the fire's burning bright

Before we moved to Oxford, we knew that Christmas 2015 was going to be spent with all of Jeremy's siblings finally under one roof (nobody on missions, all of the married siblings on the same rotation with in-laws, etc.). We also knew, as soon as we decided on Oxford, that we might be the only ones to ruin that. 

Of course we wanted to go, who doesn't want to spend Christmas with family? but it was going to be really expensive, especially for a student loan budget. Even if we bought our tickets early. Then we found out one of our friends was getting married in Provo the weekend before Christmas, which meant that if we flew to Jeremy's parents (which would mean flying into Salt Lake), we could totally catch the wedding before we headed to Rexburg.

So I called my dad. We thought we could at least get estimates on what flying standby would be like and see if we could maybe even possibly justify the rough chance of perhaps making it over the ocean in time for all of these events. It took a while to get in touch with him during normal hours for both of us, and when we finally got a hold of him, it was already the first week of December, and if we were going at all, it was going to be like the next week. By a miracle or two, he found us some buddy passes, and we just bought them. Without a lot of further consideration. We were so excited by the prospect of going to see family for Christmas (and the fact that it wasn't going to cost us a couple thousand dollars), we didn't have much time to worry about how crazy it is to fly standby, ever, but especially around the holidays.

And of course, whether we gave it ample consideration or not, crazy it was. Jeremy still had some classes/projects to finish, so Berlin and I were leaving first, hopefully getting a decent head start on the holiday rush. It was cheaper to fly out of Brussels than to fly out of London (by a few hundred dollars), so we took a bus from London to Brussels. It was an overnight bus that didn't leave until 10PM, and was a 7-hour bus ride, which isn't the most ideal for a toddler, or his mom, but hey. We can make a few sacrifices, right?

We got to Brussels at about 5AM, which turned out to be good timing because it took me a while to navigate the train station. Not because it's incredibly difficult, but because I could not for the life of me find a bathroom, and I just wanted to change the poor kid's diaper (who had only slept for about 4 hours but who was now wide awake). We made it to the airport in plenty of time for standing in line, getting through the line and being sent to another wing of the airport, confirming that Berlin's info was all correct (people were positive he was older than 2, which was a little annoying, but. I get it. Here's his passport...), and getting back to that first line. We also finally found a great bathroom (which means "clean and not cramped"), and there was a sort of playground in the waiting area in the shape of an airplane, so Berlin got to stretch his legs.

Fortunately, we made it on the very first flight we tried to get on, fortunate for a lot of reasons, but most especially because there are only two flights that leave from Brussels that go to the US, and they leave at the exact same time, so you can only try to make it on one of them. Berlin fell asleep while we were waiting for them to call our names, and he got a decent amount of sleep on the plane (great for me because it meant I could also sleep). 

While we were waiting to get on the plane in Brussels, I happened to meet a couple who were also headed to Salt Lake. I happened to notice their "Bountiful, UT" luggage tags as they noticed my BYU shirt (also kind of a weird coincidence because I almost never wear BYU shirts in public. Not because I don't like to, but I just generally sleep in them. So I try not to wear those ones in public).

Our flight went from Brussels to Atlanta, and once in Atlanta, there were two more planes going from Atlanta to Salt Lake that night. And both were overbooked. Some quick things to know about standby: 1) everything is about priority, which is set by the date whatever employee started working. 2) Buddy passes are the lowest of the totem pole, regardless of the priority of the employee that gave you the buddy passes. So if all of the other standby passengers make it on and there are still seats available, a buddy pass holder might get a seat. If the plane isn't overweight or anything. 

So I was looking at the standby passenger board and seeing my name very far down the list for next to zero seats and trying to mentally prepare myself for spending the night in the airport with Berlin while still paying rapt attention to the TSA desk in case something changed. The Bountiful couple wife came over to me and said something like, "This doesn't look good for anybody." I laughed and made some comment about that being the way it goes flying standby, not thinking much of it, still focused on the board, and she said, "And you have the baby..." I maybe should've seen that she was trying to be sympathetic, but of course, still not paying a ton of attention, I just said, "yeah, it's okay. We've done this a few times before."

It came down to one seat left, and the Bountiful couple was in front of me in line for it. They were talking to the TSA person, but I'd stopped listening and was trying to decide how far I wanted to walk to find dinner. Then I realized that the wife was pointing at me. The couple had decided that instead of splitting up so one of them could take the last seat to Salt Lake, they would let me take the one seat (Berlin was riding in my lap) and they would stay with some friends in Atlanta and try for another flight the next day. Talk about Christmas miracles. I cried. I was so grateful and trying to blubber out an intelligible "thank you" as the TSA lady was rushing me through the door down the ramp. I hopped on the plane, heaved a huge sigh of relief that was mingled with one of the most powerful gratitude prayers I think I've ever offered, and Berlin and I fell asleep before takeoff. 

