Happy Easter! I (Brad) am writing the update this time (don't get your hopes up - I don't think I can do as well as Jill did last time). We hope that you and your families are all doing well. The weather warmed up for about a week, but the last several days have been cold again. It should be getting warm soon - they say there's no better place to be than London when the weather is nice - so come and visit!!

Work has been keeping me busy, but I am really enjoying it - I really like this job a lot! I've been able to work from home a couple of days each week for about the last month, so that helps me out a lot - I save time not having to commute, save money on the train tickets, and it's nice to stay off the trains every once in a while (doesn't seem like the safest way to travel lately).

Jill has been having lots of fun over the last several weeks. Last week she was in a British sitcom called "My Family". They sure did film early - this episode is for their Christmas special in December. She danced and shot some restaurant scenes, but who knows what they'll end up showing after all of their editing. This one was done at the studio where all of the James Bond movies are filmed.

For those of you who think we live far away, get this - one of the Alabama basketball games was shown on TV at a sports bar over here. We can thank Grant and Kelly for showing us this place - we all went and watched it together (too bad it was the game against UCONN where we got spanked). They said that there were about three Bama football games played on TV here last year, so hopefully we'll get to see a few. There's a picture of all of us outside of the sports bar.

We had a new guest sleep over the other night. Jill and I were walking home one night, and we saw this cat. Being the animal lovers that we are, we call it over and pet it for a while. As we leave, it follows us home. No problem, we'll just go on inside and leave him out so he'll go home. Well, we forgot about the doggie door in our house. So the cat comes on in and follows us up to the door of our flat. We let him in for a while, and then put him outside before we go to sleep. The next morning, we find him inside the flat (not in our flat, but inside the house) sleeping by our door. He still comes and visits every so often.

Ladies, Jill found the Burberry outlet. Fellas, don't be fooled and think the prices are low. Jill assures me that there are good deals here - I believe her, but I sure don't want to see a price tag in a normal Burberry store. I think I need to be in the purse/clothes/'whatever else Burberry sells' business.

We went to Canary Wharf and Greenwich last weekend. Canary Wharf is the financial district of London, and it sits right on the river - very pretty area. Greenwich is cool - this is where the Prime Meridian (zero degree line of longitude) passes through. All time is based off of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). For all of you in Alabama, your time zone is officially known as GMT -6.00. Jill found the "first shop in the world" on the zero degree line - how fitting!

Shameem (one of my co-workers) and her husband (Patrick) took good care of us this weekend. The Friday before and the Monday after Easter are UK Bank Holidays, so I didn't have to work. On Friday, they drove us to a place in England called Longleat. They knew that Jill and I really wanted to go to Stonehenge, so on the way over, they surprised us with a visit there. It is really amazing - we've seen it on TV for so long now, it is really cool to actually get to see it in real life.

Longleat is a stately home (huge mansion) that has all kinds of attractions. It was the first place to open a safari park outside of Africa. That was awesome! There was a part with lots of monkeys running around all over the place and jumping on cars. One monkey had ripped off a car's antenna and was running around with it. You would have thought this thing tasted like bananas - all of the other monkeys were chasing this guy around trying to get it.

Another part had all kinds of unique deer. They would come up to the car and eat right out of our hand. There's a picture of Jill feeding one of them. There was a section that had lots of wolves - they looked just like our dog, Levi. Patrick was nice enough to inform me that they were in a cage so I could roll down the window to get a better picture. Well, that cage wasn't a full cage - once I saw a wolf walk right in front of the car, I don't think anyone could have rolled that window up faster than I did. We also accomplished the "longest human maze in the world" while we were there.

They took us to the city of Bath yesterday. This is where a 2000 year old Roman spa is located. The city itself is neat - there are lots of old houses on the surrounding hilly countryside, the famous Pulteney Bridge, and lots of shops and restaurants on small narrow cobblestone streets. Thank you, Shameem and Patrick, for showing us such a great weekend!

Here are some quick bits before I wrap things up. Chocolate Belgium waffles are hot waffles covered in Belgium chocolate - let's just say that they are so good that they give you a stomach ache. We had to join that gym we were trying out so we can work off all of these waffles we're eating. I played golf with a co-worker of mine - first time I've ever played outside of the US. I had to buy a new golf bag because mine was too big - you don't want to be in the golf cart business over here - everyone walks when they play. For those of you asking what we miss from the US, I thought of something - music. Since we don't drive, I don't hear music everyday like I did back home. We were at a tube station today and Jill had to use the bathroom (I think she has the smallest bladder in the world). Like many other places around here, it costs 20 pence to use it. Here's the crazy thing - there was actually a woman whose job was to watch and make sure that everyone paid. Now that's an interesting job description - and if they didn't have to pay her, they wouldn't need to charge us to pee in the first place!

We hope you all had a great Easter! We have been going to a local Baptist church here in Richmond for the last month. The people are extremely friendly, and we like it so far. Today's Easter sermon was really good! I don't think the Easter Bunny visits this country - most people don't even hide eggs, and I couldn't find any of the plastic eggs anywhere.

We've got some busy times ahead of us - we're going to Italy on the 19th (Venice, Milan, Florence, and Rome), Jill's dad is coming to visit at the end of the month, and I have a company conference in Orlando in early May (I will actually get to go visit my family for a day or two before the conference, so I am really excited about that).

We have updated our London pictures and we have created new picture pages for our recent trips to Stonehenge, Bath, and Longleat - you can get to all pictures by visiting our Pictures page. Our guest book has some pages left for those of you have haven't had a chance to sign it and our past updates are still available. We enjoy hearing from everyone, so please stay in touch. Thanks to all who have been sending "homeland updates" and pictures - please keep them coming. We hope you have a great week! We love and miss you all! God bless!