suelfam

Happy Fall!

2009-10-12T04:13:00.003+01:00

Hi Friends!

Well, it's been awhile since our last update, but that's because moving into a new house in a new town with new jobs and new EVERYTHING takes up time!! We are really enjoying NWA, and all there is to do here. We had a wonderful housewarming party a few weeks ago, with 40 visitors! All of Pippi's daycare teachers came, some of my family, folks from each of our jobs, and church friends and neighbors. It was really fun.

Jason is thoroughly loving working at Trike Youth Theatre. It keeps him very busy, but in his free time he is performing quite a bit, too. Just this weekend his kids from Trike performed at a children's event at the local library, then Jason performed with his improv team 3 times down on Dickson street. His kids did their version of "Where the Wild Things Are"...it was really great! Pippi and I went down for the day and participated in lots of the events at the library. All the activities were based around different children's books. Pippi got to help build a house of straw, sticks, and bricks like the 3 little pigs, build a story board about "The sun, the moon, and the silver baboon", and of course watch Jason's team and their play. She did not like that Jason was up in front of everyone talking and introducing his kids, and she ended up in his arms with him as he spoke!

Jason is also involved in a company called "Ceramic Cow Productions" and will be doing a Halloween show in which he is the romantic lead character. He has 5 performances at the end of the month. Also, he volunteers with the first ever Fayetteville Film Festival, which takes up quite a bit of his time. The festival is in the first week of November. Needless to say, between all of this, Pippi and I see Jason very little at the moment!

After work each day, though, Pippi love to take neighborhood bikerides or walks. We love the playground just a few houses down. We have now met 8 of our neighbors, mostly young families like us, who also play outside a lot. Pippi is currently obsessed with pumpkins, and just tonight I took her to a lovely pumpkin patch to pick her own for the front porch. She got a wagon ride around the patch, and must have said "pumpkin" about 50 times as she pointed to them all. It was super cute.

I am still working at the hospital, but not sure it's really for me. I am looking around for a different job now, so prayers would be appreciated! I love my coworkers, though, and we have a good time together. I have started volunteering at church with Keypoint Kids, the 0-5 year old classes during the services. I have met a lot of the other volunteers and mothers at church through this, and it's nice to be serving again. Jason and I are planning to join a Life Group called "30 Rock" with others our age starting in November, and look forward to that.

Pippi has just been moved to the 2-year-old class at daycare, even though she is 4 months away from 2. They got 2 new 1-year-olds and needed to bump someone up to the next class, and Pippi was the most ready. She loves her new class and teacher and made the adjustment very well. The funny thing is, her vocabulary has increased sooo much in her first week! The older kids talk so much more, and she is picking it all up so quickly. She is even learning her letters, and pointed out an "E" on my t-shirt last week!

So that is most of what is going on with us. We hope to have some of you visiting us whenever you can! Now that we have a spare room, we want to fill it up with friends! Be sure and check out our blogsite for some photos of us, and don't forget to update us on your lives, too!

Sending all our love to each of you, and thanking you for your thoughts and prayers. They are what helped us make it through this transition back "home".

In Christ,
Jason, Sarah, and Pippi

New Home and More!

2009-08-06T04:49:00.002+01:00

I am endeavoring to write an email that will catch all of you up on the last 2 months of our lives. The difficulty is that so much has happened. But, I’ll do my best:

Arko Challenge

Many of you may be familiar with a little tradition we call the Arko Challenge. It began with me (Jason) and my friend David James back in the early 2000s. We have been away for the last few years, but some friends have continued the tradition. So this year, we ventured out to Sarah’s aunt and uncle’s cabin with a group of friends and we spent the weekend. It was a blast! We went swimming in the nearby creek, went for an (unplanned) hike in the woods, and we ate…oh boy, did we eat! We had so much fun and it was great to reconnect with old friends.

July 4th and New House

Then, our much-anticipated move into our new house happened on July 4th weekend! We were just about sick to death of looking at our suitcases after 4 months of living out of them. We just want to say that we couldn’t have made it to our new home here in the US without Ashley Hagler’s generous spirit and hospitality…she allowed us to live in her spare rooms and completely take over her house for 3 months. She never once complained…we’re pretty sure she must be a saint! Both sets of parents, plus Brett and Paula spent the entire July 4th weekend helping us move in. It was such a blessing, and super fun to have everyone around. We adore our new home, a 3-bedroom house in Springdale. It’s a great neighborhood, lots of young families like us. We have a huge backyard with lots of potential (can’t wait for a garden next year!) and great big trees to shade our house. It’s a perfect location for us, just 10 minutes from Sarah’s work, 2 minutes from Pippi’s daycare, and right by I-540 for me to jump on the highway to get to work in Bentonville. We absolutely love it, and have a spare room just waiting for visitors!!

Anniversary, Birthday, and a Wedding

July was also a busy month for us for celebrations…Sarah and I made it to our 7-year anniversary, Sarah turned 30, and we took a trip to Ohio to be in a wedding for our great friends Liz Dally and Rob Green. For our anniversary, we got a babysitter and went to see the new Harry Potter movie, something we’d both wanted to see. For Sarah’s b-day we spent the weekend in Little Rock with all the Suels, and spent Saturday at Wild River Country. We had an awesome picnic at the park with friends and family and since Sarah wanted a day out she could spend with Pippi, she got it! Pippi loves the water, and must have gone down the little “ducky” slide about 50 times, screaming with laughter every time! So cute. Then at the end of July we flew up to Bowling Green for Liz and Rob’s wedding. Sarah was a bridesmaid and I did a reading in the ceremony. It was a great time for meeting up with our friends in BG as usual, but it always makes us sad to leave there. The Dally’s have always been our “family”, and it was a good time to reconnect with everyone.

To sum up: We have been busy. We love our new house. We love our family and friends.

Thanks for keeping up with us and we hope to have more to share with you soon!

Jason, Sarah, and Pippi

Settling In

2009-05-29T04:29:00.004+01:00

Hi-de-ho Neighbors,

It’s time for another update from the Amazing Suelfam! I know you are excited, so sit back and relax…you’re in good hands. I can’t remember the last email we sent out, but I will try to update you as best as I am able.

We have finally fallen back into a routine here in Northwest Arkansas…I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but it certainly is more comfortable. We are still living out of suitcases and at our friend Ashley’s house, but both our jobs have kicked in now and with Pippi settling into her daycare…it seems like we have jumped right back into the rat race.

My work is good. As I have stated before (and probably will have to say again) I am working as an Actor/Teacher for Trike Theatre this summer. My work consists of Teaching drama classes around NWA and acting in a production of “The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe.” There is a small, but very professional and committed team of us at Trike and we are really excited to see what the future holds.

Sarah’s job at the inpatient rehab ward in Springdale is going well now, too. She had a rough start, being thrown in to treat patients with very little training, but she has figured most of it out now. It is very fast-paced, something she is not used to. Everyone at her work is very nice and helpful, so even though it’s not her choice of work setting, the friendliness makes it bearable.

Pippi is growing like a weed! She enjoys her daycare now (after about 2 weeks of crying!) and her teacher Ms. Gala is great. She is in a class of only three 1-year-olds, so gets lots of attention. She brings home art projects and they have tons of activites: last week she went on a “bug safari” in the backyard and this Friday is “hat day”. Things like that are so cute, and we’re glad she is learning as well as playing. She now has 5 teeth (finally!), still LOVES the bath and water, and is completely obsessed with dogs. We took her to the St. Louis zoo a couple of weeks ago and she waved at all the animals saying “Hi Doggy!” even if it was a bear or tiger or zebra. It was a great day.

It looks like we will be moving into our new house in Johnson (Springdale) around the July 4th weekend! We are super excited to have our own place, and especially this house. Our friends Kevin and Christa will be our new neighbors, which is a Godsend. And the new house is about a 2 minute drive from the daycare, and less than 10 minutes from Sarah’s job. The location is perfect. We really just CAN’T WAIT! So if you have a truck, can paint a bedroom, or just want to help unload boxes with us that weekend, get in touch! ☺

We spent Memorial Day in Tulsa, OK. It was a lot of fun. We went to the Aquarium and Pippi loved it. We also went on a few walks and to a local park.

Hopefully, the next time you hear from us we will be one step closer to moving in to our house. We would love to hear from you if you have time to send us an email.

Love to you all,
Jason, Sarah, and Pippi

Happy Easter, etc.

2009-04-14T02:34:00.003+01:00

Happy Belated Easter from the Suels!

As you can tell, Pippi had big fun in her pretty Easter dress "hunting" eggs (actually just picking them up). She will now hunt them all over the house, after we put them inside shoes, under the couch, or in the corner. We will point to them, she will then "find" them, be sooo proud of herself, clap for herself, then refuse to let them go or put them in her basket. It's so cute. And hours of entertainment!

Well, after spending several weeks with our families, we have now made it up to Fayetteville. We have all moved into Ashley's house, a great friend who hasn't batted an eye that we have basically overtaken her house! We are really enjoying exploring our new hometown and surroundings. Everyone in our new jobs have been so welcoming. I haven't started yet, but went up to the hospital to say hello and meet everyone. They were upset that it was still going to be a few weeks before I started! Jason, however, has already started part-time. Kassie, his boss, is really nice. She even invited us all to her house for a playdate with her 2 small children. She is excited to have Jason here, and has thrown him in quickly! He taught his first classes alone on Saturday already.

Like I said before, we spent several weeks with our families. Here are a couple of pictures of Pippi enjoying herself there! I found her with the toilet paper like this one day, and it was after she had dropped her toy in the toilet! And the other picture is her and her cousin, Annzley (Melissa's youngest), at Playtime Pizza driving their little car together! Pippi even had her hands in the right places--we were cracking up!

We will keep you all updated as we house-hunt and begin our new lives here. Please keep us and our families in your prayers as we are still transitioning. It will be a couple more months before we can close on a house, which means living out of our suitcases in someone else's house till then! Plus, all the stresses of making grown-up decisions about our lives!! Please continue to pray for Jason's family, too, as their lives move on after Melissa's death.

Please keep in touch all of you, and keep us updated!
Sending all our love in Christ,
Jason, Sarah, and PIppi

The BIG move and other stuff.

2009-03-20T01:46:00.003Z

Wow, friends…so much to update you on!

I don’t really know where to begin. Maybe in order of BIGGEST news to smallest…although, none of this news is small news.

First off, after spending 3 and ½ years in England, seeing 18 countries in our time there, and having our first child, we have officially moved back to the USA. We had planned to move back in April, but after my sister died (see last email), we decided to move back a month early to help/spend time with family. We are in the middle of doing that now.

We first had to fly to Bowling Green, Ohio in order to get all of our stuff. That’s right, some great friends of ours…the Dally’s…let us keep our stuff in their barn for over 3 years. We spent just less than a week in Ohio, got to see some old friends and make some new ones, and then we loaded up our moving truck and headed to Arkansas. I should mention that we had tremendous help with the move. Our friend David Manning actually drove up form Arkansas on Wednesday and then turned right back around and drove Sarah and Pippi in his car the next day. And, don’t worry about me being in a big old moving truck by myself, cause I had company, too. Mr. Patrick Peringer and I split time at the wheel of that truck…it was a blast!

Along the way, we stopped and spent the night in St. Louis, MO with another great friend of ours, Brian Rhame. Rhame had arranged for us to spend the night in a mansion…that’s right, a mansion. He told me not to ask any questions ;) The 2.2 million dollar home was built in 1904 for the World’s Fair. One night there was just amazing, and fun. Thanks, Brian!

The next day we drove to Arkansas, and after spending some time with Sarah’s family we are now here with my (Jason’s) family. We are both excited to announce, I guess, to some of you that we will be moving to the North West Arkansas area around the beginning of April. Sarah starts work at Northwest Medical Center in Springdale at the end of April. I have 2 jobs lined up. The one that will take up the most of my time will be at Tricycle Youth Theatre. I will be working there as an instructor/teacher. I also have the prospect of doing creative arts at a church there called Keypoint Church. My job(s) should start in May.

Right now, we are considering jumping on the property ladder, so that has had it’s challenges and we are still unsure of where to live up there. For the first few weeks-ish, we will be living with a friend, Ashley Hagler, who has been a great friend to us during this move!

So, that is the mega-huge news!

Now some other news, that we haven’t had the opportunity to share with you yet. At the end of January we celebrated Pippi’s first birthday! We had a joint birthday party with our friends Ben and Chloe who had Isaac just a few day’s after Pippi. The theme was a ‘Jungle Party.’ It was great fun. I have included some photos (on our blog) for you to look at. Because of Pippi’s allergies she had a milkless, eggless, butterless, chocolate cake…she enjoyed it all the same, though.

And, in February, the aforementioned Ashley Hagler and her friend Shannon Ott came to England for a few days. We met them in London. Ashley has been to see us 3 times now, more than most, and each time we love spending time with her. This time was particularly memorable because London had the most snow they’ve had for the last 20 years. So, we made a day of walking around the big city of London and playing in the snow. It was a lot of fun to see those big buildings surrounded by mounds of white fluff.

Finally, just a thank you for all who prayed and kept us in your thoughts during this difficult time. I am mentioning, of course, about the death of my sister Melissa. No one ever wants to let go. But sometimes, we have to. However, the stories we have shared of her life somehow make her seem like she is still here with us. Thank you all for your concern, emails, cards, and love…I don’t think we could have made it though such a difficult time without you.

Now, don’t cut us out of your life just because our travels in Europe have ended for the moment. We have a great country here in the US to explore. And, might I add, Pippi is the best traveler ever, so I don’t think we will be stopping any time soon!

England friends, thanks for sharing your lives with us. We hope to hear from you often. And, Hotel-Suel in the USA is always open to you!

American friends, thanks for welcoming us back with open arms. We hope to see you all in due time.

Jason, Sarah, and Pippi

Pics: standing outside the St. Louis mansion. 2 pictures of our welcome back party at the dallys. snowy London.

My sweet sister.

2009-02-22T19:38:00.004Z

Hello Family and Friends,

It is with heavy hearts that we write to you to let you all know that my sister, Melissa Lauren (Suel) Pennington has passed away. Many of you will be aware of the situation, but for those who don’t know, here is the update.

Melissa went to the doctor last week complaining of stomach problems. The doctor said that she needed to have her gallbladder removed. When they went to do the surgery her heart stopped. She had an enlarged heart and it was weak. The doctor had no prior knowledge of a heart condition. They were able to revive her, but because she was without oxygen to the brain for 7-8 minutes, she was in a coma.

He comatose state got progressively worse until on Saturday, 21 February, she was brain dead. Her organs were donated and then she physically died sometime after that.

What does this mean for us? Well most of you know that we had already made plans to move to NW Arkansas in April. Sarah has work starting in April and I have work starting in May. But, we have now decided to move our departure date up and move back to Arkansas in March to help pick up the pieces after Melissa’s death.

So presently, I (Jason) am flying home to be with the family during the funeral. I will then fly back to England for a week and all of us will fly back to the States shortly after that. We are planning to fly to Ohio first, collect all of our stuff that is still up there, and then drive it across the country to our new home in Arkansas.

Obviously, this plan presents many challenges. Not the least of which is the fact that I will be traveling alone to the funeral while Sarah and Pippi try to do what needs to be done to close out our lives here in England.

Please pray for us. We are struggling through this difficult time. I promise to write with better news as soon as we have some. We haven’t even told you all about Pippi’s 1st birthday party yet.

Thanks all,

Jason, Sarah, and Pippi Suel

PS: If any of you want to support my family and me by coming to any of Melissa’s services, please do. The services aren’t finalized yet, but it looks like visitation will be at Proctor Funeral Home in Camden, AR on Tuesday (possibly), with a service at Fairview United Methodist Church in Camden to follow on Wednesday. She is being buried next to my 19 year old cousin, Rachel, in Jacksonville, AR possibly on Thursday. This is all speculation, because it is yet to be determined. I’m sure that if you are interested you could contact Proctor or Fairview United Methodist Church to confirm.

Christmas and More!

2009-01-20T22:04:00.005Z

Hello Everyone,

This is a seriously delayed email. We have been meaning to write to you all and tell you how Pippi’s first Christmas went, but cool things kept happening, so we delayed writing it. But, we can’t wait any longer, so here we go:

Christmas was amazingly fantastic. Pippi seemed to hit another gear. She was cute and adorable before, but she located another degree of cuteness over the holiday season. We spent Christmas with Jez and Claire and her family. It was so great to see Pippi being the center of attention and not letting anyone down. You will just have to check out our blog for some awesome pics. She enjoyed helping to unwrap the gifts. Although, the toy that Santa left her (a cute penguin that walks around) made her cry. She is used to it now, but at first, she wasn’t so into it. Thank you to everyone who helped to make her first Christmas special. We were overwhelmed with gifts and cards. Thanks so much!

New Year was another good time spent with a fun group of people at Claire and Jez’s new home. We had fondue and stayed up to watch the fireworks and shoot some off ourselves.

In January our very special friend John Sebestyen was here! It was a totally spur of the moment kind of thing. The University he works for asked him to go as a chaperone with a group of students. They spent some time in London and some time in Paris. We were able to hang out with him for a whole day, which was really good. He has now been here to see us twice!

Pippi’s first birthday is this week, January 21st, and we are planning all kinds of fun. Her first birthday party will be Saturday. Pippi and Isaac (another baby from church born a few days after Pip), will be celebrating with a Jungle Party! Sarah has been busily preparing decorations and games, etc. for the festive celebration. It should be a lot of fun and we will include pics from that in our next email!

