Recent Happenings

It's been a while since I've written. I think I've been going through some weird kind of withdrawal because for several days, it was like all my thoughts were going through an editing process...like how I would compose them on here...even though most of it won't ever show up on the blog! My other weird confession: as I type (or compose in my head what I'd like to type), my thoughts--in my voice--are in a British accent. That's sort of embarrassing, especially since I can't actually speak in an accent, even pretending, but in my mind, I sound just like everyone else here. :) Hm.

Anyway, here's a little recap of the last week or two...

On Wednesday the 19th, we moved into our house, at least partially. Our furniture and the majority of our household goods are still on a boat headed this way, so the base provides some things for us temporarily...beds, a couch/chair and coffee table, a dining room table and chairs...and then some things that we can use for the duration of our time here: a fridge, a microwave, washer/dryer, and some wardrobes (because we don't have bedroom closets.) All of that arrived that Wednesday afternoon.

Scott had to work that day, but someone had to be waiting for the FMO guys between 8 and 5...so that meant the kids and I needed to be here that whole time. I managed to drive the van (with all the kids in it), following Scott on the way to the house. It was an accomplishment for little ol' me, who hasn't been out on the roads much, and hadn't driven at ALL without Scott also being in the car! It involved a little of everything: country roads, highways, multi-lane roundabouts, passing parked cars on tight village roads...not panicking... :) And, to be totally honest, I haven't driven at all since that day. :(

It's not that I haven't been willing, but I don't know my way around, and even if I managed to find my way to wherever I wanted to go, I would not be able to find my way home. I can't even keep my bearings when Scott is driving and I'm really paying attention to landmarks and signs! I think the majority of my discouragement with "foreign living" comes from this predicament alone. I HAVE to be able to do this, but I don't even know how to start...or how to get past the fear. I will...it's just taking me longer than I'd hoped.

In the meantime, though, I've figured out good ways of keeping up on the laundry (in my itty bitty machines), and I got a lot of time to play with the kids. We went for some walks to explore our neighborhood and played boardgames when it was rainy (which was a good bit of the time.)

Our landlords (a retired couple) actually live in what used to be the garage for the house. It's been converted into a really nice little apartment, and it's actually not as awkward of an arrangement as it might sound. We have lots of privacy if we want it, but if we need anything, they're very accessible. As negligent and frustrating as our last landlord was, these people are equally amazing, sweet, and helpful! They're like surrogate grandparents to my kids already. The day we were waiting for FMO, the landlady came over a few times just to check on us. The first time, she and her husband brought us a chocolate cake and a bunch of information about the house. Later on, she came by with a pot of coffee for me and a cup, cream, and sugar, a pitcher of juice for the kids with cups for them, a huge container of grapes, a sleeve of oreos, and enough plates for us all! It was wonderful because we didn't have anything with us except Julia's sippy cup, and it was getting close to lunchtime.

Scott came along with some lunch for us shortly after that (so we would have been fine), but still. Isn't that just nice?! They had also left these on the kitchen counter for us:

It's a map of East Anglia (our region of England), information about Soham (our town) and all the surrounding towns with tourist information, bus and train schedules, and phone numbers for libraries, museums, and restaurants...and the blue binder (maybe my favorite) is full of all the user's guides for all the appliances and the electrical/plumbing/gas systems in the house. Each manual or packet of info is in its own little sleeve...it definitely appealed to my OCD side!

I started taking pictures of the place, but FMO came before I finished. I'll post more once we get the rest of our stuff and are more settled, but for now...

My kitchen! :)

Dining room

Stairs. The door on the left goes into the kitchen, the door on the right goes into the dining room, and they're connected behind the wall by another door. The living room is off to the right...

Living room. Um, yes...that's Collin in the corner... :-/

The girls finger knitting, and Ian playing with Julia. (And my electric fireplace, haha!)

Downstairs watercloset (bathroom with no shower.)

Out the back door...the fence on the left divides our yard from the landlord's

Backyard

From the back corner of the yard, looking at the house

From the other back corner...

Once we got our furniture, this is how we passed large quantities of time (when we weren't outside or playing board games...which our landlady brought over on another day)

And I took a few pictures of the kids

And that's about all I have time for right now.

Our internet is on now (obviously) and our unaccompanied baggage arrived, so now we have warmer clothes, our school stuff (we start tomorrow! Eeeee!), and some of my dishes and cookware...and our nicer camera (which I used to take pictures yesterday on our outings around town.) :) 

Thanks for your continued prayers! So far, we are settling in well and enjoying it here...the transition is going pretty smoothly! :)

Packing Up and Moving In!

Well, the lease is signed, and tomorrow FMO (Furnishings Management Office? ...something like that) is bringing out our loaner furniture and appliances so we can move into our house! We have to go to another office today to try to secure dishes, cookware, utensils, and a highchair, but I don't think it will be a problem.

