dad and brother get on with Shane very well too.  My dad’s hard to break so it’s clear he really does like Shane.  I’ve noticed his “shut the f**k up” face though in the past when Shane’s been talking in circles about things, especially after he’s had a few beers haha!  I remember my dad picking us up from somewhere once in Hertford or something, my dad’s been pissed off about something, and Shane’s talking his drunken dribble, and I’m thinking “Shane please stop talking, can’t you see my dad’s face!” haha!  But 9 times out of 10, you can see my dad laughing along with Shane, which is lovely for me to see!

My brother’s a miserable git, but he and Shane get on really well!  Especially after my brother’s had a drink or 8!  He was drunk recently and on Facebook, I think, my brother’s telling me he misses Shane, he wants HIS brother back!!! Haha!!  He said “Scott’s cool and everything, but Shane’s cooler!!” haha!!  Sorry Scott, his words, not mine! Haha!!

Linda and Shane used to clash a LOT in earlier years.  I never knew what was up with them, but in the last few years, they seem to get on a hell of a lot better!

Pauline and Shane get on very well too, but Pauline’s very sensitive, she doesn’t forget things very easily and they did have a big falling out some time last year.  They’ve since sorted out their issues with each other, but I know Pauline doesn’t forget a thing and I know deep down she probably holds onto a little resentment there.   To be honest, I can’t even remember what the disagreement was about, and they get on alright now so I’m happy to just move on, so is Shane, and for my sake, no doubt, Pauline’s happy to move on too, thankfully J

Ally was only 9 years old when Shane first came to England, so I’m sure to her; he’s like another older brother, only with an American accent haha!  She and Shane get on very well too; they have little brother and sister banter going on a lot.  In her teenage years, after arguing with our parents, she’d nearly always come over to me and Shane for some space, or she’d go to see Pauline.  Linda’s often busy with work, otherwise I’m sure she’d run to Linda also

And well my mum and Shane, they’ve always got along very well.  In previous arguments between Shane and me, she’d always side with Shane haha!  I think she always took into account that he has no one but me out in England really.  Although very quickly my family soon became Shane’s family also.  My mum’s a tough cookie to crumble.  She almost always doesn’t like a person on first impression, and it’s hard to change her mind if she’s decided she doesn’t like you.  She was dubious about Shane at first, some strange guy from another country suddenly shacking up with her eldest daughter, but she soon realized he’s just a normal guy and we were very much in love.  She likes Shane a lot, and it’s very obvious thankfully.

We are a very close family, my family are amazing.  It’s hard to believe that any of us could ever move away so far from each other.  In the past when family members move away, they tend to lose touch a lot.  My dad moved to London from Scotland.  He would rarely talk to his family back in Scotland and would rarely visit either.  It’s not that he didn’t care to; it’s just the way things were then.  It’s so much easier now for anyone to stay in touch, with new technology and new applications etc.

When my sister Linda went travelling 10 years ago, she’d stay in touch via email and telephone calls to my mum.  Now it’s even easier, there’s Facebook which is a great way for people to stay in touch and keep up to date with daily activities in people’s lives.  Every day I know how many steps my mum has done on the Wii fit and how long it took her, all the way from America haha!  Every day she can hear little updates on my boys, little things Draven has said to me etc.  And we don’t have to wait for an email to come through either!  Emails were once considered a super-fast form of communication, but look what we have now to stay in touch!  And of course there is Skype and Facetime!  Amazing tools for a situation like ours!  Since I moved, almost every night my sister, Pauline will Facetime me and the boys!  We got to see her new kitten when she got him; she showed me the snow outside her flat back in February.  I get to talk to my Nan regularly face to face through Skype when my sisters go and visit her, from their iPhones.

It’s good to see my parent’s faces and hear their voices. 
I strongly believe that has helped me with the move.  I miss my family a lot, but I’m sure I’d miss them a hell of a lot more if I couldn’t see and speak to them as often as I do right now, and for FREE!  I can’t imagine what it would be like living here without having the luxury of talking and seeing them as often as I do.  My sisters even Skyped me into my Nan’s 80^th birthday party last week.  It just made me want to be there really bad, but at the same time I was so grateful I was able to see her blow out her candles.  And catch her telling my brother “happy birthday to you too David” when he told her Happy Birthday, haha!!

Update on the house

We have 3 rooms that aren’t being used right now in the new house.  Two of those rooms won’t be used for some time until some serious work goes into them.  But there’s a small room at the back which is dirty but fully functional.

Shane surprised me today, since when he finished work yesterday, he said he’s happy and relieved because he can’t relax this weekend and not worry about fixing up the house, he can afford to take a weekend off from it since we’ve already achieved so much with the living room, the place is livable now, and that was always the main thing.  So he really surprised me when suddenly he got to work on the little room that comes off the kitchen onto the yard.

First he was emptying the room, and then vacuuming the floor, then suddenly he’d taken the carpet up and the room was empty.

It’s good to see him so passionate about the house, he’s not taken a break yet from working on it, and he seems to be really enjoying it too.  Like me, I think he has some genuine pride in this home.  This really does feel like the home we’ve been working towards our whole lives together.

Our friends Josh and Michelle showed up later to help us with the house.  Shane and Josh went to Menards to get some paint for the kitchen, some dry wall and insulation.  I love that Shane’s asking my thoughts on paint colors etc.  I chose the paint for the living room last week, I wanted something warm and homely, so I saw a lovely color called “coffee kisses” I told Shane it’s perfect as we both love coffee and kisses lol.  While looking for paints for the living room though, I saw another paint I liked; I picked it out and told Shane this is for the kitchen!  He told me to forget about the kitchen right now as we’re focusing on the living room, and then told me to hold onto the color for when we’re ready for the kitchen.

As the daughter of a painter and decorator, living in a half decorated house all the time as a kid, I didn’t expect we’d be painting the kitchen for another month or so, so I was really surprised when we got on to that today!  When I picked out the paint for the kitchen walls, I’d also picked out a nice lighter color for the ceiling too.  We’re going to be painting the ceiling tomorrow and giving the kitchen a second coat.  The color is fantastic!!  I love it!  I just realized we’ll have to paint the door in the kitchen leading to the small back room, I think we should paint that the same color as the ceiling.

It’s all coming together nicely! J

I should be getting my tumble dryer tomorrow; I’m really looking forward to that!!  And I’d love to get some drawers or something; we definitely need somewhere to put all our clothes!

So after another day working on the house, I just had a lovely shower in our own shower in our own bathroom, and now I’m listening to Aerosmith in my headphones, typing this out while Shane’s STILL painting.  I’m about to force him to quit, and enjoy what little we have left of the night to some comedy on the telly from the comfort of our bed seeing as it’s in the living room at the moment haha!