This weekend

This may come as no surprise, but I think a weekend free of all house-hunting duties was really a good thing for me. Yesterday, Eric spent an hour or two poring over the details of the new batch of listings that the relocation company sent us, but other than glancing at those with him, I really tried to steer my mind away from the topic.

Saturday we slept in a bit, then had breakfast and played with Brooks around the flat. Since our shipment of stuff from home will be sitting on a dock for a while, as we wait to move into our new flat, we decided that we needed to procure a few more diversions for the little guy. We went up to Piccadilly Circus and then strolled down Regent Street to Hamley's, the UK's largest toy store. Whoa! A whirling, flashing, ringing, squealing, brightly colored mob scene attacked our senses as we attempted to find pre-school appropriate toys within the seven story mass chaos of this store. We were in there less than 10 seconds before one of us said calmly to the other "Please, kill me now..." However we found a great playmat area to test out items before buying them (we discovered that we're not ready for the piano) and bought a couple of toys for Brooks - a set of painted wooden nesting boxes that he has all kinds of fun pounding into each other and a "touch and crawl friend" - an little electronic thing that rolls away from you when you touch it. Should be fun to watch Brooks figure it out as he attempts to perfect his crawl.



Playing with Daddy at Hamleys...


Woah! I can make LOTS of noise with THIS thing!

That evening we wandered around between the Regent street and Soho areas, trying to find a child-friendly pub where we could eat and watch one of the two big sporting events on...(nope, not the Indians or Auburn)... The English Football Team was playing Israel in a big soccer match. Also the Rugby World Cup is happening right now in the UK and England was playing the USA team. We searched in vain... all the pubs were either over-21 only (why don't they post a sign stating this, rather than making us guess?), or didn't have a TV, or were completely packed to standing room only with enthusiastic fans. By the time we finally gave up, I was starving so we stopped at a burger diner place, and we inhaled supper before wandering back to Piccadilly to Waterstone's (an enormous bookstore) to browse for some books for Brooks (again all our childrens' books are in a container on the boat!)

Sunday we slept in and then went back to HTB for the 11am service. After that we went in search of a "full English Breakfast" - an UK standard meal, typically bacon and/or sausage, baked beans, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, fried eggs and toast with coffee or tea. We found it and I never wanted to eat again - completely stuffed. That afternoon we played with Brooks, snoozed a bit, I read some of Harry Potter 6 while Eric looked at property listings online and then we did quite a bit of planning for our time in Italy this fall with my family. I'm really excited about the upcoming Italy trip. Sissy and I'll be showing Eric, Brooks and my parents many of the places we visited when we were there six years ago. Later, Eric found our dinner at the grocery, exactly what he wanted and half price as well, so we had a little victory party over supper. It definitely feels like we're slowly figuring out our way around this (very pricey) neighborhood.


Eskimo-kissing with Mommy...


Sunset from our bedroom window...

Today I'm off to look at another property that has some potential... please continue to pray for us and our housing search. I look forward to reporting good news on that front very soon!

Church in London

Last Sunday, we'd been home less than 24 hours and we decided to take a stroll in the evening, just to give ourselves a break from unpacking and laundry and settling in from Paris. We loaded Brooks up in the stroller and set off to get some fresh air. As always when exploring here, we took our A to Z map (this place is a labyrinth, it's a necessity to have a good map!) We stopped at one point to check our progress and I realized while looking at the map that we were within sight of Holy Trinity Brompton, a church that several folks had recommended in central London. We decided to go see if the church was open, and lo and behold, they were just beginning their casual 5pm service. Perfect, we decided! We'd just drop in.

I can't tell you the feeling that I had as we participated in that service. We ended up in the balcony as the church was already pretty full and by the time we were getting settled in with Brooks, they were in the middle of worship. Amazing to witness a group of believers in another country lift hands and voices up to God! The worship sets included Agnus Dei, Blessed Be Your Name, and several other familiar songs that seemed chosen just for me. This song in particular struck me anew and I felt God wrap His arms around me as we sang...

