Message from Jonathan

Dear choir,

Hello from the US! I’m writing you all to give a little (past due) update on how the Hatleys have been since having Margot and leaving the UK. We’ve settled nicely into Ellie’s dad’s house, but that will soon be disrupted as we’re moving into our own place on Saturday. With Margot taking up virtually all of our time the last month of living in the UK, we were a little behind on sorting out some pretty important things: a house, cars, US phone numbers, etc. We have almost everything sorted now, just need some cars…

As soon as we landed I started to get prepared for my new jobs: a head middle school choir director and a staff singer at one of Dallas’s major Episcopal churches (think the commitment at St John’s, then pack it into one day each week). I’m also doing a good bit of freelancing, mostly in the form of accompanying.

Ellie is full time mom duty and absolutely smashing it in that department. She is finding all the immense challenges of motherhood lead to even greater joys, and we’re both absolutely loving this little girl. She’ll be 8 weeks on Sunday and I’ll attach some of our favourite pictures for David to attach to this message, including her 1 month pic (we already have so many pictures to choose from!).

Margot is starting to develop her own little personality and is now smiling intentionally at things. She’s even developing a tiny laugh! Her hobbies are looking at ceiling fans, slits of light between curtains, and having big cuddles with her mummy and daddy. We also have realised that she’s on her best behaviour when she’s around family… we don’t know what to make of that yet. By the way, she was absolutely perfect on the 9.5 hour plan journey.

We love and miss you all dearly and want to especially thank you for your support through our tough move. If you sent a gift and I haven’t reached out personally to thank you, please know that we would if we had an extra set of hands! And extra special thanks to the Coulsons and Reids for getting the three of us, the pets, and the suitcases to the airport. It takes a village… and that village is called Orwell!

I’ve said this before, but Orwell is something special and I hope you all continue to develop the sense of fellowship as you move through this and future seasons with the choir. I wish you and Geoff all the best for excellent music making and deep fellowship. We will continue to be in touch periodically, but for now please enjoy some pictures of Margot!