My grandparents met us at the airport, and we got home to this. Oxford's winter means rain, albeit cold rain, but not snow. I think for the first time in my life, this much snow was an incredibly welcoming sight :)

Our plan was to stay with my grandparents until Sunday, when we would get on a bus to Rexburg after church and hopefully still surprise the majority of Jeremy's family (we did tell Jeremy's dad, for the sake of logistics, but we hadn't told anybody else). Jeremy was supposed to take a bus  on Wednesday night from London to Brussels and fly out of Brussels on Thursday morning, making it just in time for Zack's bachelor party. 

So naturally, he didn't get on the flight to Atlanta on Thursday morning. Not because there weren't open seats on the flight, but because the plane was overweight. Which is so frustrating. At this point, of course, it was cutting it really close for Jeremy to even make it for the wedding (Saturday), even assuming he made every flight after that.

This was the only time I'd ever considered what would happen if Jeremy couldn't make it out of Brussels. And I was freaking out. Of course my mind jumped to the conclusion that if he couldn't make it out on the Thursday before Christmas, he wasn't going to make it at all. Sheer panic. This was an overreaction, but standby is merciless and doesn't care about Christmas. Or weddings. Or happiness. 

So I started frantically searching for flights in nearby countries (if you have never flown standby, I understand that this might not seem logical. I promise it was). I found a flight from Paris leaving the following morning that had a large amount of empty seats, so even running the risk of being overweight, it was likely that Jeremy would get a seat on the plane. It also was a direct flight to Salt Lake City, so it meant avoiding one more crazy airport like ATL or JFK, making it all around the best bet. So he spent the day running around in Brussels (which ended up being almost zero sight seeing), spent the night in the Brussels airport, I switched his buddy pass information, and he took the first train to Paris the following morning. 

While he was at the Brussels airport, some guy asked to borrow his computer cord and ran off with it. Rude.

I was panicked during this whole lapse of time, largely due to sleep deprivation. From about 9AM on Thursday his time (1AM for me Wednesday night/Thursday morning) I was losing it, so psychotically worried he wasn't going to get on a flight (I also had only been in the US for 24 hours and had definitely not adjusted to the time difference). He should have left on the Brussels flight at 2:30AM my time, that came and went, so we searched for another option at 3AM. Around 3:30 when we decided Paris was the best option, I finally went to sleep. I think Jeremy did too, right on the airport floor. 

The following evening for me at about 5, Jeremy had gone to sleep about 1AM his time and needed to be up at about 6AM (10PM for me) to get on the only train that would get him to his Paris flight on time. So at 10, I was waiting for him to text me that he had gotten up and was leaving the airport. Our UK phones pretty much only work in the UK, so Jeremy was dependent on places with wifi to communicate with me. It was 11:30PM when his train should've gotten to the Charles de Gaulle airport, and I still hadn't heard from him. Panic panic panic panic. At 12:30AM, only an hour and a half before his plane is supposed to be flying away from the airport, I got a text from him. 

It was a picture of the passport line, which is the line and a still a bit of a walk away from the actual security line.

Cue the aneurysm. 

Meanwhile, he continues to text me lyrics to the Christmas song that's stuck in his head, cool as a cucumber. I didn't even have the stable or witty nerves to text back emojis of the weapons I would have liked to injure him with just then. Jeremy doesn't have a good track record for not missing flights, and remember, I was losing it.

I was trying to be relieved by his lack of stress, but of course my stress was only amplified with his apparent lack of stress. You cannot miss this plane. You can't. You can't ruin Christmas. But in true Jeremy style (for everything BUT flights), he got to the gate with plenty of time to spare without stressing (or acting like it to me, anyway), especially since they don't start calling standby passengers until most of the other passengers are already boarded. And somehow he wasn't worried, probably because he's practical and knows that there's no amount of stressing that helps you make it through a standby list. I'm not super practical when I haven't slept in several days, so I probably had a twitch or two at this point, besides the sea of pessimism my poor tired brain wasn't even trying to swim through.  

It was 2AM when he texted me to tell me he was boarding the plane. I probably would've cried if I hadn't been so annoyed at him for being so calm through all of it. I said goodbye and fell asleep, completely forgetting to ask him what time he was supposed to land in Salt Lake. 

So he missed the bachelor party. Which, as it turns out, he wouldn't really have made if he had made the first series of flights anyway (something about a last minute change of plans), so that wasn't the worst thing in the world. We were both going to be able to be at the wedding. What more can you ask for?

