Off To England... Almost

Three suitcases, six carryons, lots of chocolate and partridge in a pear treeeeee! We're almost ready to go on our Jane Austen tour of England!

Last year, our long-time friend Jennie posted pictures from the 2011 tour. We were like, "Hey, how do you get to be on that tour?" She said you had to sign away your first-born son and give all your chocolate as a bribe.

Haw haw, jest kidding. Actually, Jennie said she'd put us on the email list for the 2012 trip. So last year, when she emailed that the tickets were for sale (on Saturday) we hastily conferred with ourselves about whether to go. It went something like this:

Heather & Raquelle: Let's go!
Mom: Can we afford it?
Dad: Let's be clear on this - I DON'T want to go.

On being pressed for the reason he didn't want to go, Dad observed, "Because you'll just spend all your time looking at old clothing in museums and I'll have to carry your suitcases the whole trip." Huh, HOW did he know that?? :grin:

So we finally convinced Mom that we could afford it but then she was worried about us navigating the world (or at least, England) without Dad. That's when we had the brilliant idea of asking our world-traveler-friend Jeannie to come with us. A hasty phone call to her confirmed that she would be willing to go.

And so, we emailed Jennie on Sunday and said to save four tickets for US!!! Which was a good thing, because the tickets were sold out by Monday.

So here we are, one year later, almost packed and ready to roll. Some pressing questions are still on our minds however.

Will our bonnets make it in one piece?

Will our supply of chocolate hold out?

Does English gluten free food taste as nasty as regular English food?

Will we survive SIX HOURS of layover in Newark airport?

And finally, are the four cats going to survive only having good ole Dad to watch after them?

Stay tuned to find out!

One final note about future blog posts: Yes, our friend JENNIE is leading the trip and our friend JEANNIE is traveling with us. This will be confusing. We're trying to get used to it. I do foresee many hilarious occasions of us hollering, "Jen - Jean - JennieJeannieWhateverYourNameIs!!!"

So Cheerio, y'all! Check us out in a day or two to see if we're still alive!