I am leaving in the next 15 minutes to go and pick Evan up from the airport. The house is clean (or as clean as it needs to be!!) and I have dinner in the fridge ready to cook. So tonight we can simply relax and chat and catch up on the last week. I have talked to him while he has been in America, but it is never quite the same. I am glad he will be home in 2 hours time!
Evan and the cats flew out today with Evan’s parents. Everything went very smoothly and the people were super nice. I did notice lots of people looking at us and that made me smile. Evan and his parents had escorts through security and they took the cats to a quiet room, opened one cage and swabbed the inside and just swabbed the outside of the rest of the cages. They said the cats stay in that room until last thing, then they walk them down, that way they stay out of the noise. They said in Chicago, they will be last off of the plane, again to keep the cats away from all the noise and bumps. They will be waiting near baggage claim.
If you ever travel with pets, AA is VERY good!
Now I am off to work for the day. 4 day week and then Evan comes home next Monday, which is Bank Holiday, so again another 4 day week. Lucky me!
Our three seater sofa has left the building. It sold for far more than I thought it would on ebay and tonight, was picked up by it’s new owners! Our first piece of furniture gone.
I’m thinking my blog might easily become a running commentary on our moving progress. I will try not to allow that to happen. 
This week has been fun and also stressful, but I guess moving will always be stressful, no matter how well you plan, organise, etc.
We have had fun with Evan’s parents here. We have been to Bolton Abbey; York and ate at our favorite spot, Oscar’s. We also spent one morning at the Trafford Centre and today we headed over to the Lake District. We stopped in Keswick and Ambleside.
We also made a decision this week that Evan is going to fly home with his parents on Tuesday and take all four cats. This involved booking Evan on the same flight as his parents; buying 4 cages for the cats suitable for Air Travel and getting the cats Vet checked. We used PayPal money to pay for the cages, which was a bonus!
On Friday, we got some advice about money and finances before we head to America and once we are living there. A few things we need to do are open a new bank account; do our American taxes for last year in America; write to the Tax people here and get a refund for the year we here in England because we will have been paying income tax based on working 12 months and we are leaving early, so we should get a refund.
While Evan is gone next week, one of the things I am going to work on is putting furniture and stuff we are not taking with us, onto ebay to sell. Sam and Shane, be expecting a half empty house when you get here. Sorry!!
Part of getting stuff listed on ebay is that we had a company come and give us an estimate for shipping our stuff to America. I had estimated that we would take between 120-170 cubic feet with us to America. When we moved from Northampton to here, the van we rented was 250cubic feet and I figured we would be taking about half of that to America. The estimate we got was 147 cubic feet. How good am I!! Maybe I should go and work for a moving company! Anyway, it has spurred me on to start getting rid of stuff NOW.
If the cats are going to be living with Bill and Jane, we want to get ourselves out of here as quickly as possible, so that they do not have to take care of them for too long.
I will try to post some pictures of this week soon, but for now, I will end this very long post.
The cats are Vet checked with certificate to fly in hand (or it will be when I pick it up tomorrow)!!
Bill and Jane bought us the remaining items we needed in our Denby china today at debenhams. The great thing was Debenhams is not going to carry our pattern any more, so they had it at 70% off. Plus they were having 25% off all china…so we got bowls for £2.75 each and a platter reduced from £51 to £11!! How amazing is that. A good bargain always makes me happy!
This week is going to be cram packed full of fun and decision making.
1) Evan’s parents arrived yesterday
2) Today we have a shipping company coming to give us a quote
3) Friday we have a financial advisor company calling to give us advice about managing our finances as we immigrate
4) Angela and Graham return to England this week, so we will have to catch up!!
5) Evan might fly back with his parents and take the cats over now…we need to decide
Evan’s parents booked a last minute trip to come and see us before we move. They arrive tomorrow at 7:20am…so we have an early morning. This weekend I have spent at least 4-6 hours sitting at my computer scanning in old pictures…taken before the days of digital camera’s. We have a whole book shelf of photo albums, before we move, I intend to have 1…ONE…picture album. Everything else will be digital!! YEAH!!
On another note, the weather has been PERFECT this weekend. 67-72 degrees most days, sunny, clear skies, B.E.A.Utiful!!! I am loving this weather.
I’ve actually got a lot to say at the moment, but no motivation to say it because I seem to be spending all of my time on the phone at the moment.
I believe that everyone who reads this probably already knows because they are also my friends on Facebook, or they are family who I emailed, but just to make it official on here as well….Evan and I have decided to move back to the States. This will be taking place sometime this summer. We plan on buying tickets next week, but hopefully by the 16th May.
That is why I am spending the majority of my time on the phone. Just trying to get everything sorted out.
I did see something on my way to work, that put a smile on my face for quite a while. As I was coming down a hill, I could see around the corner that traffic from the opposite direction was moving very slowly, so I slowed down. As I came around the corner, a builders truck with 3 guys probably about my age in it, was sitting in the middle of the road. I caught the eyes of the driver who grinned at me with the biggest smile on his face and then pointed over towards the other side of the road. When I looked over there were 4 tiny little ducklings on the side of the road and the truck had swerved to miss them and go around them. All three guys in the truck were totally wrapped up in watching these 4 ducklings move safely onto the grass that they back up 4 cars behind them and me coming in the opposite direction!! It put such a smile on my face because three tough builders were grinning ear to ear watching these tiny little ducklings! I love my drive to work!!