Pippi is growing up so fast, and we are loving every minute! She is sleeping and eating very well now, 2 things that took her awhile to figure out. Her eczema is completely cleared up, now that we use a pretty intense regime of lotions and creams and oils daily. Her food allergies don’t bother her that much, as long as we are careful. Her first birthday cake recipe is called “Milkless, eggless, butterless chocolate cake”! I hope the word “tasteless” doesn’t fit in there, but as she’s never had chocolate before, she’ll probably love it! ☺ She still doesn’t have any teeth coming, and she’s not quite walking yet. She walks along the furniture and crawls up our legs every chance she gets. We were going to get her a new forward-facing carseat for Christmas, as we figured she’d be 20 pounds by her 11 months. The last time we’d weighed her she wasn’t even 9 months old and she was 17 pounds 4 oz. So we assumed that in over 2 months, she’d be 20 pounds for sure. However, when we had her weighed, she was 17 pounds 8 oz!! So we’ve still got awhile till she gets that new carseat, the little squirt!

Things are moving forward with us moving home! At long last, we have made some contacts. Please pray for us in the coming months! We’ll fill you all in as we know more!

Lots of love,
Jason, Sarah, and Pippi

Seasons Greetings!

2008-12-23T19:19:00.005Z

Dear Friends,

As we sit down to look at what we have been up to and condense it into a letter that we can send out to all of our family and friends, we are amazed at how wonderfully blessed we have been. We’ll do our best to give you some of the highlights…

We welcomed the New Year with our friend Heather Johnson in London. Heather came over from the States to be with us for fireworks on Westminster Bridge. But, not more than a month later we would welcome someone else…

That right! We were so pleased that Pippi Lois Suel made her stage debut on January 21st, 2008. All of a sudden, the bundle of joy that we had been anticipating was here. A week early, too! We think we were so excited to meet each other, we just couldn’t wait for that due date!

Not long after that (early March) Pippi’s Uncle Brett and Aunt Paula came to visit! Well, actually, Brett proposed at the top of an old English castle while they were here, officially making her “Aunt” Paula (we are thrilled!) and they have since been married. It was wonderful to get to spend some time with them and show them around England. Then, also in March, our great friend Liz Dally came to stay with us! We had Pippi dedicated to Christ on Easter Sunday with Liz, Claire, and Jez being godparents.

In April, Jason completed what had been an obsession of his for awhile: he ran the London Marathon! His goal was to run it in under 4 hrs and he came in at 3:58…just in time! What a great (but rainy, cold, and typically English) day! In May, the entire Suelfam (Jason, Sarah, and Pippi) continued our exploration of Europe with a trip to Vienna, Austria. We had a lot of fun and learned how to travel as a family. In June, we took a trip to Disneyland Paris…AND, we got Pippi’s picture taken with Mickey Mouse. We loved every minute.

In July, our friend Shannon Yates came to visit. Of course, we had a grand time showing her our little corner of England, but we didn’t know that we would be seeing her in the States later that same month. In late July, we had to travel home because Jason’s cousin, Rachel McManus, passed away due to complications with her Juvenile Diabetes. She was 19. The family was (and is) devastated by this tragedy, but the silver lining was that the family got to meet our precious daughter. And we got some much needed time with our families during this difficult time.

Since then we have just been hanging in and around Hereford mostly. We are both still enjoying our jobs: Jason as a Theatre Education Manager with 2XL Youth Projects and Sarah as an OT with the Dept. of Mental Health for Older People. We still spend LOADS of time with our dear friends Claire and Jez, whom we are happy to announce will be adopting in the new year…we can’t wait!! Jason did complete the Cardiff Half Marathon in October in 1:43, his best time yet. Pippi continues to astound us with her growth, and we love every second of her…she is more of a blessing to us than we could ever have imagined possible.

Pippi’s birth this year reminds us of how special Christmas is, and the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He was born into this world to save us and bring eternal joy and life, and we are thankful! By reading this letter, we pray that you are touched this Christmas by the love of your friendship in us, but mostly that you remember the true meaning of the Christmas spirit and take note of it in your own lives. Thank you for your friendship, support, and love this past year, and as we make plans to move back to the US in the months to come, we look forward to spending more time with each of you then.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Jason, Sarah, and Pippi Suel

Pippi Crawls and Peek-a-boos!

2008-11-23T17:47:00.005Z

Here is a video of Pippi crawling. She has been crawling for about 3 weeks now, but the video is still amazing! It's so great to see her learn and develop. Watch her go!

And I thought you might enjoy some Peek-a-boo pictures. She just learned how and instead of covering her eyes, she prefers to cover her ears. Cute!

Rock-tober!

2008-11-04T21:15:00.004Z

Hello Friends and Family!

It’s been soooo long since we’ve written and put pictures on this blog, and for that we are sorry! Of course we are busy, but what’s new? Winter has already set in here, with scraping the “windscreen” every morning and freezing all the way to work. We’re all three well into our coats, scarves, hats and mittens!

While we are busy with day-to-day life, nothing major has happened for awhile in the Suel’s lives…no trips recently for once! We’re saving up now (with the credit crunch, it’s hard!) for the big trip home…but more about that later.

Firstly, I’ll start with an update on Jason. Work at 2XL is going really well for him. The company is expanding, and he’s gotten a promotion this month! His new title is Theatre and Education Manager. Fancy, eh? He works hard, though, and has earned it. He is still going into local schools doing drama with the kids, and educating them at the same time (on issues like sex ed, alcohol and drug abuse, and bullying). It’s a perfect fit for him. We see kids all over town when we’re out, yelling, “Jason!”. They are always so excited to see him and point him out to their moms and dads. It’s cool. Also, he just completed the Cardiff Half Marathon last weekend, with his best time yet: 1:43. He was so pleased. (He was aiming for 1:50!) Jason is still leading worship on Sunday mornings, and also doing various puppet and drama skits (we’ve just had some teenagers around with their furry monster puppets practicing, with Pippi loving it!). Jason and I are both doing a Bible study right now, looking at the book of Romans. We take turns each week: Girls one week, and boys the next. It works for all of us couples who have kids. But since we are all doing the same study, us couples can talk about it in between.

As for me, my work is super busy. I only work 4 days a week now since Pippi’s come along, but I actually just do 5 days of work in 4 now. It’s a little crazy. One of the groups I created 2 years ago, a Carer’s Education Group for carers of people with dementia, has started up again last week. It’s our 5th time to run the group, and this is our biggest yet with 19 carers attending. It’s a big success, and I do love having a group to facilitate each week. As for the rest of my work week, I am constantly dealing with crises in my patient’s lives; for example, 2 weeks ago, on the Monday one of my patients with dementia flooded her house, and on the Friday, another lady with dementia caught her stove on fire…it really never ends! I do love my job, though, even with the craziness and busyness of it. Most of my patients are really just very sweet old people who need to “have a chat” with me over a cup of tea about their mental health and well-being. I did just have a big night last week, when I gave a talk about “Coping with Stress” to 71 people at an Alzheimer’s Society Event. It was really nice. The other thing I’m working on is making Pippi’s babyfood myself. It’s so much cheaper and better for her due to her food allergies. Since we’re also using cloth diapers, we feel so domestic and “green”!

As for little Pippi, she turned 9 months old last week! She is aaaaalmost crawling, but not quite! She has finally gotten the hang of solids, and is eating more regularly now (we have been struggling with this for months!). She still hasn’t got any teeth, and no signs of them either! Her skin is still doing really well, so she is sleeping a lot of nights through (praise the Lord!). She is generally a really happy baby, and just smiles and laughs all the time. Her favorite things to do now are: being outside in the sling or baby-carrier, swinging, clapping, being tickled in her tummy, shaking her bell toy at Miss Heather’s, singing, saying “ogle-dy, ogle-dy, ogle-dy”, looking at herself in the mirror (this is the ultimate!), having a bath, eating finger foods (rather than being spoon-fed), and playing with mommy and daddy on their bed. We’ve got an appointment with a dietician in 2 weeks who is going to help me get Pippi on a balanced diet with no dairy (due to her allergies).

As for the big question most of you are wondering about, yes, we are still looking to move “home” in the near future. Our original plan was New-year-ish, but that looks to be moved back a little. That is because Jason has his resume and CV out to a couple of places, but not much has happened on the job front. As most of you know, we are going back once Jason has found an appropriate job (full-time, good pay, theatre-focussed, what he wants). We are not happy to just take anything just to get back to the US. We’ll wait until something comes up that is worth moving for. That’s because we have no dates to be out of here by, and because we both adore our jobs here. It’s hard to leave a perfect job for a crappy one just because it’s in the right area. Thank you to all of you who gave Jason information earlier. He has or is looking into all of it. That is not to say we are done accepting ideas!! Anything you’ve got, we’ll take! Ideally we would like to live closer to our families, but realistically, we’ll take the best job! So we’re still on the hunt, and we still need your prayers and support and help in this.

We will be traveling to the Lake District at the beginning of December for a much needed break. This is one of the places we have always wanted to go to in the UK and we are so excited to have the opportunity. Our great friends Claire and Jez will be going with us! So, we will be sure to let you know how that goes.

I suppose that is all that’s happening here. Pippi was a chicken for Halloween and she was very cute, as you can see here!
Love to you all,

Jason, Sarah, and Pippi

First Suel Family Photos!

2008-09-18T21:49:00.003+01:00

Hi All!

Check out the pic archive for our first family photos, courtesy of photographer extraordinaire Jez Hailwood. All's well on the homefront, Pippi will turn 8 months this week...unbelievable!

Take care, everyone, and God bless!

Jason, Sarah, and Pippi

Mixed Feelings on the Homefront

2008-08-24T20:35:00.004+01:00

Hi Family and Friends!

We have had a few interesting weeks here in the Suel household, which would account for our lack of updating lately. First and foremost, there has been a tragic death in the Suel family and we have just returned from the emergency trip to the US. Jason’s cousin Rachel, only 19 years old, passed away on July 26, 2008. She had juvenile diabetes, and through complications of the diabetes and then upon coming down with pneumonia, she died in the hospital in Little Rock. It was very sudden, as the doctors told the family she would be okay at 8pm on Saturday night, but by 11pm, she was gone. We are all, of course, shocked and still a little numb from it all. The funeral was beautifully done, and the family have had lots of support from friends, but we will always mourn Rachel’s too early death. For those of you who have sent us condolences, we appreciate your kindness. Please continue to pray for us as we grieve, and especially for Uncle Mark, Aunt Sheila, and Wesley (Rachel’s little brother).

The silver lining of our unplanned trip home to the States was that all our families and some friends got to meet little Pippi for the first time. She was able to sit in the laps of all her grandparents, great-grandparents, great-aunts, great-uncles, cousins, etc. It was a wonderful time for us. Pippi was a star traveler on both of the 26-hour and 3-flight trips home. She adjusted pretty well to all the strangers wanting to hold her, too, once we arrived! She needed to know that mom and dad were close by, but all in all she was okay with all the new changes in her little world. She learned to sit up in the 2 weeks spent in Arkansas, which was exciting for us all to watch! It was nice for our families to be a part of one of her major milestones, as they are missing so many of the others.

One really great thing going on with Pippi is that we may have finally cracked the case on her eczema!! Praise the Lord! We have seen a dermatologist, as well as her regular doctors, and the current medications (2 moisturizers, 1 anti-itch cream, and 2 special medications for the bath water) seem to be working! She is still scratching (she’s got some scabs on her ears right now!!), but not nearly as much. And guess what??? She has slept TWO nights ALL THE WAY THROUGH in the past 3 weeks!! PRAISE THE LORD!! We are really feeling good about it. She is altogether sleeping better now, too; we only get up a few times now as opposed to 15-20 times per night. And this is down to her not being so itchy. We were pleased to hear the dermatologist say that since she is responding to this medication, it’s a good sign that she may grow out of the eczema. Yay! It’s so nice, too, because she is soooo much happier now! We never knew the real personality of little Pippi, because she has always been sort of frustrated due to how bad she was feeling, but now that she feels well, her true colors shine through!! Thanks for all your prayers, and please keep them up as we watch day by day how God is healing her.

Once back from the States, we dove right back into work and day-to-day life. Jason is at this moment camping at a Christian festival about 45 minutes from Hereford. It’s in a place called Gorsley, and our church and theirs work together a lot. It’s a 5-day festival and Jason is helping to lead worship and make videos for the Youth tent. It’s been going well. I’ve been down with Pippi a couple of times, and I’ll be back tomorrow. It’s a “bank holiday” in the UK tomorrow, on Monday, so everyone has a day off. Our last public holiday till Christmas.

The weather here is dreadful. After 100+ degrees in Arkansas, we were pretty sad to come home to rain and cold. Yesterday at the festival I was wearing jeans, 2 shirts, and a jacket and I was still shivering as it rained on me. And it’s August!!

Pippi has settled in at Heather’s house, her childminder. She seems to really like it there, especially with the other 2 kids that go. It’s nice to see how good she responds to Heather now that she is used to her. Pippi loves playing sitting up now. She still wobbles over every now and then, but she’s getting better. She still loves her “Johnny Jumper” doorway swing…she will bounce for over an hour happily! She is still not sure about eating solids, but we try with her fruits and veggies every day. I’m still breastfeeding, and she’s still growing, so we’re not that worried. She’ll eat when she’s ready. Her hair is growing (a little!), but still no teeth. She makes lots and lots of sounds, and it’s precious!

We Suels are the process of taking some family photos by photographer extraordinaire Jez Hailwood. Be on the lookout on this blog for these in the next few days! Also, there are new photos on the "pic archive", especially of our trips to Vienna (see photo here!) and home to the States.
Keep us updated on yourselves, and send us photos when you can. Thanks for all your prayers and kindnesses.

We love you,
Jason, Sarah, and Pippi

Trips, Pips, and Mickey Mouse

2008-07-06T19:06:00.005+01:00

July 6, 2008

Hello friends and family!

Well, it’s been awhile since we’ve sent an update, and a lot has happened! I guess I’ll start with our first trip abroad with Pippi: we went to Vienna, Austria at the end of May. Pippi was just great during the flight! I was pretty nervous...people had said that babies have a really hard time with their ears popping, and I just knew that Pip was going to scream through the flight in pain from her poor ears...but it didn’t even seem to affect her! She mostly got bored having to sit on my lap the whole time, but other than that, she was great! Once in Vienna, we found our hotel...the most luxurious one we’ve stayed in on our trips! It was just gorgeous! Pretty much the whole city was like this, too, we discovered. We felt somewhat out of place in our jeans and backpacks in Vienna. It was sort of a “high class” city, with an older and wealthier crowd. Not that we let that stop us! We just took our jeans and backpacks right on in with the crowd! We had gorgeous weather, and toured the city on foot each day with our guidebook. Pippi just went with the flow, but mostly she hung out (literally!) in her sling on either Jason or I. She refused to go into her stroller! This trip confirmed that the sling has been our best baby purchase yet! My high-light of the trip was seeing the Spanish Winter Riding School practices (horses). I’d read a book about these horses, and to see them in person was fantastic! (Much teasing from Ja-son came from this, but I don’t care!!)

So after that successful trip with Pippi traveling (we’ve got the Suel travel bug in her al-ready, we decided!) we headed off to Disneyland Paris in June. This time we took the Eu-rostar Train, which was easier and more comfortable with a baby. And Disneyland was GREAT! Much more relaxed than Vienna...it was so kid-friendly (obviously) that we were never nervous about Pippi crying or finding a place to breastfeed, etc. It was basically set up to make parents feel at ease, which was a blessing. Pippi was able to ride in our laps for many of the rides, and she seemed to enjoy the music and colors and lights. Jason rode the roller coasters while I breastfed, and it was just a really fun trip. I’d never been to Disneyland in the States (Jason had), and was surprised to have soooo much fun! We took about a billion pictures (see blog for a great one of all 3 of us and Mickey! It’s like somehow Pippi knew that of all the photos to smile in, this was the one to do it!), and have promised each other we’ll take our kids when they are a little bigger to appreciate it even more. We found ourselves at times watching other people’s kids just to see their reactions to Mickey and the Princesses! Soooo adorable! So we decided we’ll for sure go again one day.

An update on Pippi, then: She is growing sooo fast, of course! Up to just over 14 pounds now, and right on track for her growth scales. I’m still breastfeeding her, but just last week we started her on solids. We’re making our own babyfood, and so far she has proven to enjoy baby rice, mango, and potato the most. We have just obtained a bouncy swing for the doorway, and this is her biggest thrill right now! She laughs and screams and bounces away, and we cannot help but stare and giggle right along with her. One of our biggest challenges right now is Pippi’s eczema. This is a skin condition she’s had since birth, but has just gotten very bad in the past 2 months. Basically it’s just really dry skin, but along with this, we have discovered she has many allergies. We found this out after some major rashes occurring from some of the medications and ointments and creams given to help with the eczema. We visit the doctor weekly, who has been wonderful. Her skin at the moment is doing really well (the current mix of treatment being Hydrocortisone cream 2x/day, a medicine for her scalp, an antihistamine at night, an emollient for her bath, and a cream for all the time that we use whenever she is scratching). It’s difficult, because she scratches her body all the time, sometimes until she bleeds. We keep mitts or socks on her hands at all times now. The worst, however, is that she is no longer able to sleep well. She falls asleep quickly, but with each stir she becomes itchy and wakes up crying. We are waking with her to soothe her just about every hour (if not more) at night. This has been going on for 6 weeks now, so as you can imagine, we are exhausted. If we only get woken up 3-4 times in a night, we are praising God! We are praying nonstop for this to get under control, as it is making all three of us weary. Many children grow out of eczema, so we are mostly praying for healing to come quickly.

Other than this skin issue, Pippi is a bright, energetic, smiley, beautiful girl. We adore her so much, and even lack of sleep (to the extreme!) had not made us forget how much we love her!

