Friday 27 June 2014

26th June for 29 hours...

Song of the day: Claude Debussy, Clair De Lune https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvFH_6DNRCY

Afternoon friends and family!

Yesterday went on forever... 
We started out at 6am to get ready and say goodbye to the Mums. I didn't see any tears but maybe that will come later when we get home and move away. I (Josie) had a cry the day before so was just focused on the journey by Thursday.

Our train left Bournemouth at 7.30am to take us to Gatwick and from there we travelled to Reykjavik, Iceland, which was a pretty quick transfer. It was strange to be back in Iceland and not heading out to our honeymoon destination like we did last time we were there. However the airport was a lot busier in June than when we were there in November! 
The next flight down to JFK New York was six hours which isn't very long in comparison to say, Australia, but when you haven't slept and have cramp in your bottom it's not that comfortable. Jimmy managed to sleep a little and was very patient when I couldn't! We watched loads of movies and eventually I passed out for two hours.
Things got a little delayed at JFK but we felt relieved that we hadn't missed our connection to Charlotte and this was the last leg of our journey. God was so good to us as we travelled. There was always someone around to ask when we had a question, we didn't get lost (neither did our luggage!) and I felt much calmer than normal on our flights. There was very little turbulence and smooth take off's and landings. 
When we finally walked out of Charlotte airport to get a taxi we were exhausted. It was dark and we had no idea where we were, but we really felt the time difference - you guys in the UK were all probably asleep at 6am but here in the USA it was 1am we still hadn't been to sleep. It was a relief to finally lie down and wake up this morning refreshed. 

Jimmy had great fun making his own waffles at breakfast and now he's napping again before we set out and pick up the car then go shopping for all our camping and food supplies.

Please pray for us on the road as we've never driven over here and have hundreds of miles to cover over the next two months. Also remember us with the weather. We're planning on camping about 70% of the trip and at the moment there are loads of thunder storms heading our way and with the air pressure there are lots of tornado warnings in the central states. It's pretty humid here at the moment and lots of cloud cover but its manageable (lush!).
We haven't taken many photos so far but will take more. Jimmy is planning on putting a mini 3 minute movie together when we get home from lots of little movie snaps we've taken so you'll have to wait for that to see more about the plane journey.

Hope you're all well and we'll be updating again soon!  
Love to you all

Jimmy & Josie xx

Friday 13 June 2014

"Responsibly Unemployed"

Josie here! Here's your song for the day while you read... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke53KNV2scI 

Yesterday was my last day at work... YAY! I'm free until the beginning of September!

We fly out to the USA in just under to weeks. In which time I will be doing the following:

  • Packing, un-packing & re-packing
  • Sleeping - a lot.
  • Attending my sisters four day hen party (having left meals at home for Mr Hill so he doesn't live off noodles...)
  • Writing a new chapter of my novel whenever I get the chance.
  • Finish watching Friends series 10
  • Catching up with friends and family to say goodbye
  • Cooing over a close friends baby as much as possible because she will change so much while we're gone and I can't bare to think about it much... She's so ruddy cute.   

Yesterday when I got home it was such a relief to know I can focus on the trip and the upcoming move now, plus have some time to myself. As a treat and to make the most of the beautiful English sunshine I grabbed some strawberries and chocolate spread and devoured them while sitting in the garden. It doesn't sound as sophisticated as strawberries and cream but it's still a dream to eat!
And then today after a lush lie in and sending Jimmy off to work I got to work on packing everything up into separate suitcases and backpacks for America and then the move. So if you see us over the next two weeks, sorry if we look a little scruffy or are wearing the same things twice, most of our belongings are packed away! The last thing I want to be doing right before we leave is washing and trying clothes to take with us...

Another winner for today is that I found out a favourite musician of ours is playing a gig in Texas while we're there!  So I wasted no time in buying some tickets to see Levi Weaver live!
Still need to look out for any Noah Gunderson gigs though, I can dream.

 Any who, 13 days til fly time! Jimmy has also informed me there are 4 World Cup matches on the day we fly so we need to push everything back a day... Not likely. 

Lots of love

J&J