Waiting...Packing... Moving!

Moving abroad for work was something Brian always talked about wanting to do.  It was something he could pursue looking into in "3 years, 2 years, 1 year from now" once he reached what he felt was the right level in his career.  Well finally this year, near the end of March he interviewed for a manager position in London! While it was very exciting (and a bit scary) there still was plenty of waiting to do! It wasn't until the end of April (a full month after his interview) that the agonizing wait was over... He was extended an offer to work in Uxbridge which is to the west of London!

There was still a waiting period in determining actually "when" they wanted him.  The UK firm was anxious to have him as early as July 1st, however the MPLS firm decided keeping him in MN for themselves until August would be more reasonable.  Considering we needed to figure out many logistics including whether to sell or rent our first house... a little extra time was still plenty early enough!  Since Brian was going to be working up until the time we left it seemed best for me to quit my job as a Program Specialist at Virtual Radiologic early to take care of the countless things we had to do! I was done at the end of June, this is when things started to feel a bit more real!  I was asked countless times "how not working was" however the time get spent packing up our house, deciding what to keep, what to get rid of, ship to London, put in storage, move to storage, pack in suitcases and many other items all while still trying to soak up time spending every last second with friends and family was exhausting!  So while "not working" may have seemed nice and relaxing...it was anything but that! 

We decided to keep our house and actually lucked out on finding renters through relatives of a former co-worker of mine.  So with peace of mind that our house would be taken care we decided what to ship (a long exhausting process that I couldn't have done without the help of my Mom) and movers came July 18th to haul it away! We still would not actually find out the date we were leaving until about a week and a half before we left (August 18th) nor did we know where we were going to be living when we arrived (beyond our 2 weeks in temporary housing)... so it felt very strange to be sending everything off into "never never land" hoping to see it again!!! Our stuff would be sent on a boat across the ocean with an estimated arrival 6-8 weeks out.  It still was hard to grasp the fact we were leaving but this helped the "3 years, 2 years, 1 year from now" concept begin to feel like it's happening NOW!

Above is a pic from when the movers arrived...

 They packed everything we were shipping for us which turned out to be 30 boxes!