double posting today...

if you read this at our other blog or on an email...just bare with me while i cope with jet-lag!!!

My fellow Americans...(and other friends around the world),

We made it to England!

For those of you who have not been following our journey up to this
point, we left Denver the last week of January and went to Maryland
for Max to be entered into a study for his metabolic disorder. That
was an amazing experience, and they will have him back every year to
follow up on him. They said all of his organs are healthy and
undamaged, his eyes are not deteriorated, and that the medical
treatment he gets now, and the therapy he has been receiving along
with our persistence is obviously doing wonders for him. His b12
levels in his blood were the highest they've ever seen in a child with
this condition, at 1.7 million(compared to about 400!). The eye
doctor prescribed glasses, because he is farsighted. And the dentist
said he has NO CAVITIES! I was most worried about the dental exam,
but I think he actually liked it, he must be mine, I used to beg to go
to the dentist when I was little! All in all it was a great week, and
we're so glad to be a part of the study there!


After the NIH, we went to visit Steve's family in Roanoke, VA. We
played lots of games around the table, and took care of last minute
things before heading here on Monday. We loaded our rental van and
drove to Fairfax, VA on Sunday, and stayed in a hotel. It was like a
little apartment, so it was nice to have our "own place" one night
before we left. We had a going away meal of pizza and salad and
fruit, and then rested well that night for our journey.

We had to have our little dog Olive to the airport 2 hours earlier
than we had to be there, because she was riding cargo. I was sad to
see her go, because I was so scared she would hate it! As soon as
Steve took her in, Max started saying , O-iiii, O-iiiii, for Olive. I
told him we'd see her in England, but that didn't help, he just kept
asking. From there we went to Chipotle for a big fat burrito! They
didn't have Dr. Pepper to finish my perfect last meal, so I went with
ice tea instead, something I don't think we'll find a lot of here! ;)

We headed to the airport with all of our bags, 5 expidition duffel
bags, with Max's stroller bag, plus 3 carry-ons! Once we got there we
got a porter to help with all the bags and went to check in. They
measured 3 of the bags over-weight, but didn't charge us, hip hooray!
And they marked Max's stroller as a wheelchair, so that was free to go
too!

We sailed through security and arrived at our gate with an hour to
go. We put Max on a pallet on the floor, and he slept for that hour.
They let us on first, and even let us stow his wheelchair in the
cabin, something that isn't usually allowed so they can go through
customs. Our flight was really uneventful. Max slept through most of
it, maybe he was awake an hour. Steve and I hardly slept a wink.
There was a family behind us with two autistic children traveling to
India. The little girl was having an awful time, and kicked a lot. I
felt so so sorry for the parents, I know how that is! I was glad when
we landed though!

We landed straight where they had to pull stairs up to the plane, so
we got to ride on the little lift thingy and they drove us to the
terminal. We didn't have to walk very far at all through the
airport! As we were loading on the lift. they told us it was cold and
Max needed a blanket, so they got one out of first class for him..hee
heeee! We saw them unloading Olive as we were pulling away. Once we
got inside, we walked to get our passports and visas checked, they
opened up a line for us to go through with Max, averting the long
lines. We were through that in no time at all. Then we headed to
get all of our bags, and it was like the porter was just waiting for
us. They got all the nags and we walked through a long hallway out
to the exit...wait...where was customs? We have to go through
customs! Seems that long hallway WAS customs, and because we had
nothing to declare, and weren't moving here on any of the other visas
we didn't have to be stopped. On every other visa, you have to go
through a medical exam before they pass you through. Can you EVEN
imagine them looking at Max!!!!!???

Once past the non-existent customs, we got our rental car (another
mini-van), and loaded it up...did I mention Max slept through ALL of
this? From the airplane to car he slept through it all! We got the
directions to go get Olive puut into the gps and called to see if she
was ready to be picked up yet. She had to clear customs too, It is
much harder to get a pet in here than a human! That's where we hit
our snag in our perfect journey. They weren't letting her go. They
said the order of tests was done incorrectly, so she wasn't clear to
leave, and we would either have to put her on a flight back to the
states, or quarantine her for 6 more months here. It was only about 2
am in Denver, so we couldn't call our vet to straighten it out, but
had 48 hours to do that. I was so sick about it. We had done
everything to the letter of what they asked! And it appeared that
dates were written incorrectly on the paper! So we drove on to
London. Max whined and slept a lot of it, and I whined ad cried most
of it. And Steve was just frustrated and tired!

We arrived to our friends' house in Sheffield in record time, and made
our way up to our room, where we passed out for a couple of hours
before our vet called us back. We told him of our problem and he set
straight to work to fix it for us Within a couple of hours we got it
all sorted out, and Olive was free to go! But it was too late to go
get her, so we had to wait until morning. The problem there was Steve
had arranged to deliver the rental car this morning, so we had to
change that up a bit so he could get a different (much smaller) car
to pick her up in. We had dinner with our friends, fish and chips,
and then headed to bed. All in all, yesterday was a rough day. There
was a lot of confusion going on, but today is a new day, and Steve has
our dog!

I think we're going to try to make a run to ASDA today (that's Wal-
Mart's company here), and get a few things...like diapers for one!
They call them nappies here. I would have to agree...they can be
pretty nappy! we really hope that the rest of the week plays out
smoother than yesterday did, so we can get to feeling excited about
our journey here! Up to this point we've just been hoping that what
we were doing was right. BUt th ebottom line is, we all got here
safely, we're all healthy, we're getting rested up, and our dog is now
out of guantanamo for dogs! hahaha!

Thank you all for your support up to this point. We'll keep you all
informed as more of our journey unfolds. Or you can read about it at
http://www.witwatw.com
(that's where in the world are the watsons?) Please feel free to
forward this email on to anyone you think would like to read it, as
well as our webpage.

Much love,

Steve, Deana, Max, and Olive (oh and Abbey's in my pocket...she rode
with me in the form of a monster keychain, and that's where she still
is until she gets over here too!)