Saying Goodbye

It still doesn't seem real, especially because we don't have our tickets yet, but we are starting to say goodbye to Atlanta and the U.S.A. We are heading to Brussels for a 3-year expat assignment.

We had a party at our house last night and being dim-witted, we didn't take any pictures! Oh, well. We will do better at documentation going forward. I guess we got caught up in all the preparation. It was the first time a lot of our friends saw the house because Stephanie would not let anyone look at our house while it was being renovated. Now that we have sold our house and are renting it back, it was OK to throw a wild party. (Wild for us old folks - we had cheese and brownies.)

I don't think we actually said goodbye to anyone, we were more focused on making sure everyone knew that we wanted them to visit. So if you are one of those people and are reading this - Come Visit. En Francais - Venir nous voir!

It is September 17 and we still don't have tickets. It is a little frustrating because we can't tell anyone an exact departure date. Hopefully, we will get word on Monday about whether we should go ahead and buy a ticket. I have all the paperwork for my temporary residency visa and have an appointment at the Belgian consulate for Thursday. According to the person I talked to on the phone, I should walk out on that day with the visa. The only bureaucratic hurdle we have after THAT is getting our marriage documents and birth certificate stamped by the proper state authorities. For the marriage document, that means Costa Rica. That means problems, most likely. It toook over a year for us to get the marriage documents. We don't need these things until after we get to Brussels, but if we don't have them - I think we get shipped back. Luckily, Stephanie is around and can keep up with the proper people to keep things moving.