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Friday, January 14, 2011

It's been a busy week!

It's another one of those weeks when lots is going on, but nothing seems worth writing about....you know, lunch with friends, kicking this chest cold, donating things to the charity shop, getting Wes' US visa, grocery shopping, vacuuming our previously soaking wet carpet....you know....WAIT! WHAT!? {insert sound of record scratching to a halt}

I KNOW!!! VACUUMING!!!

I kid, I kid....that's right...we're moving to the US and the government will now officially accept my husband! I would do a cartwheel, but there's not enough room in my apartment. All in all it took us just over five months to complete the process. Not bad at all, really. In fact, we could have done it quicker, but we drew out some of the bits of the process because we had an idea of our time frame for moving. Five months of paperwork, medical appointments, and payments all culminated in a 5 minute interview. When we walked up to the window, the guy greeted us by saying, 'Someone did their research. All of your documents are in order and everything is correct.' WELL, my chest puffed up and my husband said he thought I was going to start doing a jig around the office! Ha! I felt like the teacher just gave me an A++!*

So, expect this blog to take a turn to the stresses of an international move. I'm afraid that finding a decent and affordable shipping company is going to be harder than getting the visa!

I didn't want to take a picture of Wes' passport, so instead you get a picture of the mysterious brown envelope that everyone talks about on expat boards.


And no, we don't know when we're going. I keep telling people either when one of us gets a job or six months from now since that's the amount of time he has to activate the visa. Finger's crossed the job comes first!!! Thankfully, he can now tick the box on job applications that he's legal to work in the US!!!

*This is the clear behavior of someone who has been unemployed for two years. Wes wondered if the guy would write me a letter of recommendation.

16 comments:

  1. Woo hoo! What part of the US are you guys moving to? Do you have to ship furntiture and everything or just boxes of stuff? I don't envy the moving part :)

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  2. Wow. That envelope is kind of scary.
    MUST BE HAND CARRIED.
    They mean business.

    Good luck on the job hunt. What state will you be moving to?

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  3. We're not sure where just yet. It's going to depend if we get a job. We're definitely planning on the east coast since that's where my family is and it will be easiest to get back to visit Wes' family.

    Smocha - No furniture to ship, just boxes of everything else!

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  4. Congrats! The whole process is so much more intimidating than the actual interview, or at least that is what we found too! When we handed over the 'brown envelope' I was so relieved!

    Good luck!

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  5. Hand carried!? You can't even put it in your pocketbook??

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  6. try liffey van lines... i used them to move from nyc to dublin and was the best price since you only pay for part of the container...

    from -a random american in wexford

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  7. Gah! I have a pretty good company to reccomend for shipping boxes .Also my son has a room for rent right now in Jacksonville ,Florida .My stupid blogger KNOWS that I'm in Denmark ..so I can't see your contact info..everything is in Danish.

    You can email me from Uk yankee .

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  8. How come everyone is leaving just when I'm finally coming over? I think this is a conspiracy! Regardless, congrats! I hear the process to get in the US is 10 times worse than going the other way.

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  9. Well Liz, Wes won't have his pocketbook with him that day. :-P Regardless all these visa things are taking up precious baggage space!

    All shipping recommendations are helpful! thanks!

    Smocha, we're definitely not going to live in Florida. Not sure my Irish husband could handle that kind of heat! Thanks though!

    Moe, it's really not a difficult process. From what I've seen of the process to get ILR, it seems to be equally as difficult. Just a lot of paperwork and money!

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  10. Congratulations! I've never moved overseas, but have read enough about it on expat blogs to know it can be a real hassle. I hope everything goes smoothly for y'all.

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  11. I liked both my pet and stuff shipper and they were relatively cheap. But I can't remember who they were. Can you check uky? I must have posted about them there.

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  12. Great news! Congratulations, Kim!

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  13. Oh congrats! I hope you both get awesome jobs SOON!!

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