After a month of agonizing over the idea of our family actually moving to London, some uncertainties, some worries, some "is this the right thing for us" questioning....we are forging ahead to make this big change happen.
During that month, my head was spinning. Finally David and I said "ENOUGH"! We must move ahead! It was a very tough period for us. David was gone every week either in London, or more recently New York City, and I was home single parenting. Dave has always traveled for his work, but never for seven weeks in a row. It has been a challenge for everyone!
Last Friday, the shipping company came to do a pre-ship assessment. We will have three categories in which to place/sort the entire contents of our home: shipment by surface (6 wks), air shipment (2 wks), and what will be stored.
We have a 40 ft surface ship container and 1,000 lbs to ship by air.
Our house is now listed for rent! We are praying for the right renters to find and love our home while we are away.
We're cleaning out as much as we can, having tile cleaned and paint re-touched.
Dates - we believe that we will surface ship the furniture around March 16-18th. It takes about 3 days to pack the shipment. It will be interesting to live without our furniture for 6 weeks! We would send an air shipment about March 28th, and perhaps we would fly over March 30/31st.
Then we will live in temporary housing the month of April while we try to finalize schools (hopefully) and find something to live in beginning May 1st!! I assume I will have to home school all three kids the rest of the year - should be interesting!
Right now our first choice is for the kids to attend the American School in London. If all three get in, we will be thrilled, ecstatic, giddy! They are picky and can be - it's an incredibly popular school with a long wait list. Last we heard, the chances are not good, so we're disappointed about that. It is the only school where they would all be together.
We've also applied to a bilingual school (Ally has been accepted but haven't heard about the boys yet) and will apply to an international school called Southbank International. We'd like to know the school before we have to make a housing choice, but we might not know. The relocation specialist told me it is possible that all three kids would be in different schools! What fun it would be to get them around London to three different places at the same time!
I'm strongly considering the idea of continuing to home school all of them next school year.
We have been approved to take our home leave this summer, so the kids and I will be coming home for hopefully 4-6 weeks and Dave will join in the middle of that time for as much as he can.
This week we are going to have biometrics done in St Paul for visa requirements, and then the visas will be processed which will clear us to go.
WOW, that's about all we know right now.
It's an exciting adventure for sure. But knowing that we will be away from all of our dear friends and family makes our hearts break. Those summer visits home, combined with visits in London, will get us through!!
