We're Home!

We arrived back in the U.S.A. late Monday night. The long day of travel went much better than I anticipated. We even had very cordial flight attendants who weren't grumpy at us for bringing kids on the flight. Our only hitch was when their flight computers listed us as having one more bag checked than we actually had which of course is a security risk. This resulted in the flight being delayed 30 minutes because I had to go down to the cargo crew and verify which bags were ours. Turns out they mixed up the numbers and there really was no extra bag.

We are currently in New Mexico spending Thanksgiving with Devin's parents and enjoying the blue skies and crisp fall air. We may even get some snow tonight!

Yesterday our new minivan arrived via truck from Arizona. Teagan was quite upset when it arrived to find it was silver and not his requested blue. He quickly recovered when he discovered the van's interior amenities like a dvd player and plenty of cup holders!

We are enjoying our time together and trying not to think about the fact the Devin has to go back to England next week. This is the most relaxed he has been in months and he is dreading the work ahead of him and being away from his family.

So this week as we celebrate Thanksgiving we are thankful to be home with family, enjoying good food and shopping and American football.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

1 More Week!!

The kids and I have only 7 more days in the U.K. One week from today we will board our overseas flight bound for Los Angeles and must endure an 11.5 hour flight with 3 kids. Oh joy!!
I hope they sleep for most of it! From LA we will catch another flight to Albuquerque where we will spend Thanksgiving with Devin's parents and also pick up our new car! Woohoo! We will be so happy to have a large car again and wider streets to drive it on! After a week there, Devin will return to England and the kids and I will drive to Colorado Springs and stay with my parents for 6 to 8 weeks! It will be nice to spend Christmas with them and enjoy some snow. The kids are hoping for enough to play in and go sledding. It will be sad to be apart from Devin during the holidays and for so long. We haven't been apart more than 2 weeks since he deployed in 2003. It hasn't really sunk in that we are leaving England but I think it's because I haven't really had time to let it. I know if I sat and thought about it I would start to cry. It's always a two-edged sword for us having to move every few years. 3 years is only barely enough time to make good friends but long enough to create memories. I now have to let go of everything here but at least I can take the memories with me. On to the next adventure and new friends! Farewell England. We will miss you!

Moving Day!

Well, it has been a month since my last post, so I thought I better send out an update. Not that anyone really reads this blog but while I'm sitting here watching the moving company pack our belongings I may as well do something. So the last month in a nutshell....not much except organizing and getting ready for the move and discovering this will be our most stressful move yet. Another overseas move, a third child, spending 6-8 weeks in Colorado while Devin stays in England to finish, purchasing a car in the U.S over the phone
are just some of the added stresses we've been facing. Oh and how do you pack for a 10 week vacation covering 2 countries, 3 states, and 3 climates without access to any of our belongings except what we can fit into 10 suitcases? We'll be so glad when it's over. The kids are feeling some of our stress too and acting out of sorts. Patience is not one of their strong suits especially when a young child has no real concept of time. The next 2 days the house will be packed into boxes and slowly emptied and loaded onto crates. We are amazed at how the movers load each crate like putting a puzzle together. The kids think it's fascinating that their toys will be shipped to California on a big boat that will take 6 weeks to get there when we can fly there in only one day.

In other news....Austin lost his first tooth a couple weeks ago and the second one is nearly ready to fall out. Looks like he'll be missing his front teeth for Christmas! I would post a pictures but our home computer is packed up. Austin is very excited at the prospect of making some money off the tooth fairy to put towards something he wants for Christmas.

We also sold our car the very last day of the ad we had placed. The new owners drove 2 hours to see it and took it home that day. Talk about a "God thing". We were worried it would have to sit in a lemon lot somewhere while we fly to the U.S. and Devin would have to sell it when he returned but what a blessing to have it sell so quickly. This of course has left us without a car for a few weeks but the kids have enjoyed taking the bus to Church and into the city for shopping.

So we will be spending the next 2 weeks cleaning the house and hanging out while Devin finishes writing his last few chapters and then we are homeward bound!