Hallelujah!!!

Some of us thought it would never happen.. but the Church household has officially entered the 21st century and we have the internet!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was about to go down to our provider myself and start beating people up (don’t get nervous, I’m not as strong as I look) but they finally came through for us three months later than they were supposed to… So anyway, we are shocked at how we can sit on our couch and do things like post on the blog!!! Yay! (not to mention chat with our loved ones! Please email us your IM or skype names if you’d like to chat!)

We had a great time in Aberdeen for Thanksgiving as I mentioned, and I was able to find a Christmas tree in a charity shop there for GBP 4.00! I was super excited because we’ll be having a Scottish Christmas so I really wanted to have a little tree and make it feel cozy and Christmasy. We also took an excursion to Poundland and it just so happens that everything is STILL only one pound! Amazing. So, among some other items, I purchased 3 Christmas candles to help set the tone in the living room (Just to keep you up to date, we have spent GBP 7.00 so far on the Christmas decorations). I decided I wanted to do a tree where I made the decorations but had debated on what kind of decorations we should have. I settled on stars made out of twigs I found in a park a little outside of town center. Those were free. Then, I used the ribbon that came wrapped around the candles to hang the stars on the tree. And, no tree would be complete without lights! So we bought a strand of lights from woolworth’s for GBP 1.99. And the grand total was – 8.99!!! For a mere 8.99, this is what we now have to enjoy:





You’ll even notice our windows are sensitive to the need for decorations and provide us with imitation frost every now and then (it’s actually just condensation, but makes for a great effect).

In other news, I would like for you to know that my hubby is not the only genius in St Andrews. :) St Andrews is just full of genius birds. I was walking home the other day and I saw an unbelievable number of birds making the most perfect V’s I have EVER seen while migrating. I am telling you, these birds were proper! I think there were about 5 V’s with some sprouting off of each other and it was beautiful. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a whole art department to marvel with me as in the past, in fact, I was the only one that marveled and so I’m sure people thought I was some crazy lady staring up at the sky, but I still enjoyed it! Now, if you think that’s genius wait til you hear this… Ian and I were walking through the cathedral grounds the other day where there are often seagulls hanging out. As we walked by we noticed that the seagull was dancing. I am not joking – it was the funniest thing I have ever seen. I was cracking up and he was just dancing away. As we watched we noticed that he would occasionally bend down and grab something and suddenly we realized the bird was simulating rain! At least that’s our hypothesis (we’re not sure if we’re quite as genius as the birds). Then the bugs/worms come up, and the seagull gets a full belly. Amazing! Here is an example of what we saw. Hilarious! So, there you have it. Genius birds. Some say instinct… I say genius.