Coventry

On Tuesday, we woke up early and took the train to Coventry in Warwickshire. We had been to Coventry twice before, but only to pick up much needed items at IKEA. This time we were planning on going to IKEA and doing the tourist things too. When we got to Coventry we returned some things at IKEA and then headed out again in the freezing cold to tour the town. We saw the Lady Godiva statue in the city center. If you aren't familiar with this story, the expression "peeping tom" and the chocolate company both have roots in this legend.

We visited St. Michael's Cathedral which was built between the late 14th and early 15th century. It was later bombed in 1940 and now stands as ruins. You can still climb the tower of the Cathedral and we did! 176 steps up a spiral staircase and I was dizzy at the top! The view was beautiful and it was so so cold. The new St. Michael's Cathedral that was built next to the ruins of the old cathedral was also impressive and beautiful. The history in this country is amazing.

We also visited the Coventry Transport Museum. Coventry used to be the center of the British car industry and the museum holds the largest collection of British-made road transport vehicles in the world. Admission was free so we decided to check it out. It was pretty neat, but nothing that we really loved. It was cool to see the old-school bikes and stuff.

After that we headed to IKEA for a late lunch and shopping! We finally have about everything we need for our flat. We spent some time decorating and cleaning this week and it is looking good. Some pics from Coventry:

St. Michael's Cathedral ruins

On the way up the tower.

View of Coventry from the top of the tower.

Ground view of the tower.

Road Trip

On Monday morning, we headed out on a road trip with Kevin, Leah, and Tatum. Destination: Bolsover Castle about two hours away. We stopped at a little pub for lunch in the town where Robin Hood and Maid Marion supposedly got married, right next to the Sherwood Forrest. That was fun! We had a jolly time on the way to the castle, but we arrived to a paper sign on the gate saying the castle was closed for the day. We later found out it was closed due to heavy snow. As disappointing as that was we decided to press on to nearby Hardwick Hall. We arrived on the grounds of the hall and popped our heads in the pub only to find out that the hall was also closed. We could visit the grounds, but we couldn't actually go in the hall. Another disappointment. We did have fun playing in the snow though.

After all of that, we headed home. Later, we met up at the Millers and made fajitas for dinner and watched Christmas Vacation. Still a fun day!

Leah and I at lunch.

So much snow!

Snowball explosion.

A picturesque day!

Cadbury World

Today was the official start of our holiday break! With some free time on our hands, we visited Birmingham's own Cadbury World. Cadbury began in Birmingham back in 1824 and so it is truly a part of the culture. No Hershey Kisses to be found here. We bought our tickets weeks ago and were excited for the trip!

We had a great time eating chocolate and learning about Cadbury and the town it is in called Bournville. Bournville began as a quaker town back in the late 1800s and it is quite a lovely town to visit today. The church bells were ringing Christmas carols as we walked to Cadbury World. :) We also got to see parts of the working factory which was really cool and Mike loved watching all the robots and machines. And as I am typing this it started snowing again! Even more snow than earlier this week!

Day One of Christmas break was wonderful!

Christmas Concert with Mosaic

The last event of the year was a Christmas concert with a band called Mosaic. One of our past exchange students is in the band and they were stopping by on the way home from Africa. So they played a Christmas concert for Canvas on Tuesday night and it was awesome! They mixed in a few originals with some traditional Christmas songs. We started off the evening with traditional British holiday foods including mince pies, mulled wine, cheese and crackers, and veggies. The band played the first set, we took a break, and the second set started with an offering for the Casas trip that Canvas is taking in June. 32GBP was donated! At the end of the second set everyone got a candle and the people in the front lit their candles and the flame passed to the back of the room. (Apparently this is common in the States, but I have never seen it happen. The students loved it!) I think we got some of it on video and I will post it if I can find it. The concert was a great ending to a great term. Everyone is going home for the holidays and we have one more week of work and then we are on Christmas break until the 4th. :)

Mosaic (only half of the band was here)

The candle lit songs at the end.