I am back to work July 14, and will be going back 4 days a week. Pippi will be going to a child-minder named Heather, than we know very well from church. She will go to Heather’s house with several other kids, but Heather will take them out and about daily to play groups, etc. Heather is wonderful, and we are glad to know her so well to be able to trust Pippi with her. Of course I am sad to be going to back to work after so long with Pippi all to myself, but I have to remind myself that I love my job! I know it will be a hard couple of days at first, but it will soon be back to normal life. My 6 months of maternity leave seemed so long at first, and I can’t believe it’s now come to an end! I will miss my little girl!

The biggest thing in store for the Suelfam is a visit from Shannon (now Yates!) this week. We are so looking forward to that. We continue to be involved in our church, especially the 18-30s group. Jason continues to love his job, and overall we are just enjoying life, each other, and Pippi. God has truly blessed us with happiness, and we are grateful. He has also blessed us with friends like you, and we look forward to hearing from you each soon with an update.

Much love from Jason, Sarah, and Pippi

Suel Spring and Start of Summer

2008-05-15T12:15:00.006+01:00

Hello Friends!

Well, we hope the summer is going great so far for all of you! It’s gorgeous weather here in England this week (for once!). We’ve been out in the sun every day this week. Pippi doesn’t know what to think being barefoot and sleeveless! She’s been covered up since her birth in January!

She is growing so much, it’s hard to keep up! She has found her hands, and is just starting to reach for things now. She is also a little obsessed with putting things in her mouth or tasting things or sticking out her tongue. This mostly includes chewing on her hands, but can also include “eating” anything that comes remotely close to her mouth. If we are holding her she automatically starts to lick our shoulders or arms. We all end up with soaked shirts (our shoulders or her own wrists). It’s pretty funny.

She had her first real laugh just this week. She was giggling so much as I was wiping up her mouth with a cloth. Jason was in the other room, and he came running in when he heard her giggling! It was so cute, we couldn’t stop laughing. She is generally a happy baby, and as most people still comment, she is very “alert”. Her big blue eyes are always searching for interesting things. She is always moving (almost scooted out of her stroller just yesterday! Jason caught her just in time!) and wriggling. She is a busy baby if there ever was one.
We have a lot of fun together every day, going to the park or for walks or to play groups or the grocery store. I am becoming proficient with my slings that I use to carry her around. They are easier than the stroller and Pippi likes to see everything from way up high on my front, hip, or back. Jason and I have started taking her swimming each week. She is not sure what to make of it, and basically just looks bewildered the whole time!

In other news, Jason ran the London Marathon in April. His goal was to run it in under 4 hours, and he ran it in 3:58! He was so proud! It was a great day, even if it did rain buckets! It was apparently great weather for the runners, but us spectators got soaked just standing around clapping. The saddest part of the day, though, was that when Jason crossed the finish line of his best marathon ever, no one was there cheering for him!! We were stuck on the tube about a mile away…London was soooo packed with people, the tube stations were overflowing and we couldn’t get to Jason in time! He called us from the meeting point we had planned to see him at at the end, and he was just shivering in the cold rain alone, wondering where we were! So sad, but we cheered later when we finally met up with him in the hotel about an hour and half later! (PS, in the photo, he's wearing a red hat!)

We spent the whole weekend in London with Claire and Jez. We explored Greenwich village, and visited the Royal Observatory where the Prime Meridian is…very cool!

Another thing we have just done is have a church fete, or festival. It was an outreach day in a neighborhood near our church where we provided a BBQ, bouncy castle, live music, face painting, etc…There was a big turnout, and we had a great time. Now, the funny thing is that Jason dressed up like a pirate for the day! He went around passing out balloons and candy to kids, and telling his favorite pirate joke: “Why are pirates so mean? Because they ‘Aargh!’” I was on facepainting duty with Pippi. She had such a nice time on her blanket in the shade just playing and looking around. (That is the first picture shown above.)

Jason and I are about to complete a Parenting Course at our church, too. It’s been very good, taught by a Rob Parsons DVD. We are some of the youngest parents there, of course, so we are basically there to stockpile info into our minds for later years. It’s been nice talking to other parents, though, and seeing how they have coped over the years in bringing up Christian children.

We’re excited about our upcoming trip to Vienna, Austria next week! Pippi’s first airplane ride (I’m a little nervous!!). We’ll be spending 4 days there. We’ve also booked another trip for June…Disneyland Paris!! We’ll be taking the Eurostar Train from London to Paris and spending 4 days with Mickey and Minnie. Of course, we say Pippi will love it, but really, how much is she going to take in?? It’s for us really!!

Well, as usual, please update us when you can. We love to hear about your lives, details and all. We will be going through our email list soon, too, and deleting anyone off the list we haven’t heard from in a long time. So if you’re one of those people who read our emails but do not reply, could you send us a line to tell us not to delete you? If you’ve written us lately, don’t worry about it, we’ll keep you on!

Much love and prayers to you all,

In Christ,
Jason, Sarah, and Pippi Suel

Hotel Suel Opens...

2008-04-03T13:04:00.003+01:00

Hi Everyone!!

Well, we have had an exciting and super busy past few weeks! We have basically been running Hotel Suel over here in England, while our American friends/family have visited over their various spring breaks. Here’s a little catch-up for you all of the happenings that have been going on.

First visitors (and first to see Pippi!) were my (Sarah’s) brother and his girlfriend, Brett and Paula. We met them at Heathrow and they fought over who was going to hold and kiss Pippi first! They pretty much didn’t put her down the whole week, either, which was great! She was showered with so much love, and was held so much, she was in heaven. We spent that first day in London, seeing the sights and catching up. Then back to Hereford that night. The next day we went to church together and Brett and Paula got to meet all our friends and then experience their first “pub quiz”. Jason and I and all our friends go to our local pub every Sunday night where the landlord holds a general knowledge quiz for all the people in the pub. We all have answer sheets and work in teams. We then switch papers with another table to “grade” them, and the winner gets a free pitcher of beer. Needless to say, we’ve NEVER won the beer, but each week is always super fun. The landlord, Ian, knows that Jason and I are American, too, which makes it fun when he asks an American question and points to us and says: “This one’s for you, Americans!” over the microphone. Anyways, Brett and Paula got a photo with Ian, and even answered the American question correctly (How many points is a field goal in American football? Easy one! Sometimes Jason and I don’t know the answers to obscure American questions, which is always a little embarrassing!!).

We spent the next day climbing Hay Bluff, a small “mountain” near us with amazing views. Brett climbed the whole thing with Pippi in her little “baby backpack” on his front!

And then the really fun day began…on Tuesday Pippi and I took Brett and Paula to Goodrich Castle, a great castle near us that is usually tourist-free and surrounded by gorgeous views of Herefordshire. I had Pippi in her stroller, and could therefore not take her up to the castle Keep (tower), which was part of Brett and I’s sneaky plan! At the top, Brett proposed to Paula!! Of course she said yes, and now I’m going to have a new sister!! Needless to say, we are all VERY excited! Paula had no idea this was coming, which made it even more fun on the day. We celebrated with a lovely dinner that night, after phone calls home to moms and dads were made!

Nothing could really top the proposal for excitement during the visit, but we continued to have a great time together until they left too soon on Thursday. They took over 100 photos of Pippi to take home to my parents, who then proceeded straight to Walgreens to get them printed!! Boy, were they happy about that. Jason and I never send them enough!

Our next visitor was Liz Dally, a great friend from Ohio. She is like a sister to us both. She of course also adored Pippi and showered her with love as well! What was so great about Liz’s trip to see us was that it coincided with Easter Sunday. We celebrated the resurrection of our great Lord together at church, and also had Pippi dedicated during the service. Liz was there as one of Pippi’s godparents. Claire and Jez are also her godparents. They all came up to the front with us and prayed over Pippi and Jason and I. It was a beautiful service, and we are thankful for such amazing friends in our lives who will promise to support us in so many ways. After church we had lunch together, and of course that night we introduced Liz to the pub quiz as well! (Ian’s comment was: “Another one?? They multiply like gremlins, your American friends!!”)

Liz then spent the week seeing Hereford with us, as well as several surrounding cities. We visited Bath (she’s a big Jane Austen fan, and Bath is known for “Jane experiences”), and even the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales so that Liz could stand on a cliff overlooking the sea with the wind blowing thru her hair just like Elizabeth Bennett in “Pride and Prejudice”!! It was great!

We also spent a night in London (Pippi’s first overnight stay away from home), which was interesting to say the least! The plan was for Jason and I to take Pippi to the US Embassy to apply for her American citizenship and get her passport. That went according to plan, but when we went to call Liz (who had my cell phone seeing the sights of London) after the Embassy visit, the phone wouldn’t work!! We spent hours running thru London on the route we showed Liz to take, hoping for a glimpse of her, but NEVER FOUND HER! Luckily we had agreed to meet back at the car at 5pm if all else failed (which it did!!). Jason and I showed up just after 5, praying that Liz was there. SHE WASN’T! We continued to pray and come up with alternative plans if she didn’t show. We finally got a hasty phone call fom Liz, though, who called us from a pay phone. She had forgotten where the car was parked! We quickly told her the street names before we got cut off, and within minutes she was there. We were almost in tears (Liz and I, not Jason) we were so happy to find each other! We felt so bad, but Liz just laughed and said she had a great time in London by herself! We took her out for dinner, then drove home, happy to be together at last.

After Liz’s visit, we had yet another group of visitors just for one night. My friend from OT school, Ashley Hagler, spent one night with us in Hereford with 2 of her friends, Shannon and Justin. They had rented a car from the airport, and were starting out on their roadtrip thru Hereford, Wales, and Ireland. Our house was their first stop. We went out to dinner to a pub with Claire and Jez, too. Then we had an early birthday party for Ashley back at the house with a chocolate cake (she was going to be on the road on her actual b-day). The next day we showed them Hereford city, then drove the scenic route to Hay Bluff and Hay-on-Wye. It was a short visit, but was great to see them.

So now Hotel Suel is closed for awhile, till hopefully some parents come to visit in June. Jason is gearing up for the London Marathon in 2 weeks, and is in great shape. If anyone wants to sponsor him running, it’s not too late. See his last blog for more info on how to do it.

Enjoy the new pics of Pippi. She is SOOO beautiful! She is laughing and smiling so much now, it’s hard to take our eyes off her. Don’t forget to look at the pic archive link for more photos of her in her album.

We love you all, and hope to hear from you soon. Please send us an update when you can.
Love,
Jason, Sarah, and Pippi Suel

London Marathon Fundraising!

2008-03-18T15:49:00.000Z

Hello All,

As most of you are aware, amidst the changing of diapers and squealing baby, I have been training for the London Marathon! The Marathon is set for Sunday, April 13th.

As part of the build up to the Marathon, I thought I should let you all know that I am running for a charity. The charity I have chosen to support happens to be the one that I work for. We are a local organization for supporting disadvantaged young people in Hereford. If you want to see more, check out www.2xlyouthprojects.co.uk

So, the main purpose of this email is to ask you if you are willing to support me as I endeavor to complete the marathon! Donating to the cause is as easy as 1,2,3!

1: Go to http://jasonsuel.com (notice there is no www.)

2: Click on the PayPal donate icon. It is the bottom most thing on the page.

3: The link will take you to a page that will ask you to donate. Now, because I will receive the money in pounds, I believe that you will donate in pounds (not Dollars)...so if you want to give me 10 Dollars, you should enter 5 pounds...because the pound is worth more than the dollar by about 2:1...does that make sense?...email me if you have questions...

If you already have a PayPal account, you can enter your details...But, if you DON'T have one...the great thing is that, YOU DON'T HAVE TO! You can follow the links on the bottom left of that page to donate by credit or debit card.

Thanks everyone for your continued support!

Jason

http://jasonsuel.com

Parenting with Pippi

2008-02-28T17:18:00.003Z

Hello all!

Well, it’s been 5 ½ weeks since little Pippi was born, and our lives have been blessed beyond all measure! She is doing great, growing every day it seems. We are both loving being parents, with the fun and challenges that go with it. Here are our top 10 things we love about it all so far:

1. The way total strangers will jump out and talk to you if you are with a tiny baby…people love babies!
2. The way Pippi’s soft fuzzy hair feels against your face when you are holding her
3. The way you get to dress her up like a little doll in precious baby clothes, especially vintage ones from thrift stores (thanks Ashlea!). See pic below!!
4. The way she can’t fit into hats yet, and they fall down over her eyes and nose because she wriggles so much (see pic below!)
5. The way Pippi’s bottom lip sticks out in a super-pout when she cries (I can’t actually bring myself to snap a pic of this…I have to pick her up instead!)
6. The way our little Pip-squeak actually squeaks! (all the time—it’s the main noise she makes, along with grunts!)
7. The way she falls asleep with her arms up over her head in contentment (see pic below!)
8. The way she freaks out when her pacifier falls out of her mouth and she wants it back soooo badly but can’t figure out how to obtain it.
9. Her BIG blue eyes, so alert and beautiful.
10. The way she will fall asleep on your chest, tucked up so tight and peaceful, knowing you’re taking care of her.

Now, of course our list could go on for days!

Jason’s back at work full-time now, which leaves me and Pip on our own for most of each day. We do go out every day now, which is fun. Some of the things we’ve been doing include going for a neighborhood walk everyday, going to Tot Stop at our church on Wednesday mornings to play with other moms and babies, hanging out with Chloe and Zac (Chloe is a church friend who had Isaac 4 days after Pippi was born), and doing loads and loads and loads of laundry!!

In exciting news for us, we have booked our first trip with Pippi in tow! We’re off to Vienna, Austria at the end of May! I guess really our first overnight trip will be in London while Jason runs the London Marathon in April, so that will be our “tester” weekend with Pippi. We are looking forward to putting her in her little baby-backpack and touring around!

Before our travels, though, we are looking forward to having several visitors in a row…first off Brett (my brother) and Paula (Brett’s girlfriend) in March. The day after they leave, Liz Dally (friend from Ohio) arrives. The day after she leaves, Ashley (friend from OT school) and 2 friends arrive! We’ll have 3 weeks of visitors, and are really excited about seeing everyone…and of course showing off Pippi! Let’s hope they can all cope with night-time crying! ☺

Well, that’s about it on our front. As always, send us news about yourselves when you can.

With love from all 3 of us,
Sarah, Jason, and Pippi

Pippi Pics

2008-01-28T21:22:00.000Z

Just a quick update to say that if you are interested, you can check out more pics of Pippi by clicking on the "Pic Archive" link on the right hand side of this page and going to the album entitled "Pippi!"

We don't want to be one of those families that shoves pictures of our newborn down people's throats, so go there only if you want................to see the cutest baby in the world :)

From Suelfam (all three)

Our Beautiful Daughter

2008-01-23T22:26:00.000Z

Hello Everyone,

The time has finally come for us to announce to you that our beautiful daughter, Pippi Lois, has come into the world! She was born on Monday morning at 10:33am, weighing 6lbs. 6oz's, and 19.48 inches long! She is a happy, healthy, beautiful little girl!

Sarah is fine, but had a more rough time of it. Forceps had to be used and she had a 3rd degree tear. For those who don't know what that is...it isn't pretty and she had to have many stitches after the birth. But, apart for walking a little like John Wayne...she is absolutely fine. They are both still in the hospital because they want to make sure Sarah's hemoglobin levels have stabilized. All signs point to a quick recovery and she should be home by Friday at the latest, but we are hopeful that she will be home tomorrow.

I know you want to see pics, so I have posted some on our blog. www.suelfam.blogspot.com

She is beautiful...well, they both are!

Love,

From a very happy Suelfam!

Christmas, New Year, and a Visitor!

2008-01-06T19:27:00.000Z

Hi there folks,

Just wanted to update you on happenings since our last email…here’s the scoop:

In the run up to Christmas we were busy, as was everyone, but we did have a little time for ourselves. Because the time is drawing very near where quick weekend get-away’s will be a thing of the past, Sarah and I decided to make a run for it. So, we rented a bed and breakfast in a little place you may have heard of called…”Sherwood Forest!” That’s right…the weekend before Christmas Sarah and I gallivanted off to the home of everyone’s favorite outlaw: Robin Hood! It was a great time…we went into Nottingham as well.

My favorite part of the whole story was when we called to make our reservation at the B&B. When the person answered on the other line they said something like… “Brown’s Old Orchard B&B, in the heart of Sherwood…Robin speaking.” I was like…stop, hold the phone…your name is Robin! Are you Robin Hood?!?! This is crazy!...but I didn’t say that, of course…

Soon after our return from that trip was Christmas…and what a great Christmas it was. Now, this was our first Christmas in England. If you remember, the first year we lived here we went to Paris on Christmas Eve. Last year we flew home. So that makes this Christmas our first official Christmas to be spent entirely in England. We had Christmas with our friends Claire and Jez…Claire’s brother Keith and Jez’s parents Dick and Jan were also there. Great times! One of the best parts of the day was exchanging gifts with each other and opening the presents one at a time. One at a time! Tedious, but enjoyable. I’ve never encountered so much reserve in a Christmas…it’s usually rip it open as fast as you can at my house.

The next thing we had to look forward to was our friend Heather coming to visit! She came just in time to usher in the New Year and this year we did it in style…we went to London to see the fireworks! It was a lot of fun and for all of you stateside…follow this link to find out about what New Year’s Eve looks like in London…the fireworks cost 100,000 pounds a minute (I’m not kidding), and with the celebration timing in at just over 10 minutes…we’re talking 1 million pounds…what a waste…but it looked great! So, here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4tqsQktE2w

Oh yeah…I almost fogot…the next morning we got up and went to the London New Years Day Parade…what a hoot!

