As I’m sitting here right now, the girls are in Illinois with my parents while the moving company is at our house packing our furniture, clothes, toys, kitchen, and more! This shipment will arrive by boat supposedly in the beginning of October. We’ve been busy preparing for them as we had to separate the entire house into 3 main groups, well more like 5.
3. Unaccompanied baggage // This shipment goes on an airplane and will leave next week and arrive a week sooner (October 6th). Why it is taking almost as long as the boat shipment, I have no idea. But we kept things like basic dishes, pots and pans, and some bedding for this shipment. It allows us to have these things for just a bit more time here in Ohio! 
1. Household goods // This is what is going right now by boat. All furniture and everything we can live without for two months. This took 3 half days to pack and load up. October 12th is the expected delivery date. It was great to have the girls out of the house for this whole time so we could focus!
2. Storage // To plug anything into the wall in Italy, it has to be dual voltage and use an adaptor, or we need a transformer for things that are not dual. We are storing quite a bit that we can’t use easily in Italy or things we won’t need for a few years. Since we have no idea what kind of house we will be moving into, it has been challenging to decide! We are trying to pack light since our house won’t have closets and will probably be smaller. We had to prepare our washing machine for storage and we could hear water inside when we spun the drum around. What a disaster! Dan and Chuck took the entire thing apart looking for the source and after it had been completely disassembled, they figured out that it was the counter balance and it wasn't actually water that would damage the machine in storage. We were thankful to have Michelle and Chuck here during this shipment to help with the girls too!
4. Airplane with us // Since we won’t see our clothes until October, I had to pull some fall clothes for us in case it starts getting cold before we see our shipment. I also needed school clothes for Emma to start kindergarten before our shipments arrive. I have our suitcases full of our important docs, electronics, beloved stuffed animals, basic kitchen supplies, shoes, clothes, toiletries, etc.
5. Purge! // I’ve gotten rid of SO MUCH STUFF! It felt great too. I’ve been quite successful on Facebook Marketplace which helped our travel fund. I’m also leaving the crib, changing table, rocker, and all baby items. Hello big girl bed for Ava! We ended up buying a bed frame here, kept it in the box, and are shipping it today. Woo hoo! She will be adjusting to a new country, new house, and new room, so why not throw in a new bed too? We might be crazy. :D
Phew! Preparing for all of this has kept me busy over the past few weeks. I'm thankful the girls have been doing so well so that I could work!
September 2, 2020
I can now say that we are in Italy! I started this blog post a month ago and have just been able to sit down to update it. The past month was probably one of the most stressful months of my life. We shipped our Subaru out of St. Louis mid-August so it will arrive mid-October for us. We were able to spend the night with my parents in Illinois so they could keep the girls for us while we took care of the car. Everything went smoothly! Also in August, we had visits from Dan's Mom and her husband, Dan's Dad and our nephew, and I was able to go visit my Grandpa and some family members in Illinois, and of course we were together with my family in Ohio to celebrate birthdays and say goodbye! We had an amazing going away party at my neighbor's house and met with all of our friends to say goodbye at the park or at our house. It was surreal saying bye to everyone because it felt like we were just going away on a trip or something and we would see them again. I'm not sure when it will hit me that we are actually in Italy for 3 years and not returning to Ohio.
Concerning the house, we listed it around the 4th of July and went under contract right away! However, it was a cash offer dependent on them selling their other house and their buyer switched lenders so it pushed their closing date back a few weeks, so we decided not to risk it on them again in case it fell through again. We re-listed our house and then cleaned like mad to prepare for showings. We had one showing immediately and an amazing offer that night! We accepted it immediately as a backup offer. We were waiting for our first buyer to terminate the contract, and they held out until we basically threatened to keep their earnest money if they didn't sign. We didn't want to go through the hassle of going to the title office to sign on our end knowing they wouldn't have the appropriate funds to close that week anyways. We didn't know if they were trying to rearrange funds to close or not because they gave us zero information. It was stressful, but it worked out in the end. We were able to sign the day before we flew out, and our new buyer signed yesterday. Hooray! Debt free again and it feels good to have that chapter closed after the ups and downs we went through. Our inspection only turned up one little thing that we were able to have fixed before we left, so everything went smoothly with this new buyer! I am so grateful to our awesome realtor who helped us through this whole process that ended up taking way longer than we expected! We couldn't have done it without her!!!
(Side note to document some more stress- we possibly had close interaction with a Covid case right before we were supposed to leave for Illinois before our house was packed out, so we had to wait a few days for their results before we left. Thankfully, they were negative and we didn't have to cancel our plans altogether! But while we were waiting for the results, we got the news that our original buyer wouldn't have the funds to close and we had to decide if we would wait on them or re-list and start showings again. Also during this weekend, Dan was going to a PT conference in Cleveland, so I was prepared to get the house ready for showings on my own. We were able to prepare the house together when he got back and got the news about the negative covid test as I was vacuuming for the showing. It was a load to take in over those few days at the end of July!! 
August 5th was the day we finally heard that our passports had come in and we could apply for our visas! That was a relief! It only left a couple of weeks to get the visas in time, but we hadn't lost all hope yet of going to Italy together instead of Dan going ahead on his own. Our visas ended up arriving on August 19th, about a week before we left. FINALLY! Then, I knew I could pack for real and not be waiting in the States for an unknown amount of time. This released so much stress and uncertainty! The girls and I were walking back from the park when we saw Dan's car roll by and he pulled over to give us a ride. Once we were buckled up, he surprised me and pulled out the passports with the visas!!!
Our last week was so busy as Dan did his final out processing with the clinic and base, and we worked on packing and cleaning the house. We moved into a hotel for our last few nights in Ohio so we could clear out the house completely and start returning items to our friends.
I had the most generous friends in Ohio that lended us little mattresses and bedding and pillows, a table and chairs, a Keurig (the most important thing, obviously), an Instant Pot, and camping chairs! Our wonderful neighbor let us use their laundry room and mower too which was amazing! My sister's family went on vacation during our last week so we were able to sneak into their house several times to do laundry too!! These things made our last few weeks a lot more comfortable after losing our bed and furniture. I am SO grateful for amazing friends and family!!
That about sums up our preparations to get here! It takes so much work and effort to prepare for a move across the world! Stay tuned- my next post will detail our trip over and our 14 days of quarantine!
--Krista
Here are some pictures of our goodbyes and party!
For Kyla's birthday, we got her a penpal writing kit so Emma and her can be penpals!
You are such a super amazing couple/family. The pictures and your posts are great, and I know we will all be looking forward to the next installment. Thank you so much. You are also some savvy tech to do this entire presentation. Thank you. Love and big hugs to you all.
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