Oh my goodness, time flies! I have so much to tell y’all!
I guess you can tell from the countdown clock that we are
finally in England! (And our visas came in!) YAY! It was a whirlwind trip too, let me tell you. But more
on that later.
First, let me back up to Christmas. It snowed very heavily
here at Christmas, which was a sweet surprise. We rarely get a White
Christmas here. But this year, it was a tiny bit of a nuisance because, well,
we had things to do!
We had been waiting until after Christmas to drive our car
to Dallas for it to be shipped to England. The snow made this difficult but we
couldn’t let it stop us. So we rented a car and drove both, our car and the
rental, to Dallas in snow and ice.
We have heard so many horror stories about other military
members having to wait 2 and 3 months for their cars to arrive wherever
they were stationed. But our paperwork says it should arrive no later than
February 11. Which is only about 5-6 weeks after we dropped it off to be
shipped. I guess we’ll see…
Since the military will only pay to ship one vehicle
overseas, we had to sell our other one quickly after the Dallas trip.
Then we had to vacate our townhouse and move into TLF on
base. (That’s Air Force lingo for “Temporary Lodging Facility.”) Now, I’m sure
that doesn’t sound like much since all of our belongings had already been
shipped. But we had 14 suitcases (10 full-size and 4 carry-ons) to tote in our
tiny Toyota Corolla rental. It took several trips… This was essentially the
culmination of our “Hurry Up and Wait” period before getting on the plane. Our departure date ended up being rescheduled to two days
earlier than it was supposed to be. But that worked out because, by that point,
we were so tired of waiting around.
So here we are! And I’ll have you know, this move
encompassed my very first plane ride! Yep. Never been on a plane before.
And neither had the kids. (Being in the AF, my hubbie was an “Old Pro” at
flying.) But in a matter of 18 hours, we flew over 3500 miles in two flights.
That was quite an experience.
The first plane ride really scared me. It was only an hour
and 20 minutes but it was a small plane (only two rows of seats) so I felt all
of the taking off and landing very strongly. The kiddos thought it was super
fun though! They did really well on that first flight. Much better than me.
The second one was different. It was a much bigger plane
(Boeing 767) with many more people on it. In fact, it was completely
sold out. Now, I am just a tad claustrophobic so this ride was much more
nerve-racking for me than the first, if that makes any sense. But this plane
also had more to offer (like TVs in the headrests, dinner, breakfast, etc.) so
that made it a little more tolerable…Until we all got sleepy.
Fortunately, the kids slept for a few hours. They were in
the two window seats across the aisle from us so they had plenty of room for
their tiny selves to sleep. But Hubbie and I didn’t sleep a wink. We were in
the middle three seats (with me smack in the middle of him and a stranger). It
was muy uncomfortable. So when we landed in London, we had been awake
for almost 24 hours (taking into account the 6 hour difference) and were so
grumpy and exhausted.
But as if that wasn’t enough, we then had to fumble our way
through London Heathrow and find our 10 suitcases (4 carry-ons in tow) and
locate our taxi drivers (Thank God those had been pre-arranged!) We had about an hour and a half drive from London to RAF
Mildenhall. The kids slept the whole way. I tried to stay awake and view the
scenery but I did fall asleep for about 30 minutes in the taxi. After we got to
the base, we had to check in to TLF and then lug all of our suitcases to our
room. But we couldn’t rest yet…
Not 30 minutes after we got to our room, my hubbie’s
supervisor called and wanted to come by. Talk about an unwelcome guest. But you
know what they say… “No rest for the weary” (or the military!)
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