Stories From Our Suitcase

While in Michigan, I got to spend a lot of time with my family, especially Melissa and her adorable little girls.  Lyla is 2 1/2 years old and is a ball of energy and sass.  She got her daddy's looks and her mommy's personality, with my sass thrown in.  Yes, I influenced her personality! ;)  She is adorable and so much fun to be around.  I love her to death and enjoy spending time reading books, giggling and spoiling her rotten when Melissa isn't looking! Amelia (Jeff and I's goddaughter) is 7 1/2 months old.  I can see both of her parents in her looks, but her personality (I know, she is only 7 months) is pretty relaxed like her dad.  She is a drooling baby, so you should make sure to have an extra shirt around before holding her.  Honestly, I don't really mind though. ;) She is getting so big already, and I can't wait until I can see her again.  She will probably be walking by then!

Friday, September 16th:  I woke up at 3:00am to be ready for my taxi by 4:00am.  Since I was going to the airport alone, I opted for not walking around Central London at 3am by myself to take a train or bus.  I got to the airport by 5am and got checked in.  After sitting around for awhile, we started boarding my plane. Once everyone was boarded  and ready to go, they announced that the pilot had found an issue with the engine and they needed to check it out.  Come to find out, someone driving a piece of ground transportation hit one of the engines.  Not good!  So after sitting on the plane for 30 minutes, they deplaned us and told us to wait in the gate area for announcements.  Then about 30 minutes later they informed us that our flight was canceled and we needed to go to another gate to get re-booked.  After standing in line for another 15 minutes, they told us that we had to go back out of security and get our bags and then go to t...

Sunday, September 11th:  We arrived into Heathrow Airport around 6:30am and were picked up by a car sent from Latham (Jeff's job).  It was my first time having my name on a sign.  Well, it said 'Boerneke, J', but it was still part of my name. ;) It was a special moment!  We were driven to our temporary accommodation, which was a one bedroom apartment with a washer/dryer, living room and large bedroom.  It was really nice!  As soon as we arrived, I started the hunt for an apartment.  Unfortunately, we didn't have our laptop yet, so we were doing all of our searching on Jeff's i-touch.  Since I only had four days to find a place and sign on it, I had a lot of work to do.  This is our temporary housing.  I was open to just staying here and foregoing the trouble of searching.  Jeff said No. Although I had been doing research on apartments and locations since the time we got the offer, I had NO IDEA what I was in for.  I...