Well, actually, your luggage, despite how hard it is to complain after the miracle of making it on a flight. Somehow, even on a direct flight, Jeremy's suitcase got lost (I still am shaking my head. It was one flight...), which besides clean clothes also had his suit, the one that he was planning on wearing to this wedding, and his electric razor. He also hadn't shaved in a few days, and he had a bit of a beard going, so switching to a disposable razor wasn't going to be a great fix. 

By another miracle, however, Jeremy had decided in Brussels that he didn't want to fly looking like a scrub, so he'd changed out of his sweats and put on dressier slacks and a white, collared, french-cuffed shirt with cufflinks. So he did have to borrow a tie (and my sweats and one of my t-shirts while we washed and dried everything he was wearing), but he did at least look presentable without having to run out and buy completely new clothes.  

Miracle after miracle, we made it to the wedding, and wearing wedding clothes. This picture of all the boys (present at the wedding, anyway) from the ward where we all met is probably my favorite of this crazy week. It was such an adventure for us to get there, but we were so glad that we'd made it. Beautiful sealing, beautiful couple, and a great party afterwards. 

Dancing at the reception

Of course we should have known that seeing as many people as we did who are all as active on social media as they are would mean that we couldn't keep our surprise from Jeremy's family for very long. Sure enough, Sunday morning (we were surprised it even lasted that long) we were receiving texts from Jeremy's siblings about how they all knew we were coming (nevermind that we decided only the week before that we were actually going to make it, sans flight trauma...). The unfortunate part about this was that once all of Jeremy's siblings knew, there was no guarantee that Jeremy's mom didn't know. She wasn't as likely to check Facebook, so I frantically started telling everybody to keep the secret from their mom! But I forgot to text Jeremy's dad. So Lane came home from a meeting, made some casual remark about how we would be there in a few hours, and Elaine dropped everything she was doing in shock.

Oh well :)

Waiting for the shuttle to Rexburg (my arm is numb)

It's so fun to see these little cousins play together. Even if it means no sleep for anyone.

He really, really likes hats. 

Sledding.

Berlin hated it.

Really, really hated it.

This is my favorite of the snow pictures. That's Elaine, pinned under there.

We went for a horse-drawn cart ride. Everybody was pretty happy about it. 

Especially Berlin, who requested snuggling in Daddy's coat.

This was Berlin's first Santa visit. I didn't know what to expect, but he sat very happily on Santa's lap when Santa offered him a candy cane, and he said, "I want legos and cars." He doesn't get it, but man, the kid knows what he wants.

I didn't finish Christmas gifts before I left, so I spent every free minute finishing these just before Christmas Eve. In hindsight, asking to make sure I had their sizes right first would have helped. But hey, they were cute!

Christmas Eve snow

I maybe got a little carried away with planning costumes for our Nativity. But I really wanted everyone to have a costume. Here I'm measuring the two-year-old for angel wings. She was very cooperative.

Expected Christmas Eve family picture

Realistic Christmas Eve family picture

Christmas Eve present (Berlin has stolen Grandpa's)

Christmas Day- Santa listened!

Jeremy took this while the boys went snowboarding. Incredible that this is real.

Our German host family's daughter is spending a year in the US and happened to be in Rexburg while we were. A very happy coincidence.

I don't even know.

Lunch at the hospital. Of course, this was all he wanted for lunch.

Baptisms with Brita and Kiersten. Cold! but fun!

Crashing after jump rope practice (I think Kiersten went running?)

We celebrated Berlin's birthday before we left so Grandma and Grandpa could be part of it. When he started opening this present he was squealing and jumping up and down because he knew what it was. It was so fun to watch.

My birthday was the day we had to drive back down to Salt Lake, so we had my choice for birthday dinner the night before. 

I regret nothing.

Jeremy playing the stereotype that all of his classmates think he should be.

Driving back to Utah

We went to Nickel City for FHE with Tietjens the night before we left.

Good times had by all. Especially Berlin.

Berlin and I spent a few days in Florida while Jeremy went home to study for finals. He set these up in Berlin's room. 

He missed us.

The only remotely Floridian picture I got during our time in Florida. 

And while it's not great of us, that guy's timing was perfect.

It was so fun to be with family, and we were so grateful for the huge list of Christmas miracles that made it so we could spend our Christmas with them. So much fun, so little sleep, not enough time together with all of them. I hope we all get to do it again soon.


[title from merry christmas, here's to many more by relient k]

hey mama, don't want no drama

Finally moved out of our Provo home, we began the "nomad phase" of the summer. We had no idea that it would last as long as it did, but at its start, we didn't care. We were just so happy to be done moving out of our apartment. We increasingly realized we still had way too much junk, and still quite a bit of everything else to square away, but... one step at a time.

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.

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.

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.

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]