Mike and Lauren

Fielder, Aaron, Ash, Katie (exchange student), Rachel (past exchange student, Mosaic member)

Alli and Lane (exchange student) preparing food

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Mike and I are both big Christmas fans. We love decorating and traditions and the general Christmas-time spirit. So when we arrived in England and some CMF missionaries that were leaving the field gave us their little Christmas tree, we were so excited! And now it is finally time to decorate for Christmas! So we put up our little tree and bought a few Christmas "baubles" from Aldi and......ta-da! Now it feels more like Christmas in 23 Tiverton!

Frankfurt Christmas Market

We had Friday off of work to celebrate Thanksgiving, so we decided to go to Birmingham's Frankfurt Christmas Market. It is the largest authentic German Christmas market outside of Germany and Austria with over 2 million visitors a year. There are over 180 stalls to see offering crafts, ornaments, candles, toys, jewelry, German food, and more. We also had a bit of shopping to do, so we took the train to the city in the early afternoon.

We had a great time walking from stall to stall seeing what there was to offer. We didn't buy anything (besides food) this time, but we are planning to go back once the term ends in a couple of weeks. We walked around for hours and got grilled sausages for dinner. They were delicious. Mike found the Haribo stalls and had trouble choosing only one of the treats they had to offer. He picked peach rings and they were quite good. I got a skewer of chocolate covered strawberries with a grape on top. YUM!! And then we bought a box of Berliners to take home with us for the weekend. A Berliner is a type of pastry that is basically a doughnut with filling. We got a few chocolate, one cinnamon, and one mint and they all had chocolate filling. The ones that we have eaten so far are soooooo good.

We picked up a few more things that we needed in the kitchen and headed home for the night. It was a fun and relaxing day! PS - Go Jackets!!

Some of the stalls behind me.

German sausages, yum!

Happy Christmas Birmingham!

Our tasty Berliners!

Thankful

One of the many reasons that I love Thanksgiving is the opportunity it provides to think about being thankful. Often times life passes so quickly that we forget that we have so much to be thankful for. Living in a country that does not celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving makes me realize this even more. While we can't be with our loved ones today, enjoying each other's company and eating Thanksgiving feasts, we can still be very thankful. And in the spirit of Thanksgiving, here are some of the many things that we are thankful for:

Our families and friends that we miss so very much. The amazing place called Canvas that is impacting so many lives, including ours. Our supporters that make it possible for us to be here. New friends in England that have made us feel so welcome. Skype for making us feel just a little bit closer to home. Sunny mornings and the dawn of a new day. The freedom to believe in a God that is so much bigger than our lives. Water to drink, food to eat, and a bed to sleep in at night. And the hope of the future and what it might bring.

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Know that we miss you and love you!

Thanksgiving Canvas Style!

Thursday night we had Thanksgiving at Canvas and it was wonderful! We put out long tables and decorated with Fall-type decorations. Everyone dressed up and students began arriving at 7pm. We had appetizers in the back room and everyone gathered there while waiting to eat dinner. Once everyone sat down, we served them a traditional Thanksgiving meal including turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, and more! Many students had been to Thanksgiving at Canvas last year, but there were loads of new students as well! We watched a short video on the meaning of Thanksgiving and had a few students share what they were thankful for. Then we served apple pie and everyone hung out until late. It was a great opportunity to meet students and talk about what we are thankful for. Friday morning after our staff meeting, we cleaned up the Thanksgiving decorations and put up the Christmas decorations! We have three weeks left in the term and we wanted to celebrate Christmas for as long as possible! Here are some photos from Thanksgiving:

Ready for the celebration to begin!

Listening to a student talk about what she is thankful for.

Me and a student named Hannah after dinner.

Just some of the dishes that Mike and friends washed...

Mike is back!

Just wanted to let everyone know that Mikie got back on Saturday around lunch. He was exhausted and sick, but after almost 12 hours of sleep last he is doing much better. (We both are!) Shout out to Ben Gibbs for getting Mike a buddy pass. He got first class both ways and did not have any trouble getting a seat on either flight. Yesterday we did some painting and finally got our Wii hooked up. We accidentally blew out our power cord and had to buy a new one on Amazon. At least the Wii didn't get blown up! We also installed some much needed coat racks and mirrors in our flat. It is definitely feeling like home now.

