The Process...

As the title says "The Process" and that's what we've been working on since I left London. The process of getting everything together so that we can start our lives together in the same place. Talk about stressful. The visa application is a bit daunting and if you ever decide that you want to apply for a spouse settlement visa for the UK here's the site to go to for good advice Uk Resident Forum also go to UK Visas which is the official website for the UK government on visas. This whole experience has been a learning curve as well as very stressful. I am really lucky to be marrying a man that is so understanding and caring and has put up with me freaking out over stupid shit. Last night was one of those moments. I honestly thought that I had all of my documents in order and ready to go. But, there's always a but.... I didn't realize that I had to report my speeding tickets in my criminal history, I didn't know until last night that they are considered a criminal act. Anywho, they are in both this country and the UK. So, that got me all panicky because I was going through my documents of old stuff a couple of weeks ago and found a parking ticket in NJ that I had paid late. Well, that parking ticket got my driving privileges in NJ revoked which I didn't realize. That also threw me into an even further panic. Thinking about it now makes me laugh.

I got everything worked out with that ticket and will be submitting the paperwork for that as well as my driving record with all of the other documents. I feel a million times better now. I can somewhat relax. Now, I am waiting for Allan to get here and tomorrow is the day!!!! I can't wait. At 5:30 tomorrow evening he will be here. I am so ready.... I just want to fast forward to that time now! Besides getting the visa application together I've been keeping busy with friends, working at both my day job and the bar. I will post some of the things I have been up to later on. Happy Hump Day! xo

The Next Installment

Train ride to Edinburgh.

Nicole and me at the Oval.

Seriously horrible picture of me but it was an awesome view on the top of Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh.

Our story continues back in London in September. The second half of the trip was equally amazing if not more amazing than that of the first half. On Wednesday the 17th we went to Edinburgh Scotland. I had never been there so that was so fantastic. We took an early morning train from Kings Cross and got to Edinburgh mid afternoon on Wed. We checked into our adorable bed and breakfast, The Elmview, that was across from a public golf course. The room was such a gem! After checking in we set out to explore the city. We went to the castle and did a self tour which was a lot of fun. Then we went and had a drink. Then just wandered around then back to our B&B to get ready for dinner. We decided that we would try this little restaurant called The Apartment, which supposed to be one of the best restaurants in town. And let me tell you it was delish! Allan got a ribeye and I got duck and it was fanfuckingtastic! I will say this, the dinner was amazing even though I was an emotional fuckwit! I had a couple of too many beverages and started getting depressed at the thought of having to leave my baby. Totally ridiculous but just happens. He's the sweetest man on the face of the earth and I couldn't love him more. When we returned to our B&B we decided there was no better time than at 11pm to go out and hit some golf balls! So we did it and it was so much fun even in the dark. Silly kids we are!

The next day we got up and walked around the city. Walked down Princes Street. Hung out in the park below the Castle. It was there that we discussed marriage and rings in a serious light. We decided to go and look at rings to get an idea of what I wanted. To be honest I couldn't really concentrate on a ring or what I wanted at that moment, except for the fact that I wanted to be with him. That's really all that mattered to me. The day was coming to a close and we had to leave and head back to London. We got on our train and it was seriously the longest train ride ever and my poor baby caught a cold so he was miserable. We finally made it home. Slept like babies and got up in the morning. We were laying in bed and Allan asked me to marry him. It was the sweetest most romantic moment in my life. It was so heartfelt and it was the moment I had been waiting for. Of course I said yes! At that moment our focus really shifted. I mean the focus had been about the two of us being together but now it was really in full gear. We knew that we couldn't possibly be separated for a long amount of time. We started thinking about when we would get married and where we would live because initially we had talked about him moving here. But after research and consideration it made the most sense for me to move there.

The rest of the trip we shopped, hung out with his sister and Brad and Nicole. Saturday night before I left Jenny and Brad made us Indian curry and we played Rock Band.... so much fun! Sunday night we had dinner at his parents and it was delightful. His family is just awesome. I couldn't ask for better people to be my new family. They really made me feel so comfortable and welcome. I love them all! The next morning I had to leave it was just a sad day. Lots of crying on my part. It was so hard to even though I knew I would be seeing him very soon. I've never not wanted to get on a plane so badly. But I did it even in the midst of all of the tears. I know it was equally hard for him to have me leave. He was the one that held it together though cause I was a wreck. Thank God he was strong, I needed that.

Well, that was the trip and like I said before it was a life changing trip. He's the best thing to happen to me and we really are the luckiest people in the world to have found each other. So that's the story of us coming together. Now, we can start moving forward in our posts bringing us up to date.

The Trip to London

Young Love inside of the British Museum.

Me being silly per the usual.

Allan tasting the goods at Vinopolis.....

