England, Here we come!!

The day is finally here!! So far everything seems be going well. Please say a prayer for smooth and safe travels. Andrew seems excited and the excitement is starting to set in with me and Mark!

We are currently at the airport in Indianapolis and our flight is delayed an hour. Hope we catch our connecting flight!




Andrew is working on a ten minute nap!



Yes, that is Andrew's car seat on Mark's back.

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Pounds...I'm talking about £

This week I got the opportunity to talk to my friend Amber that is currently living in Derby, UK with her husband and daughter.  Her husband, Adam, works with Mark.  They have been in Derby for the last five months and will be headed back to the US a week after we get there.  Amber has been such a help to me.  Amber is an experienced traveler, unlike me.  She is always thinking and seems to always be one step ahead of the game.  During our conversation I asked her a question about money and she responded with, yeah we brought some pounds with us.  I, of course, ask her where do I get some pounds??  All I have to say is, Thank God for Amber!  She told me that I can talk to bank about getting some pounds. 

Friday I took a little trip to my bank and asked if they had any pounds.  The teller told me that he could order me some.  How fancy is that??  I was ordering pounds.  He told me the minimum they could order with no fee was $350.  I told him to go ahead and order it.  He printed me out some order form and told me that I was ordering £210.  Wait a minute...how is this fair??  I gave him actually $355.05, to be exact, and I get £210.00 back.  I knew the exchange rate wasn't that great, but this is not cool.  This is going to be really interesting.  Where did the extra 145.05 go???  I hope this doesn't sound too stupid, but this makes no sense to me.  Why can't it all just be the same? 

So the bank is supposed to call me when my £210.00 comes in.  I have no idea what pounds look like or what denominations they come in.  I guess I need to figure that out.  I definitely downloaded a currency converter app.  Reason #58 why I love my iPhone and iPad.

Four days until we leave!!  Crazy!!  I really need to pack.  This is going to be such an adventure.

Sooo Cute!!!

A couple months ago I entered a contest for a free mini photo session and we won!!  I decided to use it before we left for England because Andrew is pretty close to 2 1/2.  I was really excited because we have never used this photographer before and I was pretty impressed with her work.  Of course, Andrew started with a cold at the beginning of the week and he scraped his knee up the day before.  I am pretty sure a runny nose and scraped knees is what being two is all about :)  Needless to say, he was not in the greatest of moods for this session and he had a huge melt down by the end.  Our photo sessions never seem to go smoothly.  I really couldn't do too much complaining because this one was free.  After the session I hoped for one good picture.  I was shocked when I looked at the disc!!!  I know I am a little biased, but I thought these turned out so cute!  The photographer did such an amazing job with Andrew. 

This Trip is Really Happening

I always knew this trip was going to happen, but with everything so up in the air it never felt real. I guess it never felt real until last weekend!

Mark's parents offered to watch Grace while we are in England. They have a fenced in back yard and have a dog themselves. Before they offered to take her the thought did cross my mind that it was time to find her a new home. Not that I don't love her, but I just feel like we can't give her the time like we used to. The only thing stopping me was Andrew. Grace and Andrew are inseparable most of the day. I knew, or at least I thought, that Andrew would have such a hard time without her.
I actually started to get excited as the weekend got closer. I knew I wouldn't have to clean as much the last few weeks with the dog being gone and she wouldn't be annoying me during the day with her barking at everything! I did start to worry about how Andrew would handle it, so I started talking about it with him a couple of days before Mark's parents got here. I explained to him that Grace was going to stay at Mema and Papa's house when we were in England. Every time we talked about it he said no. After that I was really worried it wouldn't go well.





On Sunday, Mark's dad loaded the car up with all of Grace's stuff. Andrew didn't really seemed concerned. I wanted him to see Grace getting in the car, so he would understand. We all went outside to say our goodbyes to Mema, Papa, and Grace. Sure enough Andrew didn't even bat an eye and guess who was crying...me! Things have a way of sneaking up on me like that. Here I was so worried about Andrew and I am the one getting all emotional. I guess the trip just became so real. Grace was leaving, we were saying bye to Mema and Papa for six months, and suddenly I knew I had to get my butt in gear! By the way, I need to come up with a name for this occurrence when you are thinking so much about someone else you forget about yourself and you are the one that ends up crying!! It has happened to me twice now.

