Some of the Pictures You've All Been Waiting For (sic)!

This is our street,

and here is our house (that's a lie),

and…lots of other places.

This tower (the Saxon Tower) is about 1000 years old (and no, that's not a typo). It was where the guys mentioned in the plaque below were held before they were burned in the middle of Broad Street.

This is the pub where Lewis and Tolkien had a few pints.

Here we are overlooking the river Thames (pronounced 'temms')

Yeah…we live here.

Hello friends and family! We have arrived in England and now have internet at our flat - no phone yet. We're pooped and have a lot to do to get ourselves completely settled in but at least we now have a "home base" to work from.

So, after a bit of a rough start out of Eugene (where had to re-arrange several of our bags to meet the weight requirements and not have to pay an extra $325 bucks, and where for some reason they wouldn't let Ben bring his guitar on the airplane-very frustrating) we arrived with almost everything we took to the airport (minus Ben's guitar.) The flight to San Fran went very well except that we lost "Open the Barn Door" which you may or may not know, is one of Nora's very favorite books. Sigh. If that's the worst that comes of this, we're doing well. Nora had no trouble with the take-off and landing as many babies do. Praise the LORD!
We had some paninis in the San Fran airport and then hopped on our next flight. It was very full and we were jammed into the middle of the plane but the folks around us seemed happy enough to be seated near a baby. (Phew!) One of the flight attendants really took a liking to Nora and was thrilled to find out that her name was Eleanor as hers is Eleanor as well and spelled the same way! (She grew up being called Nellie though.) Nora slept a solid 4 hours on the flight which was just about all the time they let everyone else sleep (before "breakfast" anyhow.) She fell asleep again just as we were about to land and slept through the landing and the unloading of passengers.
We had no trouble at all at customs - including short lines and by the time we got to baggage claim, ours was already unloaded from the carousel and waiting for us in a neat little pile. A short but precarious walk later (with the stroller, carseat, diaper bag, 6 large pieces of luggage and 3 very heavy backpacks), past the soldiers with machine guns in hand, we were warmly greeted by a long-lost cousin of my father, Peter and his wife Jane. (Peter with handshakes and Jane with hugs.) After a long day/night traveling, we were relieved to have friendly faces welcoming us to England. The next half hour was spent trying to fit all of us in their little car, but we did it! Then a short 50 minute drive to Oxford. England is surprisingly similar to Oregon as far as the look of the foliage and Thursday (the day we arrived) the weather was lovely.
Our friend Rob met us at our flat with our keys (another perfectly amazing story in itself) and we all brought the luggage upstairs. Jane had brought us a few baking dishes and also sheets and blankets for our bed so she and I made the bed up and then she and Peter went to the grocery store to buy us what was supposed to be a few essentials but what turned out to be orange juice, eggs, a bag of pasta and a bag of rice, some crackers and cheese, vegetable bouillon mix, 2 cans of tuna, broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, an eggplant, a zucchini, potatoes, bananas, kiwi, yogurt, granola, and Special K Red Berries. (Without even asking us what we liked they picked us out our 2 favorite cereals.) We were thrilled.
Rob brought us homemade soup for dinner (delicious and comforting after a long day or two) and a few other staples... milk, chocolate, salt, butter, a couple of bowls, bread, wheat-a-bix, and a pot for the stove. But before dinner we went on a walk with Rob to see our neighborhood. We saw several things that reminded us of home... Portland Road, the Sheldonian Theatre, a shop called "Eileen" and we also saw lots that was very foreign to us. On our way back we stopped by Ben's college partly because he wanted to peak inside and get an idea of the place and partly because he had to pee.
While he was peeing, I was in the "lobby" (if you can call it that - it's quite small) and a girl came in with her husband and a stoller. She asked him if she could park the stroller there or if he thought it would be in the way. He said that with 2 stollers (I had mine there too) he thought it would be in the way but I assured them that we were soon leaving since my husband was just using the restroom, so not to worry about it. That started our conversation in which I found out that Nick and Loralay (sp?) had just arrived the day before and that Nick is starting the MSt in New Testament - just like Ben. In fact they are the only 2 doing this program at this college. They have the same advisor too. Nick and his wife have a son, Liam who is only 8 weeks old. They are from Colorado but Nick did his last degree at Trinity Western University and for those of you who may not know, that's like an hour from Regent (depending on traffic). Weird. Not only that, they live in our building. Not only that, they live on our floor. Super weird. Hopefully as we get to know them better we won't find them dreadfully annoying (unlikely) because it sounds like our paths will cross often.
Our heads hit the pillow (well - the mattress, we didn't have pillows yet) at around 8:30pm and we rolled out of bed around 10:45am with a few interruptions from Nora along the way.
Saturday morning Rob picked us up in his rental car (his folks came into town yesterday) and took us shopping for household essentials on the other side of town. It was a productive day but there is still a lot to do to make this place feel like home.

