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.