Sunday...in 5 days we will be airborne and oh the things we still have to do: 1) sell our house 2) sell our vehicles 3) figure out how an international change of address works with the post office 4) figure out how an international change of address works with bills 5) set aside what will be air-shipped for the movers tomorrow 6) still need to get rid of some things we don't need. Also, because we are moving to another country - and this is not an expatriate assignment - my US job is essentially terminated in the system and then I start new in France, even though it is with the same company. This means my insurance ends and my retirement is released so we will have to roll over to an IRA.
Had this been an ex-pat, we could have continued being paid out of the US and not had to figure this out. Some people think that we're crazy for leaving everything behind without a return date...with an ex-pat, we're guaranteed a return date of which is included but with a relocation, like we're doing, there is no end date, well, unless I find a job that wants to relocate me again.
It would be a huge understatement if I said we were stressed - what gets me through is knowing in a month the dust will be settled and we will be in a good place. Just have to get through the next month.
It is interesting to hear the different opinions of people, though. For the most part we hear "what an adventure" and "what a great experience", but there are a few who don't understand why. They can't imagine why anyone would want to uproot and move to another country. I can't explain the pull, but this is something we really are excited about.

I'm not going to lie...the recent events in Europe (Nice and Munich) have us a little apprehensive - but if the tides were turned, where we were European moving to USA I would probably have more cause for concern. The world has had a sad turn of events over the last several months, our hearts hurt at the state of everything...we can only hope this is temporary. All we can do is move forward.
So, where are we today? We are still in Utah but we've made our flight plans. The movers will be here next week. The house still hasn't sold and our vehicles haven't sold either. We are getting a little nervous, freaked, stressed, overwhelmed, excited...insert emotion here. At least the kids have accepted this move and have stopped protesting...first anger, then denial, now acceptance.

Visas!

We got our passports back from the French Consulate today! That means we are legal to live in France starting August 1. This is a big relief because the timeline to get a visa is unpredictable.
First, we had to get passports for the kids...given that visas take 6-8 weeks we expedited the passports (over $300 per kid...through a travel office). We got those back sometime in May or June, I then had to file for a permit, which included providing an attorney's office with copies of passports, marriage license, birth certificates, and my resume. The attorney's office filed for the permit and I received that in mid-June. I was instructed to try to find an appointment time on the French Consulate's website. Note that the location that manages Utah is in San Francisco...yep, I had to make an appointment to go to San Fran with my husband. The crazy thing is that I was instructed to look on the website for new available times on Monday mornings from 9:45am-10:00am. Every time I looked there was no availability. I thought there was no way I was going to get a spot! Then, amazingly, I was contacted by the consulate directly. She said we needed to set up an emergency meeting since I was relocating for work. In an email exchange on a Monday morning, the best time to go there was Thursday the same week! I quickly made flight arrangements for my husband and me and he made arrangements for a sitter. We flew out Thursday with our entire family's passports, extra photos, and a bunch of documents translated in French: everyone's birth certificates, our marriage certificate, my resume, and my MBA degree. Fortunately, the attorney's office my company provided had all these documents translated well in advance for us.
We arrived in San Fran around 9:30am. We remembered that we had to also provide a self-addressed pre-payed envelope for them to ship our passports back to us...or else we would have had to fly back to San Francisco to get them in person...so we stopped at a post office first.  It was my first time in San Francisco - and it was really awful driving downtown. It took probably 30 minutes to drive 5 blocks and then we had to find parking somewhere in the vicinity of the consulate (we found one about 2 blocks away). I won't say anything else about San Francisco traffic for fear I will go off on a tangent...
We made it to the consulate around 11:45 (good thing, too, because they close at 12:30). The consulate's office was very friendly! The security guard and the women we met were very helpful. I was not expecting this...I really expected the customer service to be unpleasant. We gave the woman at the first window all of our documents and payment ($111 per person), then we went to another window and another person scanned our fingerprints. And we were done! All in about 30 minutes! We had time to go to the Golden Gate Bridge before heading back to the airport...once we got out of downtown, we saw some very beautiful areas...then back to the airport to catch the 6:00pm flight.
Ten days later we got our passports back with the visas intact.  Whew! One obstacle out of the way!!

On April 25, 2016 my husband, Keith, and I made a decision that would completely change our lives and the lives of our three kids. We would move our family to France. I signed an offer letter to take a position near Grenoble - right in the French Alps. The position is a good fit for me and the opportunity for our three kids was something we couldn't pass up. The kids' reactions?...that's for another entry.
So, the decision was rather simple...the execution? Well, that's a story we are living. The first decision was that we couldn't have both of us working while we were getting everything ready for the move - so my husband resigned his position in mid-May. My first inclination was to sell as much as possible because my perception of European living was that things were smaller: smaller house, smaller cars, smaller furniture. Throughout May we sold as much as possible through classified ads, garage sale, and word-of-mouth. We were able to empty out our basement and family room. I thought we had a good handle on it. But, what about the house? The vehicles? The ATVs? The motorcycle? The tent trailer? We were told very explicitly that moving our vehicles to France was not advisable because they would be very difficult, if not impossible, to be certified to drive in France. Plus, they mainly drive diesel in France because gasoline is very expensive - so it wouldn't have made sense to take them anyway.
Then we discussed if we should sell or rent out our house? We lingered on that a bit.
Then we realized my husband and I really needed to get to France to look at the area and find a place to live. A week before we left, we made arrangements with a handy-man to fix things on the house that have been partially completed...things like little areas that the tile wasn't finished, staining the deck and front steps, etc. Fortunately instead of us paying him, we traded the ATVs for the work and he ended up paying us...it was a good deal for both of us and it would be done by the time we returned from our trip...