Here we are!

We've made it! We flew last night from BWI and arrived in London this morning. We had way too many bags - 17 in all - but somehow we managed to get them all the way here, along with two little kids! Brad's parents and their good friend Jack drove us and our stuff down to BWI last night and helped us get all the way to check in. Then we had a car service collect us at Heathrow this morning. We were dropped off at our temporary housing which is a very nice little townhouse right on the Thames. We've already spent a bit of time feeding the ducks right in back of our place.

Tomorrow we check into our permanent rental home. We won't really have much to move into it at this point, but it will be nice for the kids to see it and get used to it and excited about living there. I know they will love the big, fenced back yard.

The kids are doing as well as can be expected at this point. Susanna understands that we won't be going back to our house in Brownstown and that another family will be moving in (eventually). Ben, on the other hand, asked to go back to his house (and car) several times today. He did say that he likes this house (the temp one), so that is a start. They slept well on the plane, but of course the night was cut short when we landed. They were quite tired and a little crazy all day, and are finally both asleep.

I suppose I better go to sleep myself - another busy day awaits! Thanks to everyone for all the help the past few weeks - we will miss you all! Please keep in touch! I will do my best to keep in touch too!

More good-byes

Its almost time to go now. It seemed so far away, and suddenly its only a few more days. We had a slight snafu with our travel plans this weekend - our flight from Philadelphia for Thursday was cancelled - but we were able to re-book on a flight out of Baltimore. This is due to the issues at Heathrow Terminal 5, which just opened. The baggage handling system is not working as it should and people aren't getting their bags - I guess its good our flight had to be changed - we will be flying into a different terminal.

Yesterday, two of my friends hosted a party for us at our empty house. Friends from school and dance class attended, as well as some close family friends. It was a nice gathering with some good food! They presented me with a recipe box full of recipes from our Lancaster friends - thank you to all who contributed! It will be so nice to be reminded of all of you over the years as I look for something to make for dinner.

After the party, we went to my parents' house in Chambersburg for a final pre-move visit. We had already said good-bye to them on Easter Monday, so we had to say good-bye to them a second time. The kids always enjoy their time there - my parents live in the country and have a John Deere Gator that Ben loves to drive (on Daddy's lap). Its a nice, relaxing place to visit.

Now its Sunday night and we are getting ready for our last week at preschool, and our final preparations for our trip. I still have to get everything we want to bring packed up, and figure out how to get rid of everything else in our house. Mostly leftover toys. I suppose it will be good to keep busy until we leave. After this moving experience, I may never go shopping again!

All packed up

Once again, its been a while. I realized that all I was writing about was how much junk was in my house; however, that is pretty much my life right now - not much else going on! For the last two days we had the packers here. Four men came to my house at 10 each morning and spend most of the day just packing up my things. I spent the entire time trying to get stuff organized and trying to keep them busy. At this point, about 90% of our stuff is boxed or wrapped. We managed to find beds to sleep in tonight, but no pillows! (We got some from Brad's parents.) The men come back again tomorrow morning to finish packing, and the sea container will arrive at noon. We will also have another group with another truck taking stuff to my parents' house for storage. It will be fun to open all those packages when we come back in a couple of years!

We had a nice Easter. My parents came for the weekend and we went to Brad's aunt and uncle's house to celebrate with most of his family. Brad's uncle has a great train set-up in his attic, and Ben spent most of the afternoon admiring it, or talking about it if he was required to be downstairs. We also had a great game of Bingo (Brad's family's favorite!) and an Easter Egg hunt. It amazes me how uncompetitive my kids are about egg hunts - they run right by the brightly colored eggs, focused only on one, and really need a lot of prompting to find them all. Really its quite refreshing to see!

We are leaving in one week and the time has come to start saying goodbye to good friends. Some friends had a party for the kids and I on Monday, and it was really nice. (Thank you ladies!) I feel so ready to go live in England, yet I feel so sad about leaving here. We've found a lot of good friends over the past three years (is that all??) and we will miss them all.

I suppose I better wrap this up and get back to packing and laundry - this is my last night with my washer and dryer - I will miss them too!

