Imagine you are reading this at the end of 2023…it will make it better, I promise!

It is crazy to think that somehow we have managed to be living in the UK for a whole year now. This year abroad flew by with work, exploring our new home, travels, and quite a few visitors.

We will admit we haven’t done the best job keeping you up to date on all the little things and every day life. We wanted to highlight a few things that have happened over the last couple of months and provide a bit of a reflection on life in the UK thus far with a recap of 2023. This post might be a bit picture heavy, but we can’t think of a better way to give you a taste of all we have experienced. We sure have been blessed!

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January:

We picked up and flew across the world to start this crazy adventure together! There is no way I could have done this without Jacob. We have really leaned on each other throughout this whole experience and I am forever grateful for him, his support, and his gentle but firm ways to push me outside my comfort zone. We already were a great team, but I think we would both agree this move and this experience has made us even stronger.

We spent this month getting settled – adjusting to our new life and work environment while exploring Tarporley and the surrounding area.

February:

We continued to settle in and enjoyed countless walks in the rain on the trails near our home. We did enjoy the sun whenever it came out – even reading outside to soak up the rays as it started to warm up.

We also took our first trip to Wales – hiked in Snowdonia National Park and explored the coastal area. So beautiful!

March:

We partook in our first afternoon tea experience during a spa treatment at a nearby hotel. Thank you Elliot and Emma Claire for the gift. It was great to relax after a hectic last couple months of moving and get to experience a proper English tea.

We continued to explore the area around us through coffee and date nights – enjoying hiking together as a family and spending time outside whenever we could!

April:

April consisted of rain and muddy hikes – with any sunny days spent outside. We also purchased our grill and enjoyed a lot of baking and cooking at home!

We were very grateful for FaceTime and video chatting to help us stay connected to our family and friends back in the States. Technology certainly has made things easier for us to not miss our loved ones so much.

May:

May brought us warmer, drier weather and we were blessed with more coffee/date nights and hikes together as we adjusted to our new normal.

We also enjoyed a trip to Barcelona and took in the sun, culture, and food. A highlight for us was our paella cooking class and the endless glasses of cava!

June:

Our first guests arrived in June and it was wonderful to see family. We were able to show the Adams family around our town and a bit of the English way of life. We also travelled to Brussels, Paris, London and enjoyed exploring these new places we some of the people we love. So many memories made!

July:

July was quite a busy month as we welcomed more visitors, took a quick trip to Ireland and explored castles in Wales. Thanks for coming to see us Alissa and Omar!

Exploring the Lake District and Edinburgh with Lexi, was another highlight of July. Thanks for visiting Lexis! We had such a wonderful time!

July wrapped up with our first trip back to States after 7 months of living in the UK. We had a blast celebrating the new Mr. and Mrs. Reisler! It was great to see family and friends after so long apart, but this was also the first time we realized things felt different. We began to come to terms with the fact that while we loved visiting and will be happy to eventually move back to the US, part of our hearts may forever be in Tarporley – a bit of a hard feeling to explain.

August:

We both passed our UK driving exams and are now legally licensed UK drivers. Our US licenses would be valid for one year, but to keep legally driving we both needed to pass this test. It seemed a lot more difficult than the last time we were tested on our driving skills back in the States when we were 16. I might be biased and say I am the better driver…after all it only took me one try to pass this test, Jacob 😉

Jacob was the first of us to turn another year older – we celebrated another trip around the sun with time together and good food.

We enjoyed a trip to London to see Phantom of the Opera for a weekend getaway. Thanks for the tickets Adams family!

September:

Brindle and I followed Jacob in turning another year older and I cut off my hair.

We enjoyed many Autumn hikes and just quality time spent together.

October:

We celebrated our 3rd anniversary together in October and boy can I say that I still fall more in love with you every day Jacob. You make this all pretty easy and I love doing life with you – 3 years down…forever to go!

We also welcomed our friends Cody and Taylor and were able to show them around our town and travel to Italy with them to explore Monterosso and the other villages of Cinque de Terre.

November:

November was another busy month for us – if we are being honest, a very tiring month. But it did have perks as well! We made our second trip back to the States to celebrate the new Mr. and Mrs. Piepenburg! It was again great to see so many family and friends while we were in Wisconsin!

Work was peaking this month – a lot of project work and rushing as the year started to wrap up. Jacob and I both had done quite a bit of work travel as well to Italy and Germany for customer visits and trade show events.

After all of the traveling, we unfortunately both came down with Covid and were forced to slow down and take a rest. We still managed to have our own mini Thanksgiving together – making some traditional food, it tasted just like home.

December:

With December came another move…our landlady listed her property for sale and we unfortunately had to move out of our home in Tarporley. We had really been hoping to stay in one place for the duration of our assignment abroad, but didn’t get quite that lucky. We managed to secure a place without too much effort, but did have to pack up and move right before Christmas. We weren’t thrilled with joys of organizing and moving all of the things we accumulated over a year and were a bit sad to leave the first home we had in England…but we tried to look at this as a positive. We now had another new house and small UK town to explore. The move went well, Brindle approves of the new garden overlooking farm fields, and we are excited for the memories we will make in our new place.

We got to explore the Manchester Christmas Market and experience our first live football match (embarrassing, we admit after being here for a whole year…) with our final Tarporley guests before the move – Jacob’s aunt Amy and uncle Jon.

We welcomed our last guests of 2024 – the Piepenburgs. It was wonderful to celebrate our first Christmas in the UK with family and we enjoyed showing off our new town as well as exploring York, a new place, together. Thanks for making the journey to see us!

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Taking time to reflect, we have thoroughly enjoyed our first year in the UK. We are happy with and proud of our decision to take on this big change. Some days have been harder than others – but we would have those days anywhere we are. We think we have picked up a few UK phrases as pointed out by our US co-workers…”cheers, sorted, to be fair, leave it with me, you all right”, etc. It has been fun to see how this experience is shaping us. We have learned more facts about the UK from locals and random people we meet. We have enjoyed afternoon teas, a proper English breakfast, local pubs, and know our way around pretty well now. We have gotten to spend a lot of time together in this new place and have grown in ways that are hard to explain, but can only be described as positive. Jacob and I are both glad and grateful for this experience and what we have accomplished in a year. We are both looking forward to the challenges and rewarding experiences 2024 has to offer was well. Thank you all so much for your love and support as we embarked and continue on this journey.

Lastly, and maybe the most exciting life update…we are expecting! Baby Adams coming May 2024! Jacob and I are thrilled to announce we are growing our little family and are excited to share this with you and add it to our list of experiences whilst in the UK. To answer one of the most common questions we have received – no, the baby will not have dual citizenship. They will be a US citizen and we will need to file for a US birth certificate and passport with the US embassy. More fun things to learn abroad as we take on another new adventure! 2024, we are so excited for all that is coming!

Thanks for reading!

-Amber

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2023 Places Visited:

Tarporley, UK (and surrounding areas) • Wales, UK (various cities) • Barcelona, Spain • Brussels, Belgium • Paris, France • London, UK • Dublin, Ireland (+ Cliffs of Moher) • Wisconsin, USA • Lake District (Ambleside), UK • Edinburgh, Scotland • Monterosso, Italy • Modena, Italy • Hannover, Germany • Korbach, Germany • Manchester, UK • York, UK