A Dream Come True.

We're back from the British Isles. It was a magical ten days. I've been using one of our boarding passes as a book mark and when I pulled it out this morning, it made me cry. Tears of gratefulness for the time we had as well as sorrow for all the friends I'm missing.

It would be laborious to go into great detail on all the things we managed to see and do while we were there but here are a few highlights:

Embracing at the airport

Picnicking in Windsor

Cream teas in Bath

Church on Sunday

An icecream by the river

A whirlwind tour of London

Pub lunches and so much laughter

Standing on the field of my old school

Sweet shops

Late night conversations

Incredible curry dinners

Coffee and lunch with dear old friends

Sitting in the bath in our bathing suits at the end of a long day

Scones at the Dobson's

Watching 3 Men & a Little Lady for old times sake

Country drives

 Eating as much duck, sausage and cake as I liked

Feeling beautiful at a beautiful wedding with beautiful people

Dancing my heart out in the best of company

Gorging myself on delicious food

Sitting on the floor of the Bridal Suite with my best friends

A glorious day in the Cotswolds with my parents

More cream teas

A beautiful evening dinner with my favorite people...

....dreaming of the future.

My heart is full with thanks for the gift we were given in this trip and to everyone who made it happen and provided along the way - you know who you are. Why God chose to bless us so abundantly with friends who love us so very much, I will never know. But I'll happily receive it all again and again.

What a dream come true.

Truly. 

One Hundred Days

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We leave for England in 100 days.

By "we" I mean just Tim and I. It will be our first time away from the boys since Moses was born. And while I know I'm going to miss them (probably more than I realize) I know I'm also going to treasure my one on one time with Tim, which probably won't come again until, well, a long time from now. It's not everyday one of your best friends gets married in England and your parents offer to cover the cost of the flights (God bless them).

There's a part of me that never wants the day to come, so that I always have the joy of anticipating it's arrival. In the past - during the summers I was in college - I always returned with nervous excitement. I was single and free and there was nothing I wanted more than England. I graduated from college a year early to get there faster. At one point, England was all there was. That was the plan. It was the plan I had 7 years ago - visa in hand, job interview at the other end of the line. But of course, here I am. With a totally different story to tell. I never returned because God redirected my path and thank goodness He did because it led me to Tim and to two little boys who wouldn't be here otherwise.

But there is and always will be, I think, a little piece of my heart that stays on the other side of the Atlantic. England is like a first love that I can never forget nor can I help but be drawn to. And to come face to face with it again, after all these years, knowing full well that when those ten days are up I will have to say goodbye again breaks my heart a little.  Knowing that I will have to come home with my heart fresh and vulnerable. I think I'm making this sound all very over dramatic, but in my head it makes sense. I'm sure some of you are saying "Lady, just take your trip to England, appreciate it for the amazing opportunity that it is and stop finding reasons to complain" and to that I say - Amen.

It doesn't change the fact that for me this is more than a vacation. It's a return to a place and a dream that I put away a few years ago when I knew if I kept on yearning for it the way that I did that it would kill me. I'm scared to have to say goodbye all over again. To go through a period of longing to be back. I want to go and see and love and dream and then come home and love my kids and be happy to be home. Best case scenario. I have faith that God knows all these things and will keep my heart safe with Himself.

Below are snippets from a post I wrote while I lived in England in 2006. It is a piece of a day I hold close to my heart and my 22 year old self does a much better job of encapsulating the deep connection I feel to this place. Because of course, she was there. In the present and loving every minute of it:

Rewind to Saturday - approximately 12:40 in the afternoon. It's going to be a hot day. I'm on my way to Milton Keynes Central station with 9 minutes to spare before my train leaves the platform for London... I pass the time to Euston station by reading my book and listening to music as the scenery to my left blends into lines of green and blue. I'll never tire of watching this country from the vantage point of a passenger en route.  My favorite is from the clouds. There's nothing quite so captivating as observing England from a bird's eye view. The countryside becomes a patchwork of rolling fields and meadows, divided into lopsided squares by hedges and ambling lanes, and polka-dotted by sheep and cows and little houses and ponds. Sometimes I wonder if I come here just for that....just for those few minutes of all-seeing splendor; when it's all a silent masterpiece promising to offer me something it knows I may never find. That image, that aerial view that keeps me disconnected but filled with anticipation of touching down, is what I hold on to when I feel the dream slipping away.

