Just and update for you

Hi everyone! I just thought we should/could/would give you a wee update of everything that is happening for us here in Loughborough.

We have pretty much lost our snow now and even the ice that was making the pavements terrible is essentially gone. This makes me in particular happy because having had my centre of gravity changed and being made to deal with the ice was not proving fun!! Today when I went to the shop the car informed me that it was 7C out, so practically an Aberdeen summer's day!!

I am sticking out more than I was before, my bump seems to have come from nowhere, but there is definitely no denying I am pregnant now, I have even had a few people tell me that I "can't have long left, now"! In fact I have a little under 7 weeks, my due date is 6 weeks and 5 days away (not that I am counting) so the baby could be here in anywhere between 5 and 9 weeks and be considered perfectly "healthy". So as soon as Christmas is out of the way we will be all go on the baby front!

We will soon be heading back North for the Christmas period, loosely we will be in the area from December 22/23 until January 2/3. We have some plans during that time but get in touch if you would like to meet up and we will see what we can do, although remember that we have a lot of friends and family and only limited time for socialising!! We are very excited to see our "homeland" again though, although I am getting nervous that all this snow will mean we will get stuck there with a baby on the way!!

Sandy is still enjoying his job, he is getting stuck into some papers and code just now and is hoping to run some experiments soon so that he can submit a paper to GECCO a conference he has been to before and would like to attend again. He may well get to go regardless of publications but these things are easier to attract funding for if you are having something published. The date for submission is however our due date, so he needs to get working on that, although this is being held up because the project computer's haven't arrived yet (due to the usual university red-tape involved in ordering things!). Everyone would be less stressed if that wasn't hanging over our heads, so pray that all the necessary resources come up!!

We continue to feel welcome and settled in our new church and have settled into a cell group too, this is a great bunch of people who we are grateful to be able to get to know. This Sunday we are going to a welcome meal which will allow us to get to know other new people in the church and also to get a better idea of who the leadership are and what the vision and values of the church are. We are really looking forward to it. I in particular am finding myself very grateful for all the midweek coffees that this bunch of people are providing me with, it is good to get out the house every so often.

Another group I am becoming part of is an NCT-run "Bumps and Babies" group, although normally I am the only "bump" most of the others have babies, but it is good to get to meet people from outside church, to not spend my whole life in a Holy Bubble and to get out into the real world! Opportunities like this should be a bit easier once the baby comes, but for now this group gives me the non-church socialising I need!

In a piece of good news, our Aberdeen house has finally hit the market and we are beginning to see a little interest in it. Still, if you know of anyone who might want to rent a 2-bed house in Aberdeen then they can get all the details here so make sure you spread the word. We received some good news this week in terms of money we can claim back from Sandy's work we hadn't realised about before, but we still need the house to let out soon to keep ourselves from getting into lots of financial stress! God has *always* looked after us in this way before and we know He will again but it does no harm for us to pray and tell people too!!

So, I think that is all our news. I have a cold at the moment so just trying to relax and chill out a bit, keeping healthy is about my only job until the baby comes!

Looking forward to catching up with everyone soon!

Jay