1st stop: England

12 pieces of luggage, 2 car seats, 1 stroller, 6 carryon’s, 10 family members, 2 airports, 9 hour flight, 2 meals, 4 cities, 2 preschoolers…all in a day’s work.  Literally.

We left Spokane, Washington with very mixed emotions.  This process of moving abroad has provided many opportunities to say goodbye.  None of them easy.  But saying goodbye to family is especially hard.  We felt so loved and supported as all of Marc’s family came to the airport to “send us off.”  We boarded the plane with heavy, but excited hearts.  Looking forward to the year ahead and all that God has for us.

We spent 5 wonderful days just outside of London, England.  We have very good friends who work with YWAM and are based in Hayward Heath.  The experience was amazing.  Reuniting with my dear friend, after 7.5 years, was incredible. 

The stopover also really helped our kids (and ourselves) adjust to the time change and deal with jetlag.  England is 8 hours ahead of Seattle.  The first night we all found ourselves awake at 1:30am.  What does one do in the middle of the night, while battling jet lag—watch a movie and make grill cheese sandwiches of course. 

The next day was a write off as we slept in until noon (ish).  But we enjoyed time with our friends and just being.  No agenda.  After the craziness of packing and traveling, it was nice to just rest.

The following day we headed to London and took in the city.  It was so hard to wrap our heads around how old the country is.  Absolutely awesome.  We took in all the big tourist sites and loved every minute of it.  

I suppose this picture speaks for itself

Holmstead Manor, the YWAM base our friends serve on

Just one view of the gorgeous gardens at Holmstead Manor

Buckingham Palace and Changing of the Guard

Trafalgar Square

Big Ben (tley) 

Westminster Abbey

Tower Bridge

London was incredible.  But Bodiam Castle actually took our breath away.  On Friday, our last full day in England, we drove through the English countryside (awesome) to take in the ruins of a castle built in the 1300’s.  The castle had a moat.  A. MOAT.  Seriously this is the stuff of books and movies.  It was surreal to see it in person.

Bodiam Castle

Saturday we left for Uganda.  There is a story to be told about that day of travel.  Let’s just say it involved a medic, ambulance and an EKG.  Details to follow on the next post (sorry to make you wait).