I think Grace is enjoying herself so far in Missouri. She has a dog friend to live with now. Hopefully she doesn't cause too many problems over there. I have already had reports that she has been walking on the pool cover.

This week we did go to the immigration place in Indianapolis to finish the last part of the visa. We hope to get those back in the next week or so. We finally have our place tickets!! We leave on May 31st. We will arrive in England on Friday morning and Mark doesn't start work until the following Thursday. We are actually traveling over during a holiday, The Queens Diamond Jubilee. It is the Queen's 60th anniversary. I have so much to learn while I am over there! Everything is finally set up on that end. Now we just need to get everything in line on our end. I am finally getting excited.

Big Celebrations, Big Changes, and Adventures On The Way

Mark is finally done with his Master's Degree!! This is such an achievement for him. He has been working on this for the last three years!! It wasn't too bad in the beginning because I worked a crazy schedule too. After having Andrew, things changed and we definitely felt a strain. We were both adjusting to being first time parents and I was adjusting to being a stay at home mom. Either way, our family made it through to the end!! I am so proud of Mark because he did such a good job with Andrew during this process. He always made time for Andrew regardless of what was going on with school.


We celebrated this weekend with Mark's parents and a few friends. Andrea and Seth came out from Cincinnati to surprise him. It was so great spending time with them. We miss them so much!! I am so thankful for our friends and Mark's parents for taking time to come out and see him. It meant so much to him!!


Our next big family adventure is our upcoming trip to England. As most of you may know, we are heading out to England for five months for Mark's job. We are so excited for this experience. The whole process has been very interesting and stressful at times. I am such a planner so it is hard when someone else is doing the planning for you. We are set to leave the first weekend in June and we are still waiting on an exact date. I am hoping to find out the exact date this week.

I will be keeping everyone updated on our experiences through the blog!! So if you are not already following the blog, start now. This is going to be such an experience for me. Here I thought moving to Indy was such an experience. I am sure I am going to get made fun of for this, but I had to look at a map again to see where exactly we were going. I am not a worldly traveler by any means so this should be interesting. Really the only thing I can picture about where we are going is what I have seen in the movie, The Holiday. I specifically remember the part where Cameron Diaz gets dropped off at the new place she is staying in England. Haha!

We will be staying in Derby, England in a two bedroom furnished apartment. I will be posting tons of pictures of where we will be staying and all of our adventures for sure! We still haven't figured out phones yet. We will obviously have email, Facebook, and Skype for communication. We are going to get cell phones when we get there, but not sure of how expensive it will be to call home. Most things on our end are in place. We have our passports, we have one more step to get our visas, and I bought really large suitcases.



I think we are ready!!

Next step: Visa and plane tickets!!

Mommy's Spring Break

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to take a little trip out to Scottsdale, AZ to meet my friend Jessie. We were there for three nights and it was amazing! Jessie picked such an amazing hotel. Here are a few pictures of the hotel and room.















We spent the day at the pool on Saturday. It was so great relaxing and having someone wait on you right from your pool chair. I feel relaxed and refreshed just thinking about it.



It was amazing spending four days with Jessie!! She is one of my best friends and for those of you that don't know, she lives in California now. We grew up together in Loveland. She has been such a great friend to me and we have many hilarious memories together. When she does visit Ohio it is always such a rushed visit. We are always trying to spend time with everyone because we are both visiting from out of town now. Love her very much! Here are some of the many pictures we took of ourselves.











Here is a very small sample of the Arizona wild. Not very wild, but you know I am not all about the wild. Although, I will say, the west brings out a whole new side of me. I think I want to do some type of mountain activity next time ;)















We also enjoyed some amazing food and drinks. You all know I am all about good food and drinks. Of course, I took pictures of some of the food.







This was one of the cute places we ate for breakfast. This part is actually outdoors. So many cute places.



I loved the trip! It was great to get a mini vacation and great to spend time with Jessie, but I loved coming home to my two favorite guys!!! They were both waiting at the airport when I got back. There is nothing better than seeing their smiles waiting for me.

Sorry all of the pictures seem blurry.  I am trying a new app on my Ipad to do the blog posts and I guess it isn't working very well.

Hmmm...

I had to share this picture of Andrew. He hasn't been sleeping very well the last week or so. After I laid him down for a nap last week I noticed something didn't look right in the monitor. This is what I saw when I went in to check on him. I couldn't believe it!! He was totally asleep.