Today was an exciting day for me because I went on a hunt for a nice frying pan with a lid and I found one. We only had a really small one from IKEA that didn't have a lid and it was so difficult to cook with. I had had enough of trying to make it work, so I went to a few stores around Selly Oak and found a perfect pan. And the best part is that is was 1/2 off! So it only cost us 15GBP instead of 30. And I used it tonight to cook chicken carbonara and it was amazing. The little things in life. :)

In other news, the Globalscope Germany team is visiting us this week. They arrived this afternoon and we were able to hang out with some of them for a while. Chris Coleman joined us for dinner and we played Mikie's new game, Agricola. It is so good to see friends from college. And even better because they are living a similar life to us and understand what it is like to work in campus ministry in a foreign country. So we are really looking forward to spending time with the whole team this week. We have another busy week ahead and Thanksgiving Dinner at Canvas is on Thursday night and we are quite excited!

This Week @ Canvas

Time sure is flying by over here in England, as I'm sure it is everywhere. It has been another busy week at Canvas. Mike flew home for the week to be with his family for his grandma's funeral and is getting back Saturday afternoon. We have had three GTCCF interns visiting for the week and next week the Globalscope Germany team arrives to visit. So things are staying quite busy and people are coming and going like crazy! It is fun to have friends visit and experience Canvas!

Events have happened as usual this week. Open Mic Nite was really cool this week including musicians, spoken poetry, and a Stomp-type of band that got everyone in the room involved. So fun. Tuesday Night we made chicken casserole and Nathan talked about grace. And tonight we are making carrot and coriander soup and I'm hoping to play some Taboo! Here are some pics from events this week at Canvas!

The Canvas House ready for Open Mic Nite

The crazy stomp type band that played at Open Mic

Leah and I serving chicken casserole on Tuesday Night

Tuesday night jam song

Students eating dinner: (from left) Matt, Matt, Owen, Becky, Charlotte, and Carl

Around the World is a hit in England!

Every Tuesday, Nathan and a bunch of guys clean up the kitchen listening to country music

Busy in England

We can't believe that November is already upon us. It is getting dark and cold very early here in England and Christmas decorations are already out in stores. We spent all of last weekend working on our flat. We wall papered, finished flooring, painted, and painted some more. Our living room and bedroom are both done! And we have ordered a couch from IKEA to arrive next week. All that's left is painting the bathroom and wall papering and painting the kitchen. It has been lots of work in the beginning, but really worth it to make this place home for us.

This week has kept us quite busy! On Tuesday, we obtained a UK bank account at Lloyds TSB complete with checks and a debit card. Tuesday Night at Canvas was awesome this week. Loads of students came and we ate an Italian pasta bake. Natalie (staff member) interviewed Pete (student at Canvas) about his life and faith journey and it went really well. Tonight we are going to get some Mexican food with some students and I can't wait. We are told that it is one of the best Mexican places around, but not to get our hopes up because it isn't that great compared to what we are used to. Totally worth a shot though! In America we have a Mexican restaurant on every corner, in England there is an Indian restaurant on every corner. The Indian dish of choice is called curry and is very popular here. Somehow lots of the Mexican food here ends up tasting like curry. Still good though.

I wanted to share a few photos of the Canvas House, so check them out:

The outside of Canvas.

The main room where events happen.

The cafe room.

The game room.

Canvas staff photos.

Weekly Canvas events.

PS - Shout out to my sister, Laura! It was her 23rd birthday yesterday. Happy Birthday!! :)

Soup-Er Thursdays and More

On Thursday nights at Canvas, we have free dinner. As you might guess from the title, we cook soup! We have a Costco nearby, so we stocked up on Lloyd Grossman's soups and a few other brands that are all quite tasty. At 8pm students come over to Canvas to warm up with some hot soup and bread followed by games, poker, the pub, or just chatting. There is also an open mic night at a nearby pub called The Soak that we often go to after dinner. We have students at Canvas that like to play at that open mic and so it is fun to go watch and listen to them play. Poker has been a big hit this semester and as you can imagine, Mike loves it. He already won one time! And as always, table tennis and foosball are quite popular on Thursday nights.

We went to the city last night to run some errands. We finally got an umbrella which we have been needing lately. The cold and rainy days are upon us now in Birmingham. We also had to get Mike's macbook to the Apple store because his battery is slowly expanding. Apparently that was a common problem on his version of the macbook pro, but it is the strangest thing. It is literally expanding and popping open. So we will be sharing my computer for the next few days until he goes to his appointment at the Genius Bar. Hoping to watch the Tech game tonight while we attempt to wallpaper over the new plaster work. Go Jackets!

