Christmas Week

Monday
Christmas Shopping

Tuesday
Jon's 30th Birthday
Trip to Ely Cathedral

Jacob getting ready for his first train ride.

Jon and kids in front of Ely Cathedral. It was built in 1082.

Wednesday
Christmas Eve
Jon's papaw, Felix Ford passed away.
Searching for tickets to come back to Kentucky.

Thursday
Christmas Day
Lit the Advent Candles
Read the Christmas Story
Walked to Church
Joined friends for a British Christmas Lunch
Packed and cleaned our flat.

Kiah with her British post office.

Jacob with his Thomas hat.

Traditional Figgy Pudding

Friday
The long trek to Depoy, KY. It was 19 hours from when we left our house in Cambridge until we arrived at Jon's parents house.

Saturday
Spending time with Jon's family at his papaw's house.

Sunday
Jon preached his papaw's funeral.
Kiah and Jacob meet their new cousin Gabriel.

Kiah's thoughts on baby names

This morning while we were still in bed, Kiah came in our room and said,

"Last night, I thought of some good baby names, like Star, Sprinkle and Sparkle. Those are good girls names. I think they have those names in China, but I have never been there, so I don't know. I am really good at girls names, but not boys names."

Jon and I thought that was so cute.

Christmas Activities

We started a family tradition of making sugar cookies, drinking hot chocolate and putting up our Christmas tree. The kids love it, they like sugar.


We didn't have a lot of room for a Christmas tree this year. We found this 3 foot tree and it came with lights and ornaments. We have had worse Christmas trees. One year we cut one off the hill at Oakdale and it was to weak to hold any ornaments.

Our church does a children's Nativity Play each year. Kiah was a sheep. She was so excited, because it was her first Christmas play. She had 4 lines. She did a great job.

Kiah saying, "But he is." Affirming that Jesus is our rescuer.

Kiah with her friends Daisy and Bea.

Kiah's Birthday

Yesterday was Kiah's 5th birthday. We had a lunch at Pizza Hut and simple party later in the day. Here are pictures of Kiah on each of her birthdays. She is such a blessing!!

Thankful

We have so many things to be thankful for this year. While it is always hard to be away from family and friends on a Holiday, we were thankful that Jon's brother was able to come and visit. On Friday, we cooked a turkey, stuffing, mash potatoes, broccoli rice casserole, green beans and rolls. It was so good. It is wonderful that food can make you feel like you are right back at home. We are also thankful for web-cams, a great way that we can still see our family so many miles away.

Here are the things we are thankful for this year.

A wonderful marriage.

One beautiful little girl.

One handsome little boy.

Jennifer's kin.

Jon's kin.

Jennifer's birth kin.

This year we really thankful for Earle baby #3 due on June 22, 2009.

The past few weeks

Well as the saying goes, no news is good news. Not a lot has happened in the past two weeks. Here are just a few of the highlights.

Creativity of Kids
It has been cold and rainy, which means we are inside a lot. We really cannot go anywhere in the rain since we don't have a car. After the grocery delivery came, the kids thought of a new toy, a boat. The boat is a pack of jumbo diapers. The seats, two packs of baby wipes. Since no pirate ship is complete without telescopes, we have empty toilet paper rolls. This literally entertained them for about a week. Then the bag of diapers were starting to rip, and it turned from a boat to a gate for the farm animals.


Selwyn Scholar
Last Wednesday night, Jon was inducted as a Selwyn Scholar. The award is based on your previous academic record. The ceremony consisted of your name being called and walking up and writing your name in the book of all the other Selwyn Scholars, dating to the 19th century. It was a very formal ceremony (with lots of Latin). It is interesting here, all the big ceremonies are not open to families. Therefore we have no pictures to show. After the ceremony, there was a very nice dinner. The picture below is a the main hall set for a formal dinner. Before dinner the master butler comes into the Master's Lodge, where all are assembled, and bangs on a wooden gavel, then saying: "Dinner is Served."

Guy Fawkes Day

Yesterday was Guy Fawkes Day. You may be asking, who?

On this date in the year 1605 a large group of Roman Catholics, led by a man called Guy Fawkes, tried to blow up the House of Parliament. The men were angry because the king had treated them badly and they didn't like it. The plan they had was called the Gunpowder Plot.

