It Is Right and Just

It is truly right and just to give thanks.....        

        Sam and I had our first Thanksgiving together as husband and wife, it was wonderful! Although, being in England for Thanksgiving is a bit strange, since they don’t celebrate the holiday there wasn’t any build up, it was just another Thursday. They were having a Thanksgiving Eve service in the Ely Cathedral on Wednesday night, we wanted to go, but Sam was scheduled to fly until 10pm. We still only had one car at the time, so I dropped Sam off and headed to do some Christmas shopping. I received a phone call about an hour later that Sam’s flight had been canceled! YAY! I picked him back up and we headed home, unfortunately we did not make it to the service, because it was cold, rainy, and we were on a roll with unpacking the house. On Thursday we started the day with a family walk, feeding the horses, and then headed over to Zack and Jill Ziegler’s house. Zack and Sam were in the same freshman squad at the academy as well as the same class in Altus. They got here a few weeks before we did and they are wonderful people, lots of fun to hang out with, and sweet enough to open their house to us on Thanksgiving. There were about twenty people at Thanksgiving, mostly from Sam’s squadron, and it was pot luck where everyone brought something to share. There was so much food! Sam and I had a blast, we ended up staying until 11:00pm, having a great time making new friends, and it felt like a family. On our drive home we were both discussing how we had a great first Thanksgiving together, neither one of us feeling homesick, Sam’s Granny was right, as long as we are together, we will be happy and not miss home, all we need is each other! And some really great friends! We were able to catch both of our families on facetime; technology is so great, connecting us with the people we love back home, especially on the holidays, it is wonderful.

Pumpkin roll I made for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving morning

Serious Thanks

Our front porch

Front of our Cottage

Our laundry room/shed in the back yard

Back of our cottage

Our gate

The living room (cant wait for new coffee table and rug!)

Living room (working on replacing these curtains)

Our dining room and Loft

Our front door

The kitchen

The guest quarters (A.K.A Rachel and Josh's side of the cottage)

Office

The only closet in our house. Back in the early centuries they were taxed for doors, so older properties in England do not have closets, because people would have to pay a tax on closet doors. Really old house, like hundreds of years old, have tiny windows, because for a while there were taxes on windows over a certain size as well.

        On Friday, after Thanksgiving, Sam and I headed to pick up the Honda! Driving in England is crazy scary as it is, driving on the left side of the road, on their narrow roads, but driving an American car in England is even scarier, you feel so big on the roads. However, it is a comfortable feeling sitting on the left side of the car again; it makes me feel at home. After we got the car we had lunch and headed to the town of Bury St. Edmunds, where they were having an annual Christmas Fayre. There were over 700 vendors and it was basically like a big Christmas Market, with a live nativity and lots of interesting food (like reindeer, zebra, bison, etc.). I didn’t try any exotic foods; I don’t want to ever experience food poisoning again. After the Fayre we went to dinner with Zack, Jill, and another couple, Lindsey and Matthew, then the girls headed to see Breaking Dawn Part 2 and the men went out to do manly things. We sat in the movie, waiting for what seemed forever, when they announced there was something wrong with the projector, and many other projectors, so we weren’t going to be able to watch the movie! Ahhhhh! We were so upset! We walked back to Jill’s house and watched Breaking Dawn Part 1, which was as amazing as ever, but I still can’t wait to see part 2. 

The Christmas Fayre (silly British people riding a reindeer)

Real reindeer!

The British spelling of fair is fayre

At the Christmas Fayre

        On Saturday we started to decorate the house for Christmas and ran some errands, discovering that the British Christmas tree lights are strange, they only have one strand, and you cannot connect it to another strand of lights. On Sunday we had a double header of a catholic service followed by the protest service on base with donuts and coffee in-between. We finished decorating the house and had a relaxing day lounging around. It was such a great holiday weekend and I am so glad I was able to spend every day of it with Sam.

The village I am starting to collect while we are here

Our stockings, they will do for now, but I will be upgrading to better ones someday

Sam's handy work of lights (lites) outside

Our tree! We are also going to get a real one since I have never had one!

Garland

Banana Bread in a jar

The finished product

Up close!

I finished my Christmas wreath!

        This past week has been pretty uneventful, Sam only flew once and I worked on making banana bread in jar for Sam’s squadron Christmas party. It took me three days to complete, with six batches of banana bread being made. Sam and I also went to a Bible study with some friends on Wednesday night, which was a lot of fun, we are studying Romans. On Wednesday morning our British neighbor came over asking me if I could help her for a minute, her three month old son was sick and screaming and she asked me to entertain her toddler for about half an hour. I probably looked pretty stunned, because I was shocked to see her, but I put on some clothes and was getting ready to head over to her house. As I was leaving she came walking back over with her two year old daughter saying she was able to get her son to sleep, but she invited me over for tea the next day. When I got to her house Thursday morning her sick son was crying which gave me the opportunity to play with her daughter Ella. Once things were settled with the baby she brought me some tea, earl grey with some milk-the true British way to drink tea, and we visited for about an hour. Anna is her name and she is a very sweet lady, we are lucky to live in a small village, hopefully we will get to know other people here in Chippenham. Oh, I almost forgot, when I returned from the neighbor’s house our gardener was working in the yard…we have a gardener, crazy! I can’t believe this is real life! I shared some banana bread with him because I hadn’t gone on poop patrol in a few weeks so there was a lot of dog poo in the yard. We had two sunny days this week so Hercules and I took advantage by going on long walks, and I still smile every time we walk thinking how awesome it is that we live in England! 

Our village!

 

Thanks for reading!

Amanda