Where were we? Oh yes, I had just arrived in London to see the love of my life! So, back to the story. After the awkwardness wore off we were in hog heaven just being with each other. Allan took me to dinner and out for drinks the first night. We really got to be that cheesy couple that people (including myself when I was single) can't stand. I mean let's face it we couldn't keep our hands off of each other. Since my trip got extended by a couple of days we really got to enjoy each others company and not feel rushed. We needed the 10 days that we got together.

We did so much while I was there and keeping my days straight was hard. Everything was just amazing and so much fun! Being with him solidified every feeling that I had for him before I left for my trip.

The things that we did included meeting up with my good friend Nicole from college because she lives in London, lounging around and watching movies, making each other meals, cooking for his sister Jenny, her boyfriend Brad and Allan's best mate Tim. We also went to Vinopolis, which is really cool and did wine tastings, went to Brixton and had sushi and met up with his friend Rene for drinks. The British Museum was something else we did which was quite cool. This stuff was our first half of the week. I will post again with the second half. I am trying to break it up so it's not some completely overwhelming post for people to read. Although at this point I am pretty sure that it's just my friends reading this anywho and Allan. hahaha

The Build-up and Initial Meeting...

Welcome back! I am now going to tell the story of us meeting in person for the first time. Like I said in the last post we agreed that September would be a good time to meet. We also decided that I would go to London. At first, this was all being planned in fun, more like a little vacation. I didn't even know that I would fall in love with him when we were in the planning stages. The love part came after hours of phone conversations and countless emails and texts...hehe. (just a little side note... we both canceled our okcupid.com memberships as soon as we knew that we didn't want to date other people... I definitely have to give my thanks to that site though hahaha)

Back to the trip. Once we did realize we were in love with each other it made the anticipation of this trip so much greater. I just couldn't wait to get there to see this man that totally captured my heart. I knew that when I saw him it would be amazing. Some people said, "let me know how it goes once you meet him and then tell me if you are still in love." Totally understandable thing to say, but I will say this... I knew that Allan was my soul mate, my best friend and the love of my life before stepping on that plane. After counting the weeks, the days, the hours, the minutes and the seconds the day finally arrived for me to go. Well, actually the day for me to leave arrived a few days earlier thanks to Hurricane Ike. Luckily Continental Airlines was really cool and changed my ticket twice because of the Hurricane. It worked out because I got to spend two full extra days with Allan.

When I got there it was just so awesome. I mean words can't really describe the way I felt. I was nervous, excited, anxious and just sooooo happy to finally be there and be standing in front of this person that I knew so well, yet hadn't seen in person before. We kissed when we first saw each other (which by the way was perfect) and had a beer in the airport before heading back to his place. I would say there was maybe 5 minutes of awkwardness in all. After that wore off, it was if we had always been together. I knew right off the bat that this was going to be a great trip. A life changing trip.

Stay tuned... there's more to come tomorrow.

Our very first blog....

Hi everyone! Welcome to The Adventures of Allan and Sacha. Today I am going to give a little background about the two of us. This is kind of a fun way to share our story with others. It may take a few posts to talk about everything before we are up to date of where we are now.

Our story begins in two different countries in May of 2008. Two single individuals living completely separate lives, not even knowing the other existed until one amazingly serendipitous day on the internet happened. Sacha (the author of this), 31, living in Austin, Texas had been a member of a dating website called okcupid.com since November of 2007. Allan, now 32, living in Croydon (part of London), UK had also been a member of okcupid.com. One day in May, I was surfing the guys on okcupid.com and decided to expand my search to include London, pretty much because I was bored at work and was curious. (Little did I know that my boredom and curiousity would turn into a wonderful story.) I saw a few ads that piqued my interest but one in particular caught my eye. His username was AllanRaymond and I decided to send him a little email through the website. He responded and we emailed each other a few times on there before exchanging personal email addresses. From there we emailed several times before not speaking for the month of June.

We both dated other people during that time, which is a funny coincendence. At the beginning of July I was thinking of Allan for reasons I can't really explain. I felt the need to send him an email because I hadn't heard from him in a month and I wanted to know what was going on in his life. I remember telling myself that in no way do I have any intentions of starting a relationship with this guy because he's in England and I am Texas. I mean come on! But that was what made everything so perfect because I had no expectations I could be myself more than I had been with any other guy in my life. He will say the same thing with regards to how he felt about the situation. It gave us the opportunity to really get to know one another. It was just awesome. We would email each other everyday. He began calling and texting me. Before I knew it I was falling in love with this amazing guy and I hadn't even met him in person. I know that people thought we were a little crazy, asking "how can you fall in love with someone that you have never met in person?" Hard question to answer, but all we knew is that we both had never felt the way did about one another with anyone else. During all of this we were planning our first meeting. We decided that it would happen in September. We will save that for the next post. This post has become very long. The future ones will get shorter as I get closer to where we are now.