The Holmes Family: Bury St. Edmunds

Our friends the Irvine's just got an 8 passenger mini-van! Woo Hoo! The day after they got it, they picked up up in Cambridge (we live 45 minutes from them) and we all went to Bury St. Edmunds. It was a beautiful day and we all enjoyed getting to be together. Then we all went to their house, had pizza for dinner, got the little ones to bed and then the grown-ups stayed up until 1 AM talking and eating chocolate cookie cake with ice cream! :) We have LOVED our time with the Irvine's. We call them our family in England! We have spent both of our Christmas Eve's in England with them, as well as a Thanksgiving. It is so nice to have friends who act like family when you are so far from home!

This last Christmas Eve, they had some big surprises for us!
First off, they came in with bag after bag of "American groceries" for us, a lot of which we can not purchase here in the UK. When we first moved to England, our families, as well as some of our friends, were so sweet and sent us care packages of food that we couldn't buy here. The postage would be at minimum $50, but sometimes as much as $100, to send a small box of food to the UK, but we missed it so much and our families wanted to send us comfort food! :) But now, Kristin is always so generous with her time to shop and brings me Raisin Bran (they have sultana bran here), American peanut butter, pancake and brownie mixes, Ranch dressing, American cheese, macaroni and cheese, ground beef (instead of minced beef) and many other of our favorite foods from the States. It is always a huge BLESSING!

In addition to bringing all of the fun American food, Kristin baked up a storm. She made pumpkin torte, Rolo Cookies, cranberry squares, and fudge! They were all amazing and it made feel even more like Christmas! Then Josh and Kristin gave us a card and told us to read it. We read it and it said (I am paraphrasing) that they wanted to do something special for us this Christmas and wanted all of the groceries to be their gift to us! I was overwhelmed by their generous gift, and was flushed by the excitement of it all! I closed the card without reading their salutation or names very carefully, but Brad directed my attention back to the card. So I read their names again and it said "Love, Josh, Kristin, Eli, Soraya, +1....?!?!

The Irvine's are expecting their third baby!!! I thought they told us the news in such a cute way (and to top that, we were the 1st to know in all of the UK-- I have Kristin's permission to post this news!!). :) I just started screaming and crying. I was just so excited for them. They are incredible parents and I know this little one is going to be so blessed to be an Irvine baby.

In the market at Bury St. Edmunds

Kristin and I outside the abbey "park"- the only way Faith would sleep was if she was up against her mommy's chest! :) These are sweet, sweet moments that I will always remember.

A family photo :)

Jillian and Eli playing in the park

Josh and Kristin and baby Soraya

The two daddies giving rides to "the big kids" on their shoulders

Baby Faith asleep on our bed in the guest room! Isn't she just precious!?!

Christmas Photos:

We have been so excited about creating our own traditions for our family that we knew we wanted to have something to remember our time in England during the holiday season. So we have decided that we are going to have Christmas Tea every Christmas Eve with scones! This was our first year to do it!

The boys playing with Josh's toy from the Christmas cracker!

Jillian and Eli opening their gifts from one another. Eli gave Jillian a beautiful baby doll and Jillian gave Eli some Thomas the Train Legos and a Thomas the Train bath toy!