It's Actually Happening...

Talk about a roller coaster.  I'm not a writer or even a blogger but I'm moving to London from the OC bubble which means I'm about to experience a lot of things that my fellow OC friends and family may want to see and experience.

It all started with one of the craziest weeks of my life.  Allie and I found out that we were going to have a baby and my boss asked if I wanted to move to London to start our UK office.  Without hesitation (almost), Allie and I said yes and looked forward to an amazing, smooth-sailing journey.

The date was set.  We were to move to London at the end of March when we returned from our vacation to Hawaii.  All I had to do was fly to London for a week, look for a home, and come home to prepare my life for the big move.  Again, smooth sailing.

The good news was, I did just that. I found the perfect home in Putney along the Thames that I knew Allie and future baby girl would love. Our flat is in a neighborhood called Mannorfields.  Very British.

After many goodbyes and packing our entire life into 17 large boxes, we set sail...er flight... to Heathrow airport.  That's when things got interesting.

You need a Work Visa to work in the UK???  I HAD NO IDEA!
I know. What seems so obvious, now, was not necessarily evident to us at the time.  We thought we would hang out in London and wait for our Visa to come through.

Not quite.

Back to the good ol' US of A it was for us.  Thankfully, they gave us the weekend to check into our new home and rest as Allie had quite the flight of her life.


Let's fast forward a little bit.  I came back to the office, learned what we needed to do and did everything I could do to get us back across the pond.  We were in a time crunch, though.  Allie wouldn't be able to fly past 36 weeks pregnant and she was 30 weeks.  We started the process and prayed everything would come through in time.

It's Wednesday, May 22nd and FedEx delivered our Visas.  Our flight, that I booked a week ago in hopes the Visa would come in time, is for Thursday, May 23rd.  I think that qualifies for cutting it close.

So, we're on our way. I hope to update you with pictures and stories of London and our new baby girl.