Meet Theo!

Theodore Winston Tintle was born on May 31, 2010 at 5:22am. He arrived after 44 hours of labor and a rather challenging delivery but was worth every minute of it! He weighed in at 7 pounds 2 oz. We are so grateful for all of your prayers and thoughts during our pregnancy and delivery - please keep them coming as we tackle the challenges of parenthood!

Mini Break

For all you Americans out there, May 1 (May Day) is a bank holiday in the UK which means 3 day weekend for Shane. So, assuming this would be our last chance for a get away for a little while we piled into the car and headed for the White Cliffs of Dover. We also managed to convince 2 of our friends (who are also quite pregnant!) to come along for the trip. The 4 of us headed out on Saturday morning for the cliffs. Of course, London had been having the most beautiful weather the week before the 1st and since about April 29th (the Saturday we left) it has been cold and rainy. But, like good British folk, we just put on our rain coats and ignored the storms.
We stopped first in Dover. Dover castle has been a military fortress for around 900 years and was used until WWII as a military stronghold. During the Napoleon era there was a maize of underground tunnels built to house and hide soldiers. These tunnels were renovated and expanded at the beginning of WWII and contained a military headquarters as well as an underground hospital. The famous evacuation of Dunkirk, facilitated by Admiral Ramsey, was planned and run from Dover. We took a tour of these tunnels and the hospital which was quite cool. Due to the rain we choose to skip seeing the cliffs from a boat (we aren't that British yet!) but were able to get a good view from the castle. They are quite pretty and I'm sure very intimidating for any navy set to attack England.
After a day in Dover we headed to Canterbury. We grabbed dinner at The Old Weaver's house, an adorable little inn that served solid British food, and then headed for our B&B for the evening. The following morning we attended a service at the Canterbury cathedral. The cathedral is enormous and is the active headquarters of the Anglican church. It has been a site of Christian worship since St Augustine first built there in 597 AD and was the site of the murder of St Thomas Beckett in the 12th century which made it a place of pilgramige for hundreds of thousands. St Thomas Beckett's remains were removed and destroyed when King Henry VIII broke from the Catholic church but there is still a memorial for him located behind the alter.
After church and a short tour of the cathedral we grabbed lunch and then headed back to London.
So, that is all of our planned vacations until the arrival of T3! Thanks for checking our blog and we hope to introduce you all to the little guy soon!

Shane and I outside Dover Castle

Sonya and me - I'm only 3 weeks more pregnant but seem 3x bigger!

Daniel and Shane by the castle guns

Canterbury Cathedral

Love, Sarah and Shane

Almost there!

Hey everyone! We have 3 weeks until the big day when we get to meet T3 and we are getting exciting. I have been taking some knitting classes to pass the time. Here are a few examples of some things I have made for the little guy.
Can't wait for all of you to meet him!
Love, Sarah and Shane

Easter Weekend

Hadrian's Wall

The cottage in Elsdon

Durham Cathedral
Hello all! Sorry I've been delinquent in my blogging recently! Shane has been working like crazy so we haven't had anything too exciting to report. However, Good Friday and Easter Monday are bank holidays here so we were able to escape London for a long weekend and head to the North East England cities of Durham and Newcastle.

We decided to take this trip because we were interested in seeing Hadrian's wall - one of the best remaining Roman walls in all of Europe - near Newcastle and seeing the Durham Cathedral where N.T. Wright is bishop and was preaching on Easter Sunday. So, we hopped in the car Friday morning and headed north.

Our first stop was Hadrian's wall. It was built by Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD. He had decided that Rome was big enough and made plans to protect it, thus building an enormous wall around most of the outermost territories. We visited Vindolanda, an ancient Roman fort and part of Hadrian's wall. It is still an active dig and had a great outdoor museum showing what life would have been like for Roman settlers, as well as later British settlers. Next was the Housteads Roman fort which contains the best-preserved segments of Hadrian's wall.

