Moving House

Edit: This was meant to be posted on Friday since that is the day we start moving. However, the ever-organized phone/internet company has managed to shut off our phone and internet one week early. If you need to get in touch with us, please contact us via email or facebook as we will be checking periodically. Also, if you would like our new address, please let us know!

Today! Today we are moving! Yay!

Our new house is bigger, better, and we’re allowed to paint it! Let’s face it, if I’m allowed to paint, it can’t actually get any better than that. I’ll take before and after pictures and post them.. someday..

Someday, because there’s a harsh reality to this move. We have to transfer our phone and internet to this wonderful new house. If you recall the saga when we first moved here, you will realize that we are not holding our breath for this to be a smooth process. Hopefully it won’t take them three months, but they have assured us it may take them three weeks. Seriously.

But really, we can’t ask more of them than that, it’s not like it’s their job.

:)

Don’t worry, I’m not that embittered. At least not yet..

And, I do feel the need to praise the Lord for the flat we’ve lived in the past two years. It has been perfect for us and was a wonderful welcome to the many different things we needed to learn about living in Scotland. We are feeling the crunch with our added baby items and are praising the Lord for providing us with more space. His provision never ceases to astound and humble me.

Belly Shot - 35+ Weeks - and a Little Extra!

There you go! Me and my babeh! He and I duke it out now over who gets to be in what position :) We are thrilled to report we’ve gotten nothing but healthy reports and baby is right on track. We are eager to meet him, but also eager to get quite a few things done in the next few weeks before we see his little fingers and toes and nose.. If you could pray with us that our transition goes smoothly we would really appreciate it. We are moving house in less than two weeks and have a lot to figure out in that time!

In further news, a lot of other things have been happening! After we celebrated Ian’s birthday in June, his sister came for a visit – which is just what he asked for :). We had a great time with Katy and I will do a post with lots of pictures of our trip to London next.

We bid Katy adieu in early July, anticipating a visit from Wes, Hope & Ben just a few days later, as well as my birthday. Unfortunately there was an unexpected twist.. Hope’s back spasmed mere hours before their flight and she was rendered completely immobile, thus changing everyone’s plans. But what can you do other than go with the flow.. Fortunately, we are now anticipating another attempt at a visit from them in the next month or two, but that certainly threw us all for a loop!

We had a delayed celebration of my birthday, and Ian made me an awesome cake – all by himself! It was his first attempt and he did a wonderful job :)


He attempted to mix the icing color without consulting his color-mixing-expert wife and ended up with a lovely grey rather than the dark green he had so hoped for. He then proceeded to dub this cake ‘Rock with Moss’. Very postmodern I think.

I decided the main thing I wanted for my birthday was a recipe box. I have a slew of papers with recipes scribbled on them and cutouts from magazines and such that were just starting to drive me a little crazy. And, since I can’t really nest because we're moving, I can sure organize! Turns out it’s really hard to find a recipe box around here. So in true form, we bought a plain notecard box and I decorated it! :)

I really like the way it turned out, and my favorite thing about it is that I can change it any old time I want to!

Those roses are significant as well… We celebrated our 4th year of marriage this month! (Ian brought home a dozen roses from the store and said – here’s to the next 12 months! He’s so cute :) It’s hard to believe and at the same time very believable that we have been married for four years. We feel incredibly blessed in our marriage as we genuinely love being together. It is our prayer that the Lord will continue to give us such grace, even as so much changes in the next few months! We got ourselves some vouchers and ate a free meal out to celebrate.. And we even got dessert this time because baby had a hankering for chocolate and he just wouldn't let it go! We took a photo or two to commemorate :)

Oh, and I do feel the need to mention the haircut.. yes it is kind of drastic, no it is not what I wanted, yes I am ok with it now.. most of the time :)

At Your Request: The Church Baby Gift List!

It has come to my attention that there are some dear ones in the United States that are inquiring about buying us gifts for Baby Church. This is a very humbling thing to discover as we often feel so distant from all of you and are so encouraged by your thoughtfulness! Unfortunately, there is not an easy way to relieve this desire since we won’t be visiting the States until winter, thus taking away the possibility of a shower. BUT, what we have done is we’ve made a baby registry at amazon.co.uk, which anyone can browse through and buy from regardless of location. It will then ship directly to our address here in Scotland.

If you are intimidated by such things (i.e. using amazon, shopping on the internet, etc), let me give you a few options:

Option 1:

Go to amazon.co.uk

Roll your mouse over the little arrow to the right of the ‘Gifts & Wish Lists’ option towards the top of the page.

Type my name (Corrie Church) into the box to find the list, click the ‘go’ button, and viola!

The beauty of Amazon is that you don’t have to buy at the price listed. You will almost always see a ‘used and new’ or just ‘new’ option with an equal or lower price you can opt for.

You can use American credit cards/addresses, as well as UK cards, so (hopefully) there will be no problem with our international situation! :)


Option 2:

Alternatively, you can just click this link…

Church Baby Wish List


Option 3:

Or use the button in the sidebar over to the right to get yourself to the list. It looks like this..

Happy Birthday to You!

