The Davies Post

 Flying during COVID would have most people not wanting to get on the plane, but actually, it was the most relaxed I have ever been in an airport or on the plane in my life. When I think of flying all I think about is all the anxiety of the crowds of people and the hustle and bustle of being in a hurry. Terminal 5 at O'Hare was a ghost town compared to the norm. There was only one place open to get food (Burger King) and only one shop open.  We were super worried about taking our car rental and turning it in and having to shuttle over with our large amount of luggage and a 2 year old. To our surprise they were so "slow", they offered to hop in the van and drive us over to the terminal and drop us right at the door, hallelujah. Awkwardly, though, when we arrived and unloaded the van, we didn't have enough room on the cart we rented and didn't have enough hands really to get it all in the door ourselves. The car rental man went to see if there were helpers as there

  Here we are, the night before leaving and we have 6 large suitcases (some possibly overweight) to check. 3 good size carry ons, 3 book bags, stroller for gate check, (not pictured): carseat for gate check, and a partridge and a pear tree. Don't forget the 2 year old added into this haha. We are absolutely looking forward to tomorrow, but obviously we are a little exhausted thinking about our day (we kind of know how this goes by now as we've done this a bunch of times, only once with a baby). This is a rough outline of what were looking at..... (Not included: Snack breaks, diaper changes in very gross public places, meltdowns, meals, waiting at various points whether it be security/customs/shuttle bus, and eye rolling at one another when we feel stressed :) 6:00am: Wake up call from Emme (this is most likely an accurate guess) 1030am: Leave Peoria, IL and drive 3 hours up to Chicago, IL in our rental car we picked up today.  2:00pm: Arrive to car rental place and get on a shu

 Just wanted to share our timeline of events for those who are interested in what we have done in this process to move over and work in the UK and what we have to come....(warning, long post): December 31, 2019-  We rang in the New Year of 2020 (boy we didn’t expect what this year would bring) at home and with a 18month old, we watch the fireworks over Big Ben (on TV) in London at 6pm our time, before putting her to bed. We stayed up and had along conversation about our happiness and future for our family. Not to say we weren’t happy where we were at, we just knew we wanted to do something else while we could (before Emme is in school). Why not move to the UK for 2.5 years, can’t be that difficult right?? WRONG. Lol. This started our journey.  January 2020- After LOTS of research and digging deeper, we realized we could apply for a UK Spouse visa for myself and that Daniel and Emme could just enter the UK on their UK passports (Emme is automatically a dual US/UK citizen just based on h

 With every trip you go on whether short or long (or more permanent such as ours), you get down to the nitty gritty of the last minute details. The dreaded last minute packing of the things you still kinda need, but need to know if you have room to pack them as well.  I have recently been a lot more interested in this idea of minimalism. I follow posts on Instagram and watch documentaries about it. In a way, our move to the UK is quite a minimalist step. We are going from having a 2000 sq ft home to packing everything we need in 6 suitcases. (We are leaving behind a 8x10 storage unit). You may think that sounds like a lot but we are 3 people, one of us being 2 years old and attached to things already.  I have no tips for you on how to do this as I am still in the midst of doing it myself. My biggest advice is if you even have an inkling of "well I may use this or wear this if I...." get rid of it. If you continuously use or wear something every season when it comes back aroun

Today was our first Saturday off with absolutely nothing planned in months. Today was also our last Saturday in US for awhile. eeek, crazy.  We vowed to spend the day in productivity. I have three lists on the fridge going, but we woke up, and it was beautiful and instead we decided to spend the first half of the day as a family enjoying “US things”. We went to my home town of Morton , Illinois to Roth Pumpkin Patch where Emme enjoyed playing. (If I can ever figure out how to add photos to this post I will). It was quite nostalgic to take my daughter to pick out the perfect pumpkin as I had done every fall as a child. Always so excited about what creature would be carved out to sit on the porch for Halloween night. We won’t be here for Halloween so instead we bought a foam animal to decorate, a Raccoon. Since we were doing all American things we obviously had to hit up the Cracker Barrel after for brunch. Emme mostly enjoyed the deer head on the wall and the crayons 🤦🏼‍♀️.  Once we a

 I don’t even know what I’m doing on here, but I’ve been asked by enough people to do this, so here I go.  I just worked my last shift at my nursing job in my home town area and I’m moving with my husband and 2 year old daughter to England....on Thursday.  (There’s a lot more back story here than I’m leading on in my first post). A few things to know... 1) I’m married to a Brit 2) I’m born and raised in Midwest, America and I’m an American trained Registered Nurse 3) I am soon to be a nurse in the UK(as long as I can pass this BLOODY test) and living and working under a Spouse visa.  4) I’m not a huge fan of tea but I do kinda like crumpets  5) Yes my husband and my daughter have an English accent and I do not.  Welcome to my blog. I hope to be entertaining, enlightening and helpful to those who are curious as to this life we live.