Summer?

It's August already?

Bare with us while we play catch-up on our summer happenings....

1.  It's been the wettest June and July in the UK ever.  It's also been pretty chilly.  The combination of these two things don't really make it feel like summer, especially when we hear of temperatures that are 40 degrees (F) warmer back home.  There have been more days than I can count when we got soaked walking...not fun.  Because of all the rain, we get slugs....in our house.  That's no fun either.
 One cool thing about the summer here is how long it stays light outside.  We had daylight from about 4am to 11pm in late June.

2.  BBQ--If you're from the South this means an entirely different thing to you than it does here.  Here, a BBQ is like a cookout, and in June we went to one with our fellowship group from church and another for the entire church. 

Here's the one with our fellowship group:

Unfortunately the weather didn't turn out so well for the full church BBQ:

I gave up taking pictures in the monsoon (it rained three hours straight and we had lightning/thunder for the first time since we've been here), but despite the rain, it was a nice time--there was a giant teepee, a bouncy castle, ice cream truck, archery, and other things as well. 

We have thoroughly been blessed by our church here.  They have loved us, befriended us, fed us, given us rides, let us borrow bikes, taken us to concerts and to see places around the country, and given us countless cups of tea and coffee.  We just cannot thank them or say enough about all of them.  We fully did not expect to find a church that felt so much like home to us here, but it really has been a haven and has helped us grow spiritually as well.

3.  Seven words I (Autumn) never expected to say: I work for the Irish Football Association (American friends that means soccer).  It took eight months for me to find a job here, and when I finally did, it was not at a place I expected for two reasons---1. I know pretty much nothing about soccer/football (except to call it football anywhere outside the USA) and 2. I am not Irish (Okay, it might be in my blood somewhere).  The job has been great though and I am really enjoying doing Admin work again.  It's just a temporary four month position, but we are thankful for God's provision of a job while we're here.

4.  Casey has been working hard on his thesis and as of yesterday has 15,000 out of 20,000 words completed!  He has to turn it in mid-September, so continue to pray for him as he finishes strong.  With Casey finishing his paper, we have been planning our next moves and over the summer we decided we will head back to the US on October 2nd.  We are looking forward to seeing family, but are sad to leave our friends here in Northern Ireland.

Okay, I think we're caught up.... :)