Well, the time has finally come - we're moving home! We fly back on February 28th and we're going to go through our storage units and get everything ready for our next stop, New York City. We're hoping to be there by April. We'll have another London update after this one, and then one final London update summarizing our three years here - so be on the lookout for that.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year - we hope you all enjoyed your holidays! Jill and I always appreciate spending time with our parents, so we were thankful to be home with them. Both of my sisters and their families were in town, and we had a good time playing with all of the kids. We had a wonderful Christmas - thanks to everyone for all of the presents - you too Roy!

Our time in the U.S. went by too fast. I had to fly to Phoenix, Orlando, Atlanta, and back to Phoenix again for work, so I was all over the place. It was great seeing everyone (and meeting the team in Phoenix for the first time). I'll see you again in March or April. In between my travels we were able to go to the Glawson's for another great Dirty Santa party - thank you guys for hosting that again! We also went out to McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant for New Year's with Shae, Billy, Jacob, Christie, Kathleen, Bill, Melissa, Lee, and Ashley, and then on to a New Year's party hosted by Andrew, Kelly, and others - thanks for inviting us to help bring in the new year! Jill got to go see Levi a few times while we were back and we're really excited about bringing him up to NYC with us!

 

Bruges, Belgium:
The weekend after we flew back to London, we went to Bruges, Belgium with Rino, Beth (both from Connecticut), Andrew, and Kelly (Bama). We were very impressed with Bruges and it exceeded all of our expectations - it's a medieval city with lots of horse and carriages running through the cobblestone streets. There are beautiful canals running throughout the city with 80 bridges crossing over them. Market Square is the main square - it's a nice open area surrounded by cool buildings including the main Cathedral. There are lots of shops and restaurants all over the place, great Belgian chocolate, and of course, lots of beer.

There are 125 breweries in the country, producing about 500 standard beers. When special one-off beer styles are included, the total number of types of Belgian beer exceeds 1000. My favorites were Leffe Bruin (Brown), Hoegaarden, and Kriek Max (yes Rino, I enjoyed my colorful pink drink). And of course, all beers were served in their own branded glass.

We really enjoyed going on this trip with our friends - we've gone on so many trips by ourselves, so it was really nice hanging out with them. Everyone got to know each other better, and here are some things we learned - Rino (North) is not what you call a "sharer", so don't ask him for a sip of his drink (that is, when he's not asleep by 8pm). Kelly tends to knock things over - more than once. Andrew gets in trouble when he goes into the shops and messes with the merchandise. And Beth likes to get cab drivers to drive around the parking lot really fast to finish up the ride. Hey Andrew, Rino wants to know if you'd like to join his gym.

We had a lot of fun just walking around the city taking in the scenery - the canals were awesome and the buildings were very colorful and had really neat architecture. We toured the Chocolate Museum, climbed the 366 steps of the Cathedral to get a nice bird's eye view of the city, and took a bus tour of the city. Kelly took us on a boat ride in the rain through the canals and Beth hooked us up with the Beertje (a pub that servers over 300 different beers). Groene Rei is the most picturesque canal in Bruges, and this is the spot where the painters go - our pictures of this canal look like postcards. We had some really good dinners while we were there including fondue and Italian pizza. Every part of the trip was great - we all had a great time and would recommend it to anyone.

Jill and I finally went to a football match (soccer game) the other night. We saw Chelsea beat Wycombe 4-0 at Stamford Bridge in the Carling Cup Semi-Final. Lampard and Shevchenko each scored two goals. Now this is the first soccer game that Jill and I have ever been to - it's actually the first one we've ever watched in its entirety. We were both really surprised at how much we enjoyed it - now, we're not saying that it beats American Football by any means, but it was a really good time. The action never stopped and we were on the edge of our seats almost the entire time. The fans were really into it and they sang and chanted almost the entire time - although we couldn't understand all of it. We didn't quite get hotdogs and pretzels at halftime - they were serving meat pies instead. I never thought I'd say it, but I really enjoyed watching a soccer game. I think we'll be watching more games in our life times.

Believe it or not, we still haven't done everything there is to do in London. We still have quite a few things on our list, so we'll be really busy over the next several weeks. We started crossing things off our list this weekend - we went and toured the Cabinet War Rooms and the Churchill Museum. The Cabinet War Rooms are the underground bunkers where Winston Churchill directed World War 2. There are many rooms that have been left just as they were on the day the war ended. We saw Churchill's office, the Map Room, Meeting Room, Communications Room, bedrooms, etc. All of this is reinforced with steel and concrete slabs to withstand the bombing raids during the Blitz - it was never bombed. The Churchill Museum is the first national museum dedicated to Winston Churchill. The story begins on 10 May 1940 with Churchill's appointment as Prime Minister. Most notable among the exhibits is the Lifeline, a fifteen meter-long interactive table. By using a simple touch-strip, visitors can access information from a computerized ‘filing cabinet’ of Churchill’s life, divided into years, months, weeks and even days.

We didn't get enough out of our trip to Belgium, so we met up with Andrew, Kelly, Rino, and Beth at Belgo (awesome Belgian restaurant) on Saturday night. We put our name on the list and then went to a Scotch bar while we waited for our table. I had a Kwak beer for the first time - since the bottom of the glass is round, it comes in a wooden stand to hold it up.

Congratulations to Amy and Clarke Burns who are expecting their first baby in May. That's great news and we are very excited for you guys!

Our new pictures are here - Family, Friends, London, and Bruges. Until next time, we'll be running around London trying to soak it all in one more time before we move back. We love and miss you all! Take care and God bless!