Happy Halloween

At Canvas, we work as a team and we play as a team. Once a month, the team members get together for "team dinner" to hang out and enjoy each other's company in a non-working atmosphere. On Friday night, we all got together at the Braden's house to eat dinner and carve pumpkins for Halloween. We cooked a tasty feast of devilish dogs (chilli dogs Rachael Ray-style) and some dips and "crisps." (In England, french fries are called chips and potato chips are called crisps.) Then we each carved a pumpkin and baked pumpkin seeds. It was a great night for us to get to know our teammates a little bit better and just have fun with each other.

Pumpkin carving fun

All of our pumpkins in a row

Mike was sick for most of the weekend, so we didn't do too much. But he went to the doctor this morning and is already doing much better. We are hoping to get some more work done on our flat this week. Since we both have been out of commission for a while we haven't gotten much done. Hopefully by the end of the weekend we will have made lots of progress. As soon as we finish a room, we will post some pictures!

Tuesday Nights @ Canvas

Tuesday nights at Canvas are welcoming and fun. Free dinner is served starting at 8:00 and last night we made quesadillas. They were a big hit! The band plays a few songs after dinner is over and then we have a prayer focus where a staff member talks about something and then prays for it. A few more songs happen and then there is a talk. The talks are funny, honest, open, and enjoyable. After that we have more live music and then we end it with some announcements. The team has worked really hard to create a calm and  welcoming atmosphere that is also fun and intriguing. We had around 50 people last night and it was so much fun. Mike and I were in the kitchen helping and we made 120 quesadillas. Not a quick process, but they were so good. 


After everything was over, we sat and chatted with students for a while before heading down the street to hang out at the pub. A majority of social interaction takes place at pubs in Selly Oak. Last night we went to The Goose to hang out with some students. We had a great time and had to call it a night early since I was going to the doctor first thing in the morning. We are truly enjoying each moment that we spend here. Getting used to living in another culture is not always easy, but it is an adventure and a process and we are so thankful for the opportunity. 


In other news, I had my "toe cast" removed this morning and the nurse said that everything is looking good. My toe is quite bruised and purple and my nail is MUCH smaller, but it is healing well. I still can't wear anything but flip flops, but hopefully by the end of the weekend I will be ready to wear shoes again. We are making lots of progress on our flat. We have some more flooring and painting to do in the bedroom and living room, but we are almost done. We hung up curtains and hooked up the TV and are starting to feel at home already.


Happy Wednesday!

Canvas Kick-Off Party

Last night was the first official Canvas event of the semester. We invited anyone and everyone over to the Canvas house for free chili and live music. It was a really great night. Mike and I got to meet a lot of students that have been around and Canvas and students that were new. Every new person that we meet is just so friendly and polite. The music at the party was awesome and everyone enjoyed it. We called it a night at about 11:30 so we could come home and get some sleep to get up early to start more painting!

Tomorrow is Soup-Er Thursday which is free soup and bread and a game night at Canvas, plus a cook-out in the afternoon. (Can you tell free food is a big hit with university students?) We are hoping to make a lot of progress on our flat this weekend. We have a guy coming to do some plaster work tomorrow morning and then we will be able to paper and paint the walls and finish the bedroom. And we hope to finish the flooring in the living room by Sunday evening. That just leaves the kitchen and bathroom!

Finally getting a few pictures up... (Thanks to a few of the exchange students for taking pics!) Enjoy!

The Canvas House is in the center and our flat is on left. The exchange students live on the second levels of the houses on the right and left.

This is the artwork around the stage at Canvas. David Perez Jupin from Spain painted all of this and it is fantastic!

Hanging out before the party started...

The band playing at the kick-off party.

Settling In

Today we finally picked up some plug adapters for our electronics. So we charged up our computers and are ready to go. We put up curtains and sheets on our bed so we will be sleeping in our bedroom tonight for the first time. (We slept in our own place for the last three nights in our sleeping bags. We actually like our sleeping bags a lot, so it was no problem.) But we are really happy to have our own place starting to feel like home.

