What a year!

What a year!
Last year was filled with lots of changes both good and well--not so good. We started off 2008 with high hopes that Jeremy would be offered a position in Scotland as a physician assistant. In February we found out that they’d chosen someone else. Needless to say we were disappointed. I had sense that we would end up in the UK at some point soon so it felt to me like we were just “hanging out” until then. After a few weeks Jeremy asked me if I would me interested in pursuing PA positions in England. His friend Peter and his family had been living in Birmingham, England for several years. (Peter was a PA in the pilot program that launched a few years ago.) With a second thought I replied, “heck yea!”

Moving on to March. It was full of very sweet moments and very sad moments. My dear Grandmother, "Granny Purvis” went to be with Jesus. We were extremely close when I was growing up. I’ll share more about our special bond in a later post. I was with my whole family, by her bedside as she literally breathed her last breath. My dad sat holding her hand while we all gathered around, praying and rubbing his shoulders to comfort him. I couldn’t have asked for more. I loved her so much I truly wanted to be there until the end to let her know that I loved her from the bottom of my heart.

April at last. After my grandmother's funeral my sister and her husband decided they wanted their girls to have the same great grandparent memories that we had with Granny. They decided to sell their house, buy a house across the street from my parents and move their 4 girls “home” to Watkinsville, Georgia. Easter weekend we began “Operation flip a house while 6 people are living there--4 of which are 6 and under!” The goal was to make a few upgrades to their house in Nashville to get it ready for the slowing market.

Made it to May. Jeremy attended his Annual PA conference. In the exhibition hall, he stumbled across a table set up looking for PA’s to move to England. He spent a while talking with one of the practices' partners, Dr. Thomas. He took Jeremy’s info and jotted down some other notes while they chatted.

Joyous June. I had just wrapped up my second semester in school for graphic design. I thought all my dreams were coming true when a friend I met through work at YES, offered me a job. I would be the their first in-house graphic designer!

Jumping to July. Jeremy followed up with Dr. Thomas about the position in England. Dr Thomas said he was just getting ready to contact Jeremy for his CV. We were thrilled to find out that he hadn’t forgotten Jeremy either! We submitted Jeremy’s CV and application.

August arrived. Well, to make a really long story short, around August I realized my dream job was not that. It wasn’t at all what my friend promised. I was REALLY disappointed.
The medical practice in England, Saxonbrook Medical Centre, spent sometime reviewing all the applicants and contacted Jeremy about doing a web cam interview.

Fall was finally here. At this point everything becomes a blur!
Jeremy had a few web cam interviews that went well.
Melanie’s house sold and the whole family moved to Georgia.
And Dr. Thomas invited us to England to have a face-to-face interview.
After talking with my family about what the next few weeks would hold if we got the England job, they convinced us to put our house on the market before we left…in a week Then it would be available for showing while we were gone. We absolutely busted our butts to get the house staged, and all the home projects we’d not finished yet wrapped up. That week was one of the most stressful weeks of my life! Every spare moment I had was spent getting our house ready and packing for our trip. I literally made myself sick the day before we left.

So. We felt like if were going to pack up and move across the Atlantic…now was the time. My grandmother had passed so I didn’t have to worry about not being here for her. My sister and her gang had left Nashville so I wouldn’t miss out on my regular visits to see my wonderful nieces. I was becoming more and more frustrated by the total misrepresentation of my new job. Jeremy’s was barely hangin’ in there at his job.

Saxonbrook invited us over Mid October. We booked our tickets right away. We left the States frazzled from everything on the 31st and touched down in London November 1st absolutely relieved.