A New Beginning...

Well, I have been inspired to return to the world of blogging! Things here have settled down somewhat and I feel just awful that it has been 6 months since I even wrote on here!!! We will consider this my early New Year's resolution - maybe call it my October resolution.

Where to begin after a 6 months hiatus? Hmm...

Chris just started his final year of study last Thursday and is really excited about being so close to the finish line. Plus, he is taking some very cool classes with a few world-renowned professors. Since he had the summer off he was able to go to the States for a couple of weeks in August - he spent some time in Atlanta with family and friends there, then went to Michigan for Nitchie's wedding (Yeah, congrats Nithcie and Michelle!) and was even able to spend some time with our friends Mike and Lisa who are now back in Michigan as well (Mike completed his Master's in July and they moved back to the Michigan but are hopefully headed to DC soon).

While Chris was in the US I had a visitor! My MOM!! She was our first official family visitor to come and see Durham and the apartment and just experience life here. It was awesome! I hadn't seen any of my family in 8 months and as much as I would have LOVED for them all to come (which obviously wasn't possible) it was so amazing to have my mom! We went shopping and ate at all the little cafes in Durham, we even went to see a movie and spent 2 days in Edinburgh before she flew out. It went by too fast but was really great.

A week after my mom flew back to Altanta Chris was back in Durham and we were getting ready to have his dad, Jim and step-mom, Debbie come for a visit. They were here for 10 days and we had an awesome time. They got to really experience our lives in Durham plus we went to the Lake District for 2 days and stayed at the most amazing little B&B there. I will try to upload some pictures from home later on. It has been so wonderful to have so much family here recently and we are always ready for visitors so if you want to come by just give us a call!

We have bought our tickets back to the US for Christmas!!! We will be in Altanta Dec 16 - Jan 6 - 3 whole weeks! We are going to try and see everyone and do everything that we can so if you have any ideas or want to get together just send me an email.

About 2 weeks ago we celebrated our 1 year anniversary of moving to England! Both Chris and I are still in wonder on almost a daily basis that we actually live here and have had the opportunity to build our lives here. God has been so good to give us this opportunity and allowed us to really settle in with friends and my job and a great little apartment to live in and everything that is Durham from our church to the people to the market - we are just grateful for every part of it. I know that one day we will look back on this and wonder at how we ever survived but more importantly how we could have ever imagined our lives without this time. Thank you to everyone who has supported us this far and please continue to think of us as we are now looking forward to the next step.

Speaking of the next step - we are looking at a number of schools for Chris to go to for a Master's programme. This would mean we would probably move next summer in late July or so (as Durham is one of the options we may not move at all!). Chris's graduation is at the end of June and we could stay in our apartment until the beginning of September if we wanted to. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we now move on to making decisions about schools, programmes and many other things.

After not writing for so long I think I have now written our longest post yet! Now the question is - will anyone read it? :)

Love,
Amber