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SEPTEMBER NEWS from our house to yours!

Drop us a line sometime...would love to know what you are all up to...we miss you all!

Happy Saturday to all! Not a lot going on right now. Brian had to go in to work for a little bit today after which we will run some errands, watch some Ohio State Football--thanks to Niraj for setting up our Sling Box!, and then we are invited to Beth and Alfredo's for dinner tonight. So, it will be a nice day! The weather is beautiful today and when I am finished with the blog, I am headed into town for a bit.

September has been a good month. The weather has been beautiful for the most part. We have taken a break from a lot of travel. We have driven around out in the countryside on the weekends which we love to do. It is so beautiful there. The routine for Brian is work, work, work. September has been an especially full month for him, so on weeknights he comes rolling in sometimes 8-8:30 at night. He eats and we crash in front of an episode of Poirot and then go to bed and do it all over again the next day! I am now in a "routine" which makes me happy as I can function better that way.

In early September our Ward had a Harvest Supper and Hoedown which we went to and it was really a lot of fun. We have a lot of great people there and are getting to know them better. Mid month, I decided to have a luncheon here and invited anyone who could come over and ended up with about 12 ladies. They loved it and asked if we do this very often in America? Of course we do! So, it was fun to have them over and get to know them better.

I made friends with the man who owns the Edens of Handbridge --green grocer market. Every Tuesday he delivers a box of fresh produce--veggies and fruit to our door around 6:30 pm after he closes his shop. It is fresh from the garden/farm and it is SO GOOD!!! Most of what we eat comes from his market and also from the meat market around the corner. One day at the meat market (family owned) I was getting some things and they sell a lot of lamb. I really hadn't had lamb before, so they sold me some and told me how to fix it. I told them I appreciated their help and that I was really learning a lot over here! They started cracking up and said something funny and referred to us as "the colonists". It was a total crack up! OK--you had to be there. One of the butchers has an American daughter-in-law and he is always teasing her that way.

Later in the month I met some of the ladies from Newcomers of Chester and we went to Llangollen Canal in Wales for a canal cruise--horse drawn. It was really cool and then afterwards we went to lunch on the River Dee. A couple of days after that a different group of ladies from Newcomers went on a long walk (about 1.5 hours) out in the countryside and then followed up with lunch (or course) and that was a lot of fun also. It's fun to meet people from other countries and to learn about their families and what they like to do.

Towards the end of the month it was time to get my hair done. Yikes. I had it done at one place last month and it really wasn't BAD, except my hair was so short all over the back that I'm pretty sure my scalp was almost showing?! and the color was Y-E-L-L-O-W. SO, this time I went somewhere else to try out and the color I like much better and it looks natural. The cut is not bad...but I MISS RENEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ugg...that is the worst part about moving anywhere...THE HAIR!!!!!! At first when I got here, I was letting it go trying to grow it out. Yea, right. It looked hideous and so I went from that to scalped.

Another new venture this month::::: I have begun (sort of) P90X. If you don't know what it is look it up www.beachbody.com. It is an intense exercise program that is guaranteed to give you RESULTS in 90 days...if you live through it. Anyway, I kind of started the beginning of September and really have done it on the average of 3x per week, just picking and choosing which dvd I would try out. So, I should say that I have been sampling this month. Soon I am going to hunker down and follow the 6-day a week program and BRING IT!! hehe. Rachel is on day 20 of doing it RIGHT and she said her arm muscles are showing :) . She took a before pic and the other day her roommate asked her to flex her arms just to see if they could see any difference. She said the muscles were popping out and they were dying laughing! I would be crying with joy! j/k

Katie, Zach, Andrew, Abby, Jenna, Jake, and Goldie are coming in October. Jenna and gang are the first to show up this coming Wednesday and the rest will follow--with all of the festivities ending October 26th. They want to do a LOT of sight-seeing: Scotland, London, Paris with a road trip on to Prague and seeing some of the sights in between. SO, we are going to be crazy and all over the place. Rachel is in the middle of school and won't be able to come which makes us sad...but, we did have her for 6 weeks this summer so that was great! We will see them again at Christmas.

Thus, P90X will have to start hard core in November. I hope I can do it.

Following are just a few pictures that I have taken that I thought you might like to see. Here's hoping you all have a wonderful weekend!

A view from the kitchen window. Off to the left is the bridge we cross over all the time to go into town.

September has given us a beautiful Indian Summer. This is the view from our kitchen window. I love to watch people boating along the river. There are no motor boats allowed. There are also swans all over the river--not in this pic though. The guys Brian works with told him that all swans in the UK are the property of the Queen and that if anyone kills a swan, it is punishable by death!

This is the River Dee in the town of Llangollen, Wales. This is part of the same river that flows past our flat in Chester. The building on the Left is an old mill where we ate lunch after the canal cruise. I think the food here is so good. It really tastes home cooked and fresh to me.

In the town of Llangollen, Wales...can you pronounce the name of this shop?

The canal we cruised along. Very beautiful and peaceful.

A better view of the canal boat. The boats that people live on are of course all enclosed except on the ends.

Here is Heather, 2nd from left (from Australia). She is doing a walk for cancer over the next year with the goal of 2000 miles. I think she is about half way now. She maps out her errands for the day or wherever she has to go and walks if she can and totals it all up day by day. A few days after this canal boat ride we went on a long walk out in the countryside but I forgot to take my camera. It was beautiful. She told me about some other neat places to walk around where I live which I am going to try. She lives in a nearby town and she is so nice!

Here we are at Llangollen (Wales) Wharf on the canal where we went for a horse drawn cruise, like they did back in the late 1800's. Today there are people who live on canal boats and travel throughout the country via the canals. From L to R: Michaela from Austria, Moi, Pat, Barbara and Barbara and Jo from England. Heather is taking the picture and she is from Australia.