During Heather’s visit we also went to a local village for the day, did some shopping, and went on a country walk…which was a lot of fun…AND we went to the local Pantomime (a Christmas tradition here). Our Panto this year was “Snow White.” Lots of laughs!

Now we are just waiting for the arrival of our first child. The due date is January 28th, but Sarah wishes the baby would come sooner. She’s doing great, even though she’s not sleeping all that well anymore…too uncomfortable! She’s got one more week of work left to endure, and will thankful for a rest after that! We are so very excited and nervous at the same time. For all of you who have offered us advice, thanks so much…we really appreciate it. Now, it’s just down to waiting. We look forward to sharing the good news about our son or daughter with you on our next email!

We hope you have all had a great Holiday Season and maybe we’ll be seeing you in the new year!

Jason & Sarah

Pics: 1. Jason and Sarah at a Christmas Party. 2. Us in front of the Merry Oak in Sherwood Forest. 3. Jason in front of Robin Hood statue. 4. New Years Eve! 5. Sarah and Heather during the New Years Day Parade.

Pregnancy Pics

2008-01-06T19:11:00.000Z

Here are some of Sarah's Pregnancy Photos. These pictures trace her growth from 3 to 8 months!

We are so excited for Baby Suel to arrive!

Long Overdue, from Suels

2007-11-29T21:22:00.000Z

Hello family and friends!

We are sorry this is so long in coming to you...things
have been busy as usual. So here's what's been going
on with us:

As of today, I (Sarah!) only have 2 months left of
being pregnant! I'm getting bigger by the week, and
staying healthy. No sickness, just some tiredness
setting in. But as I'm still working full-time,
that's to be expected, really. We have organized our
"nursery" as of last weekend, so most of the major
items are in place. It's super fun getting ready for
the baby to come. Very exciting stuff!

My job is still great, loving it. I was recently
asked by my manager to attend a planning meeting for
the whole of the West Midlands (that's several
counties in England) about how best to care for people
with dementia in our area. I was one of 13
representatives who specialize in working with people
with dementia. I go back next week for a second
meeting. It was exciting to be asked to go and it's
actually a pretty important thing to be doing, so
that's cool. Jason's not-so-new-anymore job is still
going great, too. The people he works for are
fantastic, he is wholly supported, and working with
the kids in schools is exhausting but fulfilling.

Church stuff is great, Jason's still leading worship
regularly. He just got back from an entire Worship
Conference weekend, learning about leading worship for
the Lord. He learned a lot, and heard some fantastic
musicians. One of the main guests was Matt Redman.
Good stuff. We are still leading the 18-30's
ministry, and it is growing! Our last few meetings
have had between 20-25 people, which is awesome,
seeing how we started out with about 8-10. We were
involved in a hilarious Dodgeball Tournament recently,
complete with costumes and a theme song! We totally
lost. We are also doing a drama skit together for the
Christmas Candlelight service next month. There's
another girl in our group who's pregnant, too, due a
week before me. We have to be the narrators as we
can't play a pregnant soldier, wise man, angel, or
even Mary (as she's holding baby Jesus!)!

Jason just got an acceptance letter to qualify to run
the London Marathon! He is sooo super excited, and
we're already planning a weekend in London in April
for the event with friends. He didn't get in last
year, so he's really happy to do it this year.

Jason was also in a play recently called "Personals".
He was a lead role, it was a musical comedy. It was
about people who are looking for love by placing
personal ads in the paper. It was written by the same
people who wrote "Friends", so it was pretty funny.
He did a great job, and made some new friends, too.

We are going away for the weekend tomorrow (one of our
last as a "couple"!). We'll be staying in a B&B in
Birmingham all weekend, all centered around us and
Claire and Jez going to see "Maroon 5" and "Dashboard
Confessional" on Saturday night. We've had our
tickets forever, so we're anxious to see it.

We had an amazing time at home with moms and dads in
October. We went home for 2 weeks (before I couldn't
fly anymore), spending a week at each of our parent's
houses. Claire and Jez came with us to experience
their first taste of America. We had so much fun
showing them everything (mostly centered around
eating, if we're honest!) It was difficult finding
vegetarian options for Claire at BBQ places in
Arkansas! It was a fun experience, though, and the
Hogs game was a highlight, even though we lost. That
team spirit-filled environment is not something
British people have much of, so it was fun to show it
off. And of course it was great to see moms and dads.
Difficult to come back, knowing they won't get to see
Baby Suel for awhile until after it's born, so there
were some tears upon departure!

Well, I'm sure there's more to tell you than all that,
but you get the picture. Check out the blog for new
pics of us. Pretty soon you'll be getting emails of
the 3 of us, so get into it!

We love you all so much, please update us on your
lives, and may God bless you this Christmas season and
always!

In Him, Jason and Sarah Suel

Pics: 1. Suels showing the Hailwoods how to call those hogs! 2. Jason and the cast of "Personals" 3. Dodgeball Tournament Team :) 4. Jez, Jason, and Sarah (looking pregnant) at a friends birthday party!

Before Our American Adventure

2007-10-08T22:47:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone,

It’s us again. Just emailing with a quick update before we head off on our Stateside Adventure with the Hailwoods (Claire and Jez, our best friends here!). It’s been about a month since our last email so we need to catch up!

You may or may not remember that we were planning an All-American Birthday party for Jason’s big day…well it happened in a big way! Everyone went all-out and wore red, white, and blue…even some cowboy boots showed up! We had some great American food, then a “Who knows the most about America?” Quiz…it wasn’t good! Most people couldn’t even pick out California on a map of the US…but then again we couldn’t have done that well with England cities before we came here, so you know. There were 17 of us in our new house, and we weren’t all that crowded. What a blessing, and a what a change from our old flat where 4 people was a crowd.

My (Jason’s) new job is going great! I am still going into schools and doing drama with students. And the organization that I work for now is a world away from the place I was at before. Praise God that He always has a plan!

We had our 20-week scan a few weeks back and we are proud to announce that the baby is healthy and growing! The baby is kicking now and even I can feel it! We have been busy getting the baby’s room ready…slowly but surely. We have been given a baby bed and all the bedding to go on it as well as curtains to match.

In a few days we are off on our American Adventure with our great friends Jez and Claire. It will be lots of fun! Hope to see lots of you when we are there!

With love,

Jason (and Sarah)

Pics of: Sarah at 5 months!!! AND Jason's All-American Birthday Party at our new house!

Suels on the Move!

2007-09-05T11:48:00.000+01:00

Hello friends and family,

Things have just settled long enough for us to be able to send out a quick email. August was an exciting, but busy, month…let’s catch up a bit.

From August 9th to the 16th we moved around the continent of Africa, through the country of Morocco. We went with our friends Claire and Jez for this exciting holiday. For most of our time away we stayed in a riad (traditional style house) in Essaouira, Morocco. This city is on the beach. We had a fantastic time getting acquainted with the culture of Morocco…all the sites, smells, and sun we could handle.

Towards the end of our time in Essaouira we had a camel trek into the desert where we spent the night and camel trekked back into town the next day. Sarah wasn’t able to trek, cause she’s pregnant…but she met us at the campsite in a landrover. On that same day we boarded a bus into the city of Marrakech where we stayed for our final 2 nights. Marrakech was a much larger city, more tourists, and by the end of our short stay there, we were glad to be leaving. The snake charmers were cool, though!

We came home, stayed less than a week, and were back on a plane!

This time to Berlin…the 23rd to the 27th. It was a great trip, too. Berlin was a really cool city. Because it had been bombed heavily in WWII, all the buildings were hollowed out. So most of the city today is both brand-new and state of the art, or with the appearance of an old building but with new insides. For instance the Reichstag, which is their parliament building, looks like an old building on the outside, but the inside is a modern glass enclosure with a nice view from the top. AND it’s free to go inside…which is one of the reasons it’s the world’s most visited Parliament building.

Berlin is huge…8 times the size of Paris! So, we had to rely on public transportation a lot. We bought a 3 day pass which gave us unlimited access to the transport system and discount to loads of museums…my favorite was the Natural History museum…only because it housed the worlds largest Dinosaur bones…so sweet! Obviously, there was loads of history there…both WWII history and Cold War history. We visited the Berlin wall or what’s left of it. I found it moving.

This city was more like Paris on London than any of our other city breaks. All three of these cities are so big that it’s hard to see everything…but we filled every minute with a memory.

Our final move this month has been into a new house! With a baby on the way, our tiny little pink flat just wasn’t going to cut it. So we’ve moved right next door, basically, into a 2 bedroom house. It’s soooo nice! We’ve got so much more room, we can actually have visitors over now, which is something we have missed doing. (This includes overseas visitors…hint, hint!)

Our new address is:
21 Ascot Close
Bobblestock
Hereford
HR4 9LY

Our phone number stays the same.

The very last thing we have to say is that we will be heading stateside with our friends Jez and Claire! We will be in Arkansas from the 10th-23rd of October. I know it’s a bit early to tell you, but if any of you want to make plans to see us…please let us know. We will be in Little Rock/Conway on the 11th and 12th…the Fort Smith NW Arkansas area from the 12th - 17th…and in Camden from the 17th to the 22nd…flying out again on the 23rd. Please let us know if you will be around…we’d love to see you!

That’s all for now…our next email will include: Jason’s All-American B-Day party, Jason’s new job, news about our next pregnancy scan, and hopefully more cool news about our new house!

Speak soon,

Jason and Sarah

Pics: J & S in a Moroccan Garden (Sarah looking pregnant). Sarah celebrating 4 months of being pregnant! J & S outside of the Reichstag. J & S outside of the Berliner Dom.

All the Right Moves...

2007-08-07T19:28:00.000+01:00

August 7, 2007

Hi Family and Friends!

Well, we’re off to Morocco this week for a beach holiday, but wanted to fill you in on what’s been going on with us before we left. So…basically we are still doing great! Baby Suel is doing well, not making me sick anymore, which is such a blessing! 8 weeks of vomiting was enough for me!! Had an appointment with the midwife just today and the baby’s heartbeat was nice and loud, she pronounced baby healthy thus far. I am starting to show, and outgrowing my jeans. Loving it!

Jason has quit his job at the Courtyard theatre! I’ll let him tell you about it:

Well, while I loved working with the young people at the Courtyard…let’s just say that the work environment left much to be desired. In England, they get 5 weeks of summer break…the last week of July and all of August. I thought that would an optimal time to hand in my notice. It give the Courtyard time to sort something out before the school year starts again as well as time for me to sort something out. However, God had it all sorted before I even knew.

Within a week of quitting my job I was put in contact with a woman who runs a Christian organization that goes into schools and presents them with a variety of programs based around children’s self esteem. So, the organization “2XL” wanted to hire me to head up my own project (which I have called “Illuminate”) to go into schools and help vulnerable young people work through specialized issues (like inclusion, self esteem, alcohol abuse, peer pressure, bullying, etc). So, I am in the process of gearing up for the school year and applying for funding for my project. My job with 2XL officially starts at the beginning of September.

I will be doing 30 hours for 2XL and the rest of the time I will be a freelance drama practitioner…that’s a fancy way to say that schools can hire me to come in a do a day of drama with their classes. And, because of all the contacts I made with schools during my time at the Courtyard, it shouldn’t be hard to find work…in fact, check out http://jasonsuel.com! I haven’t got much there yet, but I will be publicizing myself to schools on that site!

So that’s about it as far as my job goes…all is well (although it was a little scary for a while). Back to Sarah:

My job is still going well, and I’m sticking with it. No news there really!

However, we have decided to move into a new house! We can actually see it from our bedroom window now. It’s a 2 bedroom place, and those of you who have visited us thus far in England in our TINY flat know it’s needed for a baby on the way. We can’t wait. Should be moving in in about a month or so, hopefully before the new school year starts in early September. We didn’t want to move out of the neighborhood, that was our one piece of criteria, really. And we didn’t want to work very hard at this…we don’t have time to look for a house and search around, etc. And God blessed us with the house now, as the whole process was so easy for us!

That’s about it as far as news is concerned. I’ll let Jason tell you a little bit about what we have been up to since we sent out the last email. Here’s Jason:

Yo, yo, yo!

I’ll break it down for you. We have done some camping. First, we went on the church camping trip. Lots of fun! Then, I, as one of my last official acts of duty at the Courtyard, went camping with some young people. We went to the “Big Youth Theatre Festival” just north of London at a place called Epping Forest. It was a long weekend of shows, workshops, and late nights…but totally worth it. Check the pics.

Also, we celebrated our 5-year anniversary and Sarah’s birthday. For our 5-year anniversary we were supposed to stay in a B & B about 30 minutes away. But, because of all the rain and flooding, (which you may or may not have heard about) we were stuck in our flat. But, I did have a logo designed for our anniversary. We are quite happy about it! A “Suelfam” logo! How cool?

For Sarah’s birthday we had a Murder Mystery Party where we dressed up as characters from the 60’s. It was a lot of fun! Then, Sarah and I went to London for the night and we saw “The Lion King.” Great fun!

As Sarah said earlier, we are off to Morocco later this week and then later in August, we will travel to Berlin, Germany. We hope to send you exciting emails with the details of those trips in the near future.

Until next time,

Jason and Sarah

Pics: Us at the Church Camping Trip. Jason at the BYTF. Jason and Sarah dressed up for Sarah's Murder Mystery Party. Sarah at 3 months pregnant!

Big News & Little News!

2007-07-04T20:39:00.000+01:00

Hello friends and family!!

Yes, it’s finally time for us to announce the big news: we’re going to have a baby! Little Suel should arrive at the end of January 2008. Needless to say, we feel incredibly blessed and SUPER excited! We had our first scan yesterday, and baby is doing fine. I’m just over 10 weeks along. Basically, I have been sick for about 5 of those weeks, and I’m praying that that goes away very soon. I could definitely use your prayers in that respect. You don’t want to know the gory details of me being sick…trust me.

We are excited to be having our first baby in England for a number of reasons. For one thing, I get 6 months paid maternity leave. For another, having the baby in hospital here is free…no medical bills. Jason also gets a couple of weeks paid paternity leave. These are pretty big benefits, and we’re glad about those blessings. After my 6 months off, I will have to go back to work for a few months, but then we will be looking at moving back to the States (who knows where!). That’s the plan anyways…we’ll see what God has in store.

Other than baby news, things are going along pretty normally. My job is great, very busy. I love my patients, and I keep busy every second of my work day, which I enjoy. I am teaching a Chronic Pain Management course right now, and it’s sort of the downside to my job at the moment, as the psychologist I’m working with on it is completely scatterbrained. For my organized, structured working self, I find this very hard. Only 6 more weeks to go, though.

Jason is still at the Courtyard theatre, but having a stressful time. His supervisors are VERY demanding, and even though he is working 45 hour weeks it still doesn’t seem to be enough. If you can pray for him, he is pretty worked up about it all. He is hanging in there, though, and we are hoping they will start to notice his hard work and praise him for it.

We are still leading the 18-30s ministry at church. We are meant to be going camping this weekend with the entire church (70 of us), but as of this past weekend, the campsite was underwater…it’s been raining/flooding in Herefordshire all of June. It was the wettest June in years (and it still hasn’t stopped). We are still wearing sweaters and jeans here and it’s already July! We do miss Arkansas summers!!

We haven’t been on a trip since Norway, but will be going to Morocco with Claire and Jez in August. Jason has something exciting planned for our 5-year anniversary in a few weeks, and it may involve a little trip, but as I’m not allowed to know anything about it, I can’t really say. I’ll let you know afterwards!

Jason just finished climbing Snowden Mountain in Wales, the highest peak in the country. I am pretty sure he wants to tell you about it here:

Yeah, Snowden was great. It was a rainy, foggy day and we didn’t have much of a view. But, the climb was great fun. My buddy Jez and I decided to tackle the mountain because it was on his “To Do” list for 2007.

Also, another bit of little news, I finally saw Mute Math in concert in Birmingham. For all you Mute Math fans out there…it was a great show. If you don’t know who Mute Math is check them out! They just recorded the “Transformers” theme tune! It’s sweet

Okay, Happy Independence Day!

Jason and Sarah

Pics: Above: Sarah's family finding out about our big news over the phone. Below: 1) Crib Goch...the scary part of Snowdon. 2) Jez and Jason near the top. 3) Jason in the fog. 4) The fog has lifted!

Come Like the Fall

2007-05-31T22:38:00.000+01:00

Hey all,

My cousin Tim has just released a CD entitled “Come Like the Fall.” Tim is one of my closest friends, even though we don’t get to see each other very often. I mean, he was the Best Man at our wedding, and the fact that he has finally released some music thrills me. Anyway, check him out…and buy the CD if you want, I’m sure it will bless you…

The song "Take Me" is amazing and touches me everytime I listen to it.

Find him at www.timsuel.com or to listen to samples, check out: www.independentbands.com/cd/timsuel/comelikethefall.html

Cheers,
Jason

Norway in a Nutshell!

2007-05-31T22:30:00.000+01:00

Hey, hey, hey (to be said like Fat Albert),

I seems that I just sent an installment out not too long ago, but it’s time for another one. If our stories annoy you feel free to save this one for a rainy day, but I warn you, you’ll be missing out…Here goes:

So, a couple of weeks ago we took a trip to Norway. We flew into Oslo. We stayed there one night, in a hostel. The next morning was their “Constitution Day,” The equivalent of the 4th of July for our American friends and something akin to Bonfire Night here in the UK. It was a day of parades, hot dogs and red, white, and blue…lots of fun and we were glad to be there on this special day.

