our 2010 in review

A little newsletter to let you know what was up with us in 2010...especially since the blog wasn't kept up quite as well as other years!

Happy New Year to you and yours.

English Christmas

This was our 5th Christmas to spend in the UK. My fab husband posted this on his blog. Check it out if you'd like to see some of the Christmas traditions we've adopted here... and some things that will keep us very American. ;)

This has been our week...snow, snow, and more snow

Halloween 2010

Oops...just found these pics on the camera when I pulled out the camera to take snow pics.

E saw this costume in a book and just had to make it for himself.

Silas was a vampire skeleton (?!?!?) and the wolf character is E's best mate.

Kudos

Ben has been away in the States (Atlanta, this time) for his annual theological conferences. He presented a paper on Monday and we've just seen a review from a well-known Pauline scholar, Michael Gorman...

although I heard several good papers, including those at the session I chaired on historical criticism and theological interpretation, the best paper of the conference I heard was by Ben Blackwell, an excellent younger scholar who just finished his Ph.D. at the University of Durham. His subject was “Deification and Colossians 2:10″ and–as I said in the Q and A–it was both convincing and significant. (Wish I had given it myself!)

Well done, Ben!

Coming full circle

I figured it was time to blow the dust of the blog and get a little something posted. I'm fully aware that likely everyone has stopped reading at this point, and this will now continue to be solely for the use of my grandparents. :) I have loads of photos from our holiday away in the States and Elam's 10th(!) birthday, but I will begin with this sort of weird event that has just occured in our lives.

When we moved to England in 2006, Elam began school in Year 2 with Mrs. Laverick. This week I sent Silas off to Year 2 with Mrs. Laverick...and Elam is in the final year of Primary School now. It was just one of those surreal moment, you know?!?!?

Silas begins in Year 2

Elam begins Year 6

a little blast from the past: Aug 2006 -- Elam starting Year 2 with Silas (age 2.5)

A kink in the current 5 year plan

We're really not sure what this means for us quite yet. We just know that Ben is unemployed after August. You can see his version of the news on his blog. He's trying to make contacts and see what happens...but it's all a bit ominous at this point. We're praying for direction...and for another perfect job to come up for Ben.

Easter morning

Good morning! Happy Easter!

Easter eggs!

Silas gets an armload of eggs, too.

one of my favorite flower displays at church

every year our church family brings flowers to decorate the empty cross -- I absolutely love this!

Easter egg competition

The boys had an egg decorating competition at school today. They worked hard on theirs. They turned out fantastic! They didn't end up winning but there was definitely some tough competition.

Silas made a skateboarding egg with skate ramp. Elam made Darth 'Egg'er and Luke 'Egg'walker

Saltwell Park

When the sun hid behind the clouds, it was still a bit cold. But we decided to get out for a bit last weekend and headed to Saltwell Park. We had a fun time exploring, kicking around the football, and letting the boys play on the play equipment and the bouncy castles.