After a few hours touring the wall we headed to Elsdon, a tiny town in Northumberland where a friend from London has a cabin that her family offered us for the evening. It was adorable, surrounded by beautiful countryside and horse farms. We felt very British :o)

The following day we decided to tour the area. First, we drove 15 minutes north to the border of Scotland and England. It was snowing in Scotland but we bundled up for some pictures and then headed back south. The town of Elsdon is tiny and didn't even have a stop light but it did have a beautiful cathedral and an excellent tea shop where we ate the best scone either of us has ever had! We drove into Newcastle but it is mainly a college town and we couldn't find many tourist attractions (the Newcastle brewery moved a few years back, much to Shane's dismay!). So, we stopped quickly at the Angel of the North - huge steel sculpture that is the pride and joy of Newcastle and the largest standing angel sculpture in the world - and then headed to Durham.

Durham is an adorable little town with a castle and cathedral in the town center, reminiscent of the middle ages. The castle is now part of the university and houses students, as well as the Bishop of Durham. There were weddings going on all weekend so we never made it all the way into the castle but did spend a fair amount of time outside of it and wandering through town. The cathedral (and the castle) is approximately 1000 years old, built over a period of years in the early 1100's AD. It is massive and has been well maintained. It is still a very active church and mass (first Catholic and now Anglican) has been said daily in the nave for 900 years. Easter service was excellent and NT Wright proved to be as good of a preacher as he is a writer.

After spending 2 lazy days in Durham we headed back to London. It was a very relaxing vacation in a beautiful part of England. We are hoping to do one more trip to part of South East England before T3 arrives so look for another blog in a few weeks! Also, more pictures are posted on Facebook.

Love to you all!
Sarah and Shane

Stefi in England

Hello again! The day after I arrived back in London my sister came over for her spring break. The first thing she did was surprise me by bringing me to Brown's hotel for tea (best tea in London!) and having 3 of my friends there for a surprise baby shower. I was completely shocked and it was very fun :o)

We also hit up the British trains one day for a day trip to Rye, England. This little town used to be an important costal town in the 16th-17th century but the water has since receeded several miles so that the coast is actually to far away to even see now! There is a small canal that still runs through the city and connects to the ocean. You can see cannons that now face the canal which were originally intended to protect the city and the country against foreign invaders. It is a very cute little town and we managed to have tea and scones at the oldest tea shop in Rye, as well as lunch at the oldest restuarant/hotel in Rye. The town definitely thrives on tourism now and there isn't much of that in early March so unfortunately a lot of things were closed (including the castle and Henry James's home!) but we made do by eating more and exploring the church :o)

Other than our exciting day trip we mostly hung out in London, seeing some of the sights that we hadn't been to in years including the British museum and the British library (where the Magna carta is kept). We also bought cheap seat tickets to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with James Earl Jones playing the role of the father. It is a sad play but was very good.

Unfortunately she had to leave last Friday (something about making it back for the SEC tournament!) so I am back to days on my own.
Hope you enjoy the pictures - there are more on facebook.

Love, Sarah and Shane

Michigan and baby shower

Hello everyone! To those of you who have been requesting belly pictures I will try and incorporate some here.

Two weeks ago I flew to Michigan to see my family and to buy some baby clothes. Turned out my mom's friends threw me an amazing shower (2 actually!) and I now have too much stuff to fit into my very small place here! It was great to go home and get to see friends and family. We miss you all in America and hope you can come visit soon.

Love, Sarah and Shane
PS: Go Duke and Vandy!!

Babymoon

So, I'm not sure that is really a word but I've been told that sometimes people take a big, fun trip just before having a baby as a farewell to the DINK life and transitioning into parenthood. That is what we did :o) Plus, we have wanted to go to Istanbul and Athens since we moved to Europe and now seemed like the perfect time.

So, we headed out last Saturday for Istanbul. What an amazing city! The history there is overwhelming. It was basically part of Greece since ancient times and had known civilization even prior to that. The ancient city of Troy (think Trojan horse) was in Turkey and the Bosphorous strait acted as the main port between the East and West long before Jesus was born. In the 4th century, Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Istanbul and named it Constantinople. It was the capital of Rome (and therefore most of the known world), the heart of the Christian church and then of the Eastern Orthodox church until 1453 AD when it was overtaken by the Ottomans. They ruled until around WWI when a secular government took over and is still in power today.