We then boarded a train for our pre-booked excursion…Norway in a Nutshell. Over the next two days we had the great pleasure of exploring the fjords of Norway by train, bus, and boat. We went took a ride on the steepest railway in western Europe, witnessed 300 waterfalls (no exaggeration), and slept on the Night Train (an overnight train ride from Bergen back to Oslo). Just talking about this trip does not do it justice. It was probably the highlight of all our time in Europe so far…please have a look at our pics, they speak volumes.

When we returned to Oslo, we still had another day and night, so we got to know the city pretty well. I was totally into Vikings that day…a couple of weeks ago I wanted to be an ancient mariner, who I have decided were the cowboys of the sea…now I’m on to Vikings who were the ancient mariners of their day…other than a lot of killing and overtaking unarmed villages, they did a lot of good stuff…

For instance, I just discovered today that my last name, “Suel,” could come from the Norse “Sigvaldr” meaning “Victory Ruler.” Because I have no idea about my heritage, I like this idea…probably because I’m into Vikings and Norway is flippin’ amazing!

A couple of other exciting tidbits I might throw at you…last weekend Sarah and I had the honor (term used loosely) of being leaders for our church youth group’s weekend away. Despite the fact that we stayed up till all hours of the night and got up at the crack, it was a pretty great weekend. I got to pray with some guys and one guy accepted Christ…that was pretty cool. However, it did rain the whole time…imagine being stuck inside with 40 teens…rough!

We love you all and hope to hear from you. I’m sure that many of you are having exciting summers…we’d love to hear about them.

Peace,

Jason (Sarah, too!)

P.S.: The pictures are of us in the fjords and travelling on the train.

May is Okay!

2007-05-14T22:18:00.000+01:00

So, so, so, much has happened since I last emailed and I will have to fill you in…I’ll try not to bore.

Poland

Sarah and I travelled to Krakow, Poland this month and made a day trip to the infamous Nazi concentration camp: Auschwitz. Krakow was one of our favourite cities to visit. We are really becoming fans of Eastern Europe. This city reminded us of Prague because it was easily manageable and complete with history, art, and culture. We took several walks around the city and learned so much about the Polish. One of the most interesting things that we found was the story of the trumpeter who plays every hour from the church bell tower.

Legend has it that during the Tartan invasion of Krakow, a trumpeter blew the warning song from high atop the church bell tower to warn Krakowians that the invasion had begun and because of his warning song, the citizens of Krakow were able to defend their city. Then an enemy arrow pierced his throat before he was able to complete the song. Therefore, every hour on the hour, a trumpeter plays the same song from the same location and stops before he finishes…calling to mind the time that Krakow was almost overtaken by the Tartan’s had it not been for one brave trumpeter who gave his life to save many.

As I mentioned before we took a day trip to Auschwitz concentration camp. It is hard to put into words exactly what you feel as you walk around an international monument to the cruelty of humankind. It feels odd to smile in pictures or even to take pictures. And although the site is in ruins, we found the entire day to be emotional and stirring. If you get a chance, while it may not be the most exciting of vacations, it is a day to remember… “lest we forget…”

Somerset

A friend of Sarah’s from work had mentioned to her a long time ago that she had a place for us to stay in Somerset, if we were ever up for a weekend away. Well, all of the UK had a bank holiday on Monday the 7th; so we decided that we would use that long weekend to go to the beach in Somerset. Now, when I say beach, British beaches are not all fun in the sun type experiences, but they are nice in a different sort of way. Taking costal walks, for instance, is one of our favourite things to do.

One of the main highlights from our weekend was going on the old fashioned steam train that runs along the coast. We made a day of it, taking the train to a nearby village and having a meal. The stations and the train itself are all well preserved and they take you back to the times when steam trains would have been the new and only way to travel in style.

Friends

We have had the pleasure of opening up our home, once again, to some friends from the States. We have had three young ladies staying with us for a few days. The girls are all at the beginning of what will be a summer abroad for all of them. Kim and Jody are off to study music in Florence and Cat will be studying French in France. To be honest we only knew Kim before this trip. Kim is girlfriend to one of our nearest, dearest, and closest friends Stateside, Mr. Patrick Peringer. Kim and Pat are both in the music dept. at Bowling Green State University…and Jodi and Cat are her friends. Now that they’ve been snoozing on our floor for the past few days, we feel we know each other really well. And Kim was able to go into Wales and see some live music performance, which was great because she is writing her Thesis on Welsh Music…cool, huh?

Justin Timberlake

That’s right…Justin Timberlake! You see, as a partial joke and partial curiosity our friend Claire got her husband Jez tickets to see Justin live in Birmingham. Jez claims that he, not Justin, originally brought Sexy Back (Jez has actually registered the domain name “ibroughtsexyback.com” although he hasn’t done anything with it yet). So, we quickly decided that we wanted to go and see Mr. Super Bowl Controversy himself with our friends.

I have to say, it was a fantastic show! He was an excellent showman and he made the ticket price worth the experience…once we got over the screaming teenage girls surrounding us!

What’s Next?

With a month that had so much going on, how will we ever top it? The next email will include our trip to Norway, which we leave for later this week! And we will be informing you as to how our Youth Weekend goes. Youth Pastor Claire has again roped us into helping her with this event and we must say that we are looking forward to this event with great expectations!

From us to you, that’s all for now…

OK, Happy End (for all you Eurovision fans!)

Jason and Sarah

Pics: 1. Artist's wall in Krakow 2. Auschwitz rememberance cards. 3. Auschwitz monument. 4. Sarah in Somerset.

Stonehenge in the Willows?!?

2007-04-18T23:18:00.000+01:00

Well, well, well,

It’s time for another email update from the suelfam! I have a couple of exciting things to update you on so perk up those ears and read on :)

A couple of weekends ago we went to Stonehenge! This was part of my Christmas present from our friends Claire and Jez. They promised us that they would accompany us on a trip to Stonehenge or the henge as I like to call it. So, on Easter Monday we woke up early to a foggy morning and hit the trail to Stonehenge. Now, I love Stonehenge. I have a healthy obsession with it! I don’t really know why, but I do. I love the mystery surround those stones. Some people say, “It’s just a pile of rocks!” But, I say “Stonehenge Rocks!”

So, after we walked around the henge and got our share of pictures, we had a picnic lunch on the hill overlooking the stones. Now, my friend Jez has bought this kite. And when I say kite, I mean KITE! It’s somewhere between a normal kite and a paraglider! It will definitely lift you off the ground if it’s windy enough. Fortunately for me, it wasn’t windy enough so we had a pleasant afternoon of kite flying while watching the spring sun cast shadows across the mystery of Stonehenge. What a day!

The next bit of excitement comes in the form of a boastful Toad and his band of friends. I am, of course, referring to “The Wind in the Willows,” which I had the pleasure of directing here at the Courtyard. The cast involved 180 children (in two different casts). 180 kids aged 7-14 is a nightmare for some and it is hard work…but I wouldn’t change it for anything.

As you can imagine, we have been in intense rehearsals for this since about January and last weekend was the payoff. And what a payoff it was. Parents and kids alike love it and it had a very positive vibe. The Courtyard is still buzzing from the success of the show, both in numbers and in quality. Of course, I couldn’t have done it without help and there were a large number of supporters who worked on the production as well. Complete with live North African drumming, stunning dance sequences and even involving shadow puppetry, this was “The Wind in the Willows” as you’ve never seen it. It was a joy to direct and I’m glad for it!

Sarah is fine. I think she and I are both grateful that we can now spend more time together now that the show is over. Her work consistently brings her challenges and rewards. Now that spring is upon us, we have lots of trips and events in the pipeline!

Speaking of trips, this weekend Sarah and I are taking a trip to Krakow, Poland for a relaxing weekend away. We plan to go to Auschwitz prison as well…that will be intense, but if we’re gonna be that close, we might as well take it in. So, another email update will be coming your way in the near future!

Thanks everyone for being so supportive of us! Please email us and let us know what is going on with you!

Jason (and Sarah)

pics: 1. Jason stoked for Stonehenge 2. Jason, Sarah, Claire and Jez posing 3. Stonehenge in its majesty 4. Jason flying a KITE!

Our Spring Visitors...

2007-03-27T21:55:00.000+01:00

Hi Everyone,

Thought it was about time we sent out another email update…so, strap in!

A few times in your life you have the privilege of meeting those rare people that you feel like your soul connects with. This has happened to us a few times over our lives, and last week some of those people, our dear friends John and Heidi Sebestyen (whom we frequently refer to as our “couple crush”), were able to visit us. I’ll back up a step for those of you who aren’t familiar with John and Heidi.

We met them during my first semester at BGSU in Ohio. I was working on my Masters, John on his Doctorate, and Heidi on her Bachelors. We soon became great friends through our connection with the Theatre Department. They weren’t even dating at the time…then they were…then they were serious…engaged…married…then they moved to the Chicagoland area for John to take a teaching position at a University. We lived with them for about a month before we made the transition to the UK…I really cannot say enough great things about them. We truly love them.

What’s more, they were able to visit us! What a blessing! They stayed from Saturday to the following Sunday. And we did loads of stuff together, which I will now tell you about. Sarah and Jez picked John and Heidi up from the airport (I was in rehearsals for my upcoming production of The Wind in the Willows). They made a day of it in London…doing the usual…seeing the sights, etc. Then back here for a day of church and kite flying on Sunday, which again, I had to miss because of rehearsals. Apparently it was hilarious as Heidi was able to entangle a bystander in the kite strings…by the way, we are talking a serious kite here…2.5 meters across…just short of a paraglider. Anyway, I think they had a great time.

Monday we went to Bath, which has become a frequent stop for our visitors. On the way we stopped at Tintern Abbey, in Wales…gorgeous. We did the usual in Bath…toured the ancient city and marveled at the architecture. Then, off to the neighboring city of Bristol to have a meal and see a production of the musical “Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang.” It was brilliant.

Tuesday, John and Heidi were introduced to Hereford as Sarah and I had to go back to work. They putzed around in town and we worked. On Wednesday, we went for a walk in the Malvern Hills. I wish I could take everyone there, especially on a day like that Wednesday. The weather was amazing and so was the walk…it’s something they don’t get to see everyday in the Chicago area…as you can imagine. Friday, we went to Goodrich Castle…another frequent stop for our guests. Just a beautiful, rustic, castle 30 minutes from our front door…it’s always worth a trip.

Other highlights would be eating fish and chips; going to the cinema to see “Hot Fuzz” (the second time for Sarah and I)…it’s totally worth checking out when it comes to the States; watching “Nacho Libre” and laughing our heads off; watching “Nacho Libre”…again; and going to a local pub.

We had so much fun it’s hard to put it all in words…But, mainly we just enjoyed each others’ company…I’m glad God blessed us with such close friends.

Other than the smashing time we had with John and Heidi, I’ve been very busy with rehearsals for “The Wind in the Willows.” This is the play I’m directing with 2 casts of 90 kids in each cast from 7-14 years old…I know, you don’t envy me. It’s busy and has been a big learning experience so far. The show happens April 11-14 whether we are ready or not!

Sarah and I are great and we have booked our next trip…we’re going to Krakow, Poland at the end of April. So, God willing, in our next email you’ll probably receive loads of information about Krakow…very exciting!

Bye for now,

Jason (and Sarah)

PS: As always, if you’d like to see pics of our time with John and Heidi, check out our blogsite…www.suelfam.blogspot.com…Also, Claire and I put together a video with the youth group from our Church. It’s nothing special, just a video about fairly traded chocolate but it is on “you tube” if you want to check it out… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZyMUe-l5gc Or just check it out below.

Pictured: Top: Us at Goodrich Castle. Bottom: 1. In Bath at the Royal Crescent 2. On top of the Malvern Hills 3. Jason and Sarah, John and Heidi, and Jez and Claire at a local pub.

Fair Trade Chocolate Video

2007-03-27T21:49:00.000+01:00

Here's a video I made with my friend Claire and the Youth Group from our church. I did a lot of editing on this thing :) Check it out!

Shreddin' the Slopes in Bulgaria

2007-02-21T21:03:00.002Z

Well, Hello Everyone,

We are fresh off the slopes of the Rila Mountains in Borovetz, Bulgaria and we thought we should tell you about our fun experience. We left our home here in Hereford after work on Valentine’s Day. Myself, Sarah, Claire and Jez drove down to London to stay at the Marriott Hotel before flying out the next morning. The Marriott is nice, especially on Valentine’s Day. I mean who doesn’t love a really nice hotel? Come on!

The next day we flew to Sofia, Bulgaria (the capital) and we were met at the airport by Bobbie…our contact whom we affectionately named Bobbie Bulgaria. Bobbie met us at the airport holding a sign with our name on it and everything. The four of us crammed in his van and we drove to the town of Samakov. Samakov is where we rented our apartment. It is a town about 7 miles from the ski resort of Borovetz. Now, Samakov is a city that appears to be trying to recover from the effects of a communist government. It’s trying, but it’s not there yet, to say the least. Bobbie drove us to our apartment which was nice enough…but, now I’m not kidding because we counted…20 dogs lived on our street. Some roamed the street and some were fenced, but still…that’s a lot of dogs! Needless to say, there was plenty of barking in the night…

Now, it was hard to imagine that while we were in this struggling town about 7 miles away was Borovetz…a ski resort community with all the perks a capitalist community could offer: Endless supplies of trinkets and ski paraphernalia. Plus, hot Bulgaria meals, taxi rides on a horse and carriage, and the friendliest Bulgarian people all wanting your business.

The skiing was ace! Being Claire and Jez’s first ski holiday, they easily found their footing on the easier and intermediate slopes…and Sarah and I had a blast enjoying helping them learn the difficult art of skiing. By the end of the time I was skiing reds and blacks and Sarah would ski a red if push came to shove.

Four days of skiing has left us sore but feeling accomplished! Bulgaria…who would’ve thought? All the fun of skiing and at half the price that some people pay for a ski holiday in the Alps. It was an experience I wouldn’t change for anything…going to sleep to the sound of dogs whimpering and breathing in that fresh mountain air in the morning…ace!

On a separate note, Sarah and I went with Claire and Jez a couple of weeks ago to see Switchfoot in Swansea, Wales. That was a great concert! AND, Monday, Sarah and I are seeing Keane in Cardiff, Wales. So we are definitely trying to keep up with the music scene!

Both of our jobs are going well and I am really looking forward to directing this production of “Wind in the Willows” with our youth theatre. Sarah is doing a week of training next week to become certified in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), so she’ll be able to call herself a psychotherapist after that. This will help her with treating her patients with depression and anxiety a lot.

Our great friends John and Heidi Sebestyen will be visiting us in March and we can’t wait! If not before you’ll hear from us after they visit, because I’m sure we’ll have pics and stuff.

For now, if you want ski pics, go to http://www.suelfam.blogspot.com and you can follow the link on the right hand side to our pic archive.

Email us with what’s going on in your lives. We love hearing from you!

Jason (and Sarah)

Pictures: 1. The cure for a foggy cold day...hot chocolate! 2. Jason and Jez matching suspenders and drinks! 3. Beautiful Rila Mountains. 4. Jez in an action shot.

How We Spent the Holidays

2007-01-16T19:48:00.000Z

Well, we are back in the UK and settled in nicely. But, I did want to send around a little message and let you know what we’ve been up to. I am assuming most of you know that we travelled to the States, albeit for too short of a time, over Christmas and New Years. I’ll tell you a little about our trip:

We left London just before a massive front hit the city delaying flights for three days because of fog. Thankfully, none of that affected us. And, we had a short layover in Chicago, so our great friend John (of the infamous John and Heidi) rescued us from the clutches of the manic airport and took us to a travel plaza…we shared a few precious moments with John…unfortunately Heidi happened to be working that day. But, not to worry…they are coming to visit us in March! Hooray!

After all our flight and connections, we arrived in Little Rock, AR a little jet lagged and anxious to see everyone. My (Jason’s) family greeted us at the airport. They were there to simply provide us with transport. They let us borrow one of my family’s trucks. Now, this truck is probably a normal size truck in the States but to me, it felt like a tank. I’m pretty sure that you could fit the car we drive here in England in the bed of this truck. Anyway, once we got over the initial shock of the tank-ish truck I had to get used to the road again. I mean, it’s been 10 months since we were in the States so driving again on the other side of the road took a bit of adjusting. Not to mention, the size of the road…the road itself seemed like I could land an airplane on it. Additionally, Sarah had decided she wasn’t going to drive the whole time we were in the States. She said that it had taken long enough to get used to driving in the UK and she didn’t want to have to relearn it again. So, once we got back into the routine of driving we went straight to Sarah’s house in Ft. Smith.

We stayed in Fort Smith until Christmas. We saw all, or most, of Sarah’s family/extended family and we even had some of our best friends (the David’s, the twins, and the Suels together again!) come to visit us there. Then, on Christmas, we made our way down to Camden and stayed with my folks for 5 days. During this time we got to see most of my family and extended family and a lot of old high school friends that I haven’t seen in ages. It was good to catch up…especially since I probably won’t be coming to my 10-year reunion this summer. We went out to eat and then stayed up late talking about old times. Finally, we went to Little Rock to see some folks there and then we were on to Bowling Green, Ohio.

We had the best time in Arkansas, and we were interested to see how our time in Ohio would compare. And, to be honest, it was awesome! We got to see most of our friends there from our church and from my grad school program. In fact, we arrived at about midnight on a Saturday and I got a phone call from the worship team wondering if I wanted to help lead worship on Sunday morning…just like old times. Needless to say, I accepted and had a blast. Like I said, we caught up with a lot of friends there and shared some laughs and some tears.

My mother probably said it best when she pointed out that we will probably never have another time when we see all (or most) of the people that we love in one trip and over a two week period at that…it was truly a blessing. So, thanks to all of you who made a special effort to see us. It truly made us wish that we could see all of you on a more regular basis.