Blessed be Your Name when the sun's shining down on me,
When the world's all as it should be, Blessed be Your Name.
Blessed be Your Name when the road's marked with suffering
When there's pain in the offering, Blessed be Your Name.

Every blessing You pour out, I'll turn back to praise.
And when the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say...
Blessed be the Name of the Lord, Blessed be Your Name
Blessed be the Name of the Lord, Blessed be Your Glorious Name

The sermon was great as well, the pastor was talking about the faith of the centurion (Matt 8:5-13). He talked about 1) his knowledge or understanding of authority - basically, that God has all the authority, not Rome, 2) his skill of faith - I had never thought of faith as a "skill" but he talked about developing it through practice and that he comes not fully-formed but grows over time... interesting idea, and 3) his attitude of humility - here was a man who was used to being obeyed, to being followed, but he humbled himself before Christ and asked God to meet his needs, and God did.

That was the basic content of the sermon, but the context was even better - the "start of a new term". He talked about the fact that many of us are beginning anew in the fall - with a new school year, a new ministry year. Many of us are taking on new challenges and opportunities and God doesn't want us to merely survive (hmm, is he talking to us?) We should have expectations higher than that, that we could flourish and be met by God and used by God during this season. Not that we would just hold our breath until the holidays (such a temptation) but to look for ways for God to direct us. It seemed that he was saying that God might have plans for us - even in these circumstances, even during this transition time.

I was so glad to celebrate communion though we had some trouble figuring out where to go (we were standing up in the back by that point). But again, it was so great to do with another group of believers. And at the end of the service, the pastor called people forward to be prayed for... both those who are taking on new challenges at the start of this "new term" and those who are gripped with fear. I felt like both were me! Eric went forward to request prayer for all of us (as I was wrangling a squirmy Brooks by that point) and an older gentleman with white hair asked "how can I pray for you, son?" - I think meant the world to him to have an "elder" pray for him. I had a great encounter with Miles, one of the greeters in the lobby, who made friends with Brooks and we chatted about his own 8 month old son.

I'm so glad that we decided to go last week even at the last moment. We were feeling lonely and thwarted and frightened and alienated, but God met us there and seemed to say, I know you, I haven't forgotten about you, I will meet all your needs in My time - that was exactly the message we needed to hear before the challenges of last week. Eric and I both left feeling very full and grateful that God directed us there.

Yesterday, we went back to the same church. We went in the morning to take advantage of theie creche (nursery). Unfortunately, it was more than a little chaotic as it was "Vision Sunday" - there was a LOT going on. But we eventually got Brooks settled, got seats together in the main sanctuary and were able to participate in the service. Afterwards we went to the tent outside with a sort of "ministry fair", and found out about their Pastorates (which I think are a bit like our small groups), a mid-week Tots and Toddlers group for me, some theology classes the church offers, and a Worship welcome night (I've already missed getting to sing and/or lead worship!). Eric was a bit discouraged that the kids ministry table pressed him to volunteer in the creche and that he didn't find much in the way of justice ministry, but I'm not sure that's all that unusual.

I think we'll go back again but maybe also try a couple of other congregations before we settle in. It will be easier to plug into a church when we know where we're going to live. Our major prayer request is unchanged - Lord, please lead us to a home, both the brick and mortar kind and the spiritual and relational kind!

Things I'm thankful for...

~ Eric likes his co-workers. One even recommended a church for us to visit.

~ Brooks' cold is getting better. So, we're all healthy.

~ Eric made me supper tonight while I put Brooks to bed. Sweet husband.

~ We sold our Chicago condo, so we're no longer paying a mortgage.

~ The weather in London has been lovely. We've picked the perfect time of year to move here.

~ They can't kick us out of the corporate apartment that we're currently in. We can stay here as long as necessary, assuming of course that we're willing to pay for it.

~ We have internet access which has proved to be a lifeline to the outside world when Eric's working. Plus I have a cell phone, so making appointments to see rental property isn't that hard.