All that history led for some amazing site seeing. First there was the Hagia Sophia - built by Emperor Justinian in the 8th century AD it was the largest cathedral in the world until the Duomo in Florence in the 1500's. The name means Divine Wisdom. It was built by 2 geometicians who created an enormous dome that rests on several other domes with all of the support structures being hidden in the walls. The result, when you step inside, is an enormous interior that looks like it is floating. This church was the patriarchal church of the Eastern Orthodox church until 1453 AD. After the Ottomans took over it was converted into a mosque. It is now a museum and contains both Christian and Muslim artifacts.

Other great sites in Istanbul included the Blue Mosque - built by the Ottomans it is the largest mosque in the world and is known for it's intricate blue tilework done on the inside of the mosque as well as the blue hue seen from the outside; Grand Bazaar - world's first shopping mall and now a huge bazaar filled with anything you could imagine, Spice market - smaller than the Grand Bazaar but great place for all kinds of typical and exotic spices, as well as Turkish delight!; Topkapi Palace - built for the Sultans of the Ottoman empire it is called "Versailles of the East" and the Chora Church - built in 1100 AD and decorated with amazing mosaics in the 14th century that survived after being plastered over by the Ottomans. Other than these "showstopper" sites, there are tons of quaint Eastern orthodox churches, small shops, ancient obelisks and pillars and fresh squeezed orange and pomegranate juice on every corner! Shane and I faithfully did all of the recommended Rick Steve's "walks" and managed to buy a patchwork kilim rug for T3's nursery.

After 3 days in Istanbul (where it was, sadly, quite cold still), we boarded a plane and headed for sunny Athens. We actually left a day earlier for Athens since we found out that the day our flight was supposed to take off, the Athenian air traffic controllers were on strike. The following day the taxi drivers were on strike so we were glad we landed when we did!

Other than rain the first day it was 60 degrees and sunny in Athens! And the historical sites completely lived up to their fame. We visited the New Acropolis museum which houses pieces that were discovered on the acropolis as long ago as the 13th century BC! It also has several originals and replicas from the Parthenon and gives a good history before heading up to see it. After the museum we headed for the site only to discover it was closed - for a strike! But, the day was not wasted: we were able to climb up on Mars Hill, the spot where Paul delivered his famous sermon to the Athenians (a copy of it is on a plaque on the side of the hill) and get an amazing view of the city. We then headed for the Agora, main area of commerce during ancient times, and saw the Church of the Holy Apostles (built in 1000 AD to commemorate Paul's preaching on Mars Hill), the Stoa (main area of commerce in the Agora), the Temple of Hephaistos (main pagan temple in the Agora) and many other ancient ruins that have been very well preserved. That afternoon we saw Cathedral square where the primary Cathedral of the Greek Orthodox church stands (unfortunately under scaffolding), Hadrian's arch (built 132 AD) and the old Roman Forum from when Rome conquered Greece.

The following day the acropolis was open for business and we headed up the hill to see the Odeon of Herodes (ancient theatre that is still used for shows today), Temple of Dionysis, propylea (entrance gate to the Parthenon)and the Parthenon itself. The Parthenon is truly amazing - built almost 2500 years ago (432 BC), it stood nearly still complete until the mid 1600's when the Venetian army bombed it during a war with Athens, taking out part of the middle section.

Other fun sites in Athens included the Parliament building and the square around it - full of shops and eateries it is a great place to see the newer side of Athens; Lykavittos Hill - where Greeks believe honey was discovered (I was too tired from the Acropolis to make it up this hill so Shane faithfully hiked it for us both and took pictures while I "sunned" on a park bench!); and the Temple of Zeus - HUGE and took centuries to build, was finally completed by Hadrian (Roman Emperor and total Greekophile) in 134 AD.

Since we had an extra day (thanks to the strikes) we rented a car (they gave us the world's smallest Chevy!) and drove to Delphi to see the ancient oracle. It was amazing! Built into a hill that overlooks the Gulf of Corinth there is a long, winding path that leads you past the Treasury of the Athenians, by the Rock of Sibyl (predecessor to the oracle), by the omphalos (Greek for naval - was once considered the center of the world) to the Temple of Apollo. The theatre above the temple is one of the best preserved in the world and dates to the 4th century BC.

The next day we said goodbye to the sun and vacation and headed back to London (where we were met by rain and cold, of course). It was a great trip and we were thrilled to have the opportunity to take it. Please check out our pictures on facebook!!

Love to you all,
Sarah and Shane