Our Anniversary...

Well, Martin and I have been married for four years now. Hard to believe, but true all the same. I think we have stayed married longer than most people thought we would.

Our actual anniversary was Thursday, and it was a good day. We both worked, and I drove in to Scunthorpe from Immingham to pick Martin up. Then we went on a date, which was a lot of fun. It had been a while. We had a Big Mac and fries, then went and watched "Pride and Prejudice." Fabulous burger, fabulous movie.

The real fun started on Friday night, when we drove to Bielby and camped out for a few nights. We were about 20 minutes away from York, and that's where we spent the day on Saturday. We wandered the open market in the Shambles, had cream tea at Betty's, and walked all around the city wall. York is still my favorite place to be.

We had a fantastic curry back at the campground, and an early night playing Rummy. After a rainy night, we woke to a sunny Yorkshire morning. We packed up the caravan and got on the road to fabulous Castle Howard. It's the home of the Howard family, and the current Earl of Carlisle & family. We spent quite a few hours wandering the house & grounds, and it was really incredible. The estate encompasses 10,000 acres and features the castle, private woodlands, extensive gardens, a chapel, a working farm and nursery, fountains, and they even have their own lake! When we figure out how to get the pictures on here you'll be bale to see all the cool stuff

Hello there all, I think this is the first time we have sent out a posting since we arrived on the beautiful shores of my home land (this is Martin sending this one out) We have been fairly busy since we got here, buying a car, catching up with friends and also work. Actually it has just been me working but Jamie is in the process of finding some form of gainful employment, maybe with Volvo. Who knows we might get a screaming deal on a new car.

We have already made one trip whilst we have been here. We went to a place called Tatershall Castle which is in the sam e county as the one we live (map to follow in a future posting so you know where the heck we are talking about) Quite impressive really when you consider that it was just someone's house. Of course it was in quite a state. In fact, not too long ago it was being used to store livestock. Anyway, a fine day out, if not a little soggy (this wonderful nations fantastic weather coming into play again)

We are planning to see as much of this country as we can as soon as possible, just for the fun of it really. We will keep you up to date on our travels

Sorry about the picture being sideways, I forgot to change it around in the download. Just turn your monitor on it's side, then you'll be able to see it better!

The job hunt begins!

I have started looking for a new job, and Martin has started his. I went in to the job centre yesterday, and found the people to be genuinely helpful for the first time since I got to the UK. Their computer system is really advanced and user-friendly, and the people were wonderful. I have several different jobs that I will be submitting resumes for this afternoon, and I hope to have a job by the end of this week or the first of next. Fingers crossed!!!

Martin is finding his job to be a little bit frustrating. He is using a different computer system over here, the car classes & rates are all a little bit different, so are the procedures, etc. In short, he already knows how things should be done, but he doesn't know how to do them any more. I know how he feels--it's hard to go from a job where you know everything to a job where you know nothing. It's also hard to step down from a leadership role and become one of the plebians again. But he'll adjust, and I know he'll rise up through the ranks again soon.

We've also bought a car, and it sure is nice to be mobile again. We had a rental all last week, but it's different when it's your own. The car is a little green Seat Cordoba (pronounced SAY-ought), and it goes really fast (not so sure that was a good idea, in hindsight. Martin has a lead foot!)! It's actually a boy racer car--the kind that young single guys tend to buy and fix up with fancy halogen lights, body kit, booming sound system, etc. But it's a little older now, and was undoubtedly discarded in favor of something new. It suits our purposes perfectly, and now we are deciding what we'll do this weekend--the world is our oyster as long as we don't spend more than about £100. So much to see, and so much time to see it--Ahhh, the joys of living abroad! I hope my next post will be about the fantastic sights we saw over the weekend.

We made it!

Martin and I have been in the UK for 4 days now (it seems like longer) and it is wonderful to be here. England in the summer time is just as beautiful as I thought it might be, and I think autumn is going to be even better.

We've had some minor setbacks, and I'm finding the difference between Americans and Brits to be more pronounced than I remember it being. When you go into a bank or the doctor's office in the States, everyone is so very helpful. You ask questions, and they volunteer the information that you need. Here, people seem to be more reticent. If you don't ask the right question, you don't get an answer. And instead of people suggesting different options if they are unable to provide something, people just say, "Oh no, we can't do that," and leave it at that. It's infuriating, but I suppose I'll have to get used to it.

I'll try and post some pictures this weekend--took one of Martin in the Queen's Head pub, and got a couple of other good ones.

We bought a car today, and I am going to the temple on Saturday. We're going to Hull tomorrow to do some family research. Keeping busy, and I should actually have stuff to post about every week--at least for a little while yet.

Well, here we are in beautiful (and cool) Nephi. The move up from St. George was an adventure. Mom and dad helped us move, and they came down two days earlier than they said they were going to. Plus, we thought we were going to take two days to do it. Plans changed, and we did the whole thing Saturday night. It was so incredibly difficult, compounded by the fact that I kept having mini panic attacks. Let me just point out that I have never done that in my entire life!

We had a ton of help from our friends down south, for which I will be eternally grateful. We couldn't have done it without you Rick, Alice, Becky, & Greg!!!

Since we got here we've been sleeping and relaxing and finishing packing, and we are now done packing! Our boxes have been shipped, so now it's just a matter of getting ourselves there. We are both starting to get really excited about things. Martin's dad is going to make sure we have a car when we get there, and Martin starts work on the fifth of September.

Last night we took my dad's jeep for a drive in the mountains, and it really hit me how much I'm going to miss Utah. Martin and I were talking about it--how I get homesick and he really doesn't. We decided that for him, where he's at is just where he is; for me, where I'm at is a big part of who I am.

Things are moving right along on the move. We've got one more week of work, and are really looking forward to our built in two week vacation during the move!

We got some great news last week--our property management company has rented out our apartment as of 9/01 so we don't have to pay a buy-out on our lease. That was a huge weight off our shoulders as it was going to be $1700.

We still haven't managed to sell our cars, which is getting kind of worrying. I'm sure it'll all work out for us though. Everything else has worked out, and we really feel this move is the right thing for us.

In other exciting news, we picked up a prescription for Clomid (fertility drug) last week. Most people know that we are moving to England mostly so we can have IVF, but we haven't tried fertility drugs yet. We figured that we should try them here while we don't have to wait, and then when we get to England we can honestly say that we've tried everything else. Hopefully we won't have to be on a waiting list for quite as long this way. We're not really expecting the Clomid to even work, but it's worth taking all the same.

So the packing continues and the move is loomingcloser and closer. We'll keep you all posted!

Well, this is the beginning of the end of the beginning...

Martin and I are currently in the process of packing up all our worldly possessions. We leave for England in just under three weeks, and we're both getting pretty excited. Our flight leaves from Salt Lake City on August 27 at 11:30 pm. Goodbye sunny St. George, hello not so sunny North Lincolnshire.

This blog is dedicated to our coming adventures in England and will hopefully be a means for our family and friends in the U.S. to stay current.

If anyone is curious as to where we will be living (we know that most people think of England as London and a few towns surrounding it), you can go to http://www.mapquest.com and search for Ulceby. We will be living with Martin's parents when we first get there (the current exchange rate is brutal), but of course will let everyone know when we move into our own house or flat.

Time to get back to packing. Ugh!!!