Grammy, Poppy and Aunt Stefanie meet Theo

3 days after Shane's family left, Sarah's family came to meet their first grandbaby. We mostly stayed around South Kensington, taking walks, grocery shopping and hanging out with the little man. Here are a few pictures of our time together.

Theo gets baptized!

Theo was baptized at Christ Church Mayfair on July 4, 2010. His maternal grandparents and aunt Stefanie were present. He wore a baptism gown that was made from by his great grandmother out of material from his great grandfather's WWII parachute. He was the 12th child to be baptised in the gown! He looked adorable and slept peacefully throughout the ceremony!


Theo was baptised by Matt Fuller, our pastor


Sarah's family


Looking adorable in his gown! :o)


Proud parents!

Theo meets Gammy, Gampy and Aunt Sarah T

Shane's parents and sister came to London to meet Theo. They stayed for 2 weeks and were able to see a few of the London sites as well!

Theo's first visit to Westminster - we made it through evensong!

Outside of Westminster

Shane with his dad and sister at Windsor Castle

Theo and Gampy

Theo and Gammy

Theo and Aunt Sarah

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