The initiation into this phase was a little bit glorious, to be honest. It was vacation in some of the truest forms. We had no schedule requirements, and deadlines seemed pretty distant because they were dependent on things we couldn't control. (We really should have applied for visas in July, but the university had to send us some info. Which they hadn't. And we were halfway through August. Super frustrating, but there was really nothing we could do about it). So it was a waiting game, but spent with siblings and grandparents and friends just hanging out, and all without any real pressures? Yes, please.
This picture is SO posed. We just wanted a cute picture of Berlin on the lion.
He just wanted to play in the lion water fountain a few feet away.
We went to watch a baseball game. Berlin went for long car ramps.
Our boating trip, pre-rock injury.
The first week we spent in Rexburg with Jeremy's family. We missed the psuedo-family reunion earlier in the summer (right before Dallin and Jessica moved to North Carolina), so we had our own mini-psuedo-family reunion. We went to the zoo, we saw the Minion movie, we boated down the river with their ward, and we slept in, because Elaine was so happy to play with Berlin when he got up hours earlier than we wanted to be awake. The only sad part of that week was Berlin splitting his head open on a rock and needing a doctor visit. And the ensuing socks taped to his hands to keep him from pulling off his bandaids, which he hated, and we hated. His forehead is now acting like it might be permanently scarred, but his dad has a matching one from about the same time in his younger years. So it works.
During our stay in Rexburg, we finally got our visa info, and we started the application process. This brought more stress than it did relief.
1) We learned that for our applications we had to visit a US Citizenship and Immigration Services office (USCIS, should you ever need to know) to have our fingerprints and pictures taken and sent to the consulate where we were sending our visa applications. The closest two options we have for those offices (who have open appointments before 2020) are Boise, Idaho (a 4-hour drive from Rexburg) or Denver (a 9 1/2-hour drive from Rexburg).
2) Visas can take up to 6 weeks to process.
3) Jeremy committed to teach at a jump rope workshop in Canada, for which he would need his passport. He made this commitment months before, when he thought he would have his visa before we left Provo, and then he planned to just hop on a plane as soon as he got back from Canada to fly to England. So it's now three days before he is supposed to leave for Canada, and we've just finally received everything we need to apply for visas. And he can't actually send in his application because he needs to take his passport with him for the week that he's in Canada. So besides calling the coach and cancelling three days before her workshop (not an option), the only other option we have is to delay his visa application, and as a result, pay an extra few hundred dollars to expedite it a week later so he can make it to school on time.
The "glorious" part of our nomad phase came to an abrupt halt.
We were planning to spend a long weekend in Boise to visit friends that weekend anyway, before we knew about needing to go to the office of immigration, so we were incredibly grateful that particular office had appointments available on Monday, just a few days later. But we didn't really know what that meant for our plan when Jeremy got back from Canada, so it was really difficult to say goodbye to Jeremy's family. We thought it was likely that we would be seeing them again the next week -as soon as Jeremy got back from Canada, we would head back to Rexburg from the airport- but we weren't really sure. Jeremy needed to leave as soon as he got his visa. And we had no idea when that was going to be.
In case you're reading this to try and get yourself prepared to move overseas- The USCIS in any state, like any government office, is either super busy (think DMV) or super slow, so you should probably plan for the worst. There are a lot of warnings on your appointment confirmation about being late and missing your appointment and needing to reschedule (and not being able to make new appointments for weeks and weeks), so make sure you leave plenty early, even if you think you know where you're going (because who's really familiar with the location of their local immigration office?). We had to schedule a three-hour block for Jeremy, Berlin, and me to all have our fingerprints and pictures taken, but the whole process, for all 3 of us, took maybe 20 minutes. It's another hassle that seems like a giant ordeal beforehand, but then you get in there and it's nothing. Or at least it was for us, so hopefully it is for any of you going through it too.
So we spent the rest of the afternoon getting Jeremy and Berlin updated visa pictures, and then we played with the friends we came to visit. The next day Jeremy got on his plane to Canada, and Berlin and I drove from Boise to Spanish Fork to spend week 2 of nomad phase with my grandparents. We shipped off our two visa applications that we weren't expediting (and had passports for) as soon as we settled in. We spent our time in Utah mostly in Provo, waiting for Jeremy to get back and for our visas to arrive (we timed it poorly with my grandparents- it was the week of my grandma's birthday, and they'd had plans to be out of town since before we knew Jeremy was going to Oxford). When Jeremy was flying back from Canada, Jeremy's buddy offered him a job for a few days. This was an incredibly-timed opportunity, since both of us were unemployed heading into approximately one zillion dollars of student loans, so we didn't head straight back to Rexburg like we'd planned (and a foreboding feeling that we might not see them again hit me really hard. I was so happy I was very wrong). We instead stayed with my grandparents for week 3 of nomad phase (which I'm now going to refer to as oNP) while Jeremy worked, and at the end of the week, with no visa in sight, we drove back to Rexburg.
