Today is one of those days...

One of those wonderful days! You know, when the air is crisp and you can tell that Fall is on it's way. I love days like today.

Ever since we've moved in to our house (photos soon, I promise) I have been doing my shopping at the village (photos soon, I promise). I ride my bike up to the shops and go from store to store with my shopping list. We have two grocery chains in town Somerfield and Iceland. Now I'm not quite sure but Iceland is not the place I like to shop. Somerfield seems more inviting and also stocks more organic, earth friendly products. Plus Iceland just sound cold. But I tend to get all of my veggies, meats and bread from their respective shops in the village. And on Wednesdays there is a market in the center where I can get all sorts of fresh fruits and veggies!

Today I needed to get milk and decided that the front basket on my bike isn't condusive for heavy loads so I went to the bike shop to get a basket for the back. So I am now officially equiped for full on shopping in my village of Portchester. I feel so local.

Photos!

Here's the Castle from the view of the church's cemetary

This is the church I go to...morning prayer every day! I've become an Anglican, who would have guessed?

We went to the top of the Keep last weekend and the view is fantastic!

Here's the courtyard of the castle...and Victor!

We met up with Nikki in London and it was too much fun.

We took a bike tour around the city and it was so fun...even in the rain.

Me and Victor survived spending a whole month together...24 hours a day...non-stop...all the time...just the two of us

Another Bible lesson for Victor

As some of you may know, Victor didn't go to church when he was a kid. In fact, until he met me, the only time he went to church was for the occasional wedding. Every so often there are moments when he will say something or talk about a topic that has roots in Biblical stories but he doesn't understand where it comes from.

Yesterday he tried to tell me that "turn the other cheek" meant to look the other way.

I will use it in a sentence: I noticed that Victor was stealing a candy bar at the store but I turned the other cheek.

Right... so our little lesson consisted of me telling him that turning the other cheek was Christ's response to "eye for an eye". He had no idea what I was talking about. I love him.

I can't wait until I can upload photos

Yesterday we spent a beautiful day in Oxford and today is just as beautiful. But today we're doing laundry on base. We drove up to Croughton on Thursday to get some stuff done and pick up the mail.

Speaking of the mail: I got my first package from Knitpicks! I ordered some yarn, needles, a book and a pattern thing with magnets (this all excites me very much). So I've already cast on a baby blanket for my friend Beth and it's about 1/3 of the way done. I love my new needles that I want to be with them forever....ok, that might be a little overboard.

We move in to the house on Tuesday AND all of our stuff will be delivered by the end of the week too. Not that we have a lot of stuff but at least the place won't be so empty. What I'm really ready for is my computer. I would really like to download all the photos from my camera and start posting them. Soon...very soon.

WE FOUND A PLACE TO LIVE!! (no it's not the castle in the photo)

That's right kids! Today we ended our search of the perfect place to live. I didn't bring my camera so no photos yet (and I'm still working off of shared computers anyway) but hopefully in a few weeks you can see our house. It is the true British experience, let me tell you.

We live down the street from Portchester Castle (photo above or click here too) in a neighborhood that dates back to Medieval times. Our house, however, is not THAT old but it is quite charming and I love it!

Now that a house has been selected I am so relieved that I can hardly stand it. The owners are replacing carpet, painting and doing some renevations so right now it looks like total crap inside. But we love the layout and location so much that we decided to go ahead and get it off the market and hopefully sign the lease next week. Move in date will be in about two weeks but we don't even have any of our household goods right now anyway so it's not really a problem to wait a bit. So once I get the address I'll send it out to you all.

This weekend we're going to London to meet up with one of my friends from Camp Luther and it's going to be fantastic...yes, I already know. We're going on a bike tour of London on Saturday and there is a huge street fair on Regent St on Sunday I would love to go to.

AND I also found a church in Gosport that I totally love. We don't really live close to the church...actually, we live close, but I can't actually take a boat across the water to get there. I have to drive around the long way. But the Vicar is so cool and it's such a great community. Hopefully I'll be able to attend there or I heard there is a church on the Castle grounds too. It's nuts.