…What a wonderful trip to London it was!  Kiry was very good on the train there and back, and the purpose of the trip was fully accomplished, which was to register Kiry as a US Citizen born abroad, and to get her SSN and US Passport.  While I would love to say also that we went around to places like Notting Hill and Buckingham Palace, or anything like that, but we didn’t.  It was nice to walk out of Paddington Station and across to the Embassy and then back again a different route all from what I know in my head of London though!  Love the city! 

We are down to two weeks before we go, and the excitement is starting to build around here!  Katrina is getting eager to get out of the country, and Dylan is ready to get started on his new life!  Jordan is hoping that the doctors will clear him for flight on the 29th with the rest of us, and if we are lucky, he will be.  Kiry really doesn’t know what is going to happen, but she has adjusted well to what has happened so far. 

As for me, I have not yet absorbed the idea that we are really going back yet.  I look forward to Nevada, and to making a home there.  There is so much to do!  The house is going to need a lot of work in order to make it as efficient as possible and to make it so that rather then just providing a shelter, it also provides food, and other needs for us.  I would like very much to live green, but I also want to live practically and in a mode of self-reliance.

At this point we have one more step out of the way, and one thing less to worry about.  Now the passport needs to get here on time!  That, and Jordan make the flight, and we are all set and on our way!  Strangely, it feels a lot like it did when we did not know how the Embassy would rule on our sponsorship forms! 

AS you know from my last post, we have got the VISA’s..!!  But then we took off last Friday to get Jordan an MRI on Doctor’s orders, and they found what turned out to be a pretty huge patch of blood on his brain which required immediate surgery!  Ugh!  Can you imagine, “honey, how was your day at work?  We have to rush Jordan up to Birmingham for brain surgery!” 

Jordan was put on priority lists each day, and finally operated on Tuesday afternoon.  A person could be bothered by the delays if not for the fact they were caused by things like babies having emergency surgery to remove brain tumours and the like.  Well, there you go then.  Now it id Friday again and Jordan is finally home.  They want to scan him again on the 24th of September, but he cannot fly with us on the 29th as the results are not even for a week.  The tickets are non-refundable, so I think we will have to look at what options we have there, but we expect he will have to have his VISA extended somehow, and travel out at a later date.  Bummer. 

Meanwhile, I have emptied a house of everything it contained.  I had a load of help from my sister-in-law, and cannot possibly thank her enough for it!  We cleared all of it by working till around three in the morning, then getting up and started again around eight each day, and going again with very little time off for six days in a row.  I started each day tired and ended each even more tired till I was finally so exhausted I could hardly move.  Well, there are a few things left in the house, and a few things left to do, so one more day ought to clear it, if we can get someone with a car to help out.  This would all have been very little if we had a car of our own! 

All in all, this has been one of the hardest weeks to get through in a long time for all of us. 

Now we live at my mother-in-law’s house, and we are still planning to fly on the 29th, albeit without Jordan so he can fully recover first.  We have to see what the Embassy can do to help us extend his VISA.  Trouble is that we have spent so much time and money setting this up and it would be such a waste to not get the stamps in place in the passports in order to complete the immigration! 

For the month ahead, we have a few things to sort out, and we have a time to rest and get ready for the next step in life.  This should be fun! 

On Monday the 9th Kiry, the boys, and I left the house with bags and a large amount of paperwork to get Subway sandwiches and meet Katrina in the city centre.  We caught a train from Worcester Forgate station to London Paddington.  The journey took two and a half hours, and with three kids in tow, it was as much fun as could be expected for two parents who have been going through the VISA process for the past 17 months, and who have poured over paperwork trying to make sure that we got absolutely everything correct to the very best of our ability. 

When we arrived at Paddington Station, the walk to the hotel we had booked was only 2/10ths of a mile out the front door, and to the left on Norfolk Square.  There are many hotels in Norfolk Square, and I can only imagine how similar they may be.  The Hotel Belvedere was not opulent in any way, but what the building lacked in amenities, they staff made up for in courtesy and helpfulness. 

After a brief settling in, we set out on an expedition to see what the walk to the US Embassy was like in route and time to travel.  Of course it required a few unplanned stops, including a Baskin Robins for some Ice Cream. 

As it turned out, the walk was a fairly easy one through Sussex Gardens, down Edgeware Road, past the Odeon and then Marble Arch, and down the East end of Hyde Park till we were at the US Embassy. 

We were stunned along the way when we passed the car dealerships that sell Bentley, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, and Harley Davidson right along side each other.  We were also then surprised at the last approach to the Embassy buy just how many Bentley’s we saw parked on the streets, especially after having just seen one for sale used for £154,000. 

After we meandered back to the room, we all played cards till it was time to fall asleep.