The situation in our car this time was almost exactly as uncomfortable as the time a couple of weeks before. We drove to Rexburg with Kiersten (so 4 of us in a 5-passenger vehicle) with stuff that we'd left at Kiersten's house all over our laps and necks and any place there was the tiniest bit of space (at which point I had to wonder what on earth we got rid of at the yard sales. Why the crap did we still have so much crap?)
At this point in the nomad phase, it was Labor Day weekend, and we actually did get a small break from worrying about moving over the ocean. Our visa applications were in, and again, there was nothing we could do but wait. We went and played with Jeremy's family, enjoyed huge meals, I ran my first 10K, and we went on a couple of great hikes. Somewhere over the course of the past month, I'd been hired as a remote personal assistant to the CEO of a test-prep company in Florida, and the company flew me in for a few days to get some on the ground training. At the beginning of week 4 oNP, I drove back to Salt Lake with Kiersten and flew to Ft. Lauderdale, where I spent the next few days working and seeing old friends when I had any spare time. On Friday afternoon as I was driving back to the airport, Jeremy called me to tell me that all of our visas had come in the mail. You know, the one we paid our next child to expedite and the other two that we only sent in a few days before the expedited one...
Whatever. It's over, I can't even be mad about it now.
I got to the airport and my dad and I booked Jeremy's flight to England for the next morning. Elaine and Brita were driving to Salt Lake for a Sister Fest that Elaine's sisters had organized, so Jeremy packed his suitcases and came down with them, and I did get to see him for a minute before he flew overseas. Berlin and I enjoyed being Sister Fest participants, and we drove home to spend week 5 and 6 oNP with them. We worked, played, went homecoming-dress shopping and to jump rope shows, all while virtually apartment shopping with Jeremy. The Bishop of the ward in Oxford was kind enough to let Jeremy stay with him and his wife while Jeremy was apartment-hunting, and I think they understood that so much distance with no end in sight was hard on us. In the middle of week 7 oNP, my mom bought a ticket and Berlin and I flew to Texas to stay for an undetermined amount of time- Jeremy had finally found us an apartment, but we didn't have any idea when we could move in because the landlord was not trying to help us. At all. He didn't believe that we had money to pay for the apartment (despite bank statements and employment verification letters and loan statements that proved otherwise) and eventually asked if we could pay the year's amount of rent before we moved in, just so he could be sure. We finally dropped that one and Jeremy went through with a contract for another apartment, but they were really unclear about our move-in date. Once in Texas, I bought a ticket to fly out on Tuesday, October 6th, because that was the soonest date the real estate agency could guarantee.
But on Tuesday, September 29th (the week before), beginning of week 8 of nomad phase (no abbreviation for emphasis) I broke down. I was video-chatting with Jeremy and I just started bawling. It had been almost a solid month since Jeremy had left, and more than a month since we had a place to call home, and in the meantime, Berlin and I had been just floating between the homes of people who love us but had lives they needed to live. As much as I love our hosts and love being around them, it was frustrating for me to feel like I wasn't able to progress. I wasn't doing much of anything. I was working here and there, and when family was at home we loved doing whatever with them, but aside from that? We were just existing. Even if we found fun things to do, it was just kind of a distraction from the fact that I missed Jeremy and I really wanted to be settling into the new adventure together. He started school before we even dropped the first apartment, so every day just felt like we were missing more and more.
While I was sobbing to Jeremy, he told me that even if we couldn't stay with Bishop, there were other people in our ward who were willing to let us stay with them while we finalized all the details of this other apartment. During this conversation, my mom texted me, "I'm pretty sure your ticket is transferable."
So when Jeremy went to bed, I changed the ticket, spent the next day scrambling to get everything finally ready to hop over the pond, and, four weeks behind Jeremy, Berlin and I finally left for England.
He didn't love being pinned down while they cleaned his head,
but he was still an amazing sport about the whole thing. Almost zero tears.
During our stay in Rexburg, we finally got our visa info, and we started the application process. This brought more stress than it did relief.
1) We learned that for our applications we had to visit a US Citizenship and Immigration Services office (USCIS, should you ever need to know) to have our fingerprints and pictures taken and sent to the consulate where we were sending our visa applications. The closest two options we have for those offices (who have open appointments before 2020) are Boise, Idaho (a 4-hour drive from Rexburg) or Denver (a 9 1/2-hour drive from Rexburg).
2) Visas can take up to 6 weeks to process.
3) Jeremy committed to teach at a jump rope workshop in Canada, for which he would need his passport. He made this commitment months before, when he thought he would have his visa before we left Provo, and then he planned to just hop on a plane as soon as he got back from Canada to fly to England. So it's now three days before he is supposed to leave for Canada, and we've just finally received everything we need to apply for visas. And he can't actually send in his application because he needs to take his passport with him for the week that he's in Canada. So besides calling the coach and cancelling three days before her workshop (not an option), the only other option we have is to delay his visa application, and as a result, pay an extra few hundred dollars to expedite it a week later so he can make it to school on time.
The "glorious" part of our nomad phase came to an abrupt halt.
