Autumn Baby

Yesterday was another gorgeous day so we took some pictures of Nora outside our flat. Being Halloween I was hoping to get a cute shot of her holding or chewing on one of my peewee pumpkins (thanks Shelley for this great new term as I have always just called them miniature pumpkins!) But alas, Nora was much more interested in the leaves than the pumpkins. Luckily she's super cute no matter what so we got some great fall shots anyhow.

Oooooooo!

Fun with Dad!

Mmmm, delicious.

Momma's girl...

After the pictures we seized the day and went for a walk. If you walk south from our flat you run right into town which, don't get me wrong, is great and old and very fun to explore. But if you walk north just a bit (which is what we did yesterday) you pass a bit of residential area, then a beautiful old cemetery and a golf course and then... vwah-lah! You are into the English countryside. Gently rolling hills covered with fields which are seperated by rickety old fences or stone walls and general shrubbery and spotted with lazily grazing cows, not to mention the occasional old stone farmhouse. Just lovely.

10 Months

Today marks 10 months for Nora. She is steadily becoming a toddler rather than a baby which is both fun and frightening. But isn't she cute??

Since we've come to Oxford, she now waves, claps, has sprouted teeth and army crawls all over the place. (If you look closely at the picture below, you can see those pearly-whites!)

This afternoon was beautiful so the three of us took a walk to our local library branch which has a small sculpture garden behind it. Nora especially liked the otter. It was just her size!

Then we stopped by Starbucks for a quick latte. Can you believe they don't have pumpkin spice lattes here?!?! A travesty - to be sure!!! I hope they'll have egg nog lattes but I'm not holding my breath.

Two Saturdays ago (the 17th) Ben "matriculated". Don't worry he's okay... it's not a disease. It's a ceremony at Oxford where you officially become a member of the University. This used to be an exam - in Latin - and if you didn't pass, you were not admitted. But now, it's just a short ceremony that everyone has to get all dressed up for. Ben looked so sharp. A nice lady on the street offered to take a family photo.

Afterward we went to lunch to celebrate at a restaurant called Jamie's Italian. It's one of Jamie Oliver's restaurants of whom we have both been fans for several years now. The food (although a bit pricey for our meager budget) was delicious.

For those of you wondering, mom is out of the hospital (without surgery - I misunderstood that part) and will be on meds for the next few months as her heart heals. Grandma's memorial service is tomorrow. We would still appreciate your prayers.

More

So when we started this blog we promised that it would be mostly about Nora... keeping our friends and family updated on her ever-increasing cuteness. But from time to time, we use it to share our hearts and today my heart is aching, so for those of you here for Nora alone, bear with me (Deanna, that is).
Yesterday my Grandma died - a bit unexpectedly actually. For those of you who don't know, my Grandma had been living with my parents for the last several years and our family has been privileged to get all this amazing time with her. She was a great woman. And I am so proud to be able to call her my Grandma. In fact, she is such a great woman that we named Nora after her (they share the same middle name).
My Grandma was kind, patient, and strong. She accomplished so much in her years on this earth, I can't even begin to recap it all. She loved to laugh, had a wry but truly genuine smile, was an excellent gardener, and enjoyed watching professional football - especially her Seahawks. She did all sorts of crafts (crocheting, drawing, embroidery, jewelry making, etc.) and would spend dozens and dozens of hours on detailed projects for family and friends. You won't find a better cross-sticher anywhere! Grandma also enjoyed doing crossword puzzles - which have always been mostly frustrating to me. When I once asked her what her secret was to enjoying them, she said that the trick is to only get the "easy" crossword puzzle books... that way you always feel smart! I've enjoyed crossword puzzles ever since! ( :
Although my Grandma had an excellent memory, she also knew the importance of getting things down on paper. In fact, over the course of her adult life, after her children were all off having children of their own, she began to write her story down. Hundreds of pages of little stories to be exact. Not because she thought the world needed to hear about her, but because she knew that all these little stories make up part of a much much bigger story. Pieced together, these little stories tell us who she was. For those of us who are related to her, they tell us a little about who we are too.
Grandma taught Sunday school for years and years. She loved Jesus. And she prayed with a reverence for God that is rarely found in current generations. She prayed often and specifically for every one of her 7 children, 27 grand-children or 27 (28?) great-grand-children and enjoyed bragging on all their developments and accomplishments. She was so proud of her family - and rightly so! My Grandma lived a good, long life - which was not always an easy life. But she was a faithful wife and mother and follower of Christ through it all. She taught me - and so many others - so much about what it means to serve and love and pray and persevere and remember and how to live life fully here and now even while anticipating our true, heavenly home. Today Grandma is with Jesus, praising God for his goodness and glory just like she did yesterday and the day before that, and the day before that -- and while I am truly happy about that...
I miss my Grandma.
Grandma knew full well that there is more to life than what happens in our earthly bodies. That death is not the end, but another beginning. THERE IS MORE.
I'm glad I'll get to see her again someday... but I miss her now.
So yesterday, after all this happened, I was crying with my mom via video chat and she was complaining about how sore her chest was... maybe from all the crying and stress. Later that night she went to the ER. Apparently she tore a hole in her heart between her left and right ventricles and needs surgery and a few months of meds to repair it. The doctors say it's all pretty routine. But it's not routine to me. I am aching to be with my family and finding it more than a little tough being so far away and isolated (without even a telephone yet to make/receive calls!) If you are a family member reading this, know that I love you dearly and am thinking of you all every minute.