"...Somewhere between Warren Street and Green Park, I begin to daydream and realize two minutes too late that I've missed my stop. Circling back, I finally arrive at Waterloo and as it's one of the National Rail connection points, it's much grander than your typical London underground station. I step into the heart of a thousand paths crossing all at once, and it looks like life in fast forward. It’s almost heavenly here, with the sun streaming through the glass ceiling into this wide open white space. But time is ever the burden and there’s art to be seen so I move out onto the street, only vaguely aware of the direction I need to head in. A crowd of boisterous males temporarily clogs the flow of pedestrians, drunk on beer and England's win against Paraguay in the World Cup match of the day. I'm still warming up to the excitement surrounding the tournament. At the moment, all I'm focused on is getting back to Oxford Circus before the shops close. 

...I pause outside Westminster station to take in the greatness of Big Ben - once again thrilled by the closeness and tangibility of it all. Moments later I'm plunged back into the belly of London's underground, hundreds of feet below the city streets. Here, everything moves in fast, parallel lines all headed up or down or sideways or backways. Passenger tunnels branch out in every which way, like a maze of rabbit holes, each leading to a new destination. Platforms are the only places where bodies stand still, if only in wait for the next journey onwards. The walls are peppered with brightly colored floor-to-ceiling adverts, while the train tunnels straddled at either end are a deep, smoky black abyss. Sometimes, if your eyes are quick enough, you can spy a mouse scurrying along the track line making its way, perhaps, to Paddington Station. 

...Back at Euston station, I settle into my seat on the 7:54 train to North Hampton. The journey home is cast in fading sunlight, and once more I abandon my book for the beauty outside my window. From a still, small place in the back of my mind, I carefully take out the plans that sit on the edge of December and slowly weigh the options in both hands. As always, I'm left with vague impressions. But for now, in this quiet moment of solitude, all that matters is that I'm here, now, witnessing life unfolding itself before me - and there's nowhere else I'd rather be."

- June 9, 2006

England 2013

My family and I celebrated New Year's Eve, 1992 on a British Airways flight to London. I was 7 going on 8 and it was my first airplane ride. I spilled orange juice on myself - I remember this because it was written in a diary I was keeping at the time. A few weeks later, while having lunch at my new British middle school, I had apple juice spilled on me (accidently) by a girl named Hayley that the teacher described as a "trouble maker" - she was kidding, but I didn't clue into the sarcasm, so I was terrified when I was assigned a seat next to her. The juice spilling was confirmation of my fears at the time.  Later that day I was introduced to Hayley's best friend Sarah who told me I was ugly (she still denies it, but why would I imagine something like that?) Twenty years later, they remain my dearest, most beloved friends.

In the two and a half years my family lived on Windsor Road in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, Sarah, Hayley and I gathered a myriad of strange and wonderful memories, playing games of our own invention. With Sarah a game we dubbed "vomit" which involved placing a bottle cap full of orange juice in your mouth and seeing how much you could keep from spilling out (weird). Hayley and I enjoyed standing on the edge of my tub looking into the big wall to wall mirror as we "shaved" toothpaste off our face with a wet toothbrush (I don't know).

Here we are back in the 90s (from left - Hayley, who hates this picture, Sarah and myself) getting ready for a school production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I was cast as a piece of corn (!) I was only on stage for about 3 minutes but was still required to go to early morning rehearsal to practice "waving like a piece of corn."