Then, it was back to the UK and that means back to work. I am, at this very moment, heavily involved in preparations for directing “The Wind in the Willows.” The show goes up around Easter time and we are beginning the process of rehearsals. It’s hectic for me…parents with all kinds of questions, etc. But, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t relish the opportunity. It’s exciting! Sarah’s back to work too. She is still enjoying all the experience she is gaining and loving what she does.

Because we had a little free time over the Holiday season, we had the opportunity to plan. So, here is what you can expect to read about in the coming months:

February – Ski Trip to Bulgaria (with best friends Claire and Jez!) and Keane Concert
March – John and Heidi Visit
April – Wind in the Willows, Jason Runs another Marathon, European Weekend Trip
May – European Weekend Trip, Justin Timberlake Concert, Church Youth Retreat

Okay, we’ll write again soon with updates. Hopefully when we write again, we can report that we had a great time skiing in Bulgaria and no one suffered any broken bones!

Turn off your computer and give someone a hug,

Jason (and Sarah)

Pictures: 1) Jason, Sarah, Heather, Shannon, David M., David J., and Brett...Great friends hanging at the Abbotts 2) The Suels and the Abbotts ready for Church on Christmas Eve 3) Suel Family (get into the antlers on the wall!) 4) Eating with friends at Easy Street in BG, Ohio

Budapast is the Best!

2006-11-21T20:20:00.000Z

Hello Everyone,

We’re refreshed after our weekend trip to Budapest, Hungary and I just wanted to fill you in! Yes, we went to Budapest this past weekend…that’s our 12th country since moving here, and it was just as exciting as the first! Honestly, we couldn’t have asked for a better autumn trip. We saw and did just about all there was to do.

We arrived in the evening and we got the layout of the city, strolled down Vaci street (shopping district) and went for a big Hungarian style meal. Hungarian means meat…and lots of it (at least that was our experience). So, Sarah and I went to a place that was mentioned in one of our guidebooks. The portions were big and the place was friendly. We went to leave a tip at the end of the meal and our waiter said that we had left too much…so he only took about half of it. After that we went back to our Hotel that was on the outskirts of the town so we had to take public transportation and such.

The next day we awoke to a breakfast at the hotel and then we were back on the tram headed into the heart of Budapest. I wanted to hit the Turkish baths first so we headed over Liberty Bridge to the Gellert Hotel, which is also famous for its baths. We bought our ticket and found ourselves in the infamous Turkish baths with all the other tourists and locals (and yes, I did experience the steam room, Milliken…and you were right). After spending the morning in the baths we left and went up Gellert hill to the Citadel were there is a statue that can be seen from anywhere in Budapest. It was quite a hike to the top so we stopped and took some photos and stuff before heading back down. On the way down we stopped at the monument to Saint Gellert himself. He was a Bishop who was a martyr.

We then went to the Castle District, and saw, well, the castle! Had lunch at another place mentioned in our guidebook—a cafeteria of sorts. We ate bean soup and chicken and potatoes…good hearty food again. Then on to the Parliament building. It wasn’t open cause it was Sunday, but it’s a great old building. Then on to St. Margaret Island, in the middle of the Danube River. We had been walking all day long, so we rented a hilarious 2-person bike thing, where we sit side-by-side and pedal this little car together. The island was beautiful, basically just a park, but with the autumn leaves changing, it was amazing. By the time we finished here it was dark. We headed across town to the State Opera House, a beautiful old building with winding staircases and 3 ton chandeliers! All red and gold inside. We asked if there was an opera on that night, and there was! It (an Opera called Jenufa) started in an hour, so we bought some great seats in the middle on the floor (not balcony). This was our biggest splurge—about 25 pounds. A ¼ of the cost of our entire trip! (Notice it was a CHEAP trip!) We were the only people there in jeans and backpacks, but we didn’t care! The opera was simply amazing, the best part of our trip.

We got back to the hotel late that night, then woke the next morning to check out. We put on our packs and headed back into town for a few more hours of wandering the streets and shops and the Jewish Quarter before heading back to the airport. The trip had basically no hitches, and ended up being just perfect!

So next up is our trip home to America for Christmas! We are so super excited! We will spend most of the time in Arkansas, but will be spending New Year’s Eve till the 3rd in Ohio. Now, Ohio friends, we did want to surprise you all and just show up at a party, so we confided our secret plan to Liz Dally, the only one who was supposed to know…but she let the cat out of the bag! All of a sudden we are getting emails from Ohioans saying they are excited to be seeing us over New Years! So, no surprise anymore (never tell Liz a secret!! j/k), we are definitely coming up to old BG. We’ll be there a few days, so we hope to see you all.

Write us soon with any updates, and we look forward to seeing almost everyone on this email list hopefully at Christmas!!

We love you,
Jason and Sarah Suel

PS: For all the music fan out there, on Sunday (Nov. 12th) Sarah and I went to see MUSE in concert in Cardiff, Wales. They were ace! Rockin’ tunes and great beats. Get into that!

At the Gellert Thermal Baths (check out Sarah's awesome rental suit!)
Sarah with a view of Budapest Castle
Jason (looking cool in his Tapes t-shirt) with a view of the Parliament
Inside the awesome State Opera House

One Year in the UK!

2006-10-30T21:47:00.000Z

Okay, so this blog is a little late. We actually celebrated our one-year anniversary of living here on October 28th. One year in the UK…we can’t believe it! So, I thought to celebrate I would list 28 things that we would not have experienced if we had not moved here. Here goes:

Meeting a wonderful new group of friends whom we cherish
Hearing the waves crash against the shore of Wales
Finding Platform 9 ¾ at Kings Cross Station in London (thanks to Harry Potter)
Celebrating Christmas on a crisp day in Paris, France
Listening to everyone’s “America” stories…Brits all seem to have at least one
Eating a true Belgian Waffle in Brussels
Coping with our extremely unstylish flat…complete with mismatched furniture
Lighting fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day…the 5th of November
Experiencing the Marionette Theatre in Prague, Czech Republic
Getting “Footloose” with our friend Suzy in Bristol
Biking up to the highest point of Corfu, Greece
Learning how to order a meal at a Pub
Exploring ruins in Saronda, Albania
Learning the intricacies of the British driving system
Taking in the sunset from the Algarve in Portugal
Involving ourselves in the ministry of Hereford Baptist Church
Chalking up 900 miles on the odometer as we experienced Ireleand/Northern Ireland
Running a marathon in Blackpool
Chummin’ around with Patrick in Gaudi’s home: Barcelona, Spain
Remembering to call them “trousers” and not “pants”
Seeing and hearing Big Ben for the first time
Using a myriad of new terminology, like: mingin, bangers n’ mash, bits, and burgle
Taking pictures with friends outside of London’s “Filthy McNasty’s”
Changing from Fahrenheit to Celsius
Teaching our Hereford friends the difference between a taco and a burrito
Learning how to make British style flapjacks…not the pancake kind
Watching Sarah perform in the musical “Singin’ in the Rain”
Establishing ourselves in Hereford, England and all its quaint beauty

Of course all these things, as great as they are, will never replace the memories and experiences that we share with all of our friends Stateside. And family, we miss you more today than ever. We hope to see all of you, family and friends, very soon so that we can make some more memories. Thanks for reading all the communications we send out and, as always, we would love to hear from you.

Sincerest Love,

Jason and Sarah

Rugby, Running, and Random

2006-10-18T22:31:00.000+01:00

Hello gang,

It’s been a while, so let’s talk. Since the last email, Sarah and I haven’t visited any new and exciting countries…we’ve just had a nice relaxing time here in the UK…but that doesn’t mean our lives have been dull and mundane…I’ll fill you in.

We went to a concert in Cardiff, Wales…the band is called Embrace. They are pretty big here in the UK and getting bigger in the States. The night was fun…Sarah and I haven’t been to a concert since seeing Gavin DeGraw in Toledo…we’ll be in Cardiff to see Muse on Nov. 4th…that’s another concert I’m looking forward to!

My birthday, as you may remember, was on Sept. 3rd. Sarah bought us tickets to a Rugby match in the nearby town of Bristol…the game was Bristol vs. Bath. These are two cities that are close to each other so the match was something of a local rivalry. We went with our friends Claire and Jez and had a wicked time! I’ve been to a few football (soccer) matches, but Rugby was different. The rules are similar to American Football, so it was easy to understand it…and even when we didn’t understand it, we still were able to enjoy getting into the game with the crowd around us. The final score of the game…I think, was Bristol’s 27 to Bath’s 22, which was good because we were supporting Bristol. So that was a lot of fun.

The next exciting thing I did was run the Cardiff Half Marathon on October 15th. There was much more support for this event than when I ran the full Marathon in Blackpool this past June. I did feel like a sell-out because I opted for the Half Marathon instead of the Full, but it was a good challenge and it was fun. Sarah is such a trooper…she always goes to these Marathons and walks around with the camera and takes my picture…so we’ve got some pics now.

As for traveling, we’ve got a trip booked for Budapest, Hungary in November. Then in February, we’ve booked a trip with our friends Claire and Jez to go skiing in Bulgaria! We are SUPER excited about both of these things.

On the other hand, some rather tragic news nearly stopped us in our tracks this month. A very dear friend of ours was killed in a car accident. His name was Preston Pahl. He was a great friend of ours in Bowling Green and he was the fiancée of another dear friend, Suzy Dally. You may remember that Suzy is one of the few people who have come to visit us here in England. We lived with the Dally family for a couple of months before we moved to England, so we are close to the whole family. To say the least, everyone in Bowling Green is aching over this loss. We are too. He was killed on his way back to University when a Semi ran into him from behind forcing him to go head first into oncoming traffic. He died on the scene. My heart aches for Suzy. They were engaged for one day shy of a month, by my calculations. I can’t imagine the situation that Suzy is in, but I do know one thing…it made me consider how blessed I am to still be living the life that I love. And, I encourage you to look at your life as well and think if you died tomorrow, would you be proud of the life you’ve lived? It’s a hard question and it’s okay to wrestle with it.

For our friends Suzy and the Dally family, and the Pahl family, we ask for your prayers and support. They need it. Needless to say, worlds have been drastically changed.

For those of you who don’t know, we’ll be coming home this Christmas. We’ll be home for 2 weeks, which will be great. Anyone interested in meeting up with us, please get in touch. We’re happy to meet up with as many friends as we can.

We hope to hear from you all soon, and love getting updates and pictures from all of you.

Love from England,
Jason and Sarah

Pictured: 1. An English Country Lane. 2. The Rugby Match. 3. Finishing the Half Marathon in Millenium Stadium. 4. After the Marathon, outside Cardiff Castle.

Singin' in the Rain w/Louie

2006-09-10T21:26:00.000+01:00

Gang,

So, It’s been a little while since we last informed you about our exciting lives…I’ll pick up where I left off. Our friend Patrick left and as soon as he was gone Sarah started rehearsals for the Courtyard Theatre’s production of “Singin’ in the Rain.” She is now into the run of the production. It’s going great for her. She is having an interesting experience to say the least. She is working from 9 to 5 as usual and after that she’s off to the theatre from 6:30 until 10:30. I think she’ll be glad when it’s over, but she is enjoying it while it lasts.

Also, Sarah made friends with another member of the community cast. She is in the community cast but she is not from this community. She is from Winchester. She had accommodation for a little while but when that was over, she didn’t have anywhere to stay. And, we decided to invite her to stay with us. So, for most of the month of September we will have the lovely Saira Belle staying with us. It’s been a trip. She stays in the living room and we have to be as quiet as mice ☺

My job is going well. I really don’t have much to report about that except to say that I love it!

Get into this…we totally met Louie Giglio. I realize that name may not mean anything to some of you. But, he is a huge evangelical preacher in the US. His name is associated with the Passion Movement, One Day, Chris Tomlin, and the David Crowder Band. We have heard him speak on a few special occasions. However, we are always in the crowd with thousands of other people. Well, before Louie was a big speaker and he was just a campus pastor in Texas, he used to do short term missions to England and even to the county of Herefordshire! So, he was back. Speaking to a crowd of about 800. And at the end of his talk, we walked right up to him and talked. It was totally weird. Before, we had only seen him on a platform surrounded by so many people and now we were just talking to him. We heard him give 2 messages…they were both inspiring. Anyway, I figured some of you who are Louie fans would want to know that.

Our next trip will be to Budapest in November. We just booked it yesterday. But before then we have a slew of other interesting things to look forward to. We are seeing two concerts: Embrace and Muse. And I’m running a half-marathon in Cardiff. Also, for my birthday (Sept. 3…27 years) Sarah got tickets to a Rugby game on Oct. 1st. It’s going to be fun. Our friends Claire and Jez will be going with us. That will be sweet!

Speaking of my birthday. We had a really nice time. We barbecued up at Claire and Jez’s and later that night we went old school and set up a fort in the living room. A fort is, you know, made of clothespins, sheets and chairs. We watched a movie under there. Sweet!

Also, be thinking about us on Tuesday. We are taking the first part of our Driving Test…the theory part. I know you probably think it will be easy because we have been driving…but the test system is so different here. About 50% of people fail their first time. If we fail…it will stink for both of us…so, pray for us on Tuesday.

I guess that is about all. Again, we have more photos available at www.suelfam.blogspot.com AND I have finally bitten the bullet and set up a myspace account. I have been avoiding setting it up, but now it’s done and I would love for you to add us as a friend. You’ll find us at www.myspace.com/suelfam. Email back with exciting updates!

Happy September and good luck to all you students!

Jason (and Sarah)

Pics: 1. Sarah in "Singin' in the Rain" 2. Jason and the ole b-day cake 3. Sarah and some of the cast (Saira, our houseguest, is next to Sarah) 4. All the friends in "the fort" for the b-day party!

Oh, The Places We've Seen

2006-08-10T18:10:00.000+01:00

Hello to you again, friends

Wow, we have had an exciting month! But, whew I’m glad we are settled again. We last left you as we had just returned from Portugal. Since then we had a weekend in Ireland and Northern Ireland, a weekend in Barcelona, a week with our friend Patrick visiting from the States, and another weekend in London. Let’s get up to speed…

The Ireland Trip…
We flew into Belfast, which is the capital of Northern Ireland. At the airport we rented a car…our means of travel! We had a day and night in Belfast and on that first day we traveled to the northern most tip of the country to a place called the Giant’s Causeway: a collection of natural hexagonal rocks. The only other one like it in the world is on the coast of Scotland. In fact, both formations were once a part of the same chain…the rocks were formed from volcanic activity. We then drove around Ireland taking in the Cliffs of Moher, the Dingle Peninsula, Clonmacnoise (an ancient Monastic city), The Rock of Cashel, and the towns of Dingle, Cork, Blarney (home of the Blarney stone) and Dublin where we ended our trip.

I can’t say enough about what a great time we had. We put 900 miles on the car we rented and when we returned it we were exhausted. But, the beauty we took in was unmatched.

The Barcelona Trip…
Well, just getting to Barcelona was a trip in itself. Our original flight had a layover in Frankfurt, Germany. Upon arrival in Frankfurt we were informed that the employees of the Barcelona airport went on strike, which wouldn’t be resolved that day. So, after waiting in the line for the transfer desk for about 5 hours, we were finally told that the best the airline could offer us was to fly us out in about a half hour to Düsseldorf, where the airline would pay for us to have a night in a hotel. After the hotel and early the next morning we would board a flight to Barcelona. And that’s exactly what we did. So, instead of arriving in Barcelona Friday morning, we got in on Saturday morning. All in all, we didn’t lose much time in Barcelona, but we did gain a few grey hairs from the airport turmoil.

Once we got to Barcelona we met up with our great friend Patrick Peringer. I invite you to check out his website (http://myspace.com/peringer) if you want to hear more about the trip. But, from our perspective it was a great time. Barcelona is the city of Gaudi. Gaudi is an artist, whose sculptures and architectural designs are prominent in the city. In fact, some say that Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia is to Barcelona what the Eiffel Tower in to Paris. We took in the Gaudi (and his contemporaries), enjoyed the street performers along Las Ramblas (the main city strip), and tanned and swam at the beach. It was Patrick’s first time to swim in the sea and he was “well chuffed” about it (well chuffed is a British expression for very excited). It was great fun in Barcelona, and although our time in Barcelona was over…our time with Patrick was just beginning!

Patrick’s Visit…
Patrick was with us for a little over a week and we did a lot in that time despite both Sarah and I having to work. We explored Hereford and introduced Patrick to our friends here. Many laughs were shared over card and dice games. We went for a walk in the nearby Forest of Dean. We took Patrick to our local (and favorite) castle called Goodrich castle. We went to a local pub. We went for a night out in our neighboring town of Worcester where we ate Portuguese food and saw “The Breakup” at the cinema. And then we were off to London.

All of our visiting guests love to visit London. With Patrick, we did the usual: Big Ben, Westminster Abbey (we actually went inside this time), Trafalgar and Leister Squares, St. Paul’s, the London Eye, Millennium Bridge, Shakespeare’s Globe, Buckingham Palace (we witnessed the changing of the guard…in the rain ☹) and the parks. After, just about two days of this we left Patrick. He had one more night to spend and a flight to catch early the next morning. I do know that after he left us he went to the Tate Modern Museum and thoroughly enjoyed the Kandinsky exhibit.

Back To Normal?

Not exactly… I am still finding my footing for my new job. Sarah has now started rehearsals for “Singin’ in the Rain.” I’m not in it because it conflicts with my new job. But, I work for the theatre, which is doing the show, so I do have some involvement. And, we are studying up for our driving test. That’s right…driving test. We are allowed to drive on our U.S. license for up to one year and then we have to pass both written and practical parts of the U.K. drivers test. I know…it’s dumb. But, that’s the way it is. So, we have to pass the test before October 28th (that was our date of arrival one year ago).

