Thanksgiving

Well, we have spent our first holiday away from home, and we made it.  In fact we had a really nice Thanksgiving celebration.  The girls were disappointed that they didn't get the week off of school like their friends back in Austin, and they did talk us into letting them stay home on Thursday.  We had "family time" for Thanksgiving even though our family gathering was a little smaller than we are used to during the holidays. 

Pagoda at Brighton Marina

We went to the Brighton Marina and had Chinese food on a floating boat, and it was actually really good (we have been looking for good Chinese food since we have been here).  After lunch, we took the girls to see the new Harry Potter movie.  It was pretty funny because the guy working at the concession stand asked us if we were on holiday.  We all sort of looked at each other and said, "yes we are on holiday."  We didn't tell him it was our Thanksgiving holiday.

Our big Thanksgiving meal was postponed until Friday evening since all the kids had school.  We invited two of our favorite British families (the Steells and the Barrs) to share Thanksgiving with us, and it was their first Thanksgiving.  I was a little nervous cooking for 12 people (6 adults and 6 kids) since I had never really cooked the Thanksgiving meal, but I had a lot of help and recipes from my mom.

Grown Up Table

We had to order a turkey from a butcher because the grocery stores here don't get fresh turkeys until Christmas.  Keith had to get the turkey on Friday morning so we could cook it straight away - there was no room to put it in our tiny fridge before we cooked it.  Our turkey actually turned out really well.  It wasn't pretty, but it tasted great.  The best part of the meal though was my mom's famous dressing.  I even figured out how to find corn meal here to make the cornbread for the dressing.

I think our friends really liked the turkey and dressing, but the sweet potatoes really freaked them out.  They just couldn't understand why anyone would put marshmallows on potatoes.  It was really funny.  They also were not big fans of our jello salad.  They didn't buy the fact that it counted as a fruit instead of dessert.  Fair enough, but it is Thanksgiving after all.

Kid's Table

To round out the festivities, we even had pumpkin pie and pecan pie.  They looked like they were going to be a little tricky to make until I finally found some pumpkin puree at Waitrose and substituted golden syrup for light corn syrup.

It was a little sad not spending Thanksgiving with our families in Texas, but it was wonderful celebrating with our UK "family".  This year we were especially thankful for God's faithfulness and provision.  We had good food, a warm home, and we were surrounded by good friends.  Who could ask for anything more?  We are truly blessed!

The Whole Thanksgiving Crew

November Update

I can't believe November is already halfway over, and it is almost Thanksgiving.  Because there isn't the holiday pressure of getting ready for Thanksgiving here, you already get the early pressure of Christmas which actually makes you feel even more stressed out.  People around here are already on to Christmas, and I still have to worry about Thanksgiving.  It makes you feel even more behind on Christmas, but I can't really worry about that right now. 

Here are some of the highlights of the past few weeks:

• At the beginning of November, Paul Streeter was in town, and we were able to have lunch with him.  For those of you who don't know, Paul was our across the street neighbor in Austin for many years.  He and his wife Tanya are really good friends of ours, and we have many fond memories of fun times on Emerald Falls with the Streeters.  Ironically, Paul is originally from Brighton, and he was in town visiting family.  Keith and I met Paul for some fish and chips, and we were all able to catch up a little.  Unfortunately, the girls were in school, so they missed seeing Mr. Paul.  We hope next time Paul visits Brighton he will bring Tanya and Tilly too.  We may end up seeing the Streeters more in England than we did in Austin.

• On November 5th, we celebrated Bonfire Night with everyone in England.  Bonfire Night, or Guy Fawkes Night, is celebrated here with a few organized bonfires and a lot of fireworks.  There is an amazing bonfire in Lewes, a town nearby, but it is mad and really crowded to try to get into this little village.  We decided to try to enjoy the fireworks here in Brighton, so we just went down to the park near our house to try to watch a nearby fireworks display.  We ended up having an amazing view of the fireworks at the County Cricket Field, and it was really neat bundling up to watch fireworks on a chilly, damp night.  It is a lot different than watching fireworks sweating on a humid July night in Texas.  Some friends of ours from church, Elin and Joe, watched the fireworks with us, and then we all came back to the house for some pie and tea.  It was good fun!

• November has been Hospitality Month at church.  Everyone is supposed to sign up to host some sort of event (like tea, brunch, dinner, etc.), and then people sign up to come to an event without knowing whose house they are going to.  Our family decided to host a Mexican Fiesta.  It was really fun, and we served beef enchiladas (thanks Katie for the perfect enchilada sauce recipe), green chili-chicken enchiladas, stuffed jalapenos, 7-layer dip, black bean and corn salad, and for dessert I even made pralines and Mexican flan.  I am still not sure our Mexican cooking tastes good to the English palate, but our family thought it was delicious.  Ole!

