The great mosey home

Well, that's it, folks! We reached the end of our great European adventure, and have finally moseyed back home again. We narrowly missed 3 snowstorms in our travels back to Austin (via Dulles, which closed 2 hours later due to the blizzard) and then two days later, to Amarillo. We had a lovely Christmas with the Millers and New Year in Austin, and our dogs were wildly happy to see us. Everything is just as it was when we left - our house, our pups, our family and friends - and it is as if London was one long happy dream.

Our last night in London was cold and snowy, spent with good friends by the fire at the Earl of Lonsdale. We walked back down a snow-covered Portabello Road with Jamie & Megha to Linden Gardens, where we said goodbye in the street for the last time. We weren't sure our flight was going to take off the next morning due to all the snow, but thankfully it did, which means that looking back it was just about as perfect as a last night in London could be. It was very bittersweet to leave; this has been such an amazing experience, and we are so pleased that we've had this blog to record each step of the way. It was 100% worth every agonizing decision, squabble and dollar (and job!) we went through to do this. We already miss our little 10x15 lives in London and are so glad we threw caution to the wind and jumped on this chance.

I'm always saying this, but we really do owe so much to our incredibly supportive family and friends, who came to visit, kept in touch, and kept our dogs (Mom, John, and Kathy, we will never be able to thank you enough!). We owe a lot to Nicholas' sweet, courageous cousin Anna Belle, who we lost in 2009, and was a driving force behind our decision to go on this trip. We think she would have been proud we took this opportunity.

Thanks so much to whoever is out there and still reading for suffering through some of our more boring posts, coming on this journey with us, and for giving us a reason to keep this blog up. Everywhere we went, we thought of you, and it completely changed how we saw each place. It forced us to travel with our eyes open, try to capture the essence of where we were and take it back to you. The result is this journal of our trip. So, grazie, merci, thank you very kindly.

We have great things to look forward to in the coming year, including a pretty intense payback for all the indulging we did (hello, detox, veggies, gym membership! Goodbye pints, rich fatty food and using all the walking you're doing as an excuse for exercise!). New jobs for us both, new creative pursuits on the horizons for me, and a very big graduation for Mr. Miller and his very proud Mrs. Miller are all ahead in 2010.

We hope everyone had a very happy holiday and wishing you all a very happy 2010!

xoxo,
lmm