New house

We have just returned from our house hunting trip and are happy to say that we have found a house to rent.  Its in a very nice family-oriented town.  We will be able to walk into the town and also to the rail station, which is about 40 minutes from Central London.  It feels so good to finally know exactly where we will be living and exactly what kind of space we will have!  The house has two bathrooms and four rather small bedrooms.  There are no closets in the bedrooms!  That will be a big adjustment for us.  

So now its time for the real work of sorting through our things to decide what stays and what goes.  I've been working on this for a few months now, but now that we have all our information, its time for the big push.  The movers come the week after Easter.  Our house here is still on the market.

Susanna and Ben had a great time staying home with their grandparents while we were on our trip.  My parents came for the first 3 days, and then Brad's parents took over for the final day.  We missed them and they missed us, but the trip was so fast that we all got through okay!  I'm happy that next time we go they will be right there with us.  

Bowling Party

On Saturday we had a birthday party for Ben, just a little early.  He is very aware of what happens when you have a birthday and has been talking about his party for several months now.  So we wanted to have a party for him here, with some of the friends he's known since he was just a baby.  We had 10 friends, plus Susanna and Ben and all the parents, come to a party at the local bowling alley.  For some kids it was the first bowling experience.  My kids had been once before, maybe last August.  They showed a big improvement!  Both were very independent and were very successful at getting the ball to the other end of the lane without it stopping (a big challenge!)  Of course the bumpers helped, but overall I was impressed with the performance of all the bowlers.  It was a fun party.

Our move is coming very quickly and we are working hard to prepare ourselves.  We go soon to find a place to live for the next two years.  The movers will come at the end of the month, and then that's pretty much it.  We still have to sell our house of course (keeping my fingers crossed on that one!) and we will also sell one of our cars.  The other will stay with Brad's dad and we will use it on return trips (all two of them!).  I still have to get rid of a lot of stuff...  I feel like I've been doing well with filling trash bags, but there is still way too much.  Once we find a place and know how little space we will actually have I will be freshly motivated to purge!  We've gotten rid of or put away lots of toys so far, and the kids do seem just as content as ever, so I'm sure they'll be fine with however much we are able to bring.

I wanted to post a couple of photos of Ben, but it won't let me tonight.  Will try again soon...

For Sale

Our house is officially for sale!  The sign is in the yard and the on-line listing is in progress and should be up soon.  Moving seemed so far away, but now that March is here, it will be very soon!  Now I will be extra busy trying to keep every bit of my house in perfect shape while still letting the kids be kids.  There is still way too much stuff in here and I need to keep working through it and filling trash bags.  Somehow it seems like the more I get rid of the more there is...  I just don't get it.  I want to take the least possible amount of stuff with us, but I suppose there is just a certain amount of "things" that a family with two little kids needs.  Toys, books, clothes, arts and crafts stuff...  Guess I have to take it all!  I just hope we have room for it in our new place.

The kids are starting to "get it" more.  Ben is ready to go!  Of course he probably thinks England is just down the street.  Susanna is leaning the other way and would prefer to stay here.  As expected.  It will be sad for all of us.  But absolutely worth the effort!

Burritos

To celebrate the end of his big audit in Camp Hill, Brad and his colleagues decided to have a burrito eating contest.  They went to Neato Burrito in Lemoyne, where they go for lunch pretty much everyday and are well known by the staff.  Unfortunately I was not able to witness the festivities myself, but I heard all about it and promised I'd blog about it!  The contest was to eat 3 Cowboy Crunch burritos (large tortilla with spicy chicken, rice, refried beans, tortilla chips, ranch dressing, plus salsa and fixings), drink 3 beers, and be done by 3:00, one hour after they started.  Each burrito is over one pound of food, and probably about a million calories.  I'm not sure how many people really tried to eat three, but three people actually managed to get them all down, along with the drinks - Brad, a partner, and a new associate.  The prize?  Just the satisfaction of knowing you can eat three huge burritos in one sitting!  Brad came home fairly early last night but could hardly move, saying he felt like a snake who had just eaten a small animal.  He assures me, however, that he will have no trouble eating more burritos in the future!  He may have to wait a few years anyway - Mexican food doesn't seem to be too popular in the U.K.