~ Strolling with an adorable baby is a great way to meet people in the city. Everyone wants to play with/talk to/ask me about Brooks. When I'm lonely, I just have to load Brooks up in his stroller, step out outside and Voila! He's the perfect entree to dozens of conversations. At the very least, he elicits big smiles from complete strangers. What a joy.

~ We don't have anything we *have* to do this weekend. Yes, we need to find an apartment, but our hands are tied until Monday, so we have an entire weekend in London to ourselves.

~ God knows our needs before we even tell Him. The sparrows and the lilies are our reminders. God, please provide for us as You always do. Show us how big You are, Lord...

My Top 10 list is a good exercise for me, as it offers some perspective when I'm frustrated. I do hope all is well with you and yours, too.

here we go again...

One of the joys of the rental market chaos in London is the fact that landlords regularly list their available properties with more than one letting agency. I can't quite determine why this is a good thing for the letting agencies, but the landlord wins in two ways - he gets increased exposure for his unit and he potentially sets up letting wars between two or more companies.

Last night as we were submitting our offer to Faron Sutaria Agency, somewhere in the city the Foxton's Agency was calling their client to say that the landlord had agreed to their terms. While no money has exchanged hands yet, the landlord feels bound to his word to accept their offer and so our full-price offer was "thrown out with yesterday's rubbish". (Can you tell I'm a bit annoyed?)

Another idiosyncrasy is that letting agencies don't work over the weekends, so because we're getting this news at 4pm on Friday, we can't do anything about finding another flat until Monday morning. Oh, the frustration...

Lord, give us patience, perseverance, and a good sense of humor about all of this. And please lead us to the right place...

Prayer Request - a home

Eric and I put in an offer on our third flat tonight. It's not *exactly* perfect but we agreed that we could live there for two years. I am so hopeful that this is it... SO hopeful.

The process of looking for a rental property in London has been harder than I imagined. We were certainly warned, but after a two or three month search for our Chicago condo a few years ago, I thought "how hard could it be?!" Well, I was wrong! And now I wish I had listened a bit more... But actually, I don't know what we would or could have done differently. We loved our vacation trips and would still would have taken them. I know we worked really hard on the day that estate agent took us around - we saw more than a dozen properties that day, running from one to another while working around little Brooks' needs. Perhaps we would have made better offers on the first places we liked? I'm not so sure, as they both had some issues.

All in all, I think this place has many of things we are looking for... There are a few problems (grungy stained carpet, a tiny college dorm fridge, a single unit washer/dryer rather than a separate dryer, etc) but even those can be worked around, I think (ie, a few well placed rugs and a trip to the grocery store for milk every other day)... Maybe the delay in finding our home has done this - it's helped me become more flexible and willing to make changes necessary to adapt to living in our new city. And it's made us move more decisively once we found a place that COULD work.

You know it's funny, last night we went by the listing agent's offer to confirm our offer and drop off our reference forms (five pages of forms to assure them that we could afford to pay our rent on time, even though they require a ten week - yep, 10 week! - deposit to secure the lease). While we were there, the listing agent mentioned that the place has been on the market two weeks and should have rented before now. Apparently the desired rent for this amount of space in this location is fairly reasonable, but it's clear that the vacating tenants don't want to be very helpful to the landlord before they move out. It's currently being rented by two bachelors who hadn't cleaned in weeks. But they apparently do quite a lot of laundry - shorts and socks and shirts were draped ALL OVER the flat, air drying... Very, very funny. But it gave me ideas about how well the washer/dryer combo unit must work! :) And even better, if this is the reason that the place hasn't rented yet, then HURRAY for messy tenants. We just had to use our imagination to clear out their things and imagine our happy little family making it more cozy and warm.

I haven't told you all the great bits about it ... perhaps I'm still holding off on getting attached to this flat, as I did the other two. We know they have two more showings today. If you're a person who prays, please pray with us that the landlord accepts our offer (today, so we're not anxious about it over the weekend!) and that he'll agree to replace the carpets for us. He currently lives in Dubai and I'm praying that he's both reachable and reasonable.

