Friday Funday!

More pictures from Friday adventures. On Thursday of this week, we went out the Pennines, but it was extremely cold! This was mostly caused by the wind...(I'm going to be hurting when I go back to Kansas)...I've lost my durability towards the wind! We cut the trip short and agreed we would go back when the weather was warmer. Sounds like a plan to me!

 On Friday we went on a 4 mile walk from Saltaire to Bingley and back. It was more of a flat canal walk so that we were protected by the wind. The reflections were great that day!

Bolton Abbey

Recently in class, Miss Mitchell asked the kids what their favorite day is. I figured out that mine is friday, but not because it is the end of a work week...I love fridays, because that is the day that Angie and Nel take us on little adventures and walks around the countryside! I have so very thankful to Angie, Malcolm, and Nellie for letting us join them on these journeys! This past friday we went to Bolton Abbey. This church was partly destroyed in the late 16th century, but part of it is still a functioning church. We got to tour the grounds in a really heavy frost (close to a hoar frost) that never melted all day in some parts. It was really beautiful to get to see this in an unusual way...

We saw a model of what they thought the abbey and grounds looked like and it was obvious that probably 75% of it was destroyed. Since being here, we have learned that there was a struggle between Catholicism and Protestants in England's history. When a Catholic queen or king ruled, they would have any protestant buildings destroyed and vice versa. The result is a lot of ruins of once beautiful buildings. 

Angie, Nel, and Leigh in a doorway

A view of what was the nauve

Leigh, Me, and Bethany

The hoar frost was falling off the trees and it looked like glitter!

Leigh has a mission to pet a duck. They haven't warmed up to the idea yet...

Bethany making Nel happy by throwing the stick! She never gets tired, that's for sure!

Trust...sometimes it leaves you in the middle of no where...

Over the past few months, we really have had to trust a lot of strangers. We have to trust that hopefully they won't steer us in the wrong direction. Most of our experiences have been good and we have recieved proper advice and information. This weekend though, we were "misguided" to say the least.
We had called our favorite taxi company, Douglas Taxis and prearranged a price with them to get us to Leeds to go dancing. We have had great conversations with many of their drivers and they are the best price for sure. The driver that they sent us, must have been the exception...
We didn't know the exact address for where we were going, but we new the name of the street. The street was a well known area of town and we had hoped this was enough information to get us there. Not true- our driver was very annoyed. Then, we got in the taxi and after sitting in silence for 5 minutes, we asked if we could have the radio on. After he gave us a muttered relunctant sigh, the music was on. Shortly after, he put in earbud headphones, so any questions or comments he no longer heard. This became extremely awkward as we started driving down back roads at high speeds. We even went on a cobblestone street going extremely fast dodging people and cars.
To make matters worse, Bethany had just told us horror stories about young ladies being taken away by taxi drivers and that we needed to be careful...So of course, as we are going down alleys to get to Leeds when normally we go down a highway, thoughts were put in our heads...
Finally we started driving on roads that we recognized, but as we approached Leeds, we kept going down a street we'd never seen. When we asked if we were there, our driver told us that we had just past it. Then he gave us some excuse and started explaining that once we miss a turn, his GPS no longer works. (which is ridiculous by the way)  He dropped us off and told us to cross a walking bridge to a group of buildings with neon lights on them. So we did that...and it led us to a bunch on apartment buildings. After asking many people on the street, we learned that we had a 15 minute walk to where we wanted to go. Luckily I was not wearing heels like Leigh!
The worst part was that once we learned that we were in the wrong spot, we started to cross the road and  saw him parked at the light!!! We tried to flag him down and he looked over at us- But didn't stop!!!
Anyways, that night was a bit frustrating and it was good that we were in a group of 4.
We did learn something though. Trust...sometimes it leaves you in the middle of no where...! hahah

Bethany's Birthday

Bethany turned 22! Leigh and I stayed up the night before and quietly decorated the stairs and downstairs of our house, so that when Bethany woke up in the morning it would there. Bethany called it a birthday fairy land, so I think she liked it. Later that night we went out to dinner with friends at an Italian restaurant called The Ital. It was a great night. The food was good, the price was great!  We had made and decorated a cake to take to eat and the staff was so nice that they provided cutlery and plates and even lit the candles on the cake all while singing happy birthday to her. To decorate the cake we used some of the dehydrated marshmallows that Carol had sent to me in a package. The funny part was that the marshmallows we fully hydrated by the icing on the cake! 

