Our 1st Anniversary

Well I can't believe it but Sam and I have been married for one whole year! It has been amazing! Nothing like spending everyday with your best friend. So to celebrate we went into London for the weekend. Its was absolutely amazing! And I have pictures to share...finally! We took the train into London and then rode the underground or "tube" into the city where our hotel and theatre was. What an experience that was! I loved the train ride from Cambridge into London...we got to see a lot of the countryside and it is beautiful. But the underground...not such a fan. I felt like a sardine...actually worse than that. We were crammed into this tube with no AC. I just kept thinking, "what if there was an emergency and we need to evacuate, how in the world are we going to get out?" cause you look out the window and the cement wall of the subway was inches from the window (no way you could get out if the door opened). Lets just say it was the longest 6 minute ride of my life. But we arrived at our very chique (sp?) hotel...tiny little room but very modern looking. And it was so nice to have a normal bed to sleep on and a "big" or should I just say normal size shower to shower in. Today we realized that we have been homeless and living in hotels for the last month...insane! But anyways, back to London. Once we dropped off our bags in our room, we decided to walk around some and ended up doing lots of site seeing by ourselves. We walked to almost all the big sites; Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, London's Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace and lots of churches. We then headed back to our room to get ready for our big date night. :) We got all dressed up and headed off to see "The Phantom of the Opera". It was absolutely spectacular! I loved it! I think Sam even enjoyed it. ;) After the show we went out to dinner at a place called Gaucho Grill, which was recommended by our hotel. We showed up and I do have to say I was kinda worried. We could hear the thumping but techno music before we even went in. We got to our table and were thinking about leaving because it was so loud..we couldn't hear each other talk. The atmosphere was really romantic; low lights and candles on the tables but the music was just so loud. But we decided to stick it out and are SO glad we did. We had the, i mean THE best steak of our lives. It was incredible! It was like melt in your mouth good. Totally worth putting up with the music. We will definitely be going back! Then we walked through downtown for a bit, so many people though. Its kinda crazy. We got some ice cream though and just headed back to our room. I don't know when it happened, but we are officially old. It was 11 o'clock and we were pooped. :) Not the big go outers like we used to be. :)

On Sunday we did the tourist thing and rode on the double decker bus tour. So worth it! Even though we had walked on our own to most of the big sites on Saturday, we learned so much from just riding on the bus. We had a live tour guide that told us a lot about the history behind things and just all the little tid bits of info about stuff. We got to see all of London, places that we wouldn't have even thought to go to. The way the bus tour works is you can get off and on as much as you like, if you'd like to see each place. But we decided to stay on the bus for the whole tour route (to make sure we didn't miss anything) and then decide where we mind want to get off at to just walk around. So we were on the bus for a good 2 1/2 hours. A great tour! We definitely would recommend it to anyone who hasn't been to London before. So moms and dads...guess what you guys get to do when you come visit?! :)

But enough writing...time to finally see some pics. Enjoy!

About to board the train from Cambridge to London

Sam's excited to go to London

Her Majesty's Theatre...where we saw "The Phantom of the Opera"

Big Ben and Parliament

Parliament

Westminster Abbey

The side of Westminster Abbey

The walk to Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace


Palace Guard

Palace Front Gardens

So stinkin excited to see the show!

A toast to our first year...

On the double decker bus

Parliament

The Eye of London

Tower Bridge

The church where Princess Diana got married

Brides' Chapel: reason why wedding cakes are layered

Watching the filming of the new Harry Potter movie
A shopper's dream...Oxford and Regent Street

And down came the rain...
Where we had dinner for our anniversary

Our computer is being really slow right now, so no more pics. But I posted most of them on facebook, so you can check them out there.

We get our house tomorrow! Yay! So i'll probably be busy the next few days setting up house (finally!) but i'll try to post again soon. We won't have internet in our house for a few weeks (i won't even go there....it makes me very angry) but I'll do what I can to keep everyone updated.

Our new life thus far...