Hit play. You won't regret it.

Just a little video of Nora.

Though it doesn't even come close to doing Nora justice, we thought a little video of her developing social awareness was in order.

Some of the Pictures You've All Been Waiting For (sic)!

This is our street,

and here is our house (that's a lie),

and…lots of other places.

This tower (the Saxon Tower) is about 1000 years old (and no, that's not a typo). It was where the guys mentioned in the plaque below were held before they were burned in the middle of Broad Street.

This is the pub where Lewis and Tolkien had a few pints.

Here we are overlooking the river Thames (pronounced 'temms')

Yeah…we live here.

Hello friends and family! We have arrived in England and now have internet at our flat - no phone yet. We're pooped and have a lot to do to get ourselves completely settled in but at least we now have a "home base" to work from.

So, after a bit of a rough start out of Eugene (where had to re-arrange several of our bags to meet the weight requirements and not have to pay an extra $325 bucks, and where for some reason they wouldn't let Ben bring his guitar on the airplane-very frustrating) we arrived with almost everything we took to the airport (minus Ben's guitar.) The flight to San Fran went very well except that we lost "Open the Barn Door" which you may or may not know, is one of Nora's very favorite books. Sigh. If that's the worst that comes of this, we're doing well. Nora had no trouble with the take-off and landing as many babies do. Praise the LORD!
We had some paninis in the San Fran airport and then hopped on our next flight. It was very full and we were jammed into the middle of the plane but the folks around us seemed happy enough to be seated near a baby. (Phew!) One of the flight attendants really took a liking to Nora and was thrilled to find out that her name was Eleanor as hers is Eleanor as well and spelled the same way! (She grew up being called Nellie though.) Nora slept a solid 4 hours on the flight which was just about all the time they let everyone else sleep (before "breakfast" anyhow.) She fell asleep again just as we were about to land and slept through the landing and the unloading of passengers.
We had no trouble at all at customs - including short lines and by the time we got to baggage claim, ours was already unloaded from the carousel and waiting for us in a neat little pile. A short but precarious walk later (with the stroller, carseat, diaper bag, 6 large pieces of luggage and 3 very heavy backpacks), past the soldiers with machine guns in hand, we were warmly greeted by a long-lost cousin of my father, Peter and his wife Jane. (Peter with handshakes and Jane with hugs.) After a long day/night traveling, we were relieved to have friendly faces welcoming us to England. The next half hour was spent trying to fit all of us in their little car, but we did it! Then a short 50 minute drive to Oxford. England is surprisingly similar to Oregon as far as the look of the foliage and Thursday (the day we arrived) the weather was lovely.
Our friend Rob met us at our flat with our keys (another perfectly amazing story in itself) and we all brought the luggage upstairs. Jane had brought us a few baking dishes and also sheets and blankets for our bed so she and I made the bed up and then she and Peter went to the grocery store to buy us what was supposed to be a few essentials but what turned out to be orange juice, eggs, a bag of pasta and a bag of rice, some crackers and cheese, vegetable bouillon mix, 2 cans of tuna, broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, an eggplant, a zucchini, potatoes, bananas, kiwi, yogurt, granola, and Special K Red Berries. (Without even asking us what we liked they picked us out our 2 favorite cereals.) We were thrilled.