So, are things normal? No…but we wouldn’t have it any other way! That’s all for now, but we would love to hear from all of you. Sent us an email if you get a chance.

Love to All,

Jason (and Sarah)

Pictured: Jason and Sarah at the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland (the pic with hexaganol shaped rocks). Jason and Sarah in front of the majestic Cliffs of Moher (Ireland). Patrick and Jason in front of the south entrance to Sagrada Familia (Barcelona). Jason and Sarah near Gaudi's infamous Lizard Fountain in Barcelona.

New Job and a Visit to the Algarve

2006-07-18T20:58:00.000+01:00

Pictures) The beach in Portugal...cliffs and caves!
We took kayaks through the caves for a first-hand look inside them. It was pitch black inside some of them, and with the waves pushing us UP and DOWN about to knock our heads into the sides of the caves, it was a bit scary! But worth it!

Hello all!

For those of you who don't know, we've got great news...Jason's got a new job here in Hereford! He'll be starting as the Education Officer/Youth Drama Person at the local theatre in Hereford! It's the Courtyard Theatre. This means he'll be in charge of all the youth theatre (including directing "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" for 2 casts of 80 kids!!) as well as working with all the primary schools in Herefordshire. He'll collaborate with the primary school teachers and lead interactive workshops for the classes on whatever subject the teacher is doing at that time. For example, he had to do a workshop for his interview as a practice, and he did one on "Unity and Diversity". He did loads of activities with the kids teaching them about this subject.

Anyways, this is great news, and means he'll start August 1. It is a full-time job with good pay. He gets 4 weeks vacation time (not quite as much as normal, but still good!) plus holidays and sick leave. Since he starts in August, and then doesn't get a vacation till Christmas (he has to take them when the kids are out), we're getting a lot of traveling in now...

So we've just gotten back from another adventure, this time in the Algarve. That means Portugal. We went with our friends Claire and Jez, and Claire's brother Keith. Claire's friend's fiancee's parents have this place that we got for a super good deal....luxurious golf resort! The beaches in Portugal are unbelievable, with cliffs above them and steep long staircases leading you from the cliffs to the beaches. All along the beaches there are caves in these cliffs. We kayaked inside the caves and took a boat trip one day all through the caves. So cool. (Until I found out I get seasick...just like in the movies, I was puking over the side of the boat...not my most glorious moment!)

Anyways, after I send this email, I'll be putting some pics on our blogsite, so check them out.

We leave for a roadtrip through Northern Ireland and Ireland on Friday! Another long weekend of fun! Also, Jason and I celebrate 4 years of marriage this Thursday! Yay!

Missing you all but having a blast in Europe!

The Suels

Pictured: 1. Took a boat trip through the caves. 2. Jason, Sarah, Keith, Claire, and Jez on the boat. 3. Walking through the town of Lagos to eat fresh fish for dinner one night.

Summer Has Started!

2006-06-22T23:00:00.000+01:00

Hello Family and Friends,

Well we have a lot to update you on, so I’ll get right to the good stuff. I’ve decided to divide this email into sections, so that it will be easy for you to devour. If you are like me and have trouble holding your attention for the duration of a long email, treat the sections of this email like chapters in a book…feel free to take a nap or have a snack after you have finished the section. But, be sure to return to the email for “another exciting chapter in the lives of Jason and Sarah Suel!” (to be said in some announcer voice)

Sports and Leisure:

Well, we are actively involved now in some sporting activities that you should know about. First, Sarah has continued her impressive regimen at the gym…getting up at 7 in the morning to exercise…sometimes I join her. She has also started taking some classes at the gym with our friends Claire and Rosanna.

I have been playing squash at the gym with Sarah and also with my friend Jez. We aren’t really that good, but it’s a fun game and it’s similar to racquetball. Sarah and I really became great friends in college while playing racquetball, so the game holds great memories for us. I decided to take my squash game to the next level and, along with friends Jez and Chris, have joined the squash league. Exciting!

Finally, on June 4th, I ran in the Blackpool marathon. Marathons in England are different...to say the least. There is nothing like running a marathon and have few to no supporters. The last few miles, which are usually full of people cheering you on, are basically full of tumbleweeds and people giving us funny looks. I would let Sarah type some on this subject but she gets too frustrated and angry. Anyway, despite lack of support I finished the Marathon in a little over 4 hrs. Not the time I trained for, but not bad considering. I am planning to do the next one in October in Cardiff and then, hopefully, London!

Travel:

Well, you can count two more countries as having been visited by us. This month we took our much-anticipated vacation to Greece. Unlike our other trips where we have tried to see the landmarks and stuff in the city we were visiting, this time we just wanted to relax. So, we didn’t go to Athens or Crete or Rhodes or any of the super well-known Greek places. Instead we had a great time on the Island of Corfu (Rhoda Beach to be exact). We stayed for one week and that week saw us rent bikes and cycle to the highest point on the island (Mt. Pantakrator), we rented bikes and found some more secluded beaches away from the main tourist path, we had a night out in Corfu Town where we did some shopping and took in the sights, and finally we took a ferry boat trip to the country of Albania…that’s right Albania! We visited Saranda…an impoverished town that is trying desperately to improve its economy, and we visited the ancient city of Butrint. This little city was basically just ruins. We had a tour guide and all and he showed us all around and we could see the Greek, Roman, Turkish, and Venetian influences…really interesting place! And, one more country we can say that we have set foot in!

Leisure:

On a very exciting note, Sarah and I have both auditioned and been accepted into the cast of “Singin’ in the Rain.” The musical is being presented at our local theatre and I am so excited about being in the cast with Sarah! The only other play we’ve been in (the only play Sarah has been in) was “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” back in 1999. So, be sure to send your congratulations to Sarah. She had to audition and perform a song and everything! I’m so proud of her!

Future:

Another exciting moth awaits us. Towards the end of July we will be vacationing in Ireland and Northern Ireland…two more countries! And, as soon as we get home our great friend will visit us from Bowling Green, Mr. Patrick Peringer. We are so excited about his visit! He’ll be here for a week and a half or so…oh man, can’t wait!

Well I guess that just about does it for now.
We love you all and hope to her from you (or see you) very soon,

Jason (Sarah)

Pictured are Jason at the Blackpool Marathon (with Blackpool Tower in the background), Sarah at the ancient city of Butrint, Albania ducking under some ruins, the lovely view from our beach towels on Rhoda Beach, and Jason and Sarah on their bike ride to the highest point on Corfu Island!

Inviting the Abbotts and Prague

2006-05-05T09:18:00.000+01:00

Hello Friends & Family, Blokes and Girls, Lads and Lasses,

It’s Jason here writing to tell you about the exciting lives of the “SuelFam.” This month we have much to discuss and it centers around two interesting subjects: namely, the visit from Sarah’s Parents (the Abbotts) and our recent trip to Prague, Czech Republic.

First, let’s tackle the Abbott trip. Sarah’s mom and dad flew into the UK on an overcast spring day and much to their dismay…the weather didn’t get much better. For the week and a half they were here we did a lot of cool stuff though. I’ll recap the highlights:
• Driving all over Herefordshire and viewing the beautiful scenery and seeing some pretty need little villages
• Celebrating Easter with a big meal at our friends’ Claire and Jez’s house. There were at least 15 guests in total and after our big meal we threw around the American football that Sarah’s dad brought us (me) from the States.
• Going to a proper Castle called Goodrich Castle which is about 30 minutes from our door
• Experiencing Stratford-on-Avon (Shakespeare’s home): we took in the regularly touristy stuff as well and seeing Romeo and Juliet as performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company
• Navigating our way through Bath, which is one of our favourite places to take our guests but on this occasion, it was so busy that I had to drive around a parking garage for over 30 minutes…the Abbotts were freakin’ out!
• And, of course, there was London…all the usual highlights with one added benefit…the wheelchair. Let me tell you the London underground has never heard so much squealing as when me and Mr. Abbott helped Sarah’s mom down an escalator!

They flew out on a rather pleasant Monday, we breathed a quick sigh of relief and we were off again! This time we flew to Prague on Saturday and stayed until Monday. Prague is definitely a city we would recommend. It is different enough to where you are really taking in another culture and it is small enough that it is manageable. The only problem is that it is full of tourists!

We took in the Castle, the Astronomical clock (when it was built, the artist was blinded after he had built it so that he could never create another like it…yikes!), the Art Nouveau (the movement started here), and, of course, Marionettes. Yes, the Marionette tradition dates back 300 years in Prague so I was in puppet heaven! And I managed to get Sarah to let me buy a handcrafted Czech Marionette. Another interesting fact, Prague is the home of Good King Wenceslas of Christmas Song fame. Actually, he wasn’t a king but a duke. Either way, Sarah and I were humming the Carol for most of the trip.

And now we are home again to relax for the next couple of weeks until June 4th when I will be running the Blackpool Marathon…excitement is building and training is going well. I can’t describe to you how beautiful it is here in the springtime. Flowers are blooming and they have many flowering trees. There are fields of yellow amongst the green. I assume this is some sort of yellow flower/weed, but when there is an entire field of yellow it is truly breath taking.
Be sure to check out our new pictures on our Webshots page (there’s a link to the Pic Archive on the right hand side of this page). There is plenty of new material there. We hope this email finds you well and enjoying your spring. We’ll email you again soon, but until then email us back and let us know what is going on with all of you. We LOVE to hear about your lives!

Peace,
Jason (Sarah)

(Pics: 1. The Abbotts in Stratford-on-Avon 2. The Abbotts in front of Big Ben 3. What the Czech!?! An interesting street sign in Prague 4. The Astronomical Clock in Prague)

Suel's Relaxing with Friends and Family

2006-03-30T19:25:00.000+01:00

Hanging out with Suzy, on a typical Herefordshire country walk and partying in Bristol (with random boys who jumped in our picture!)
Hello all!

Well, for once we're not sending you pictures of a trip we've recently gone on! We've been taking it easy since we got back from Belgium, France, and the States. We had Suzy Dally visiting for about 10 days once we got home from America, and we had a blast with her, of course. We visited several different cities, saw the sights, and enjoyed the simple Herefordian life with her. Since then, we've had several weekends now of just hanging out, something we haven't had in awhile. It's been nice.

Jason's news: Still working as a youth worker, still enjoying it. He's ready to lead a drama class of his own, and his boss is up for it. So he's planning that now. Jason was sick last week, a bacterial infection that lasted about a week. But it's almost gone now, just a small cough left. Jason and I are going to start up an 18-30s ministry at our church, and will be having our first meeting April 7. We'll see how that goes! And Jason is also still playing guitar in the Sunday evening services at our church. This is the more contemporary, casual service. They call it a Cafe Service, cause there's tables and quizzes and snacks. It's fun.

Sarah's news: Still loving my job, it's going great. It's been getting busier, I've recieved over 10 new patients this week, so I'm up to >30 now. It's crazy trying to schedule in that many people! But it's good being that busy, too. I've never bored! I'm starting up my first community group soon, teaching an Anxiety Management group to about 8 old ladies who suffer from panic attacks. Should be interesting! I'm looking for a venue and transport now, so once that works out, I should be up and running. Still working out at the gym about 4 mornings a week. Still on my own 3 evenings a week while Jason works (that's what's happening now).

The Abbott's (Sarah's parents) will be visiting on Easter week, for about 12 days. Looking forward to being crammed in our tiny house for that long! Just kidding, but we are looking forward to showing off our little town and home. We'll be heading to Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon (for some Shakespeare!), and London. Also, all the surrounding villages around Herefordshire. Should be fun!

We've just had daylight savings time here (yours in the States is coming up), and it's still bright and sunny outside now with it being almost 7pm. It's already throwing me off!

We're heading to Northampton this weekend, for a little getaway for one night. We found a sweet Spa Weekend deal online in a 4-star hotel. It looks beautiful!

We'll talk to you soon, keep us updated. Send us some info on you, and we'll look forward to hearing from you! We love you all!

Jason and Sarah Suel
Top: Jason's family (parents, sister & her hubbie, and newphews)
Middle: Sarah's mom and grandma
Bottom: New friends Claire and Jez (we love them!)

Great Times & Rocky Times

2006-02-23T15:08:00.000Z

Hello all,

I (Jason) am writing this blog from the Atlanta airport. Crazy, I know…we are back in the States, unannounced. Unfortunately this is due to the recent passing of my Grandfather on my Father’s side, my Pappaw. This happened Monday morning and we should arrive back home Tuesday night in time for the funeral on Wednesday…hopefully I’ll have sent this email by then. You should know that my Pappaw died peacefully in his sleep due to heart complications. His health had been declining these past few months so, although we are certainly saddened by the news, we are not shocked by it. He is survived by his wife, my Mammaw, who is as strong as she is beautiful. Keep her in your prayers.

But…there is more to tell. While we are in America for the week, last week(end) we were in Belgium. I thought I should write a little bit about our wonderful visit. We left last Thursday from Hereford and took the coach (bus) to London. We played in London for the day and got up early the next morning to head to the Eurostar (train) station. That’s right, instead of flying we took the train, through the Chunnel and on to Brussels! That was a fun experience.

We arrived in Brussels to disappointing weather, but we tried to stick it out and do what we could that first day. So, we went to a comic museum. Among other things, Belgium is famous for comics. Some of you may remember the popular cartoon “Tin-Tin” about a boy and his dog Snowy and I’m sure you all remember the “Smurfs.” Both of these are apparently products of Belgium. The hotel we stayed in was a highlight of our trip, the Art Siru Hotel. In the late 80s, artists were given free-reign to the hotel, to paint and design each room as they wished. Each room was different, and told the story of the artist with a picture of them. It was amazing! Plus, we were given an “American” buffet breakfast daily!

The next day we took a side trip to Bruges, a medieval town about an hour away by train. It has canals all through it, with many bridges (Bruges means “bridge”). It is a beautiful and picturesque city, and we enjoyed our day. We ate Belgian waffles (much sweeter and delicious!) and bought plenty of Belgian chocolate.

Our last day was spent back in Brussels with better weather this time. We wandered around for a good hour first thing, lost. Brussels is one of the most difficult cities to navigate, we found. Finally, we found all the touristy things: the Grand’ Place (main square), Hotel deVille, and Mannekin Pis (Peeing boy statue!). Good fun. Then we took the tram up to another part of town to visit the Atomium, which reopened the day before, so it was sparkly and new. This is a huge building in the shape of an atom, built in 1958 for the World’s Fair. Inside is a museum and was very interesting. All in all, it was a great trip. We hope this trip back home will be good as well. It will be really good to see everyone. However, as soon as we return home (England), we will need to drive back to London on Thursday to pick up our great friend and adopted family, Suzy Dally. We will host her in the UK for a little over a week and we are looking forward to a really good time.

I guess that is all. Everything seems like a whirlwind to us: London, Belgium, Hereford, US, and back. One thing is for sure…there’s never a dull moment for Sarah and I. We are really thankful for that at this time in our lives.

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers,

Jason and Sarah

Wonderful Welsh Walks

2006-02-09T20:05:00.000Z

Hello all!

We have just come home from a weekend trip to St. David's in Wales. Just thought we'd tell you about it. St. David's is about 3 hours almost directly west of us (London is 3 hours east of us). It's on the coast. My supervisor at work, Cheryl, goes there often and recommended it. It is super popular in the summer for surfers and coastal walkers, but since we went in February, it was almost deserted! We felt like we were the only ones there, it was so peaceful.

Basically, St. David's is the birthplace of St. David. So his bones are kept in a beautiful cathedral in the city. Also, this is the smallest city in Britain. Which actually doesn't mean much, cause there are a million "villages" in Britain which are much smaller. But technically, it's the smallest "city". Also, since it's on the coast, there are miles of coastal walking paths, along cliffs above the crashing ocean waves. It was so beautiful.

So, we stayed in a B&B, the only people staying there. It was nice, and smack in the middle of the city. We explored the cathedral, and also the "Bishop's Palace", right next to the cathedral. This was ruins of a palace built in the 1300s for all the Bishops of the time to live and work from. It was so amazing. We were able to walk all through the rooms and crypts, and again, we were the only people in there for the entire time we toured around it! Spooky, crawling through some of the dark corners and stairwells!

Later that day we walked St. David's Head, about 4-5 miles along the beach and cliffs. We didn't run into much this day, except beautiful scenery. The next day, we drove up a little farther to a tiny fisherman's village called Porthgain (pronounced port-gine). We walked to Aberreidi Bay, where along the 4-mile walk, we went down to a rocky beach, shared the paths with about a million stray sheep, and visited the "blue lagoon" (an old quarry). It was a nicer walk than the day before. We ended the trip with lunch at "the Sloop Inn", built in 1729 for the fishermen in Porthgain, and still serving happy customers like us!

We've got pictures from Wales on our website, you should check them out. (suelfam.blogspot.com). Look under "pic archives" and St. David's.

We are well this week, Jason's been working a lot, but enjoying it. He has to commute by bus, which is a pain, as well as costly, so whenever he can snag my car, he does. He's getting it all day tomorrow cause I've got a work conference, so he's glad for that freedom!

We are going on a Youth Retreat Weekend this weekend with our church's youth group as sponsors. It will be the first church youth work we'll have done since Maumelle! We are excited, there will be 25 kids going, as well as our 4 good friends (2 other married couples). Should be fun. Then next weekend will be a 4 day trip to Brussels.

Keep us in your prayers, as we do for you. Keep us updated, as well, we love your encouragement, support, and love.

God bless,
Sarah and Jason Suel

Top photo: We climbed down a million steep creeky rusty stairs down to this beach...the water was freezing!

