So now the waiting begins...we catch our flight to London where we will hang out and visit friends and family prior to our flight to Vegas on Sunday August 29th. What a wild and crazy 2-1/2 weeks! But the hardest part will be going back to work, missing our boys, wondering what they are doing, wondering what they might be thinking. Will they even think about us? Will they remember us after we've been gone for two/three weeks? We will be gone over six weeks - that's a lifetime to a 3 or 4 year old boy! Oh well - rules are rules, and everything will be fine. We are looking forward to our weekly phone call with Vanya starting next Saturday!
We've got a lot of work to do to get ready for these guys, so September will be our last month of peace and quiet - we better enjoy it!
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But first, we enjoy the weekend in cloudy, cold England. It's a Bank Holiday weekend of course! Emma's brother Russ comes out to Gatwick to pick us up. We spend the day catching up with him and his wife Krzysia, as well as getting a dose of what it's like to have three young children running around the house. Very nice to see them all - wow, Zack has really grown up since we saw him at Christmas. He's pretty excited about having an 11 year old cousin who likes 'proper' football.
Emma's Dad Eric comes out to Russell’s house to take us to their house where we will land our luggage for the weekend. We plan on running into London tomorrow and then head out to Surrey to visit an old college buddy tomorrow night. So we settle in for a nice quiet evening with Eric and Janice, who feed us a lovely English meal while we catch up on all the events and talk about what our life will be looking like in a few months. Of course, whenever anybody asks me a question I just tell them to “read the blog”…Eric offers us the house when we come through in October with the boys. “You guys stay here and we’ll crash somewhere else…” Very nice offer – I think we’ll take him up on that! After a very tiring day, which began at 6am in Kiev, we crash for the night, thinking about what Vanya, Dave and Max are up to…
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Friday morning we wake up refreshed and ready to hit the city. We make plans to have lunch with an old work colleague Joe Collins (lucky he’s in town!), so we head to the Bechtel offices in Pilgrim Street to meet up with Joe (as well as Mike Fox on his last day in London) for a little Thai food. It's great to be back in the city - this is where the Emma and Dave saga started - so after lunch (thanks Joe!) we walk along the river and take in the atmosphere and enjoy a pint or two at one of the many riverside pubs between Pilgrim Street and Waterloo. It’s your typical London afternoon with overcast skies and cold wind, but it feels like home and you can feel the energy of this vibrant city. We continue our walk to Waterloo Station to catch our train to Weybridge – our home for tonight – to catch up with my old college buddy, and fellow UofM Friar Doug and Terri Sheperdigian. We beat the late afternoon commute and arrive just in time for pre-dinner cocktails as Shep is waiting for us at his train station. Doug and Terri have just joined the ‘empty nest’ situation as both of their boys are living away from home attending college or working on their internship, so dinner conversation turns to stories of what it’s like to raise two boys, let alone three! Just try and scare us or tell us we’re crazy – we can handle it…we can, right? Excellent dinner Terri – thanks for everything guys!
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We awake on Saturday morning in another strange bed – can’t wait to get home tomorrow – and wait for Emma’s friend Sara to come and get us to return back to Russell’s house for another day of hanging out with Emma’s niece and nephews. We could get used to having kids around – piece of cake, right? Russ and Krzysia are fabulous parents and their house always seems so kid-friendly and happy. We take notes and listen to their words of wisdom and enjoy the afternoon playing and talking. Eric and Janice stop by to take us home for our last night in the UK before we head home early tomorrow morning. It was a nice visit, but we had hoped to have our kids with us when we planned this – so we’ll try to do this again in October!
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Early Sunday morning Eric takes us out to Gatwick where we catch our long flight to Atlanta (three hour layover) and then our final leg back home to Vegas. One more lesson learned – we need to book direct flights from London to Vegas when we have the boys! Finally, we arrive home after a long day of travel and crash into our welcoming bed. Tomorrow we return to work and start the wait until October 8th.
Good night Las Vegas – good night boys…don’t forget about us!!
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