Rob brought us homemade soup for dinner (delicious and comforting after a long day or two) and a few other staples... milk, chocolate, salt, butter, a couple of bowls, bread, wheat-a-bix, and a pot for the stove. But before dinner we went on a walk with Rob to see our neighborhood. We saw several things that reminded us of home... Portland Road, the Sheldonian Theatre, a shop called "Eileen" and we also saw lots that was very foreign to us. On our way back we stopped by Ben's college partly because he wanted to peak inside and get an idea of the place and partly because he had to pee.
While he was peeing, I was in the "lobby" (if you can call it that - it's quite small) and a girl came in with her husband and a stoller. She asked him if she could park the stroller there or if he thought it would be in the way. He said that with 2 stollers (I had mine there too) he thought it would be in the way but I assured them that we were soon leaving since my husband was just using the restroom, so not to worry about it. That started our conversation in which I found out that Nick and Loralay (sp?) had just arrived the day before and that Nick is starting the MSt in New Testament - just like Ben. In fact they are the only 2 doing this program at this college. They have the same advisor too. Nick and his wife have a son, Liam who is only 8 weeks old. They are from Colorado but Nick did his last degree at Trinity Western University and for those of you who may not know, that's like an hour from Regent (depending on traffic). Weird. Not only that, they live in our building. Not only that, they live on our floor. Super weird. Hopefully as we get to know them better we won't find them dreadfully annoying (unlikely) because it sounds like our paths will cross often.
Our heads hit the pillow (well - the mattress, we didn't have pillows yet) at around 8:30pm and we rolled out of bed around 10:45am with a few interruptions from Nora along the way.
Saturday morning Rob picked us up in his rental car (his folks came into town yesterday) and took us shopping for household essentials on the other side of town. It was a productive day but there is still a lot to do to make this place feel like home.

Nora is nearly crawling and has bonked her head several times already on the very hard floor here so we'll be looking for a big soft area rug - or maybe a bike helmet.
Yesterday we walked into the city and saw several of Oxford's colleges and other buildings and monuments and some of the most beautiful gardens and also the River Thames, yes there were people "punting on the Thames" -- classic! It was a beautiful day and we walked 6 miles or so and took loads of pictures. Loads of pictures that you don't get to see yet because despite the fact that we emptied every last suitcase today, we cannot find the cord to put pictures from our camera to the computer. Once we get one of those, you'll see. It's lovely here.
Come visit us soon! There is a sweet little bed and breakfast just around the corner (if you'd prefer that to our very hard floor.)
More to come soon!

PS - The video is of part of our journey here. Just killing time in San Fran.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...

So, we gave you all a rather dismal update yesterday. Thanks to all of you who sent supportive emails, text messages, phone calls, etc. Thanks also to all of you who prayed for our visa situation. After all the downer news and incredible stress, somehow–and I can assure you, we are still shocked about this and have no explanation other than that God is in control–our visas were issued today and should arrive at our house tomorrow (Thursday the 17th)! This means that we can still arrive in Oxford well before the term begins!

To say that we are excited is a vast understatement. Deanna and Nora and I will be in Oxford by the end of the week next week! It is surreal and overwhelming to say the least. We still have an incredible amount of stuff to get ready before we head out (like getting luggage!). And, in the mean time, Nora is working hard at cutting her first tooth - poor girl. (We are praying that it comes before we get on the plane for the long flight over the Atlantic.)

Well, we're off to do some more prep!