One other thing: contractors (people who blow your leaves, fix your phone wires from being too long, connect your internet up etc) don't accept tea or coffee from you!!!  For an english person this is absolutely the polar opposite from the UK contractors who seem to spend most of their day sitting round drinking tea and do little work. I will always offer though and one day I'll have worn them down so much that they will crack!

Yesterday was Thanksgiving here. Tom, Reubs and I had great fun hanging out with friends, eating turkey, mashed potato, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie. I kind of like the tradition I think - a bit like our harvest festival but much more fun! Reuben took his first shuffly little steps yesterday - only one or two and then falling over, but it's on its way. You wouldn't believe how proud of himself he was. It was amazing!

Things from the past few days:

A new friend being impressed that I used scales for cooking as everything is done in cups here

A trip to Baltimore inner city and outer city to see Katie Kraft and her parents. Lovely time and amazing to see poverty and richness live absolutely side by side but distinctly apart, both defined geographically.

A puncture in our car tyre and then a broken alternator and a need for a new battery. Prayed very hard for God to get us home and we now have the car parked on the driveway to our parking bit where is finally bit the dust. Thank you Lord for getting us home!

A group of mexican workers coming to blow the leaves from our lawn with their white boss. Very humbling, strange 'Tortilla Curtain'-like experience.

Some more snowflakes.

Cooking 3 turkeys to take to a Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless in Baltimore on Friday. They never take as long as you think! Now I have lots of great stock to freeze!

Reuben standing up by himself in the middle of the room with nothing to hold on to. Not too long before he walks?

Not being able to find a blank greetings card without a cheesy one-liner inside

All in all a good few days and a few more good things to look forward to: 

Thanksgiving tomorrow and having a big dinner with 16 others to celebrate it (looking forward to tasting green bean casserole for the 1st time!)

Thanksgiving giveaway on Friday

Katie coming to stay on Saturday

Open mic on Sunday at the church meeting

Today I learnt a new verb: to winterize

Everything everywhere is billboarded about winterization and the need to winterize, through paying someone a large amount of cash, your pipes, car, house etc etc. Today a man turned up at our door and said he was here to winterize the sprinkler system!

It makes me wonder what kind of winter we are letting ourselves in for!!!!

I also bought a magazine called the 'Washingtonian' at the supermarket today as I felt inspired by the headliner: "64 ways to do good".  

It outlined 64 charities in the Washington area that you could help with/donate to. I thought this was a good thing, especially as I had just stuck up a list on our fridge entitled 71 Ways to serve in your community which was a list compiled at a leaders' meeting brainstorm one evening in Bristol. 

I don't know if any of the charities listed are close by but it'd be good to start getting a handle on how to build community and get to know some people around here.

Today it snowed! I love snow and I loved being in snow today. It didn't snow lots but enough to make the sky look beautiful and Reuben realise that something was going on that he hadn't experienced before.

Things are going ok still. The house is coming together and actually looks quite lived in already, which make me feel at home. I am working my way round the supermarkets and slowly building up my store cupboard of ingredients. Fun!! I baked my 2nd loaf of bread and although it got very stuck to the stone I cooked it on it tasted better than the first, which is great!

Today we skyped our lovely friends in Bristol and it made me feel sad. Suddenly realising that we're not going to be going home for a long while and that this isn't just a few-weeks-long holiday hit home. But, despite the sadness, I am still feeling happy to be here and I know that God is with us.

Our new adventure

This is a quick post as we're in the middle of trying to unpack and it's taking forever!

So we only have a few boxes left now and our house is starting to look more like a home - a few pictures up, books on the shelves, a new lamp or two... 

In fact I am LOVING our new home. It's large and spacious and has the most amazing kitchen. It's a huge Godly blessing. It's full of funny gadgets: an extractor fan which rises up out of the work surface beside the hob, a proving drawer for making bread in the bottom of the (HUGE double) oven (which I found out the hard way works in Fahrenheit not centigrade!) and a special tap on the sink which gives you almost boiling water for making tea with!! (this is very handy as we don't have a kettle at the mo and it's driving me nuts having to boil water in saucepans. This clever device speeds things up no end).

We also have the biggest washing machine and tumble dryer in the world. I think Tom or I could easily fit in the drum of them. I don't know how long it's going to take to get enough dirty washing to justify using them!

I have discovered some great supermarkets: Trader Joe's and the International supermarket being my current favourites. The International one is a wonderful combination of a Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Thai supermarkets all rolled into one. Today I managed to buy tapioca starch! (The only things I can't find at the mo are dried limes and kaffir lime leaves but I shall persist!). They also (Mark Churchill) had the biggest selection of dried chillies I have ever seen in the 'latino' bit!

The weather has been very odd: two days ago it was 70 degrees and we had the windows open. Today it was low 40s and snowing. Crazy! BUT I am loving the autumn and living in a very tree-ey area and walking through nice rustly leaves!

All in all we are doing very well and are happy and settling in. Just wish all of our Bristol friends could also see it!