Hopefully, we'll know something by the end of the business day.

Happy 4 years - in Paris!

Last Thursday through Saturday, Eric and I celebrated our fourth anniversary in the City of Light. I had spent a bit more time here than he had on previous trips, and I had such fun showing him "my" Paris. Thankfully, the whole trip was low-key and relaxing compared to the insanity of the last several weeks. The constant travel and lack of a "home base" was beginning to wear on all of us, but sleeping in til 9 (yep, even Brooks slept in!) and enjoying the leisurely strolling through this beautiful, historic city was just perfect.

We arrived late Thursday afternoon, so Eric put Brooks down for a nap and I gathered the makings of a Paris picnic on Rue Cler (a pedestrian street with lots of market shops, cafes and bakeries - it's always my home base in Paris). We picnicked in our room while Brooks snoozed and the sun set outside. What fun to realize we could see the Eiffel Tower from our window! That evening, we strolled down the Rue Cler with Brooks and discussed the London housing options that we had seen the day before. Friday morning we stepped out and got caffe et pain aux chocolat - delicious pastries with chocolate bars baked inside. Then off to the Ile de la Cite for Rick Steve's (gotta love Rick!) self-guided Historic Paris walk through Notre Dame, Ile St Louis (a yummy stop for take-away crepes and glacee - French gelato, so much better than American ice cream!), the old Latin Quarter, St Chapelle, and Pont Neuf. Brooks did great in his stroller and charmed locals and fellow travelers as he practiced clapping and waving to them. He even caught a few winks on the move. Eric and I got good practice navigating his stroller on the many steps of the Metro - which is not as hard as some might believe. That night we had a yummy French supper and even then, Brooks cooperated beautifully. We ended the day with a visit to the sparkley Eiffel Tower and a slow stroll home. Hurray for four years!

In front of Notre Dame...


And behind Notre Dame (yep, Brooks is asleep!)


Happy Anniversary to us!


So glad we're married! (Is Brooks a trooper, or what?!)

Saturday was a great day as well - we got up and packed our bags, then got breakfast on Rue Cler before heading to the Musee D'Orsay to check out the world's greatest Impressionist collection. Then we strolled through the Tuilleries Gardens, to Place de la Concorde where Eric got very excited about a really fancy car that we saw parked in front of the Crillon hotel. He guessed that the owner's name started with Prince or Sultan. With what appeared to be more than a million dollars worth of upgrades, he felt confident that it wouldn't be street legal in the US. We finished the afternoon by continuing up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. So much history on his street! And so much beauty! What a gorgeous day!!


Check out the license plate


"I will Triumph!"

Perhaps one of the biggest joys of living in London will be how close everything is - Paris is just a quick 2.5 hour train trip from Waterloo station. Maybe that's why this trip was so peaceful. We knew we didn't have to see everything, because we'll be back soon!

Tina, Wendy, Sissy - I'm remembering my trips here with each of you and reliving some of my favorite moments... Wendy, the joy of us popping up out of the Metro and squealing as we saw our first glimpse of the Notre Dame in the glooming. Sissy, I showed Eric "de little chairs" in Hotel Champs de Mars around the corner from us. Tina, we stopped by Angelina's for hot cocoa on Saturday. Dee-lish! Memories with ya'll make the city seem friendly, even after several years.

Mom - I took these pictures because they reminded me of four years ago... THIS is what I was going for with the whole candles thing ... It was such fun to realize that the pictures in my mind were from Notre Dame!! I think we did well, huh? Note, the candle stands all are wrought iron. :)

Darlin - we've had countless adventures in the last four years and I'm so pleased that we're just getting started! I love you so much, thanks for taking me to Paris!!

