Welcome to America

Although i'm not officially there yet, today my visa arrived! Woohoo!!!

And not a minute too soon!

Brittany and I are very pleased and relieved that it has finally arrived and this process is over!
It feels real now, that we are moving in 2 weeks, and that we only have 8 days (7 in Brittany's case) of work left.

Things are starting to mount up. I am out to dinner with friends or family twice this week, brittany is out 3 times. Next week is even more busy! But we have made good in-roads into our packing, and feel we have packed as much stuff as is possible at the moment.

I think we are both sad and happy at the moment, or at least will be before we leave. Sad to leave my family and all our friends over here, but happy to move to where we planned to begin our life together, and be with the other side of our family. I guess now i will finally understand how brittany felt for the first year and half after moving here.

Mainly today though is reserved for happiness and thankfulness. oh, and wondering what is in the "mysterious brown envelope"!!

the final (hopefully) countdown

The papers from mom got to us on Monday and were picked up by the courier to go to the US Embassy on Tuesday morning. So hopefully they should arrive there today. According to the guy we spoke to at the interview, it should be easy to process and technically could be done the day it arrives and sent back. However, we know from experience that nothing goes as easily or quickly as it should. So we're giving them a week. Then we will start harassing them to get it back to us. We sent Andrew's passport in with the papers because thats what they put the visa into. Thankfully we don't need to go back to London to the Embassy because everything else has been checked off and done. We just need to wait for Andrew's passport to arrive back with the visa in it.

Other than that we've been working on other things for moving. Andrew is going to a car boot sale to sell off most of the stuff we won't be taking with us. Which I actually find quite sad. Especially since he's selling off my much beloved hand blender and mattress topper. (Both of which are pointless to take to the US because beds are different sizes and voltage is different) But still. The car has been put for sale online and will be in the Auto Trader coming out tomorrow so that will hopefully be sold soon. The movers are booked for Monday 21st. Things are started to make their way upstairs in preparation of packing the boxes. Farewell parties are arranged. Notice has been given at both jobs. Its kinda weird because for a very long time it seemed like we would never get to the US and then even though we don't have the visa in our hands yet, its coming up all of a sudden and there is so much to do! And we're both very excited but sad too.