My husband has skills.

Never mind that he's smart, funny, a great preacher... Homeboy can carve pumpkins!

Butterfly Farm

We got to spend our nieces birthday :-) It was the first time in years that we got to celebrate her birthday with her. We loved every minute of it! She is such a sweet little blessing to everyone. She wanted to go to butterfly farm, how cute is that? Here are some pictures of the day. As you can see they were pretty friendly butterflies!
That last picture I threw in because on the way home we went through a Starbucks drive thru. Can you believe it was the first drive thru we have been to in the UK! They haven't caught on here like they have in the America. The things you find funny while living over sea's. :-)

So fun!

I was super blessed to have a group of awesome friends from CA visit me in October. Here are just a few pictures from their trip. Thanks Hallie, Cari and Rachel for coming and encouraging and blessing me so much! You guys are so much fun to be around!

Kira's pics are long over due!

I was looking through this blog and noticed that last summer I said I would post pictures of Kira and I at Blenheim palace. Well, here they are long over due. 

One of the things I love about Blenheim are the grounds there is a big lake, a small waterfall, gardens upon gardens, and a maze. Kira and I sat by the lake for a while and just got to talk and take in the beautiful scenery. 

Converse girls :)

I think it's a man made waterfall but it's still pretty. 

So Kira bought an Oxford hoodie, she had been wearing it for a few days when we went to Blenheim. As she walked in front of me I noticed something. What are big sisters for if not to remind you of funny moments like these. Love you munchkin! 

 Really not the best picture but I put it up so you could feel the scale of it a bit better. I don't think you can fully appreciate it unless you see it in person, it's enormous. To think that one family lived here! Well actually one family still lives here but in order to pay for keeping this place up they charge people to come and see it.

(Oh man Kira I have been missing you like crazy! I miss how easy you are to talk and laugh with. I miss your cute face. I miss how compassionate you are. I miss taking you to starbucks! I miss having you within driving distance. So I propose this! Why don't you just transfer to Brooks University? It's literally up the road from me, I have a membership to their gym. Huge plus…they don't require gen ed at English Universities! So it usually only takes someone three years to get a degree…sounding better by the minute? At least I can suggest it right? I love you lots and am so excited to see where God leads you no matter where it is. But I'll be praying it's here ;) 

Alan and I at Dartmoor National Park. The Moors were the setting of a youth retreat last week. We had a wonderful time in God's Word and exploring his beautiful creation. 

Mustachio's

I love these crazy girls! I don't know where Kira and I get our silliness from. It couldn't be from our dear mother, oh no. (insert mischievous grin) They're the banana's to my peanut butter sandwich. What??? Those are the yummiest!

My mom is so supportive of me. She always backs me up when I (and now Alan too) think God wants me to do something even when it's hard for her. I really appreciate that about her. 

It was the crazy one on the left's (AKA my mom) bday on Sunday! Happy Birthday mama, hope you know how much I love you and wish you the happiest year yet! xxx

Testing testing 123

I'm trying out a new blogger app. Here's hoping it's a good one! This is a pic of little Anna. I've always preferred behind the camera. :-)

Why I heart Monday's...

Every Monday we go to a cafe and have a Bible study. It's my favourite time of the week. He's such a good leader. 

Scotland

 Last September we went to Scotland (It seems a lot longer ago) It was pretty awesome. One of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. We stayed in a little village close to Edinburgh. I can't wait to go up higher into Scotland it's suppose to be even more beautiful. 

No trip to Scotland is complete without some bagpipes. 

Edinburgh is a beautiful city. 

One thing that I noticed right away was how dark the older building are. They are made of a really dark stone found in Scotland. The buildings in Oxford are much lighter. It gave the city a completely different feel, kind of spooky.

We went on lots of walks around Peebles (The village we stayed in) They were nice and relaxing and saying it was gorgeous is an understatement. 

Seriously pictures cannot do it justice. 

This is a highland cow. Pretty much the funniest cows ever. Not only are they super shaggy they are only about waist height. Think ewok meets midget cow.The first time I ever encountered a highland cow was in a children's book I was reading to my friends son and I thought it was a dog.  Since he was only 2 he might be confused between dogs and cows now. Opps. 

Don't get too excited...

Don't get too excited mom, I'm not sure if I'm actually going to start blogging again. I'm not going to say I am and I'm not going to say I'm not. (Thankfully you look at my instagram and I post much more to that) I was thinking today about all the fun stuff we've gotten to do this year and wanted to put in onto my blog so Alan and I can look back on it in the future. 

 I still can't believe that we actually got to go to the Olympics. It was so much fun and a really unique atmosphere. We cheered the USA to victory against Montenegro in water polo. What you can't see in the picture of me is my sweet face painting of our flag on my other cheek, I'm pretty sure that helped them win the game. ;) Go USA! Oh yea...GB too. :)

We had an awesome time exploring Germany in June (Happy 5 years to the best husband ever!). It was stunningly gorgeous. We were mostly in the Black Forrest which let me tell you...lots of tree's. 

Yesterday we got to sneak off and go to the beach for a couple of hours. We were attending a christian conference/festival thing and took the sunny afternoon as a sign to spend it outside! The beach we went to was so fun. (Porth Beach) Not only did it have a great sandy stretch of beach (most beaches in England are pebble beaches) it also had some awesome tide and rock pools to explore. It was such an amazing day weather wise. This picture is just straight out of my phone. No filters or tweaking at all. The skies were blue and the water was actually not that cold!

(all these were taken on my phone, so don't look too closely ;)