We arrived one week ago today — mostly in one piece. I’m not exactly sure how we did it, except to say it was by the grace of God and a lot of stubbornness. Here is where we are:

Here what we’ve been up to (rewinding a bit):

Saying Goodbye for Now

On Wednesday (3/8) night we met up with some friends who weren’t able to make it to our going away party at the beginning of the month. It has been really touching to have everyone rally around us, but bittersweet given that we will not see many of our dear friends for many months.

Complications

The Tuesday (3/7) before our departure I fell ill with what I thought was food poisoning: I spent Wednesday alternately packing boxes and recovering in bed. I thought the storm had passed by Wednesday afternoon and felt pretty much back to normal. (Enough so to see some friends for Tacos and Beer (see above)). Unfortunately we discovered it was not food poisoning but a stomach bug that I passed to Andrew BECAUSE he spent the plane ride across the pond (3/9) vomiting. Luckily Andrew has gotten good sleep and is all better now.

Mr. Ezra, The Dog

Ezra is in quarantine 🙁 Unfortunately we didn’t realize there was an eight day lapse in his rabies vaccination in 2015 so he has to be vaccinated¹ and stay at the doggie jail for 21 days. We visited him Tuesday at the kennel, which is basically a farm that boards animals and is authorized by the UK government to house dogs who are quarantined².  He is being well taken care by of so our minds are at ease but I am disappointed that both our local Seattle veterinarian and the USDA vet inspected and signed off on our paperwork and did not catch the lapse. I also miss him and am counting the days until he can come home.

Settling In

On Saturday we ran a few errands after sleeping in. We picked up my Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) card which serves as my ID and work visa while I’m in the UK, thus allowing me to work (or volunteer) in the UK during our stay if I choose. We also picked up Andrew’s city bike that he got last here when he was here, so we’ll have a bike to use before our bikes arrive in our shipment from the US.

On Sunday we went to church in Fareham (1 hour away) at Our Savior Lutheran Church. This is the same church Andrew attended last year while in the UK. We received a very warm welcome from the congregation and are looking forward to getting involved in the church once we settle in. We tried to make a Costco stop at after church but unfortunately they experienced a power outage so there were no free samples for the Fergusons.

On Monday Andrew had his “first day of work³” so we took an obligatory photo.

I am very relieved to be in the UK. This transition has been a long time in the making and I’m grateful to God and to all our friends who have helped us and supported us. Now if we can just get our puppy home everything will be right as rain.

1. rules are rules…apparently ↩

2. Andrew is plotting how to get our appartment certified as as a quarantine center ↩

3. It’s the same role as last year he’s just in the UK full time now! ↩