We have been so busy getting our live set up here. Oh my goodness. But God has been more than faithful and He has really been blessing this whole experience so far. We have officially found a house to live in...yay!! And its in a perfect location, Cambridge. :) We are really excited! It is 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths (which is not common here). During our house hunting, we or should I say I was getting really discouraged and frustrated. We either saw houses that were "poop" holes or were actually pretty nice but really REALLY small. I don't think we would have even been able to get our things up the stairs. Everything is so small here, especially compared to what we are used to back home. But as I said, God is good and he had a house waiting for us. We knew as soon as we walked in that this is where we were suppose to be. It has a pretty open floor plan (also very rare here) and the staircase isn't as narrow as some so we shouldn't have too much of a problem fitting stuff up there. We really wanted a 4 bedroom, so that we could easily have company come stay with us and no one would feel to cramped. We then have our bedroom of course, a room for our office and a future nursery room :) But that's enough about that ;)

We bought a car last week and finally got to pick it up today. We ended up buying a 2001 Honda Accord. Not my first choice but it works. It was by far the nicest car that the dealer had on his lot. We test drove a passat and a jetta. The passat I was kinda excited about but when we got out on the road it sounded like something was really lose underneath and it didn't drive well at all. And the jetta was really cute but as soon as we opened the door, I knew it was a no go. It smelled like smoke really bad. The British are really big on manuals and so its hard to find a good automatic car. I can't drive a manual and I don't want to learn here cause the roads are horrible and I already have to learn how to drive all over again. So mixing the two probably wouldn't be good. So with limited cars to choose from, I think we got a pretty good deal. I drove it some today and I already feel really comfortable driving it, so that's good.

We are continuing to run around like crazy people, trying to get everything done on base. They don't make it very easy on you when you move...but I'll leave that at that. :) Today we were able to call our movers and schedule our stuff to be delivered. Yay!! We were able to get one of our shipments brought to us the day we move in and the other one is still up in the air but they told Sam that it should work out for them to deliver stuff next Wednesday as well. So our fingers are crossed...

And this weekend is our 1st anniversary! I can't believe it! What a year...We've lived in three different places, done a couple of really long road trips, adopted an additional member to our family, and didn't ever think we'd be in England right now. It has been a great year though. I mean I got to spend it with my best friend! What more could I ask for. :) Sam has planned a trip into London this weekend for us, so that will be a lot of fun. We are going to see the Phantom of the Opera (so excited!) and going out to dinner (which i don't know where...maybe its a surprise) and then of course we are going to do the tourist thing and see all the cool sites. So it should be a fun weekend. Perfect timing to just relax and not worry about all this moving stuff. And then we are coming back Sunday evening and getting ready to move into our house. :)

I'm hoping it won't take too long for us to set up our internet at our new home cause then I can finally start posting pictures for you guys to see. I tried to upload a picture of our house but this computer won't let me...arg. But I promise I will as soon as I can.

England...

England is so beautiful! Yesterday we got a chance to drive out in the countryside a bit and it was absolutely breath-taking! Its been a lot of fun exploring our new home. We have fallen in love with Cambridge. It is a great city, with so much to offer. We are hoping to find a home there but there aren't too many options right now. I guess its their busy time and lots of people are moving into the city right now. So we'll see.

We decided to rent a car Saturday, since our sponsor is out of town for a few weeks and we don't know anyone else to show us around. But it works since Sam and I like to just go and figure things out for ourselves. But driving is so strange. I still can't get over that we drive on the other side of the road and its really weird seeing the steering wheel on the right hand side of the car. :) I haven't drove yet...I'm too scared! And people tend to drive like crazy people here. The speed limits are different here too. You'll be on the narrowest and tiniest road with cars parked on the side and cars are going like 70 mph. Its pretty intense. I'm still surprised that we haven't either been hit or hit someone ourselves. Sam and I decided that we'll be the cautious drivers here (at least until we get the hang of it) rather than the aggressive ones we were back in the states. Our moto has been "mind the curb". Haha :) I'll have to explain that one later. So we've been doing lots of driving around and all I have to say is that buying our GPS has been the best purchase of all time. I honestly don't know how people would find there way without it.

As for house hunting, its slowly progressing. I have my list of homes that we're interested in. But apparently realtors don't work or aren't open on the weekends (i can understand not being open on Sunday but Saturday...really?) so we left a bunch of messages and hopefully we'll hear back from them today. But in my heart I know that God has the perfect house picked out for us and we will love it. He has been so faithful throughout this whole journey so far and I feel so silly for stressing out as much as I did. He has made things go so smoothly that it almost brings tears to our eyes to know how much He truly loves us and provides for us. :)

We went to church yesterday here at base. We had to hit up the 5 pm service because we are so messed up time wise...thanks to the time zone change. Goodness, we couldn't go to sleep until about 4 am on Saturday night/Sunday morning and then ended up not even waking up until 3 pm on Sunday. Insane I know. So last night the both of us took a couple tylenol pm and went to sleep by 11 pm and woke up at 8:30 am. So things are looking better in that aspect. :) But back to church. It was ok. We liked worship but didn't really feel that connection with the pastor. So we'll see what happens. Since we are staying here on base for a few weeks, we'll probably continue to go there until we find a house and then we can see what is closer to us and what might be a better fit for us.