Morning brought breakfast, and a walk to the Embassy again, and of course rain.  By the time we were close to the Embassy we decided that we needed to get better covering on Kirynie.  The rain cover for her pushchair has long been missing, so a couple of cheap umbrella’s would have to suffice.  I got one for Kiry, and one for me, as we were the ones who were going to be waiting outside for the duration of the appointment.  We were at the queue in front of the Embassy by 8:30, and when it was time to leave them, I asked the Information Officer, who was being quite friendly and nice about her job as she sorted people into the final queue, where I could go to stay dry.  She pointed up the road in view and said “There’s a Starbucks just up Audley Street on the left.” 

“Of course,” I replied, and several people behind Katrina laughed. 

So Kiry and I went to Starbuck’s and got our wits about us while I very slowly sipped a hot chocolate. Then we made our way to Selfridge’s, which in the Mayfair district is loaded with Jewellery and Godiva on the ground floor.  Technology was in the basement, and before long, so were we.  Now this is where Kiry gets to have some bragging rights because she watched about 10 – 15 minutes of the original Toy Story on a TV costing £32,995.00 (US $51,882.66 at yesterday’s exchange rate.)  At that price, Toy Story has only looked as good when it was on the cinema screen!

I watched a movie that I could not identify on the screen across from Kiry, in which some huge wave wiped out a large portion of the Earth, and the USS John F. Kennedy (aircraft carrier) flipped over on Danny Glover.  The sound was completely quiet, so I could only imagine Danny saying “I’m getting too old for this shit.”  The John Cusack drove a Bentley out the cargo door of an airplane as it crashed onto a glacier in China, as you do.  (An IMDB search reveals that the film I was watching was 2012.)  We walked on and the next thing to catch my attention was a car door with bullet holes all over it and the glass.  So I spoke to Ben, who sells armoured cars and security gear.  I wonder what they would do for the guys who deliver the £33,000.00 TV’s?  We had a good chat for a while, and Ben and Osam were both nice enough as we chatted about a good many things.  Then I decided I had better go check on our progress, and headed back towards the Embassy. 

It was about North Row where I was called out to by Katrina, and then told that she had the paperwork butchered right in front of her, and after watching it gasping and bleeding on the counter, she then went to pay the fees for the interviews, about $1,200.00, and had her debit card rejected due to what apparently is a policy of HSBC, an otherwise decent bank, to refuse anything charged at the US Embassy.  With special permission she was able to take £900 from the cash machine, then met me, and broke down in tears. 

I told her not to worry as we had totally expected to fail this and have to send in paperwork again later anyhow.  She buckled up and charged back into the Embassy.

I saw a lady putting up her umbrella with a bit of exasperation at the rain as it started to spit down again, and made some comment about it, then found myself talking to her for about 30 – 45 minutes.  As it turns out, she used to import art from Russia before her obviously early retirement, and enjoys her time in Central London now as a divorcé, who is sending a daughter to drama school in New York. 

After the daughter came out and a brief explanation of passing circumstances, I sat next to the statue of Dwight David Eisenhower and enjoyed some time with Kiry.  Before long, Katrina and Jordan and Dylan came out smiling smiles that just got bigger as they approached, so I knew.

I told them that the Godiva chocolates I had bought were for a FAILebration (a play on a type of chocolates sold in the UK called “Celebration” which is essentially a variety box of Cadbury’s), but that they’d have to due for a celebration instead. 

We walked back to Paddington and waited for nearly two hours for the next direct to Worcester Shrub Hill.  When we got home, the phone got busy, and the announcements began. 

It is worth a mention that I have got to thank my grandmother, who has helped us immensely over the past 17 months, and even more when she pulled out all stops in the last week to be sure we had loads of documentation we needed, which included her jumping in her car and driving from southern Idaho to southern Nevada and back over a weekend!  If not for her efforts, we would have absolutely had a FAILebration ceremony outside of the US Embassy yesterday!  I love you grandma, and owe you big time! 

I am working for a living.  That does not mean I am punching a clock while wishing I could punch some guy’s face for clocking in more hours of my life trying to make him money than I get to spend with my family.  On the contrary, I am doing something at home that is a lot of work, and I am doing it for a living, or a life, rather.  The packing is just beginning for me, and I am getting mine sorted first because I expect it to be the easiest part of this move.  I like the things I own, some in particular, but I am not too attached to things since I prepared to move to England and had to rid myself of so much then.  Hours and hours of life are spent in earning money that soon vanishes away on things that in the end are not worth the time spent earning the money to buy them.  So, thankfully, all of the things I own that I want to take with me will fit into two tea chests, and anything that doesn’t gets to fit into a dustbin.  Leaving a country is like dying, and so far, this is the second  time I have seen myself die.  Those who clean up after my eventual demise would do just as well to do the inevitable and pile my stuff into the bin and forget it. 

Despite this view on my personal belongings, making the decisions gets harder as things are whittled down.  After all, the more I throw out, the closer I get to those things that I place a higher value on.  Of course photographic equipment went in first.  There needs to be space for computer gear because the documents I think I will need are stored on drives and not being carried in paper copies.  But what mementos?  What things will signify my life in the UK for the last 8 years?  What will I display on a shelf somewhere to show to others that I was here?  What thing can signify that amount of time?  Alas, only I can sit on that shelf.

