Turning a House into a Home

Slowly but surely we are filling our little house with furniture, as well as our belongings. All of the stuff we shipped finally arrived. There was some drama with customs, as well as not having the proper equipment to unload when they brought it to us (nothing to unload the pallet, not even a knife to cut the plastic to unpack it all) so it's easy to say we were not happy with the company we used. But we've got all of our stuff, the rest of our clothes, books, dvds, etc. Want to see my little room so far?

Tada!! I now have a bed frame, a headboard that doubles as a bedside table for my lamp and lotion and medication and stuff, as well as a bookshelf thing from Ikea that I'm using as a dresser. I'll get bins for it eventually so it will actually be like a dresser with little drawers and stuff. So exciting! And I've got books, and more clothes, and shoes, and blankets, and my dvd's and scarves! We're so happy to have a dvd player as well as all of our movies! 

We also got desks for the upstairs spare room and Dad's office 

We haven't got a couch yet, but we have some lovely chairs from Ikea that we can chill in until we buy a sofa. 

Cute right? We're starting to feel more like actual people now. We still need a bigger fridge, the one we have is an under the counter fridge, and it is teeny and we have a hard time storing much food in it so we're making practically daily trips to the grocery store. Good thing we don't mind driving to the grocery store. 

While reading this you're probably thinking, "Wow that's a lot of furniture from Ikea, is there nowhere else to buy furniture?" Well the answer is, there is, there's a few Department Store like places (like Macy's or JC Penny's) that are more expensive, or there's a place where you order everything from a catalog, or there's the Ikea store which is reasonably priced, as well as having products that we're already familiar with and trust. But the Ikea here in Norwich is weird. It's very small. They have a few of the same show rooms as they have in a regular Ikea, but they don't have the enormous warehouse where you can pick up what you want and take it home with you. Instead, you decide what you want from the showroom (or online) and order it and they'll deliver it to your house. They do have some things in the store, like pillows, throws, duvets, decor, and the kallax bookshelves (like what I'm using as a dresser) and the chairs we bought. They do have a regular sized Ikea in London (near the Costco), but here in Norwich it's just a little "branch" store. 

Road Tripping in England Part 2: York & Home Again

After our day in Leicester, we had lunch and headed north to York. Do I need to add a map so you all know where I'm talking about? Yeah. Let's add a map.

There we go! I sketched out the route we took; out to Leicester, up to York, out to Preston to see the temple, then through Manchester and down through the Peak District on our way home. So now you know where everything is, Let's look at pictures of York and Preston! Yay!

Anyways, back to where I was, we left Leicester after lunch, and drove pretty much straight up to York. We got checked into our little hotel (Holiday Inn again cos dad's work), and went out to see what was what. We went to the York Castle (a lot smaller than I expected, honestly) saw a couple small churches, and then the big mama cathedral. And we also wandered around trying to decide where to have dinner before we found the restaurant we ended up eating at cos Brig needed to have some Fish & Chips before heading home. 

And now for some pictures 

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the Restaurant where we ate, but it was super cute. And I don't even remember what it was called! So you'll just have to believe me when I say it was cute. 

I thought one picture of sheep would suffice instead of the many we took on our drive through the Peak District. So you're welcome for not filling the whole thing with nothing but sheep. Like I wanted to do originally. Did you like Brig's re-creation of the "God giving life to Adam" painting with the statue of Constantine? I wanted to shake his hand, but I couldn't reach. It was too high. 

 

The Preston Temple didn't have a Visitor's Center, though that's where the Missionary Training Center is, so that's cool. It's a beautiful area, so many trees, so green; that's what I love about this country. Everything is so green. I love it. 

Road Tripping in England Part 1: Leicester

So my dad for his work has to travel around a bit. And last week he had meetings in York and in Leicester. Naturally, we decided to tag along and see more of the country. So we spent a night in Leicester and then the next day toured around a bit (Did you know that's where King Richard III was buried? I didn't either. But now we do!).  Dad was going to have a meeting in Leeds as well, but he got sick and had to cancel the meeting so we went straight to York after. We didn't get to go into any Castles or Cathedrals in York because we didn't get there until after 5 pm, and as you know everything in England closes after 5/6 pm. But we did stop for Fish and Chips at a lovely seafood restaurant and got quite a few photos of York Minster (the big cathedral) and quite a few photos of these adorable buildings we saw in the city. On our way back home to Norwich, we drove through the Peak district, around through Manchester, even stopping in Preston to see the Temple there! And I have to say, I think I may have found a new favourite temple. But I'll let you see for yourself. Though In order to do each city justice and each place we visited justice, I'll have to just have to split up the photos. So here's what we saw in Leicester.

These first few Photos are from the first night we were in Leicester just wandering around, trying to find some place to have dinner. The rest of the pictures are from the next morning. 

We first went to the Guildhall, which had been used as a city hall in Leicester up until the 1800's. and most of the artifacts in the free museum that's now there dated pre 1500's, which is older than most of the things we see in the US. Of course the building itself was renovated in the early 1900's, and unfortunately we don't know how much of the building itself is original wood etc. because it didn't say anywhere and the tour of the museum wasn't guided. Which is a shame. I would have loved to know what was original. Anyway, free tour of the guildhall included the Mayor's Room with the Mayor Chair (I'm not 100% sure that's what they're really called), the Library and the Scribe's rooms up above the Guildhall proper, and the dungeons down below. So there you go. That's the tour of the Guildhall. 

The next place we went was the Leicester Cathedral, which is where the body of King Richard III now rests. His body was found buried beneath a Car Park just across the street from the Cathedral, and was moved to the Cathedral in 2012. Here's the whole story, and if you're like "Who is Richard III and why should I care?", then you can show yourself out.

There's quite a bit of lovely stained glass, including two new windows that were put into place in 2016 that include paintings of the life of Richard III and various bits about the town itself. Those are the red/orange ones. I love a good stained glass window. (If you want to see THE coolest stained glass window in the world, check this out)

So that's Leicester for you. Loved it. The Holiday Inn we stayed in was probably the best I've ever stayed at. Lovely part of the country.