In October we spent roughly three weeks back in the UK, having been in the States for our first year! Our main focus was to renew our US visas and update as many people as we could in a short space of time! It certainly was a crazy whirlwind ... but we had loads of fun in the process!
We travelled via Toronto both ways ... driving the first leg (approx 7 hours!) and then flying direct to London Heathrow! One of Jenny's best friends lives in Toronto with her husband, so it was a great chance to catch up with them at each end of our trip!
As everything was fast and furious while we were home, we weren't as on the ball with our camera as much as we usually are ... so there are many people and places we saw which we don't have any photos of ... huge apologies ... here are a selection of some of the friends and family we managed to catch up with!
We were also able to see Lucy & Andrew Amukowa, who are like family to us, from the RUSH project in Kenya. They were in the UK for Andrew to have some life saving surgery which was more that 100% successful ... for more information about RUSH and Andrews amazing recovery check out www.rushuk.org.uk.
Our visa renewal was really straight forward and we spent the rest of that day in London enjoying the sounds, sights and shops that we'd been missing! While we were home we able to update three of our supporting churches on what we've been doing this last year, Purley Baptist Church (www.purleybaptist.org), Emmanuel Church Weymouth (www.radipoleparish.f2s.com/emmanuel.htm) and Croham Road Baptist Church (www.crohamroadbaptist.co.uk). We also caught up with a couple of groups who regularly get together to pray for us, one near Yeovil where we used to live and another in Orpington. We are aware of other churches and groups that we didn't get to see ... and will make you our priorities next year when we're home.
A personal priority for us as a family while we were in the UK ... was to eat some yummy food that can not be savoured over there in the small town America! Real bacon, sausages, crumpets, Chinese & Indian takeaways ... to name just a few!! We took a couple of photos of some deliciousness we were able to enjoy ... a Cornish Pasty, Cream Tea and Fish & Chips ... YUM!!
We knew that it would be a really busy time for us ... and so carved out a few days in the middle just for us as a family down in Cornwall. Mark's parents have a little cottage down there and it was the perfect getaway for us to recharge ... we did a lot of relaxing but tried to do something fun each day as well. We built and decorated sandcastles on a couple of beaches (a new experience for Abigail which she took very seriously but loved doing), went swimming, shopping and to a huge playzone which Abigail loved to lead her mummy and daddy through, even though we struggled to keep up for the most part and as it was designed for little people!!
We also took a day out down on the beach in Brighton ... a favourite spot for us ... in fact where we went on our first date together ... as you can see from some of the photos below, it was another day of fun and silliness with Mark's sister, Amy, in amongst all the comings and goings of everything else!
It was so lovely to see so many people, get to eat so many things and visit so many places that we love, in such a short space of time. There were elements of UK life that we hadn't realised we missed and didn't know if we would want to leave at the end of our stay ... however arriving back in Ohio on October 31st, we were really glad to be 'home' again!!
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