Our Journey

We have made it!  It has been a long few weeks, but it has all been worth it because we are finally here.

It all started at the beginning of the month.  We had movers at the house for 3 days, 2 for packing all of our things and 1 for loading.  Seeing all your belongings all in boxes or wrapped up is quite the experience.  The girls made the best of it by playing hide and seek (a pretty awesome idea).  On Day 3, our things were packed up in crates to be shipped over.  And so began the air mattress sleeping and living out of suitcases phase. 

The girls finished up school that first week and we immediately packed up (after some celebratory end of the school year ice cream :)) and made our way up to Oklahoma to see Zach's family before we left.  The girls got some good playtime in with cousins.  It was certainly a welcome break from packing and thinking about the move.

On our way back home, we stopped off to get our car shipped over.  It was definitely not the most exciting (or efficient) part of our moving experience.

The next few days consisted of cleaning up our rental house.  Again, not a very exciting part of moving.  At the end of week 2, we "moved" into lodging on base.  It was nothing fancy, but it had real beds, a kitchen with dishes, and a couch.  At this point, it was really all we needed.

Week 3 was our "fun" week.  We finally didn't have any responsibilities, so we were just going to do fun stuff all week.  By this time, the girls deserved it.  They have been such troopers.  We started off by going to Sea World.  The weather was not on our side that day.  We hadn't even walked through the gates when it poured rain on us.  So we just played in the rain all day and made the best of it.  We ended up having a pretty good time and it will be one of those crazy memories.  Another day we met a friend and went to the children's museum.  The girls have so much fun there and it's always so hard to leave.  One of our last nights, we met one of Haley's school friends and went bowling.  There were also lots of Redbox movies :). 

Eventually the time came.  So we got all packed up and ready.  We joked that with all our bags it looked like we were moving.  At least we were :)  We were at the airport for a while before our first flight.  It gave us lots of time to stretch our legs and get out some wiggles.  Flight 1 only lasted 3.5 hours and everyone did well.  We had to sprint all the way across the airport to make it to Flight 2, but we made it.  Flight 2 was an overnight, 7 hours (plus 5 hours of time change).  We just knew that everyone would crash on the plane because it was late.  Only true for Emily.  She was out fairly quickly.  Haley stayed up because they were serving dinner, and then dessert (the girl loves her mealtimes).  She finally fell asleep about 3.5 hours in.  Zach and I, despite our best efforts, managed no sleep. 

We eventually made it to London.  A car service pick us up and 1.5 hours later, we arrived at lodging.  That day we were all pretty much worthless.  It was an early bedtime for everyone.  14 hours of sleep later, we woke up ready to begin our new journey.

We have already started the house/school hunt.  Haley is very ready to find a house, and I don't blame her, I am too.  Of course we most likely won't get our household goods for another 4-8 weeks or our car for another 4.  Until then, we have a rental car and will hopefully be able to have loaner furniture until our stuff gets here.  There are already quite a few noticeable differences, but I'll save that for another day.

It's been a long road to get here and we still have lots to do, but we are glad to be here and start getting settled.  Everyone is still excited about our new adventure and we have enjoyed our first few days.  We've even made a few friends already!  We'll keep you posted as there is more to report.  Much love to you all from across the pond!