On a sad note, we don't have internet in our room here so I've been coming down to this internet cafe thing on base to check email and stuff. So that means that I probably won't be able to post any pictures for a little bit anyways. But I promise I will as soon as I can. We have so many to share with you. :)

It hasn't really hit us that we are in England and this is our new home for the next couple of years. I feel like we're just visiting...but thats probably because we are living in a hotel room and don't have much of our stuff with us. Sam and I were talking and thought it would hit us when we get a house and all of our stuff gets here. Then it'll begin to feel like home I suppose.

We have felt really welcome by our squadron though. When we arrived to our hotel room, it had been fully stocked with all kinds of food for breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner. We also had a big welcome basket full of maps, brochures, housing info, a drivers manual, squadron stuff, and even a potted plant. I was so impressed. We also have gotten a few phone calls from commanders wives making sure that we are settling in ok and seeing if we needed anything. Our first night here, we went out to dinner (as exhausted as we were, but i didn't want to be "that couple" that didn't wanna hang) and I got to meet a few of the wives. They all seem really nice and I think I'll fit in great.

Thanks for all of your prayers! And I will continue to keep everyone posted on whats going on in our lives. We love ya all!

We are in England!

Just wanted to let everyone know that we arrived in England safely. Our cats did great! We didn't have any problems. God is so good to us! He has truly blessed us. I'll can't write much now but promise that I will write some more later.

We are almost outta here!!

Has it really been over a month since our last post?! Goodness gracious, I'm not doing very good at this bloggin thing. Sorry guys!

Well lots, I mean LOTS has been going on in the last month. Sam graduated from his F-15 training. Yay!! And as his proud wife, I'm gonna brag a little bit. :) He received 3 out of the 4 awards that were given out that night. One of which was the "Distinguished Graduate"...meaning that he was not just the top in his class but he was the smartest and everyone's favorite. Yup, that's my husband! :) Oh and this "Distinguished Graduate" award doesn't always get given out so its even a bigger accomplishment to receive it. Sam's parents were able to come down for his graduation which was really nice. They were able to stay and visit for a couple of days, so we took them to the beach (of course), mini golfing (well putt putt in sam's words), and the best go cart track ever on the beach!

We finally got totally moved out of our house last week. Sad :*( I'm really going to miss the house and all of our friends! Its so hard to say goodbye. I hate it! We had one last hang out with our dear friends Nick and Kristyn last night. And it was so tough to say bye. Kristyn and I have become such close friends and I just don't know what I'm going to do without her. Oh and for those that don't know, Kristyn and Nick will be heading to Japan next month, so we'll be really really far away from them. :( So with all that said, I guess that means that we are offically moving! Haaaaa! We are driving up to Atlanta tomorrow and then flying out on thursday. So please keep us in your prayers...especially our two boys. I'm super nervous about their flight and really hope that everything goes smoothly. Otherwise, I'm not going to be a happy camper. But I'll leave that at that. :)

So for the last week we've been staying on base which doesn't have any internet (I know...i'm having major withdrawals). So I'm sitting in the Library right now trying to get all my stuff done online because I'm not sure when we are going to get back online once we get to England. My fingers are crossed that we'll have internet at our hotel over there but who knows. But when we finally do get back online, I'll be sure to update our blog so that everyone will know that we made it safely and things are doing ok. (I hope...)

But other than that, my time has been pretty much spent on researching homes over there and making sure that all of the paperwork from the vet is in order. Who would have thought that taking a pet overseas (times 2) would be so friggin hard. Oh my goodness. But I am very thankful that the vet here on base has been so helpful and her staff has really gone out of there way to make sure we have everything we need for the boys.

We hope that everyone is doing well! We'll try to give everyone one last call before we head out. And just a reminder, our cell phones will be shut off on friday so we won't be able to use them. We will have our vonage number and so if you need to get a hold of us, you can call that and leave a message and we'll try to get back to you asap. Other than that, we love you guys and we'll be back in 3 years! (oh my gosh...thats a long time...)

Oh and one more thing :) I'll try to post lots of pics next time. I don't have our camera with us here at the 'ol library.