We don't have our stuff yet (besides what traveled with us), but we found out yesterday that our unaccompanied baggage (some warmer clothing, a few dishes/cookware, and our school stuff) is at least in the country. (Not being at the bottom of the ocean is good, haha!) It's waiting to go through customs, and then we wait for it to be shipped to us, all of which should happen by the end of the month.

As far as we know, our household goods (furniture and the majority of our things) are still on target to arrive sometime in mid-October.

SO, today I'm getting everything packed back into suitcases (as much as possible) and trying to get things staged to take to our house! (It's gonna take a few trips, haha!)

Thank you for your continued prayers!

Grand Espace

Scott was able to pick up our new (to us) van today! Because we're still trying to get our banking situation worked out and can't access large sums, we are sort of "renting" it from the seller. She has been so nice to work with us and our international craziness.

My favorite feature so far: it has parking (backing) sensors! Maybe that will help me not back into anything in the itty bitty parking lots/spaces around here. :) It also has a huge sun (moon?) roof, which the kids think is pretty fantastic. Ian is just excited about the bug screen (which is supposed to prevent bugs from being sucked inside the car when the sun roof is all the way open. We'll see if it works.

Here are some pictures.
The outside:

awesome (crooked) parking job by me. :-/

 The inside:

inside the tailgate

Looking back from the front passenger seat. You can see, but there are three seats in the middle, and two in the back...reversed from what our old van (and most American vans) are like.

Driver's side--all the window and A/C controls are on the door, and all the radio/CD controls are hidden in a glove-box-like compartment in the center of the dashboard. It'll take some getting used to since everything is placed pretty differently from what we've had in the past, but everything seems pretty easily accessible.

It's a 6-speed, and Reverse is to the left of 1st...you have to lift a little ring to put it in R. It also has a push-button start, and the slot at the top there? That's for the key...

The key

Bye to the Blue Beast

Somehow, this car looks way better to me in these pictures than in real life. I didn't think it was that shiny. In these pics, you don't notice the dents and scratches...and you certainly don't smell the sour mildew-y smell that the interior has when you first open it up. The gears don't quite lock in the way they're supposed to, and the air conditioner doesn't work...

BUT, it's been a decent car to learn to drive on, and the fact that it had so many scratches and dings made us feel a lot more at ease about the many curb-checks and brushes with the hedges that we added. :)

Scott had to return it today because the company had already rented it out to someone else beginning tomorrow.  This sort of leaves us in a bind because we still can't access our money in quantities of more than about Ł150 at at time...which is NOT enough to pay for our new van. (And there are no rental vehicles nearby with enough seating for our family.) Be forewarned: if you're moving to a location where there are no physical branches of Wells Fargo, they will not allow you to wire your money anywhere...and even though you've updated your contact information and talked to them numerous times on the phone, they will continually freeze (or deactivate) your debit card when they detect international charges (which tends to happen when you're living in another country.) We're trying to work things out so we can rent the van we're going to buy, but since the seller needs a vehicle herself...or the money necessary to secure one...well, it's just a little bit of a headache all around. I'm sure it will all work out...  :)

In the meantime, we're stuck on base...and we would be anyway, to be quite honest, because poor Collin is sick again. He is achy and miserable and has a fever. I don't think I've ever seen him just lay around and sleep like this before; even when he's sick, he usually feels better enough intermittently to play and be pleasant.  Poor little man. :(

Driving Test

Well, I took my driving test today and passed! (Woohoo!!!) I did miss one question about this sign, though:

I shall know it better hereafter. :)

On the downside, as with most driving classes, we were subjected to horror stories (and videos) of various kinds of accidents. I did NOT need help being terrified of driving...but, pretty much, that was what was accomplished. There's one road that I basically refuse to even try. There is an 8 foot drop off on each side of the road (no shoulder), and the ditches are filled with water in most places. One of the accidents on that road involved an Air Force spouse and her three children. The car flipped and landed upside-down in the water-filled ditch, and all four of them drowned before they could get out of the car.

On most of the other roads I've been on, which also don't have shoulders (at all), there are giant trees lining the sides...or big hedges...but those both seem less scary. Still scary...just less so.

I cannot believe I was ever afraid of driving in Wichita!!! (True story: when we were getting ready to move to Wichita from Wichita Falls, I was scared of driving in the "big city"...which it was, comparatively. Turned out, as everyone said, not to be that big of a deal. Here, even the locals admit their roads are scary.)

On the bright side, prayer is becoming a much more constant activity. Nothing like good ol' fear to keep dependence on the Lord in the forefront of one's mind!