Bottom photo: A view from inside the Bishop's Palace walls to St. David's Cathedral.

The Beauty of Settling In...

2006-01-29T21:40:00.000Z

<--Fog in the Welsh valley makes for a picturesque Sunday Drive.

Hello friends and family!

Sorry it’s been awhile since we’ve updated you all on what England life has been like, but getting settled has had us busy! But here’s the British scoop:

Jason: Has quit waiting tables, and is now working full-time as a Youth Worker in Ross, a nearby town (about 15 miles south of Hereford). He has officially started, but the kids don’t start coming to sessions until mid-Feb. He’ll be teaching the teenagers drama stuff 3 evenings a week in order to keep them out of trouble. They are from somewhat poor neighborhoods with a good chance of them getting into drugs, etc., so this program is offered for them. It is super popular and the kids love it. He’s excited to get going on it. His employer is a guy named Barry, and they hit it off right at the start. He’s a Christian, too, and got married the same year as us. They have him on full-time through March. Then in March, the fiscal year starts over and they’ll “reassess”. He may get bumped down to part-time then because of finances, in which case he has gotten certified as a life guard this past week in order to take up extra hours at the Leisure Pool.

Sarah: Still loving my job, getting more and more into it and taking on more work. My patients are all so great. I go into their homes so I really get to know them on their turf and their families, etc. It’s really personal, which I really like. And when I see that I’m making a difference, it means so much. Driving has gotten much better, no more being scared. I can drive through a narrow street with less than 6” between my side mirrors and other traffic (on both sides usually) straight up a hill going about 60 mph through a thick fog with no problems now! That’s pretty typical, actually!

Travel: Since our Christmas in Paris went so well, we’ve got a few more trips up our sleeve…we’ve just book tickets to Brussels on Eurostar (train) for February for 3 nights. We’ll probably take a day and go to Bruges. (These are both in Belgium). Then when our friend Suzy Dally comes to visit (our first visitor!! We’re SO excited!), we’ll go to Cardiff (capital of Wales) and London for sure, and probably Stonehenge. Then at the end of March, a trip to Prague in the Czech Republic. Then in April, Sarah’s parents are planning a trip over (yay!), so we’ll go wherever they want to go. Then in May, we’re hoping for a trip to Romania and Hungary with our friend Adi. Then in July, a trip to Ireland has been booked, and possibly a trip to Spain with our friend Patrick. Then we plan to go to Greece for a week in August!! So that’s the plan so far for the next months! Jason has had to plan his vacation times for his new job/boss, so we were made to actually decide on a few things.

Sunday afternoons have become our “exploring” days after church. We just take the car out to a nearby village or town and explore. So far we’ve seen almost every neighboring Hereford area. It’s really fun.

We are soon to become members of the Baptist Church here in Hereford. We are hoping to set up some sort of young adult ministry here (like in BG), although on a much smaller scale. There are no ministries like this here.

We went on our first British hike this Saturday with some friends. It was bizarre! No trees or vegetation, only snow and ice! And open fields and hills. And wild horses and sheep! It was super different than any hike we’ve ever done. We took some pictures, and are going to put them on our blogsite tonight, so take a peek when you can. It’s really beautiful.

So that’s us in a nutshell! Keep us up to date with yourselves and families. We always love to hear what you’re up to. Take care and God bless, and come visit when you can!!

Love in Christ,
Jason and Sarah Suel

PS: Be sure to click on the Pic Archive link on the menu to the right to check out new photos!!!
<--Six friends hiking up Hay Bluff on the Welsh/English border
Jamie, Jason and Jez are anxious to get down for a cup of tea.

Pic Archive!!!

2006-01-04T00:28:00.000Z

We have set up a Picture Archive to showcase many more photos. If you are interested you can visit us at http://community.webshots.com/user/suelfam, or you can click the link labeled Pic Archive under the 'Links' category on the right hand side of this page.

Suel's in Paris

2005-12-31T17:03:00.000Z

Hello Everyone,

We wish you very Happy Holidays from the UK! We are just writing to tell you how our Christmas was and hopefully hear back from some of you about yours. Also, we are happy to inform you that we have started a blog site! When we last emailed we sent pics and adding those pics took us a long time…especially with about 150 of you to email! So, we started this site in order to post more pics for you to look at without having to email them. Don’t worry, you will still receive pics in our emails from time to time, but if you are really interested in our travel pictures, check us out at http://suelfam.blogspot.com. The messages that will appear on the blog will be the same as our emails, so don’t feel like you have to read it again. Now, on to Christmas…

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to travel home for Christmas. Instead of sulking at our flat for the holiday, we decided to go to Paris! We left early Christmas morning and came home the following Wednesday. So, we had 3 days and 3 nights in the beautiful city of Paris! The weather was really cold, and we walked the entire city several times in the cold, but it was worth it! The city is totally lit up at night, and great. It snowed all day Tuesday, and was beautiful. We ate a French picnic lunch every day from the fresh markets. We went to basically every monument there, with our museum pass. It was great…the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph, Moulin Rouge, Notre Dame, Musee d’Orsay, Saint Chappelle, Rodin Museum, you name it! It was a great, albeit strange, Christmas!

Tonight is New Year’s Eve. Jason got off work early, just came home at 4pm. We are going to a party tonight then will hang out with our friends Claire and Jez. Should be fun. We hope you are all doing well, and have a great new year! Thanks for keeping in touch, we always look forward to emails!

God bless,
Sarah and Jason

2005-12-31T16:06:00.000Z

Ahhh...Paris: the City of Love!

Champs Elyses...the big Avenue

Outside the Moulin Rouge

A gargoyle on top of the Notre Dame...367 steps high. Every gargoyle was different...there were lots of them!

Outside the Pyramid of the Louvre Museum

2005-12-31T16:00:00.000Z

Saint Chapelle's beautiful stained glass.

Dinner in our tiny hotel room.

You think about that! Sarah in front of her favorite sculptor (Rodin's) "The Thinker."

Notre Dame welcomes us!

The Pompideau building...this building has all of the plumbing and air vents outside the building instead of inside. A real architectural innovation.

Happy Christmas from Hereford!

2005-12-20T15:04:00.000Z

Happy Christmas everyone!

(We don't say "merry" here, it's "happy"!)

We are well and finally settled into our new home in Hereford! The Christmas lights are up in High Town, along with the Carousel that goes round with carols singing for the past month now. It's really lovely
here in the town.

I (Sarah) am really enjoying my work, my clients are so great...elderly and confused with dementia or anxiety or depression. I love seeing them through the week, and working on their problems. I take them to town or go for a walk or clean their wardrobes or freezers...organize them better and get them to figure out their daily lives a little better. I got my first Christmas present today, from my favorite client...pansies for my window box! I told him about it and that I didn't know what to put in my window box at home in the winter, and he bought them for me! Along with a gift card to a bookstore and a nice card for me and Jason.

Jason is still waiting tables at the Left Bank, the posh restaurant here in town. He is doing lots of Christmas parties there and still working late hours. He is quitting after Christmas, though, as he got offered 2 other jobs: one as a Youth Worker, working with troubled teens in Ross (a neighboring town, about 10 miles south) 3 nights a week. They want him to incorporate drama into their evening sessions. And they are paying him loads of money for 3 nights! And during the days, he'll lifeguard at the Leisure Center. He will get to choose his own hours and he'll get paid more than waiting tables. So he's excited to start this new schedule.

We are settled into our new flat now, with everything we need. Our plans for Christmas this year, since we're on our
own and can't come home, is to take our 3 days off and go to Paris! We will leave Christmas morning and be back on Wednesday. We found a good deal for flights and 3 nights in a hotel. We'll be staying right near Montmarte, where the Moulin Rouge is! This way, we can use our Christmas money from our families on a great trip and we won't be so sad about not being in Arkansas!

We'll write more, but we do wish you each the best Christmas! Please keep in touch, and take care!

Love always,
Sarah and Jason Suel

No Turkey Day in the UK!

2005-11-21T23:19:00.000Z

Friends and Family (all those celebrating Turkey Day), Greetings from England!

Well, we’ve finally made it! After months of anticipation and excitement, we are finally settled here in Hereford, UK. Thank you for all the support, prayers, and thoughts you may have sent our way!

We had to undergo quite a few mishaps before arriving in the UK (and some since we’ve been here), but all is well. Moving is never easy…and certainly not moving continents. Our original departure date was Oct. 7th, but due to some work permit issues, we did not arrive in the UK until Oct. 28th. We took the plane from Chicago to Atlanta to Paris to Birmingham, and the train from Birmingham to Hereford. Then, Sarah’s new employers had reserved rooms for us a local B & B. We thought we would be able to sort a new apartment out quickly…we were mistaken. Most places required their tenants to have lived in the UK from 1 to 3 years before renting to them. We were fortunate enough to find one place that did not. However it’s not like in America, it took over a week of waiting (after viewing the apartment) before they would allow us to occupy. This is where they would normally do background/credit checks…but there wasn’t much to check out on us. Plus, they originally wanted us to pay 6 months rent and a deposit before we could move in. After pleading with them (and a few tears on Sarah’s part), we were able to move in with just 2 months payment plus a down payment…but money is another issue altogether.

On Nov. 2nd, we transferred money from our US bank account to our new UK bank. As of today, it still has not arrived. We have been told by both banks that this is not “normal.” However, it does not help that our money is somewhere between Bowling Green, Ohio and Hereford, UK. Praise God that our debit/credit cards still work. But, they will only work so long because the account that they are tied to is the same account from which we withdrew the money that is now “on it’s way.” I won’t lie to you, it has been a headache. But, Sarah’s work was kind enough to give her a pay advance and we were able to take care of the rent money. So we’ve moved in!

(email addendum: between typing this email and sending it, our money has arrived! I repeat our ship has come it!)

But enough about the mishaps…let me tell you about all of the wonderful differences between the US and the UK. Aside from the fact that things move at a much slower rate than they do in the States (e.g. moving into an apartment), the cities are laid out much differently. Each city we’ve visited has what’s called a high town or city centre area. The difference lies in the fact that everyone gets out and walks around high town…no cars allowed. It is very quaint. Old and young are perusing the shops. Very busy all the time. And there’s no Supercenter WalMart where people we get all our things at one place. Here, you go the butcher for meat, the bakery for bread, and the vegetable stand outside for “veg”. Lots of stops for one “tea” (dinner). And since our fridge is the size of a dorm fridge, (as is everyone’s), we shop more regularly. Not much freezing here, since the freezer can barely manage ice trays.

Our little flat is great, it is very small, which is fine since we don’t have much. Sarah’s co-workers have since donated: table and chairs, 2 dressers, 3 night stands, 1 enormous wardrobe with mirror, 2 shelves, pots and pans, dishtowels and rags, bath towels, microwave, toaster, silverware, cooking utensils, bedspread, pillows, drinking glasses, Tupperware bowls, pot holders, and we have a couch, TV, VCR, and iron coming!! I mean, her work couldn’t be better, honestly! Everyone is so nice and generous, and she loves the actual work as well.

Sarah also received her car this past week! It is currently only hers for work, so this past weekend we couldn’t drive it and we can’t drive it in the evenings. It is only for work. But this week, we are changing it over for our private use. We will then pay 35 pounds a month (about $60) and it will be ours. The taxes, insurance, maintenance, and a gas allowance (not all, but part) is all paid for by her work. Pretty sweet. And it’s a nice car, a 2002 Corsa. It’s tiny, like all cars here. Sarah is pretty freaked out by driving, but she’s doing well. It’s very different, obviously, and the entire road system and driving experience is different here. Very narrow, winding roads, fast drivers, totally different signage. We’ll get the hang of it eventually.

Enough practical talk…let me tell you one interesting Hereford story and then we’ll be off. A few blocks from our flat, there is a very distinct smell. Since we moved here, I have sworn that the whole town smells like blueberry muffins. Sarah says it smells more like PB & J and toast. Everytime we would go outside, there it was, this smell. Well, I just learned what it is. As it turns out Hereford is the foremost producer of Apple Cider in the UK. So, the bakery smell is the yeast (fermentation) and then there’s the obvious fruit smell. So, wherever we go there it is…the sweet smell of cider.

I wish we could tell you about every adventure we’ve already had: reading Celsius instead of Fahrenheit, getting lost and finding our way again, running red lights because we don’t know how to drive in this country, taking 3 hrs. to bake a potato because we don’t know how to use these “cookers,” turning all our clothes grey in the wash because we didn’t realize it was a brand new washing machine, learning to cook and eat vegetables we’ve never heard of, learning every possible way to stay warm because our flat (apartment) doesn’t have central heating (right now we are warming ourselves by what we call the “candle fire”, also we call our apartment “condensation city” and every morning we wake up with water dripping in some window or crack…condensation is a headache, learning to pull a chord to turn on the shower, the fun of learning to drive on roundabouts, and learning a whole new language…honestly, we are two countries separated by a common language.

Well, I guess it’s time to end this THE LONGEST EMAIL IN THE WORLD and bid you adieu.

Happy Thanksgiving and eat some stuffing for us,

Jason and Sarah
4 Newbury Court
Bobblestock, Hereford, England
HR4 9NL

Home: 01432 264 774 (as of Nov. 30th)
Mobile: 07929 556 171
(US must dial 011 + 44 first, then you might need to drop the zeroes from the prefix of our phone numbers…but we’re not sure ‘cause we’ve never done it)

PS: In case you’re curious, yes we did get to see Harry Potter 4 on opening weekend with a theatre full of little English kids…it was “brilliant!”

Still in Chicago :(

2005-10-25T23:44:00.000+01:00

Hello all!

Well, after almost 4 weeks in Chicago with John and Heidi (saints that they are!!), and 3 work permits later, we are finally on our way tomorrow morning! We've had basically the worst time of getting our Visas EVER, with lots of emotional ups and downs (mostly downs), if we're being honest here). But God has sustained us and taught us patience during this time. So that is good.

We are flying out tomorrow morning, very early. We will eventually arrive at the train station in Hereford (our new home) to be picked up by Sue and her husband. Sue is one of my to-be coworkers. They will take us to a B&B where we will stay for a few days or so until we find an apartment. Then they will take us to lunch and show us the town. The B&B will be located very near my work so I can walk to work until we find an apartment and get a car.

So we are very excited and getting a little jittery, mostly about the airports and actually getting there, opposed to living there. We still feel very comfortable about this move, and feel that God has led us there. We will contact you once we get there with
our new address and phone numbers.

Thanks for all the prayers and support! We love you!

Sarah and Jason Suel

PS: we now have an AOL instant messaging account...our screen name is jsueli...put us in your address book if you have one or send us your AOL IM screen name if you want us to correspond with you. But don't forget that we are 6 hours of a time difference (we're ahead).

Live from Chicago

2005-10-12T23:37:00.000+01:00

Hello friends and family!

Well, things are not going quite as expected for us! We were actually supposed to be in England by now, but apparently God had other plans...

We moved out the Dally household (with tears!) 2 weekends ago, on the 1st of October. We came to Chicago, where our friends John and Heidi live now. We were to recieve my work permit from England (that was approved the Friday before we left the Dally's) early in the week. All my new work in England had to do was send it to me. So we made an appointment at the British Consulate for Thursday at 10:15am to get our Visas and bought plane tickets for Friday night.

However...FedEx lost my work permit, and we were freaked! We ended up emailing back and forth with England at 4am Thursday morning in order to get FedEx to get us the work permit in time for our appointment at the Consulate at 10:15. They couldn't do it, so Jason drove to pick it up from FedEx instead. Since they didn't open until 9am, and it was 20 minutes away from me (I was still at John and Heidi's, printing out the application form, which I couldn't do until Jason picked up the work permit with my work permit number on it! That number had to be typed in on the form.), it was a tight squeeze for time! So Heidi drove me to meet him, we got in the car and drove to downtown Chicago in rush hour traffic to get to the Consulate on time! And let me tell you, WE MADE IT! Exactly at 10:15, it was a miracle!

However, the work permit we worked SO hard to pick up on time was INCORRECT. The lady I am working with, Sheila, had mis-typed my birth date in her computer. Therefore, when I got my work permit, it said I was born November 24 instead of July 27. We were at the Consulate all of 2 minutes before they denied me.

So there we were, me crying outside of the Consulate on Michigan avenue and Jason discussing things with Sheila. We had to re-issue another work permit from England, cancel our flight (pay a BIG sum of money to cancel that, too, but Sheila paid us back in full already-praise the Lord).

So now, we are just hanging out at John and Heidi's in Chicago, waiting for my new work permit to come. It has been issued, and we are hoping to hear that it's completed and CORRECT tomorrow. Then they will send it to me, we will make another appointment at the Consulate, and AFTER the actual Visa is in my hand, I'll book another flight. So hopefully, by this time next week, we'll actually be in Hereford.

Some good news in all this waiting, is that Sheila did fully reimburse us the money for the cancelled flight. She felt terrible. Also, the lady in charge of my Unit from my new job has graciously asked Jason and I to stay with she and her husband until we can find an apartment of our own. Everyone in Hereford is awaiting me anxiously, which makes me feel good. They are excited for me to join the team.

So, Jason and I are enjoying Chicago right now, we have visited the Aquarium, Millineum Park, Aunt Connie (Heather and Shannon's aunt), and just the general downtown area, which is fun. We are trying to see "Wicked", because we can possibly get cheap tickets through a lottery right before the show. We are basically relaxing and enjoying John and Heidi.

So, that's where we are now. Your prayers are still appreciated so that we can get there soon! We will let you know the details when we know them!

We love you,
Sarah and Jason

Us Pic

2005-10-10T10:43:00.000+01:00