We were planning to spend a long weekend in Boise to visit friends that weekend anyway, before we knew about needing to go to the office of immigration, so we were incredibly grateful that particular office had appointments available on Monday, just a few days later. But we didn't really know what that meant for our plan when Jeremy got back from Canada, so it was really difficult to say goodbye to Jeremy's family. We thought it was likely that we would be seeing them again the next week -as soon as Jeremy got back from Canada, we would head back to Rexburg from the airport- but we weren't really sure. Jeremy needed to leave as soon as he got his visa. And we had no idea when that was going to be.
Apparently governments require pictures without band aids. Which is too bad.
In case you're reading this to try and get yourself prepared to move overseas- The USCIS in any state, like any government office, is either super busy (think DMV) or super slow, so you should probably plan for the worst. There are a lot of warnings on your appointment confirmation about being late and missing your appointment and needing to reschedule (and not being able to make new appointments for weeks and weeks), so make sure you leave plenty early, even if you think you know where you're going (because who's really familiar with the location of their local immigration office?). We had to schedule a three-hour block for Jeremy, Berlin, and me to all have our fingerprints and pictures taken, but the whole process, for all 3 of us, took maybe 20 minutes. It's another hassle that seems like a giant ordeal beforehand, but then you get in there and it's nothing. Or at least it was for us, so hopefully it is for any of you going through it too.
So we spent the rest of the afternoon getting Jeremy and Berlin updated visa pictures, and then we played with the friends we came to visit. The next day Jeremy got on his plane to Canada, and Berlin and I drove from Boise to Spanish Fork to spend week 2 of nomad phase with my grandparents. We shipped off our two visa applications that we weren't expediting (and had passports for) as soon as we settled in. We spent our time in Utah mostly in Provo, waiting for Jeremy to get back and for our visas to arrive (we timed it poorly with my grandparents- it was the week of my grandma's birthday, and they'd had plans to be out of town since before we knew Jeremy was going to Oxford). When Jeremy was flying back from Canada, Jeremy's buddy offered him a job for a few days. This was an incredibly-timed opportunity, since both of us were unemployed heading into approximately one zillion dollars of student loans, so we didn't head straight back to Rexburg like we'd planned (and a foreboding feeling that we might not see them again hit me really hard. I was so happy I was very wrong). We instead stayed with my grandparents for week 3 of nomad phase (which I'm now going to refer to as oNP) while Jeremy worked, and at the end of the week, with no visa in sight, we drove back to Rexburg.
The situation in our car this time was almost exactly as uncomfortable as the time a couple of weeks before. We drove to Rexburg with Kiersten (so 4 of us in a 5-passenger vehicle) with stuff that we'd left at Kiersten's house all over our laps and necks and any place there was the tiniest bit of space (at which point I had to wonder what on earth we got rid of at the yard sales. Why the crap did we still have so much crap?)
At this point in the nomad phase, it was Labor Day weekend, and we actually did get a small break from worrying about moving over the ocean. Our visa applications were in, and again, there was nothing we could do but wait. We went and played with Jeremy's family, enjoyed huge meals, I ran my first 10K, and we went on a couple of great hikes. Somewhere over the course of the past month, I'd been hired as a remote personal assistant to the CEO of a test-prep company in Florida, and the company flew me in for a few days to get some on the ground training. At the beginning of week 4 oNP, I drove back to Salt Lake with Kiersten and flew to Ft. Lauderdale, where I spent the next few days working and seeing old friends when I had any spare time. On Friday afternoon as I was driving back to the airport, Jeremy called me to tell me that all of our visas had come in the mail. You know, the one we paid our next child to expedite and the other two that we only sent in a few days before the expedited one...
Whatever. It's over, I can't even be mad about it now.
I tried to snapchat Dallin and Jessica when I was in their state. Then my phone died.
The sign asks "Who is John Galt?"!
Love this woman. I accidentally showed up in Florida just in time for her son's wedding.
Man, I'm so lucky sometimes.
This spinning ride with these gals is one of the funn(i)est things I've done in a long time.
But on Tuesday, September 29th (the week before), beginning of week 8 of nomad phase (no abbreviation for emphasis) I broke down. I was video-chatting with Jeremy and I just started bawling. It had been almost a solid month since Jeremy had left, and more than a month since we had a place to call home, and in the meantime, Berlin and I had been just floating between the homes of people who love us but had lives they needed to live. As much as I love our hosts and love being around them, it was frustrating for me to feel like I wasn't able to progress. I wasn't doing much of anything. I was working here and there, and when family was at home we loved doing whatever with them, but aside from that? We were just existing. Even if we found fun things to do, it was just kind of a distraction from the fact that I missed Jeremy and I really wanted to be settling into the new adventure together. He started school before we even dropped the first apartment, so every day just felt like we were missing more and more.
While I was sobbing to Jeremy, he told me that even if we couldn't stay with Bishop, there were other people in our ward who were willing to let us stay with them while we finalized all the details of this other apartment. During this conversation, my mom texted me, "I'm pretty sure your ticket is transferable."
So when Jeremy went to bed, I changed the ticket, spent the next day scrambling to get everything finally ready to hop over the pond, and, four weeks behind Jeremy, Berlin and I finally left for England.
And we were all pretty happy about that.
[title from hey mama by mat kearney]
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