We still have a lot of work to do on the place. Lots of painting, re-flooring, papering the walls, etc. Construction is a good bit different here, so we are learning a lot. And Mike is so good at this stuff; I am lucky. :) We have been to the B&Q and Homebase more times than I can count now. B&Q is like a smaller Home Depot and Homebase is like Target and Home Depot combined.

Some CMF missionaries are leaving England this week and so we got some of their stuff for free. It was really wonderful! We got night stands, a coffee table, a kettle, an iron, mirrors, dishes, flatware, a bookshelf, and the list goes on. Thanks to Mary Ann and Bruce!! We also got a bed for free and we already bought a kitchen table and chairs from IKEA for super cheap. Later on we are hoping to get a couch and a washer. Lots of people here only have washers and they are all kept in the kitchen. Strange.

Things at Canvas are really great! We have met a lot of students and are really enjoying living next door! Next week the official Canvas events start and we are really looking forward to it! Kick off party on Tuedsay night, wahoo!

That's all for now! Oh and PS, happy birthday to Mike's dad!!

In England!

So after flooding interstates and a delayed flight, we made it to England around lunchtime on Tuesday. We flew on buddy passes, thanks to Bethany, and so we got on first class! A first time for the both of us and it was fantastic! Absolutely the best way to travel ever.

We stayed in a B&B the first three nights and have stayed with friends since then so that we can work on our apartment before we officially live there. Let's just say it needs some touch up work. We got our internet hooked up tonight, so now we are online!

We have Skype on our cell phones here, so anyone with Skype can call either of us and it rings our cell phones. It will look like we are always on Skype because it is always on our phones! Call us if you want to chat, we would love to hear from you!

Classes started today at the University and students are everywhere. We live right next door to Canvas which is right in the middle of where lots of students live. It is a great location. 1,000 Canvas welcome bags are being distributed this week to students and our first official event is a Kick-Off Party on the 6th!

More info to come later when we get a bit more settled. And pics to come as well. Love to all!!

VISAS!!!!

Our visa applications have been approved and we are receiving our visas today!!!

We are so excited! It has been a long process and we are finally leaving for England. Officially. We have flights for Monday night to Manchester. We still have to finish packing and moving, but tonight we won't be doing anything except watching Tech beat Miami. :)

My cell phone will be active through Saturday and Mike's phone will be active until Monday night. And of course we have email and Skype.

Thanks to everyone who helped us make it to England!

Waiting...

We have had a lot of friends and family ask what our status us over the past few days. So, we wanted to give an update to everyone. We are still waiting on our visas.

We did receive an email letting us know that our visas are in the assessment process and they will send us another email when they have made a decision. Given their statistics, our guess is that we will hear something by Friday of this week. Once they decide to issue our visas, they will email us to let us know and then mail them to us. Once we get the visas in the mail, we will leave within a day or two. With all of that taken into consideration, our guess is that we will be leaving sometime next week. (The 21st - 25th.)

We will be sure to blog when we get our visas!

Stella

We are selling our Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo before we leave. Click here to see the Craigslist posting. Shoot me an email if you are interested! It is a great vehicle and I am sad to see her go!

PS - Her name is Stella. :)

One step away from visas

Big day today! We finally got our certificates which we have been working on for weeks. (You now have to have a sponsorship certificate to enter and work in the UK.) Since we got our certificates, we have now begun applying for our visas. We have appointments on Thursdays to get our biometrics done and then we will mail everything to the processing center in Chicago and hope for the best! Biometrics is a scan of your fingerprints and a digital picture of your face and it will only take about 5 minutes. 97% of visa applications in our category are decided within 10 days so hopefully we will be leaving during the second or third week of September! Until then, we will be waiting and getting ready to leave...

Post Numero Uno

Since we are getting close to leaving for England, we decided to start a blog. We are hoping to leave at the beginning of September for Birmingham. Getting our visas has been a long and difficult process and once we finally get those, we are out of here!

Just a FYI, thethompsonstrek no longer exists, so if you want updates, visit our blog. (Long story starting with our computer crashing...)

So for now we are finishing up the process to get our visas, raising more support, trying to close up our life here in L'ville, visiting with family and friends, and all the other stuff that goes along with moving to another country. Mike is still at Thomco for a few more weeks and we are still in our apartment for now. I am starting to feel like we are really leaving now!