Nora is nearly crawling and has bonked her head several times already on the very hard floor here so we'll be looking for a big soft area rug - or maybe a bike helmet.
Yesterday we walked into the city and saw several of Oxford's colleges and other buildings and monuments and some of the most beautiful gardens and also the River Thames, yes there were people "punting on the Thames" -- classic! It was a beautiful day and we walked 6 miles or so and took loads of pictures. Loads of pictures that you don't get to see yet because despite the fact that we emptied every last suitcase today, we cannot find the cord to put pictures from our camera to the computer. Once we get one of those, you'll see. It's lovely here.
Come visit us soon! There is a sweet little bed and breakfast just around the corner (if you'd prefer that to our very hard floor.)
More to come soon!

PS - The video is of part of our journey here. Just killing time in San Fran.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...

So, we gave you all a rather dismal update yesterday. Thanks to all of you who sent supportive emails, text messages, phone calls, etc. Thanks also to all of you who prayed for our visa situation. After all the downer news and incredible stress, somehow–and I can assure you, we are still shocked about this and have no explanation other than that God is in control–our visas were issued today and should arrive at our house tomorrow (Thursday the 17th)! This means that we can still arrive in Oxford well before the term begins!

To say that we are excited is a vast understatement. Deanna and Nora and I will be in Oxford by the end of the week next week! It is surreal and overwhelming to say the least. We still have an incredible amount of stuff to get ready before we head out (like getting luggage!). And, in the mean time, Nora is working hard at cutting her first tooth - poor girl. (We are praying that it comes before we get on the plane for the long flight over the Atlantic.)

Well, we're off to do some more prep!

Huge disappointment(s)

So, for the last week we have been waiting around anxiously for our visas to arrive. The UK visa process has been hailed as "simple" and "straightforward" by some but it has been neither of these things for us. We have already applied for visas twice (and applied for a refund.) It is not fun and certainly not easy (although I think this is mainly because there are "dependents" in the equation.) Regardless, a little over 2 weeks ago, we finally got all our ducks in the correct row at the correct time and shipped our second application packet overnight to the consulate. The statistics on the web-site told us we should expect our visas in 5-10 days... so we've been waiting expectantly for the past week. This afternoon we got an email from the consulate office telling us that they had just entered our applications into their system and that they would try to process them in 10 days but due to the high volume of applications this time of year, it could be 30. 30!!??!! Not only that, they failed to inform us (on the web-site) to send in Ben's actual degrees... so we quickly FedEx-ed those today as well. Will it be another 2 weeks before those end up in the system?

Not only that, we got disappointing news about our car which we are working on selling... sigh.

Wow, this is a depressing post.

Our plans were to leave on Monday, which obviously is not going to happen now. Luckily we haven't bought our plane tickets yet so we're not losing any money there.

Ben will be missing all of his orientation but his actual classes don't begin until the 8th of October. On the downside, we begin paying rent next week whether we are there or not.

If you could, pray for our sanity... for peace... for a smooth transition... for our visas to come through quickly... for the sale of our car... and for us to be able to enjoy what time we have left in Oregon.

We'll update with more news as we get it.