They say when you visit a place of natural beauty you should take only photographs and leave only footprints.  But the other side is that the place both takes from you, and leaves something with you.  England has taken time, has taken some of what made me that much more naive, it has taken my breath away, and it has choked me.  It has left me with a wider view of the world, a greater knowledge and understanding, and it has left me with a more open mind to many things.  England has made me a cynic, and an optimist.  In England I have took the hand of a Prince, and I have walked among the graves of Kings.  I have stood atop the walls that defended a nation that would rise to a power never before seen in the world, whose Empire still covers more land on earth than any other in history.  And as the sun never sets on the British Empire, the sun of England should never set in me. 

So what thing among my things should represent that? 

I’ll whittle with the care of Michelangelo, to reveal from the vessel the form within.   

From Worcester,

Kelsey Bacon

This afternoon Dylan and I went down to town to shop for a new camera bag for my gear.  I wanted one that would hold the netbook and not have tons of space to spare.  I happened upon it in Jessop’s at a better price than I could even find online.  That was a great find! 

After, we went into the Worcester County Cricket Grounds, where my father-in-law is head chef, and met my brother-in-law, Deano, and watched the 20/20 match.  It was a better game than the first one I attended with Dean a couple of years ago, and I enjoyed it immensely.  Having done a couple of Colorado Rockies baseball games, and having dealt with the TV interruptions, I have to say, at the peril of upsetting a few friends here, that Cricket truly is a more entertaining sport to watch when it is played in the 20/20 format. 

But, I know next to nothing about either Cricket, or Baseball. 

Sadly, the most entertaining bit of the game came when one of the players took a fast bowl right in the most painful place he could have, and the poor chap wandered away from the wicket and fell on his face.  I thought he proved his manhood when he finally arose ant went back to bat.  However, He did not feel he proved it enough until he took another shot in the next bowl in the exact same fashion.  This time he wandered away and put on an even better show, well, for the ladies at least!  I will let the photos tell the rest! 

Up to Bat.

Strike one?

Strike two!

No, THAT time it REALLY hurt!  So, after liberal administration of first aid sans basket…

…He’s up and ready to bat again!

I am still not quite ready to become a Cricket fan for life, like these two gentlemen have become…

But I do recommend to anyone to try a 20/20 match with someone knowledgeable there to explain the play! 

We were determined after I moved to the UK that we would move over to America one day, and finish raising our kids there, and get our lives going in earnest.  It resulted in a big mistake on our part as we never really settled into our house properly.  The garden (yard) was never done properly and the grass never cut and cared for as it should be.  We never decorated any of the rooms fully, but rather splashed paint on as absolutely required.  We never really made our house a home at all.  It is a rental that we never intended to stay in, so there was no incentive to do any of this. 

The years ticked by, and all along we intended to move away, and we talked about moving away, and when we would do it.  Finally, we filed the first bit of paperwork to get my wife and two step-sons VISAs to live in the USA back in March, 2009.  That was meant to be the express lane, and we would have moved that summer if we could.  But how naive we were to think we might.  As it turns out, it takes a really long time to work through all of it, and there is the money as well, which sometimes resulted in a bit of sticker shock.  Paying out $355 per person on the VISA filing fee was one thing.  Then finding out the Interviews themselves were going to be another $400 each was a horse of a different colour! 

We need to also have air fares, and money to cover the cost of shipping personal belongings over..!!  And as you may well be aware, the airlines are charging for everything they can now, including the use of a pillow or fee for a carry-on bag.  They are going full hog on fees to recoup the losses over the last year, as if we were to blame for it! 

The whole unsettled feeling of the last several years, plus the added magnitude of it since filing those fist papers in 2009, and the worry over getting it all right, and fulfilling everything we need to, and the fact I cannot buy a single kitchen utensil without thinking of how it will be disposed of in the long run (ever shortening run).  I cannot set up my business in earnest either!  It all amounts to a lot of undue stress that I would rather not have to deal with at any time again in my life.  We do well financially at the moment, but we are not rich people.  The costs surrounding this move are a burden, to be sure, even if only a temporary one. 

Well, as of tonight, we have filled out the papers at last letting the Embassy know we are ready for our interviews.  They should be set for about one month out.  Then, and only after the interviews, will we know if we have dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s adequately to cause them to issues three VISAs so we can all move over to America at last, and settle at last, and buy a butter dish that I think might look nice in my kitchen, at LAST..!! 

I mail in those forms tomorrow, and then I am off to town without a care in my mind, but to wonder how long it will take to hear back from the Embassy on the appointment.  I am sure I will freak out then too, and post a blog about it!  After all, once that date is past, and we hear back, we will know…  KNOW if and about WHEN we are finally able to start our lives together in earnest after only seven and a half years (plus) of marriage!  Finally, we will be able to start making things right so we can buy a Bed and Breakfast and with any luck, retire there in many years to come.