• Last Saturday, Keith and I served a hot, sit-down meal to the homeless at a local ministry in town called Safe Haven.  This ministry is a partnership between our church and two other churches in town.  Every Saturday the homeless can come to St. Peter's Church (which is located just down the street from Gloucester Place) where they get a nice, hot meal and can enjoy some time off the streets.  There are volunteer opportunities to cook, serve the meals and to just sit and visit with the guests.  We both loved volunteering, and we can't wait to do it again soon.  We are trying to figure out a regular schedule for volunteering.  It is difficult for us to both do it together because of the girls, so we may have to alternate going.

• In the spirit of Hospitality Month at church, we have been hosting a house guest for the past week.  We have been lucky enough to have Bob Hartman staying with us while he has been rehearsing for the Carol tour.  Bob is actually an American who is a pastor, author and storyteller who is quite well known here in the UK.  He wrote a book called Carol that was adapted into a play by the Lacey Theatre Company, and now he is going to tour with them performing this Christmas story all over the UK.  We can't wait to see Carol when our church hosts the dress rehearsal this coming Monday!

Besides Bob, we also had some other special guests at the end of November.  Clint and Susan Bateman were in London on business, and they took the train down on Sunday to see us in Brighton.  We went to a pub for lunch, and had a wonderful time catching up with the Batemans.  They were even able to come by our house for a cup of tea before they had to head back to London.  It was such a treat having them visit us right before Thanksgiving.  It was almost like having family here for the holidays.  Thanks again Batemans for the visit!  Who is coming to Brighton next?  You are all invited!

As you can tell, we have been really busy, and we have been very intentional about jumping right in to life here in the UK.  Things are going really well, but we are still adjusting to the differences.  Going to the grocery store is still frustrating for me.  It takes forever and still feels very foreign.  I had a good week this week because I got 3 days worth of groceries delivered.  Also, we are all very freaked out by the fact that it starts getting dark here around 4:00.  It usually feels like it is about 11:00 by 7:30, and there has been a few times that I have felt like I should go start dinner and then I realize it is only 4:30.  Crazy!

Amazing Nina

At school I have LOADS of friends one of which is called Nina. Nina is SO amazing! I cant describe her but I will give it a whirl. She really really dark brown hair and her eyes are brown. She is the SWEETEST person you could ever meet! She always has this attitude that life is full of love and she is always SO outgoing! I could go on and on about her BUT why don't I just show this pic!

-Sloane

Halloween

Hello!

This is Sutton. Halloween is a bit different here in England. Not as many people participate in the candy giving so you can only go to decorated houses. Also not as many people dress up. Sloane and I went trick-or-treating though. I was a Greek goddess and Sloane was a cat. I went around with my friends and Sloane just went around our house. We got some candy but we don't actually know what most of it is.

Half-Term Break

We have been the worst bloggers lately, but we have had a good excuse.  The girls have been off of school for a week on their half-term break, so we have been too busy to blog.  There is a lot to catch you up on, so I will try to hit the high points of last week.

• On Saturday, we finally took the girls to the Brighton Pier.  The Brighton Pier (actually the Palace Pier) is a really just a giant carnival on a pier.  There are shops, rides, arcades, restaurants, food stalls and even a roller coaster.  The girls had a great time, and we were glad to say we had finally been to the pier.

• Monday, we took the train to London and went to the British Museum.  Sutton was really excited about seeing the Egyptian and Greek exhibits, so that is where she wanted to go.  We spent most of the day there, but we still didn't see nearly all there is to see.  After the museum we walked to Covent Garden and looked around a bit.  It was really crowded because all the kids here are on half-term break at the same time, and the whole city is packed with families and kids.  We ate dinner at a place called Wahaca that our friend Joe suggested to us.  It is the closest thing to good Mexican food that we have had since we moved, so it was quite a treat.

• On Wednesday, we stayed in Brighton and did some local sightseeing.  We went with our friends, the Steells, to see the Royal Pavilion.  The Royal Pavilion is an amazing pleasure palace built by King George IV when he was still the Prince Regent.  The Pavilion is in the middle of town, and it is one of those amazing buildings you walk by all the time but don't know much about.  I am so glad we went - it was really interesting and the kids even liked it.







Keith thinks they lit Big Ben up
in honor of Baylor's big win!


• Thursday, we returned to London to do some sightseeing.  Since the girls had never really seen London, we thought the easiest thing to do to give them an overview of the city would be to take an open-air tour bus around town.  It was super touristy, but it turned out to be a great way to see everything in one day.  We even took a short boat ride on the Thames, and that really covered it all.  By the end of the day, we had traveled by train, bus and boat (not to mention a lot of walking!).

• Friday was a pretty quiet day because we were all really tired.  Sutton had a slumber party Friday night, so we invited a family from church over for dinner.  They have a daughter Sloane's age, so we thought the girls would have fun together without a big sister hanging around.

That about covers our half-term adventures.  Sunday was Halloween, but I will let the girls blog about their first Halloween in the UK.