Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Durham

As we’re in the midst of our third year in Durham, we continue to love our time here. We’ve made it to the far north of Scotland to the south of England and few places in between. But mostly we spend our time in Durham (usually) enjoying our increasingly busy schedule. Perhaps the biggest change for us this year is that expectation that we’ll be in Durham for an extra year (see Ben’s thing below), and plan to move back to the States in the summer of 2010.

As far as travel goes, after finishing a post-Christmas trip with Ben’s parents to Scotland last year, we swung by Stonehenge on the way home from dropping them in London. Our big trip for the year was to Inverness and Loch Ness over Easter break, which was a 6 hr train ride from Durham. We took shorter trips to the Lake District and Alnwick (pronounced An-ik) Castle as well. Our big visitors for the year were Uncle Shad and his friend Elizabeth who came in May. We hung out in Durham and visited the Botanic Gardens for the first time when they were here. Heather and the boys also had the opportunity to head to the Pacific Northwest to visit Heather’s side of the family in August. They enjoyed the warmer weather and caught up on their American eating experiences.

We celebrated a couple of the major US holidays with the contingent of American students here--4th of July, Halloween, and Thanksgiving -- but we also got to have a few English holiday parties like our fireworks party for Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night. Our weekly celebration of the NFL at the house with other Americans has been curtailed from the past couple of years because of our other activities, but Ben makes sure to get some NFL time in.

Heather
Heather’s coming up on 2 years of working for Tesco 3 days a week. It’s not the most fun job, nor are the hours great (she goes in at 6am!). But it’s only a block away, and it doesn’t cut in on many family activities. And, importantly, it pays for our groceries each week! Now that both boys are in school all day, she’s found more fulfilling ‘work’ by volunteering at St Hild’s (the boys’ primary school) where she does reading exercises with kids and she’s the Friends (~PTA) secretary. At the same time she’s helping start a youth program at our church on Friday afternoons. Between her full-time job of keeping us fed and happy and all her other activities, she’s busy to say the least!

Ben
Not to be outdone by Heather, Ben has picked up a part-time job (10 hrs a week) as research assistant with NT Wright, the Bishop of Durham. He hadn’t planned on it but he was chosen when the position came open. Because of this, we’ll be staying to complete the contract through the summer of 2010. He’s enjoying his time with Bishop Tom, and the work has benefited his own dissertation, which is about 60% done. He hopes to be finished with it around September or October when he’ll up his hours with Bishop Tom and try to find other part-time teaching opportunities. With the extension of time here, Ben’s started the process to be a lay Local Preacher. The Methodists here still use circuit preaching, so about once a month Ben preaches in different churches around the local circuit.

Boys
The boys continue to settle in with the locals and are always picking up a little more of the lingo and accent. Over the year they picked up a couple of belts a piece with their Karate work. Due to change in timing of lessons, they have switched to swimming on Saturdays at a local (indoor!) pool that was recently finished. They’ve also made it to professional football (~soccer) and basketball games in Newcastle with Ben.

Silas
Silas just turned 5 on 8 December, with the help of several of his friends at a Ben 10 party at the house. He started Reception (~Kindergarten) in September (they start a year earlier here), and has been loving it. His reading has taken off and he’s often seen writing notes to his friends. Many of the kids in his class were also in his Nursery (~preschool) class and he has several big bud -- Cameron and Adam are among his best. His big accomplishment this summer was to be able to ride his bike without stabilisers (~training wheels).

Elam
Elam is in Year 4 (~3rd grade). He turned 8 in July and celebrated his birthday with a water gun party here at the house. He remains involved in several activities at school. In addition to being elected as school councillor, he went to choir, football, dance club, and a couple of other things. He’s a big reader. In fact, he finished off the Harry Potter series this past year and is looking forward to starting on Lord of the Rings.

You can catch up with all of our happenings and adventures on our family blog -- bhblackwell.blogspot.com. The Pound has moved from around $2 to about $1.50. That means it’s 25% cheaper to visit us this year than last year if you are funding the trip in $.


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Blackwells!
Ben, Heather, Elam, and Silas