Our last Saturday in London was spent walking around the London Bridge, Tower Bridge and St. Katherine's Dock area.  It was a rare day of sunshine in London and Ed is soaking it up.A sculpture along the Thames path walking from Tower Bridge to St Katherine's Dock area.

Sean and Judith Gardiner, good friends who also go to Wood Green Mennonite Church, took Ed and I out for some great Indian food.  When you are in London, the place to go with the most choices and best curry's is Brick Lane.  We took a walk afterwards to walk off some calories and close by is this bell foundry.  The Liberty Bell was made here.  It is still a working foundry.Another picture of the foundry.

At Church the next day, we had as our guests, Edwin and Astrid who live in Southern England (for the past four plus years), but are originally from Columbia.  They were involved with a Mennonite church in Columbia and were very involved with peace, justice, and social concerns.  Due to numerous "threats" and concerns for the safety of their two sons, they decided to leave Columbia for awhile until things settled down.  They have remained in England mostly because of their boys who are now teenagers.Chatting with good friends, Will Newcomb, Judith and Sean after church.

We are starting to say our goodbyes to the people we have come to know.  This is a Turkish family who are now citizens of the UK who manage a small cafe close to where we live.  We like to eat breakfast there, not so much for the good food but because we like these people.  Don't ask me to say or spell their names but they always have a smile and a wave for us when we walk by the window.One last visit to Spitalfields market.  Each market is unique and this one has a lot of clothing artists.  Much of the things sold here were designed and made by the people manning the booths.

And here we have what we will miss....the Monday night house meal.  This night we had homemade pizza, salad and a pavlova for dessert.Sam is enjoying his.  Sam has been living at the centre since early September.  He is a Mennonite Mission Network worker giving his time to the Bridge Builders department at the LMC.  Originally from Vermont, he graduated from Goshen College and has done VS work in Boulder, CO. prior to coming to London.

The Beginning of the End

In just three weeks we are headed back to the US as our term under the Mennonite Mission Network has come to an end.

This means sorting through our 'stuff' and deciding what to take back and what to 'take care of'.  Also lots of cleaning, clearing out files, drawers, etc.  We were able to take back a lot of warm weather clothes when we went home for Phyllis' mom's funeral, and now we have a bit more room for the rest.

However, when we came over three years ago, we were allow two pieces of checked baggage without extra charge which they were only slightly concerned about the weight.  Now we can have only one checked bag with the price of our ticket and the weight restrictions are tightly controlled.

Our other leaving tasks are to do a few more things like a photo exhibit we visit every year at the Natural History museum, another walk on Hampstead Heath, breakfast at Kenwood house, Spitalfields market, Camden Town market, Borough market, Highgate Woods, one last play,......so much to do and so little time!

We have not been good at taking the camera with us lately and so we have no pictures to share.  We have been busy at the Centre doing a lot of cleaning, painting, rug shampooing, moving furniture from one room to another, etc. that we haven't gotten out much other than to get groceries!

We did travel down to central London the other night and ate at Wagamama's, one of our favorite places, and had a walk down the south bank....another favorite activity.

Our plans are to fly into Philadelphia, get picked up by family, stay a couple days at Ed's parents, watch the Super Bowl at his brothers house (this year at a decent time of the day rather than midnight)  Then take a train to New York City where we will visit Ed's sister, Sylvia for a couple days.  Phyllis has never been to NYC, just the airports, and Ed hasn't spent much time there either.

Then a train back to PA, buy a car, and head west towards our home via friends and family along the way.  Please pray that we have decent weather to travel in as we are staying north....Bluffton, OH, Goshen, IN, Chicago, and hopefully, Wisconsin, before we head further south.

We'll take the camera out on our next outing and get some pictures in.  England has had more snow this year than in the past 30 years and it has stayed cold enough that it didn't melt for nearly two weeks.  This put a major kink into the lives of many Londoners as they are ill equiped to deal with this kind of weather.

Until the next post....

On 15 December, Ed and I flew back to Kansas to be with  my mom who had come down with Pneumonia and was doing poorly.  We were picked up by Pat McClure, Phyllis' brother-in-law, at Wichita airport and we spent the first night at their house.  This is a picture of the sunrise the next morning on their land.On Christmas Eve, Emily made sushi for everyone.  We also had JJ's sister Lisa and her family over to eat and play 'Bonanza'.My mom died on 19 December and the funeral was on 22 December.  We were able to make a trip out to our house in Woodland Park, Colorado since our return tickets to fly back to London were not until 31 December.  Emily was able to come to the funeral and her husband, JJ and our youngest daughter, Hilary, came to the Colorado house just before Christmas.  The only downside was that Erica and Adam were not able to be with us.  This is Christmas morning oopening up some gifts.  The tiny Christmas tree you see behind JJ was cut by Emily who felt we needed a tree.  Hilary bought this for Ed to use when he is on the tractor plowing the driveway.  The day before, Ed had plowed without a hat and he came in with his eyebrows and beard all iced over.Here the kids are opening up the blankets we got them in Scotland.One night the Graber family came over to open some gifts we got them and to play some games.  This is Andrew blowing his elephant that we got him.  The sound is quite similar to an elephant.  He would blow it every time someone 'farkled' during the game of Farkle.Outside our house we found a couple of deer prancing around.