I'm relatively certain that I'm not far from being able to drive around Mildenhall village (I can already manage the base.) Next, I'll have to master getting to Lakenheath, Isleham (just found out it's pronounced "IZE-lum" and not "ILE-ham," or "ILE-um" like I'd been saying), Soham, and maybe Bury St. Edmunds...and all the roads in between. I think it's doable.

Please pray for me, especially that I would grow in my trust in the Lord and not be so anxious and fearful.

9/11

One of Scott's friends posted this quote earlier, and I found it both beautiful and very appropriate for what we remember on this day:

“The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal - every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open - this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved, when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal, would accept of consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness? No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection, when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved are softened away in pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness - who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gaiety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom, yet who would exchange it even for the song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry? No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh, the grave! The grave! It buries every error - covers every defect - extinguishes every resentment! From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections.” 

― Washington Irving

 Never forget.

Settling!

1. We are really liking the church we've visited for the past two weeks.
2. Our offer on the van Scott tested on Saturday was accepted. We just have to set up a day to pick it up! It looks sort of like this:

This is just a picture I found of the same year/model online, but ours is about this color, too.

3. WE FOUND A HOUSE!!!! It's in the village of Soham and looks like this:

(picture from the website/ad)
I'll put up more pictures once we've moved in and gotten sort of settled.

Ironically, Because God is awesome, and because (I think) He was giving us even more comfort in the fact that He has prepared our way, let me share something else with you:

1. It's the first church we visited! For those of you who have known us a while, you might remember what a hard time finding a church home we had after past moves. It took us a 2-year failed attempt in Wichita Falls before we finally found "home." And it took us an agonizing and lonely 6 months in Wichita.
Here, on the other side of the world, if this is really where the Lord intends for us to stay, it took us being here for 3 days! Our very first Sunday in the country was brought fellowship with like-minded believers, encouragement from the body, solid preaching from the Word, and a glimpse of what it might be like to really "fit" here.

2. The van is the first van we looked in person and test drove! The asking price was pretty steep, but the seller accepted our offer! It's the same year as the van we sold, and we're buying it for almost exactly what we sold our van for!

3. The house is the first house we had an appointment to see! You might remember me saying that Scott had to go to that showing alone because Collin had gotten sick. He really, really liked it based on that first showing, but the next available appointment we could get (so that I could see it, too) was today! In the meantime, we were able to see something like 8 other houses, and only 2 would have been semi-workable. One had (barely) enough space inside, but NO yard. (Just a sidewalk that wrapped around the back of the house.) The other was beautiful, and had a small backyard, but it wasn't in a great-seeming village, and it was about an hour's drive away from the base...on one of the most dangerous roads in East Anglia (our region of England.) Thinking about making that drive in the dark, rain, ice, fog...totally honestly, it scares the bejeebies out of me.  And Scott would've had to do it twice a day! I am SOOO thankful for this other property!

It is about 30 minutes drive to both our base and Lakenheath (with the better commissary and BX), and it's 12 minutes (according to google maps) to get to our church, which is in another small village between Soham and Mildenhall.

So, YAY YAY YAY!!! God is SO good, and we're so thankful for His provision, leading, and timing! Thank you for your prayers on these matters, and please continue to pray for all the details to proceed smoothly. All of us (kids included) are really excited!

Duxford Air Show

After church yesterday, we decided to drive out to Cambridge to see the Duxford Air Show. We showed up late enough that the crossing guard let our whole family in for free, and we were allowed to park in a field across the street. It was our first time driving into the city (Cambridge is an actual city...not quite like the little villages we've grown accustomed to around here.) It was relieving, in a way, because the roads were a more normal size...and the signs were relatively easy to follow. It's just the speed and the fact that maneuvering is different...it made it a little stressful at times to both keep up with the flow of traffic AND figure out where we were going. I guess that happens sometimes even in the States.

Anyway, the show was great! There was a huge museum about various wars with mock-ups and relics from each...and lots of tanks! I wish I could've gotten some pictures, but my camera battery died (it was brand new! Grr...) Maybe we'll get back out there at some point...it was pretty cool, and there was a lot of information to learn!

The fields behind the air field were beautiful...pictures don't do the rolling hills justice. 

I'm such a girl. Saw the rainbow directly overhead and had to snap a picture.

The Aerostars! They were pretty awesome!

...but the finale was definitely impressive. The Red Arrows flew in!

A heart :)

They called this a cyclone. Two jets going opposite directions in a circle (so they would cross paths twice on each go-round.) They also would switch smoke colors when they'd pass, so one side of the circle was blue, and the other was red. They did three complete circles.

Daddy and Julia...she is MUCH happier these days! I think she finally has gotten used to the time difference. Her sleep patterns are back to be awesome, and she's eating better; and her molars have FINALLY poked through (just barely)! She hasn't run a fever in just over a week. :)