In the spring of this year, Dave & I felt like it was time to sell our house. It felt like it was time for some changes for our family. Before we could even list our house, some neighbors came by and said that they wanted to buy a home in our area. They had been living in a small townhouse. So within about 6 weeks our home was sold!!! How's that for confirmation that we were doing the right thing! :) We were able to rent our house back from the new owners for the summer, which helped us a ton - so that we didn't have to move twice. Once we had the offer on the house, I had a thought that possibly we could travel to England for the fall. I have always wanted to spend an extended period of time in England, more than just a week or 2, ever since we visited there in 1996. The wheels in my head started turning, and I mentioned my idea to Dave. Surprisingly, he said, "yeah, maybe we could do that"! So for the past 3+ months we've been figuring everything out so that we could have this extended time away. We decided to not purchase another home until we're back from the UK, so I guess we're officially "homeless"! We've put all of our things into a storage unit (3 actually!) and Janae & Joshua are doing online school through a public Utah online school, and Dave can work from anywhere, seeing that most of his work is done online. Our oldest son, Austin is staying in Utah & doing all of the "in person" tasks at the office while we're gone (his choice). Tyler is with us. He postponed university for one semester so that he could come and have this experience with us.

And we're off, as of September 8th! Woohoo! I feel so blessed to get to go on this adventure with most of our family. I'm so grateful, and have felt God's hand in our preparations. Here we go to see new parts of the world and have new experiences together. 

Our flights went well. It's a little difficult to adjust to the time difference. I'm trying to stay awake all day today, so that I sleep better tonight. 

Our luggage got lost! (See photo above!) Luckily, we all brought one change of clothes and underwear in our carry-on bags, so I guess I'll do laundry every day until we get our bags! 

Dave's Uncle Mick and Aunt Marian are graciously hosting us at their home. We really appreciate their hospitality. We'll be here off and on throughout our 3 month adventure. (1st one on the left)

We picked up a rental car at the Manchester airport yesterday, and I drove it!! Wow. Wow. Wow. Yikes! Aunt Marian and Uncle Mick came to meet us at the airport, so Aunt Marian sat in the front seat of the rental car with me and guided me. Thank goodness! It's like learning to drive all over again. Not only do they drive on the left side of the road, but all of the signage and road markings are different, and the car is a stick shift, with the stick on the left of course! I'm quite nervous to drive here. Pray for me!

We walked to the town center (spelled centre here) of Hyde yesterday afternoon with Aunt Marian, and she showed us around a bit. The houses here are mostly row houses, made of brick or stucco. They are around 150 years old and are charming. 

This morning Joshua went for a walk with Aunt Marian, and the dog, Cocoa. Here are a couple of pictures that he took on his phone...

Today Dave went golfing with our friend/long-lost relative, Peter Hughes. The kids got caught up on school work. We'll do some sight-seeing tomorrow.

And for dinner tonight we had our first fish & chips on the island. Mmmmm.