Observations from "London Life" Day #2

A Tube strike shuts down London. We've just passed the 24 hour mark of a 72 hour strike and it seems that the city is just all out of sorts. Eric had figured out a great plan-B for how to get to work this morning but ended up having to walk most of the way there as all the buses on his route were full and not accepting more passengers. I can't even imagine the stress! And on his first day in the office, too! Geez.

There are large supermarkets here, and not just the equivalent of a 7-11... Brooks and I found one today after a long stroll - it was so comforting to see things from home there - Tropicana OJ, Sunmaid raisins, Hellman's mayo, Pantene shampoo, even Brooks' same brand of diapers. It took us three hours to go to the store - an hour's walk each way and then a slow crawl down the aisles, trying to find things I recognized. Some funny things I noticed? an entire row of various teas, another section labeled "sweet biscuits". Nice. Everything in the produce section is prepackaged and lists the country the item was grown in - green beans from Tanzania, that sort of thing. I tried not to go into sticker shock from the prices, but at least I can find things for us to eat... very very good feeling, especially since...

Brooks' stock of baby food is dwindling. We brought an entire suitcase of food for Brooks with us when we came over, so that we'd have enough for our trips as well as some for a few days in London - time just to get the lay of the land before having to figure out what to feed him. Unfortunately, Gerber is not a brand that I saw today! I bought all sorts of produce though and plan to put our handy food mill to the test tomorrow. I think I can probably give him more table food than I have, but it's a bit daunting especially as we don't have a high chair in our temp housing... Brooks eats most meals strapped into his stroller, just so he doesn't squirm away as we're feeding him. But he needs to be feeding himself, so we'll need to figure out something.

And we also need to figure out where we're going to live. Our first choice flat just got rented out from underneath us... bummer. I'm praying that God has something in mind that's just not yet available. Lord, help us find it!

Finally, it would be very easy for me to not talk to anyone here. Today, I've spoken to Eric, Brooks, and our realtor. People on the street aren't all that chatty. I will need to work at building some relationships soon.

Wow! Even as I typed that last sentence, I got a skype phone call from Donna, our staff liason for newlymarrieds and our pastor's wife. What a wonderful treat! Thanks for the call, it makes Chicago feel so much closer to home!!

I'm going to get started on supper so that it's ready whenever Eric actually arrives... more later

home, sweet temporary home...

Aug 16 Nashville, TN
Aug 17 Chicago, IL ("Chez Youngren")
Aug 18 Chicago, IL (Thanks Tim and Mel)
Aug 19 American Airlines (second to last row of coach)
Aug 20 Luton, UK
Aug 21 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Aug 22 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Aug 23 Bovec, Slovenia
Aug 24 Plitvice, Croatia
Aug 25 Podoca, Croatia
Aug 26 Split, Croatia
Aug 27 Split, Croatia
Aug 28 Canary Wharf London (temp housing #1)
Aug 29 Canary Wharf
Aug 30 Paris, France
Aug 31 Paris, France
Sept 1 Chelsea London (temp housing #2)
Sept 2 Chelsea

Last night, as Eric and I tried to count up how many places we've called "home" in the last few weeks, we lost count. I had to sit down with a map this morning to figure it out. A dozen in 2.5 weeks. Wow. We haven't slept in the same place for more than 2 nights in a row since visiting my family in Nashville mid-August. No wonder we're a bit weary of our suitcases. And Brooks is understandably impatient with us, as his pack n play has a different ceiling over it every couple of days. A bit unsettling when you're only 9 months old...

All this to say, I'm so pleased that we've actually taken everything out of our suitcases and put them all in a closet/bathroom (I'll explain that later) and have made every effort to settle into our little temporary apartment in London, at least for as long as we're here. This morning I found it was a nice change to not have to load up the stroller, pack n play, car seat, clothes, diapers, baby food, toys and oh yeah, stuff for us! and schlep off to the rental car or train station or airport. No, we could stay right where we are! At least for a few weeks anyway... Happy day!

I hear the little guy stirring... More details (and pictures!) from the adventures of our wandering little family shortly.