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......