House Hunting

We waste no time here! After our 12-hour sleep marathon, it was time to start looking at houses. Mary, our sponser, had made an appointment for us to see a townhouse close to the city of Harrogate on Saturday, and to see a single-family house out in the country on Sunday.

The townhouse was great. We were amazed at how much room there was, when all we had heard was how small English houses were. There were four bedrooms upstairs (one was teeny-tiny, though), and some of them already had closets (we thought we'd have to get wardrobes). The kitchen looked very spacious and modern, with Bosch appliances and lots of cupboards. The best part of the whole house though, was the conservatory! You heard me right-- as in, "it was the maid with the lead pipe in the conservatory." (See photo)
Cool, right?
Ethan and I loved it. We liked how it was close to Harrogate... close to the action, and it was in a court which looked great for the kids to ride their bikes out front.

Okay, house number two was located in a teeny village about 13 minutes from Harrogate. There is no house number... the house is called "Bridge End." Seriously.... the mailman knows the house as Bridge End, not #234 Dobbs Lane or whatever. That should give you a feel for how small a village this is. Four bedrooms again, 2 car garage, HUGE kitchen (with a dishwasher that was running at the time, and we couldn't even hear it -- when I saw that, I shouted "SOLD!"), living room, utility room, dining room (which we would actually use as our American room/playroom), nice patio outback, and sheep grazing across the street. The downsides are the carpet-- I can't really call it carpet... it's more like Rattan. It's not very comfy on your feet, and it doesn't clean well. Also, being in such a small village, it would mean that I would probably have to send Tim to a small village school. I looked into the two primary schools nearby. One of them has 35 students, and the other has 21 students TOTAL!! Grades K-5!!! (This will be a topic for another blog, I'm sure.) Ethan and I are also concerned about being too far away from Harrogate, and not having a lot of people around.



Here's a picture of the front of the house. Another thing about it is that it was built in 2000. I feel like I'd be cheating... it looks like I'm in this cute, old English-country home.... but the house isn't even 8 years old!

So, what would you choose? I'll tell you what we chose next time!

Brookfield House Apartment #3

A view of the front of our apartment building. Our apartment is on the 2nd floor on the right. We will be living here for about a month or so... until we find a house to move in to.









The view out of our sitting room window.












Our sitting room complete with desk, TV (with 4 BBC channels), etc.








The long and skinny bathroom. Maddie doesn't like the fact that there is no bath tub, but it's only for a month. The best part about the bathroom is the radiator/towel rack.... you always have a warm towel when you step out of the shower. The worst part about the bathroom is the separate faucets in the sink for hot/cold. You either wash your hands in a trickle of really hot water, or a stream of really cold water.






Our kitchen: cooker (stove), small fridge, no dishwasher, electric tea pot (a big thing around here--you plug it in, and it shuts off automatically when the water boils).






Some British treats: tea from this region, "Sugar Puffs" are Honey Smacks cereal with a bizarre monster looking thing, Jelly Babies are our new favorite candy, "Digestives"- like a graham cracker cookie covered in chocolate, "Turkish Delight"- not all that Edmond cracked it up to be!




Our bedrooms are pretty normal except that there are wardrobes instead of closets, and that our bedroom has a sink in the corner. Just a sink... kind of bizarre.

A Windy Welcome to North Yorkshire!

Okay... so I left off with us arriving at Leeds. We were just about there when the pilot came over the intercom saying that they might have trouble landing because there were 60mph winds blowing on the runway!! 60mph!!! They decided to circle a few times to see if there was a break in the wind. At that point, I started praying, and a few minutes later, we were told that the pilot was going to try to land. Well, let me tell you... that landing was a little scary! The plane was tipping back and forth! I was so glad when we touched ground. To make us all feel a little better, they had a fire engine right there on the runway waiting for us! (I found out later, that our plane was only one of two that had actually landed there that day; all the rest were sent to a different, local airport. Thank you God!)

After we arrived, and gathered all of our baggage, we were greeted by Mary. Mary is our sponsor, and is responsible for helping us adjust to British life. We love Mary!

The next task was to push our luggage carts out to her car. Sounds simple enough, but factor in those 60mph winds, and one screaming, wanting-to-be-carried Maddie, and the task got a bit more challenging! I was trying to hold Maddie in one arm, and push the cart with the other. At one point, I just had to give up. I found a place out of the way, and just braced myself and the cart from the wind as best I could until Ethan could come back for us. I had never felt winds that strong in my life! I kept saying to myself, "Welcome to England!" and then proceeded to question what on earth we were doing here. It was not fun.

We eventually made it into Mary's car, a Toyota Sienna just like our old one. I tried to push the button, and close the side door of the car, only to find out that it was an automatic door, and I had just basically broken the door. Now, the door wouldn't close. For the whole drive to our apartment, I had to hold the door shut, and we had to listen to an alarm going off. (Repeat chorus: "Welcome to England! What on earth am I doing here??!)

We finally made it to our apartment. A lovely woman named Lisa greeted us, and showed us where we were staying. All I could do was try and keep a smile on my face. All I wanted to do was eat and then sleep!! (We hadn't had a meal since we had some fruit on the first plane earlier that morning). Ethan left with Mary to go get a pizza, and the kids and I raided the bags of junk food that Mary had thought ahead to get for us. Again, we love Mary.

When Ethan returned, we all ate, and went to bed. The kids went to bed at 8:30, and we went to bed at 10:30 (England time). We fell asleep right away, and didn't get out of bed until 10:30 the next morning!!! 12 hours of sleep... thank you Lord!!!

Welcome!

Hi there friends and family! Welcome to our blog. Ethan and I have created this blog as a kind of diary for our experiences in the UK. Please feel free to visit periodically to keep up with our whereabouts and adventures.

In case you aren't aware of what's going on and why we are here, here is a little background. It all started last January when Ethan applied for a position through his job that would move us to Harrogate, England for three years. We finally found out that we were accepted some time in May. Since then, life has been a whirlwind of planning, organizing, getting rid of stuff, and getting prepared for life an ocean away. The past two weeks, in particular, have been crazy busy.... handing our house keys over to a property manager (please pray that someone rents it!), organizing all of our things for what was coming with us and what was going into storage, watching all of our things being packed into large crates, passing Charlie off to a friend from Ethan's work (we may be able to bring him over this summer), packing our suitcases, living in two hotels, selling our cars, and of course, saying our farewells to friends and family.

Then, on Thursday, January 24th, at around 9pm, we got on a plane at Dulles Airport, headed for London. What a trip that was! I know I've told you all to come visit, but let me tell you...it's not a fun trip over. Maybe it was because it was a red-eye flight, or maybe it was that I had Maddie next to me (who didn't sleep as much as I had hoped). All I know is I arrived at London-Heathrow completely exhausted!! At Heathrow, we weren't quite sure what to do in terms of immigration, etc. But, we finally found our connecting gate, and after a two hour delay, we were on our plane headed to Leeds. The flight to Leeds was fine; we all slept. However, the descent was a little scary. More about that tomorrow......