My family moved back to the States in 1995 and it would be another 7 years before the three of us would be reunited.  Hayley faithfully stayed in touch through letters and cards, while Sarah and I barely talked because we were lazy penpals.  But when I returned to England in 2002 as a graduation present from my parents, it was as if time had stood still and nothing had changed. And it still feels that way today. No matter how much time goes by between visits, we are still those little girls vomitting juice and shaving toothpaste off our face - in spirit, of course.

Life, naturally, has also brought a lot of change for each of us. In 2006, while I was living in England and working with an organization called Scripture Union, Sarah began dating Richard. I love this man (platonically) as much as she loves him (romantically) and love that he's in her life.The last time I saw them (as well as Hayley) was when they flew to Cleveland for my wedding to be bridesmaids. Even Richard was a bridesmaid! Just kidding. But seriously, that week was such a memory maker. Do you want to hear about it? Great. Now's not the time though.

Right now I want to tell you about how excited I am that after five long years Richard finally popped the question. Praise the Lord! That man will officially be in our lives for good. This also means a long awaited wedding. A long awaited reunion. A long awaited trip to show Tim the land that I love. It means being a bridesmaid of a friend I have loved for twenty years now (how am I even that old?!) It means walking down the aisle in the church of my old British middle school. It means so many glorious and wonderful things.

It also amounts to a whole lot of dollar signs. The wedding is set for July 13 of next year. If you know me personally, or you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that Tim and I have recently gone down to one income since (essentially) losing my job and having a baby. Finding the funds to make this trip happen isn't going to be easy. We're on a no-frills budget just to make ends meet as it is so we're having faith that our 2012 tax return will cover the cost of the flights (currently they're $1700 per person round trip) and maybe a little spending money. So the time to start saving, if we can manage it, is now.

I'm also going to do something totally crazy and unheard of: I'm going to ask if you would be willing to help us. Now I know this probably seems a little audacious and self-centered. I know lots of people could ask for money for way more important things. I know a lot of people out there are struggling. I know lots of you could use a kids-free trip to England right about now.  But for us, this isn't so much a vacation as it a once in a lifetime opportunity to see one of my best friend's get married and to be a special part of such a special day. Let me assure you that I wouldn't ask for your help if I thought we'd be able to come up with the funds on our own.  This trip is deeply meaningful and I really want to be there to celebrate Sarah and Richard's wedding day. If you don't like the idea of giving money to something like this, I totally understand and please don't give. Save it for something you truly feel called to donate to like this or this or this. But if you want to bless Tim and I - as well our friends - then you can donate a little something towards our trip by clicking the PayPal "donate" button at the top of the page in the right hand sidebar.

Or just donate your prayers.

Because we need those too.

Sarah and I at the height of 90s British fashion.
We loved those puppets.
Such an awkward picture.

The House by the Lake.

Today is a family day. Tim is off work and all I want to do is spend the rest of the day at home making baby food, tidying up and watching Downton Abbey which is a new British mini-series. Or just series...perhaps not mini. Anyways, it takes place in England which allows me to vicariously live out my past life via the scenery and is set during the twenties - an age of sophisticated fashion, manners and classic British aires.

Oddly enough, this afternoon offered the rare opportunity to be transported back to English soil... at least in spirit... when I visited a nearby estate that is up for sale with my dad and brother-in-law. Being close to the lake, many of the neighboring homes are vast in size and value, especially those that sit right on the water. This particular home, which is priced at just under one million dollars, felt straight out of the pages of the well preserved memory I keep of England. There was even a hint of London hanging in the clouds today - cool, gray and heavy with moisture.

All I could think of, as I excitedly bounced from one corner of the property to the next was, "I can't imagine what it's like to live in a place like this." Not just because of the wealth required (did I mention there are tennis courts, a guest house and a conservatory with a fountain in the middle?) ... but because of the possibility of being surrounded by grounds that seem enchanting even on a dreary day like today. The fact that the house has been vacant for three years gave it an extra sense of curiosity, like Lady Craven's garden in The Secret Garden. The view of the lake from the back of the property was pretty breathtaking too (sorry for the shaky camera work):