Day 33- August 19, 2008

Hello to all of our friends and family back home.

We are recovering from another exhausting weekend. There is no rest for our poor feet. Aron says he's going to need a foot massage when we get.
It's Tuesday already and I realize I am a bit late with this post. I better get busy!

Saturday we took the scenic route to Church services. We left an hour later than we normally do because Isaac went down for an early nap. I wanted to take a nap as well since Isaac had me up at 5:30 that morning. So we left the house at 11am instead of 10 which was really nice. When we purchased our train tickets Aron asked the lady if we had to change at West Hampstead like we have before and she said no, that it was a direct train. We ended up being too far north from where we needed to be so we got off that train and had to backtrack. We ended up being 15 minutes late to services which was rather annoying. But lesson learned. Don't let others lead you astray.
On Sunday we took an early train to Banbury where my Aunt lives, my Mom's youngest sister. We left our apartment at 8:30 and were on the train by 9:30am. We arrived in Banbury at 11am and were very pleased to find an elevator at the train station. Banbury is the only train station we have seen that has an elevator. What a novel idea! Every other time we have had to lift the stroller up the stairs, across the tracks, and down the stairs again. It just makes sense to have an elevator.
My cousin, Nadine, picked us up at the station and took us to her Mom's house where my other cousin, Gaius, was waiting. We sat around and talked for awhile and watched some Olympics. My Aunt has 3 grandchildren so she had quite a few toys there which Isaac loved playing with. My Aunt's boyfriend is great with kids and Isaac really enjoyed playing with him.
She cooked us a lovely roast meal with 3 different kinds of potatoes, broccoli, brussel sprouts, corn, peas, carrots and Yorkshire pudding. For dessert we had apple and cherry pie with homemade custard on top. It was one of th best meals we have had since we've been here. I cook a lot at our apartment, but my utensils are limited and I'm definitely not able to cook up a meal like that!
After our huge meal we went for a nice walk down the canal. We saw several houseboats that were docked on the side of the canal. It looks like such a cramped space in there. I can't imagine living on one for any length of time. We walked through the mall they have downtown and down to Banbury Cross. It's famous, you know! There is a nursery rhyme about it. I don't know all of the words, but it says, "Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross. Da da dada da......" My mom will have to finish the rest.
We walked down High Street in Banbury which is a brick road with lots of little shops on either side. And guess what store we passed? Gloria Jeans Coffees!! I was so surprised to see on of them all the way in England. There are only 10 in all of Britain and there happens to be one in Banbury. Gloria Jeans was the first coffee shop I worked in. It's where I worked with Ann Thomas and where I met Aron. We stopped and had a coffee before we had to get back to the train station. Our train left at 5pm and we were all pretty worn out. Isaac slept all of about 20 minutes the whole day. I tried to put him to sleep at my Aunt's house but with no success. We got back to our apartment at 7pm and he went to sleep shortly after that.
My cousin bought Isaac a cute little stuffed Paddington Bear with books as well. It's so cute! I'll have to take pictures of Isaac with him.
This Thursday we are going to Mr. Foster's house for the evening. He is an elder in the Church here in England and has invited us over after Aron gets off work. He lives about a 20 minute train ride away from us so we are looking forward to that.

I would like to say a special THANK YOU to the metric system for being posted on all of the boxes of sweets that I have been eating. I am so thankful that I cannot understand how many calories were in that carrot cake I just ate. So thank you metric system. Keep up the good work.
It is day 33 today! Only 22 left. See! I told you it would go by fast. The days always do.
We love you lots!
Heather, Aron, and Isaac