US Travel

Back in the Southern US

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Well, we made it back to South Carolina two days ago. Whew, this humidity! I somehow forgot how humid it gets. It was nice getting to spend two weeks in the way cooler air of the Pacific Northwest. The flight home was so much better. Our first flight landed on time, so we had an hour and a half layover in Dallas. It still felt kind of cut short, but we had time to eat and stretch our legs a bit. We have all been pretty exhausted since we got home.

I go back to work today, in two hours. It will be fine. I’m feeling kind of sad though. I always feel kind of sad when vacation is over. It has been so nice getting to spend the past two weeks with my kids. I’ll miss getting to spend so much time with them. I really miss my parents too. Sofia has been asking to see them a lot today. She misses them too. Since having kids it has gotten so hard saying bye to my parents. It’s so nice spending time with them and the distance between us is hard. And it’s about to get way bigger.

On the plus side, we will be moving to Portugal soon. I still haven’t picked the exact date, but we’re really close to deciding. We got our passports back and my SEF appointment is December 20 in Setubal. Kyle, Sofia, and Leo have their appointments on December 21, also in Setubal. For that appointment the biggest thing we need is a lease. Originally we planned to find something to start January 1, 2022 but now it’s looking like we will aim for a start date of December. The travel date we listed on our D7 visa was October 13, and that might be the actual date we enter Portugal, or we might do a week later.

Kyle has already started selling some of our stuff. I’ve been going through the kid’s clothes to either sell or donate them. I still have all of their clothes, back to when they were both newborns. We have so much to do and not a ton of time to get it all done, but we should be fine. We’ve known this was coming and I began packing some things a few months ago. Now that we know that we’re actually going soon it’s time to get moving.

I still have to figure out my last day of work. I think that I might just stay for a while longer, and have my last day be 10 days prior to our move. That last paycheck will be helpful, and having our insurance for as long as possible means we won’t have to spend a ton on short term health insurance. We still have some decisions to make, but that’s the fun and easy part. We tried calling Lufthansa today to book Bailey’s flight, but after being on hold for a while we were told by a machine to leave a message. I definitely have some anxiety about Bailey’s travel- booking his flight will be a huge piece. Once we book his flight I will book ours and make the last decisions that I need to make.

Our visas have been approved!

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I got the email this morning that our visas have been approved. We are so excited! I was really hoping to find out while we were on vacation and we did. I even brought our passports with us, just in case. We are going to mail them to DC to get our visas put in them.

There is still so much that we need to get done, but just knowing that we are moving to Portugal will make it all worth it. The biggest things are to finish what we need for the driver’s license exchange, and get Bailey ready to go. I requested our driving records from SC and FL, so those should be coming pretty soon. I think that from there I need to mail something to VFS DC to have them sign. I still need to figure that out some more. Bailey will probably be the most stressful part, but tons of people have moved pets with them, and we only have to do it once. We will probably just do it ourselves, but are still looking at the possibility of using a pet relocation service. They are so expensive though, and we will still have to do the majority of the work. I think that if we were able to get the visas on our own, we should be able to do this on our own too.

Eugene, OR

I’m still not sure of our move date. Once we get our visas back, we will know the date of our appointment in Portugal. We will need to find a lease before that appointment. I’m really hoping our appointment is not until January, but we’ll see. So far we have an AirBnb rental for the month of November, and we will figure things out from there. The rental is in Sintra, and I was really hoping to get to stay there. It is in walking distance to a bunch of stuff. Since walking is a major priority of mine in this new life, I think it’s fitting that our first place will be around so much stuff.

We are going to enjoy the rest of our vacation and then get back to work when we get home. Less than 2 months until the move! Woo-hoo!!

Visiting Oregon and Sofia and Leo’s first flight

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We’re still waiting to hear back about our visa applications. In the meantime, we flew to Oregon to visit my parents. Sofia and Leo had their first flights on Wednesday. it was a really long 8+ hour day. They did pretty well, though there were some meltdowns from all of us, lol. Once we boarded our first flight they told us that we would be delayed. We sat in the plane for an hour before takeoff. We came really close to missing our connecting flight in Denver. Trying to get to our gate in time was a pretty miserable experience and both of our suitcases broke. They lost some wheels. The doors were already closed by the time we made it, but that flight was delayed by about 10 minutes, which is why were were able to make it. 48 hours later and the memories are already fading since we have been having fun in Oregon.

Yesterday we checked out Amazon Park and today was Sofia and Leo’s first beach trip. We knew Sofia would love the beach. She loves the water and she has a lot of fun experiencing new things. At first Leo didn’t seem too into it, but I guess he was just checking things out because a few minutes later he was running all over the place and he ran right into the water. Sofia had a massive temper tantrum when we left. I’m pretty sure she wants to move to the beach.

The beach was right next to a town called Florence. I really liked it there. It had a really cute, walkable downtown area. We got lunch and then walked around a little bit. Eugene has been really hot. The day we got here it was in the hundreds, and it has been in the upper 90s ever since. The AirBnb we’re in doesn’t have air conditioning, so we have been pretty miserable in the rental. Florence and the beach were significantly cooler, so we’re really hoping to make it up there at least one or two more times before we leave.

Our property management company has been bugging us everyday that we have been here so far. I told them I was on vacation and asked if we could talk to them when we get back, but they’re pretty persistent. They sent an email saying that they won’t be renewing our lease, and all of the things we need to do to get our deposit back. We’re pretty sure our landlord is going to try to sell the house again. We never planned on renewing our lease, but it’s still kind of nerve wracking. As of October 31, we don’t have a place to live. We have an Airbnb rental in Sintra, Portugal starting on November 1. I’m really hoping we make it there by then. I know we have to be patient and just wait for word from the embassy, but we’re definitely ready to start planning and putting things into motion. We’re still hopeful that we will hear back from them in the next few weeks.