So Ian’s birthday was actually on June 9th. Don’t be fooled by the date of this post.. He has officially spent his last days as a 25 year old and moved on to the world of the 26ers. He feels old. Mostly I just try to tease him about it while I can.. I know my time is coming :) In all seriousness though, we truly felt like we were celebrating with so much gratitude for all the Lord has taken Ian through in the last year. It has been amazing to watch how many doors the Lord has opened for Ian to be a strong, intelligent, gentle witness for Christ in the Philosophy Dept. here. From what I can tell, they don’t encounter a lot of people that take their faith quite so seriously in the way it affects their philosophy. He has met quite a bit of resistance and struggled to gain the respect of his peers and professors, but the Lord has seen him through and I believe Ian’s being here really is making a way for future Christian philosophers. It is very exciting and humbling, even to be watching from the sidelines :)

Ok, seriousness aside.. He got very special things on his birthday.. like surprise fudge donuts with grapes for breakfast in bed and his favorite dinner (chicken enchiladas). AND he got a very nice bottle of wine from his wifey (because her other plans didn’t work, so rather than a fixed watch and a semi-nice bottle of wine, he got a still broken watch and a very nice bottle of wine :) that he is saving for a special occasion sometime next year or something. I’m not sure. He knows about these things and says it’s better to let that kind sit for a while. I just go with it.

We planned a little get-together with a group of friends on the weekend and it was a really nice time to hang out with people. We had a small spread of food that most definitely included… Cookie Monster!

He was especially loco this year :) I had several people tell me I should market myself as a specialty cake maker.. the only thing they didn’t consider was that cookie monster is all I have ever made. Oh, and the whole working from home thing I already do. Oh, and that whole baby thing that’s about to happen. But maybe someday! Because I would love to make cakes for people :) And make them bouquets of flowers. And plan their weddings. Wouldn’t that be fun??

Anyway, here is the birthday boy gleaming with his cake in the background..

And, a birthday wouldn’t be complete without a picture of us together!

Yay! We love being together! Oh, and you probably wouldn’t notice this, but see how I’m down to just a wedding band?? Yeah, I can’t keep the purdy one with a diamond in it on my finger before it gets stuck there for good.. Things are a little puffy around here. I sure do miss it though! I mean, it is my best friend and all.. Just kidding hubby! :)

And finally, I will leave you with a picture of this lovely flower. I got the itch to get some flowers for our window box again this year, so we picked out these!

They are called Fuschia and have been absolutely lovely! It’s really fun to watch the buds get big and heavy and then eventually just kind of fall open into these beautiful little alien flowers :) I love summertime!

Summer Visitors – Take One

My parents came for a visit at the end of May.. You may be wondering what we did, but the real question is what didn’t we do :) In thinking about their arrival, Ian and I thought it might be fun to take them to the West Coast of Scotland since none of us (except Ian) had ever been over there. They said, ‘You just plan it and we’ll come along for the ride.’ That was their first mistake! Only in retrospect did I realize that the amount of driving and time for sleep I had allowed for were a little misguided.. but hey, you only live once right? Might as well live in a groggy state of adventure!

So they got here and we gave them one day to relax before the road trip. We visited the local fruit farm only to have my hopes for strawberry shortcakes dashed since there is no PYO this year. But we did get to see lots of animals, including a very pregnant pig who ended up having 12 piglets about 2 weeks late. It made me grateful that I am only having one piglet to see her in such a state!

mama pig

The next day we took off (at 5am) for our Three Isles Excursion! We left from Oban on the west coast, took a boat over to the Isle of Mull where we loaded on a bus for a driving tour…

a view from the boat

the island was beautiful, even on a grey day!

Then we loaded on to another boat to go visit the Isle of Staffa..

Fingal Cave

A view from the Isle cliffs

Then back on the boat to go visit the Isle of Iona..

Some of the ruins in front of Iona Abbey

A chapel with the Abbey in the Background



The next day we headed off for the Isle of Skye just to enjoy the sites there. On our way over we spotted a brief but lovely break in the cloud cover..

And we stopped for a visit to Eilean Donan Castle. It was very interesting as it is still privately owned and used by a local family. Lots of history and family trees on the inside!



We spent the night on Skye and then spent the next day driving around to see all we could see! We hiked and got this lovely view..



And then we stopped to see the waterfall at Kilt Rock



And we stopped to visit the Dunvegan Castle and gardens as well



On our way home we also got to take in the views of the Black Cuillins.



We took a few days off from driving to play it cool around St Andrews (read: so dad could play some golf!). But then we went out and about again to visit Glamis and Dunnottar Castles.

Glamis had lots of history involving the Queen and her family – very interesting – and we even got to take a guided tour, which is always a bonus.



Then we drove up to Dunnottar and got our first glimpse..



It was a gorgeous day, and we even spotted some puffins! Can you see them??



I will leave you with the snail.. A photo by my talented hubby



We had a great visit together and are looking forward to seeing my parents again in September when they will be meeting Baby Church! That visit will be busy and exciting as well, but in a very different way :)

If you are interested in seeing more beautiful pictures and getting more details about our trip, check out the slideshow in the sidebar on the right.. Just click the image and let the show begin!

Up next – Ian’s birthday!