I rolled over the morning of the 17th and thought to myself "wow, I'm actually married!" I don't think I was the only one either. While everyone else who gets married has some sort of honeymoon and gets to enjoy time "gazing into each others eyes" and expressing their love for one another, we got on a plane and headed back to reality. AJ has his finals in a week and needs to crank it out at his desk! So that's where our story begins.. standing at the check in counter at SLC International. I knew my bag was going to be over the weight limit (50lbs.) but I didn't know AJ's would be too! My bag weighed in at 87lbs. (proud of it!) and his at 67lbs. The fee would be $400! So we called my mom and asked her to bring the backpack in the back of my car. Mom saves the day once again!! We throw some stuff into the backpack, but we were still greatly over the limit. So we buy a $40 bag from the airlines and begin to fill it with more stuff. Eventually we checked 3 bags, all weighing in at: 42, 47, 49 pounds. Awesome. Oh that's not all. Somewhere in the process of lightening our loads all my lotions got put into my carry on. So I got through the security check point and the TSA worker says "um is this your bag?" "yeah.." "We need to check it." So they open it up only to find like 17 bottles of lotion, mousse, shaving cream! Yeah, they threw it all away. Great! I felt like such a fool, they probably think I'm some crazy who isn't aware of anything in the world.
Our flight lands safely in Chicago and we run quickly to our connecting flight to London. Safe and sound on that plane:) 7 hours later we set our feet on English soil and head for customs. Well I do anyways. AJ, my sweet sweet husband got off the plane before me and said he was going to wait at the end of the jetway. I got there and didn't see him, so I continued forth thinking "well he must've decided to go get in line for customs..." so I headed there too!! Yeah, I got there and he was not there. No where to be seen. "Great," I thought "I've lost my husband in the first day!" I knew eventually he had to come this way though, so I just stayed there. I waited and waited and I was right! Eventually a flustered and somewhat frustrated AJ came walking towards me. Bless his heart. I've put him through a lot of high stress situations (in London, I almost got hit by a double decker bus. That almost sent him into cardiac arrest. Then in Paris he got slammed in a subway door [my fault] and that might have been our first "silent fight"). We got though customs and found our bags and headed towards the bus to Oxford, where more stresses awaited us.
Well we got to the correct bus right as it was pulling away from the curb! Missed the first one! "It's okay Secret (that's what I've called AJ from the very beginning), another one will come!" It's my job, as wife, home-maker, mother, best friend to make light of every situation, so I do my best to pull through. Sure enough the next one shows up, AJ asks the driver if they take credit. To which they answer no. AJ says he's gonna go grab some cash and the driver answers "you have 4 minutes." That was the first time I've ever heard AJ curse.. LOL and it was totally warranted! We were carrying 230lbs. of luggage, completely exhausted, smelling like planes and just ready to get home. So I understand the frustration. He goes running into the bus station and tries to find a cash machine. The 4 minutes is running out and still no return of my husband. I go ask the driver how much time he has and she says 10 minutes. Freakin' english, can't make up their minds!! AJ complains everyday how their customer service sucks. To which I now agree! No matter how much I smile and politely ask how their day is, they are always cold and unresponsive. AJ comes sprinting towards me and I motion for him to slow down, he's still got 10 min! We throw our luggage on the bus get on and take a deep breath. He's legitimately ticked off at this point. We're sitting there catching our breath when we overhear someone ask the driver if they take cash, she says "no, but we take american dollars, do you have that?" AJ looks over at me totally and completely pissed (he's not pissed at me, he's pissed at the situation). So the whole rest of the bus ride was silent as we both caught our breath.
Let me tell you about the bus ride though! It was probably one of the most beautiful rides I've ever experienced! The English countryside is one of the most extraordinary sights one will ever see. Rolling hills for as long as the eye can see, with an occasional Rapeseed field (which is small yellow flowers that look like wildflowers). Sometimes the fields will be occupied with new little lambs. Seriously one of the cutest things I've ever seen! Even AJ admitted that they were super cute! It was just... something that cannot be fully described with words!
An hour and a half later, we land in Oxford. We have to go pick up our flat keys and find our flat. We live on a cute street called Iffley. There are cherry blossom trees lining each side and our front yard has little yellow and purple wildflowers scattered everywhere. Right by the front gate is a little hydrangea bush. It's super cute. Because we live in the basement flat we get to enjoy a backyard as well! Somewhere back there is Narnia... we'll find it someday.
We just throw everything down and take it all in. This is our home! It's so fun! We're going to make it the best we can for the next 3 months. It doesn't stop there. We have to go to the grocery store and get pillows and a duvet. Out the door we go again to get all these supplies. English grocery stores are also a joke. No wonder American's are so overweight, we have so many more options! Fortunately I found some make-shift fajita mix, but no ground turkey so we had to settle with beef (a real test for me) so last night we had our first family meal! Tacos!! It's sorta fun making your own meals and being in charge of getting others fed. I know all the mothers out there are thinking "that won't last long.." hahaha which I can understand.
The night comes to a close with AJ and I trying to organize everything! We have the strangest array of furniture and I just don't know what else to do with it! Look at the pictures and give me suggestions:) I tried cleaning the bathtub, but then the shower and faucet wouldn't turn off. No joke!! Lol I know you're all shaking your heads, becaue AJ was too. He said "how'd you turn it on?" And I said "just like this.." And we did the complete opposite and sure enough he couldn't get it turned off. If the faucet was off, the shower head was on. If the shower head was off, the faucet was on. It was so weird! For 45 min. we sat there trying to figure it out! I called one of our neighbors over, they couldn't get it either. So finally we called the maintance guy, who got it turned off. HAHA I could tell he thought we were complete fools.
We went to bed completely exhausted on all levels. My body couldn't take anymore that day. AJ say's he's never felt more drained. The first day of marriage was only one of many more to come. But it was also the best experience ever! I got to spend the entire day with my best friend and enjoy real life with him. Marriage is awesome:)
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