The twelve conspirators rented a cellar underneath the Houses of Parliaments and put lots of barrels of gunpowder (we don't know how many barrels, some sources say twenty and the others say thirty-six) under the houses after breaking their way through the wall.

But they were discovered in the cellar and arrested. During the trial Guy Fawkes admitted everything and all the conspirators were found guilty and executed.

So every Novemeber 5, they celebrate this day with fireworks and a huge bonfire. Jon and the kids headed down to Midsummers Commons for the activities. They estimated between 10,000 and 15,000 people came to watch. Fireworks have been going off around Cambridge for the last, even in the pouring rain.

A shot or a jab?

It is flu season here in Cambridge and everywhere you look you can see a sign about getting a flu jab. Hmmm, which is worse a jab or a shot?

A Trip to London

A few weeks ago, I headed to London to see my friend Stephanie. Stephanie and I were roommates are senior year at Greenville College. Besides being roommates, we also took a trip together in 1998 to England, Ireland, Scotland and Whales. Stephanie and Jen, another friend from college, were on a holiday to France and then came over to London.

We had great plans to see all kinds of things, but it rained and rained and then it rained some more. So we were limited to inside activities. So we headed to Harrods. Harrods is a very famous department store in London. It is the largest department store in the world. It sits on 4.5 acres and is over one million square feet and has 330 different departments. It has a food hall that has everything from fine chocolates to sushi.

After Harrods we headed to Notting Hill, which is a unique part of London. We had dinner and then I caught the train back to Cambridge.

A picture of Harrods.

At the Harrods Cafe.

A row of houses in London

The pizza place in Notting Hill. They had great pizza.
Yes, the pizza is stored in the car.

Playing in the Courtyard

Everyday about 4:00 kids head out to the courtyard to play. Most of the time they all ride bikes or scooters. Recently this odd shaped scooter showed up and it has been a hit. The front tire is flat, but they don't seem to mind. Everyone hops on then someone pushes.

Jacob loves to push.

A walk in the rain.

Yesterday was a beautiful fall day. The kids had an idea to make a leaf mountain. The problem was we didn't have a rake. But with the help of a scooter and lots of little hands we gathered as many leaves as we could to make a pile.

Surveying their hard work.

After about an hour, the kids decided they wanted to move the leaf pile to the other side of the courtyard. Here is the leaf throwing party. Kiah had lots of leaves stuck in her hair.

Miniature Trains

Once a month May - October they have miniature trains rides in Cambridge. Sunday was beautiful so we headed to train tracks to take a ride. There were several hundred people there, but the line moved pretty quickly. They are little steam engines and ran by coal.
The kids loved it. Also Jacob didn't scream when he got off this time and he was so proud of himself.

Matriculation

Last Friday, actually two Fridays ago, Jon attended his matriculation. You may be wondering, what is matriculation? It is term is used for the ceremony at which new students are entered into the register (in Latin matricula) of the university, at which point they become members of the university. Here is a picture of Jon in his MA robe heading off to matriculation.

Kiah's Thoughts

Today as Jon and I were talking about the Presidential Debate and all the financial problems in the world, Jon said "I would not be surprised if Jesus returned today." Kiah was sitting there and had a very curious look on her face. We told her that someday Jesus would come back and get those who love him and take them to heaven. Kiah in her little 4 year-old mind said "How will he carry all the people, he only has 2 hands."

A New Thing

This week we experienced a new thing. The apartment complex we live in has all nationalities including Malaysians, Chinese, Indians, Israelis, Jordanians, Brasilians, British and us, the Americans. On Tuesday, it was Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish New Year. My new friend Daniella, is Jewish. She brought us a plate symbolizing their new year. It had honey bread, honey, apples and pomegranate. Typically they would dip their apples in the honey as a symbol of a sweet year. The pomegranate is a symbol of fertility. Jon and I had no idea what a pomegranate was or what to do with it, so we looked it up on Wikipedia. It says that have them in the US, but I don't ever remember seeing them. I took a picture of the inside of one, but found this one on the Internet that is much prettier than mine.

It kind of taste like a cranberry, but sweeter.
It has the same color staining effect as a beet.

Kiah's First Day of Homeschool

Today is Kiah's first day of home school. I am sure many of you are thinking, your just now starting school?? Yes, we are just starting. We have been living out of suitcases since the end of June until we got here on September 16th. So now that we are good and settled the school bell rang today. We did phonics, math and handwriting today. Kiah did very well!!