Another fun event was that Anastasia came to town. We met Anastasia while staying at Jesus People in Chicago during our orientation. Her family is living south of us in Leister, England and while she was over visiting them, we came up to visit us for a few days. 

Bethany's cake with lots of colored (at one time dehydrated) marshmallows

We decorate the flat with streamers and confetti stuff so in the morning when she woke up it would be decorated!

Hebden Bridge

At the beginning of this month Leigh and I went on a journey with one of Leigh's friends from Florida and her husband Steve. Steve is living and working in England just over an hour away from us. Barbara was visiting for a while and Leigh was really looking forward to getting to see a familiar face from back home while she was here. Luckily, we did get to meet up with them. Thanks to Steve, who has a car, we went to Hebden Bridge and walked along the canal before exploring part of the town. It was a different kind of walk than we were used to, but still really beautiful. The canal ice had broken up at one time, but then had refrozen which made really cool geometric shapes on the canal. Some highlights were:

Tipping must mean something different in this country... Otherwise this must be a challenging event...

Leigh wanting again to "pet" the evil geese. They didn't show too much love…

Barbara & Steve

We found what appeared to be a settlement of long boat gypsies. (One who lives on a canal boat year round without really moving much) They had some cool things and really cool junk. 

After trying to eat at 3 busy pubs without any luck we ended up in an Italian cafe where we got to try to decipher whether a woman was wearing a hat or if it was her hair. Opinions?

Marie & Leigh

 I said that I would walk across the lock for 10 pounds, obviously with the thought that no one ever actually takes you up on an offer like that. Barbara whips out a 10 pound note, and I balance beamed myself across. I'm appreciative of all of those balance beam gymnastics practices! (Barbara took this picture as I walked)

Anyways, it was a very relaxing and fun day with Barbara and Steve, and I look forward to seeing them again when Barbara moves back to England in April or so. 

Happy New Years!

Happy New Years! Leigh, Michelle and I went to Leeds to Dance the Night away! We met some very interesting people and it was proven true....American Accents do help sometimes... :) Michelle even tried to be American for awhile!

Happy Christmas!

This is the latest blog post known to man, but I thought it would be nice to give you all an insight to our Christmas over here in England. We were planning on traveling to Scotland over the Christmas break, but unfortunately we were all sick during key planning time, and it got out really expensive. Instead, we stayed home and enjoyed our time here. 

I made my friend Natalie's AMAZING sugar cookies. Leigh, who claimed she didn't like sugar cookies liked them. They didn't have many sprinkle options, so I colored sugar with food coloring!

My gift for the girls this year was a homemade customized "Radical Journey" stocking. I stuck down the night before and hung them up! 

It is a great tradition here to send Christmas cards to everyone that you happen to know... We received cards from people who don't even know our names, or at least which one of us is which. We put the cards on our wall in the shape of a tree! A few of the cards were sent to the wrong address, with no return address, so we opened them and put them on the wall too! 

Leigh told me about a tradition that her uncle had where he "Santa" puts up wrapping paper over the door of the room with the presents. Soooo, I snuck down late Christmas Eve to put up wrapping paper! In the morning we had to bust through!

Christmas morning we went to St. Wilfrid's Anglican Church. We all had a figure for the nativity scene. When Paul asked for Joseph he was no where to be found, so I offered up my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle that my brother Daniel and his wife Melissa had sent me for Christmas! (By the way, we were suppose to take a Christmas present to Church. It's not like I carry it everywhere I go! haha)