Holy Cow, we're moving to Paris!

That's a quote from my wife.  She said it about 5 minutes ago.  I guess it has set in.

I got the visas on Friday morning and headed back to NC.  On Friday evening, there was a get together with my coworkers as an official send off.  I'm really going to miss some of them.  We ended up running into several other friends at the restaurant that we wouldn't have otherwise been able to say "goodbye" to.

Unfortunately, my son has been battling a fever for the last several days, so we've had to cancel plans with people.  We have to put the family first, though.  The last thing we want is a 6 year old with the flu on an international flight!

Today was a great, but tearful, goodbye at church.  It was wonderful to feel the love as everyone converged around us to pray for us before we depart.  We have some truly wonderful friends there.  They will be missed while we are away.

We have 2 more nights in the US.  UPS will pick up the boxes we are shipping in the morning.  We have a few stops we need to make.  Other than that, we are ready for Tuesday afternoon.

My next post will be from Paris. 

Take care, my friends.  The big step in the journey has just started...

Visa - It's everywhere we want to be.

Okay.  That was cheesy.  I'll admit it.  However, the visa will be ready first thing Friday morning.  I'm going to head to Atlanta Thursday evening, spend the night, get the visa, and return home.  We've got sorting, packing, shipping, and other stuff to do before Tuesday.  Now the fun really begins!

What next?

As we wait for the Consulate to call, Sandy started going through everything that we need for the dogs.  It would appear that the microchip the vet put into our dogs isn't compliant in Europe.  Their scanners won't read the chips, so we spent time today tracking down a scanner of our own that we will take with us.  I ordered one today and have it overnighted so that it will arrive here on Tuesday.  Don't even ask how much it cost. 

I think maybe we might have all of the bases covered now.

Post-Consulate Follow up, More on the Carnies, and Life is now crazy!

Yes.  We survived the trip to the Consulate.  It was very straight forward.  It only took about 30 minutes.  He did comment about our departure of March 1.  He said, "That doesn't leave much time.  We'll do what we can."  I'll take that as a good thing that he didn't say it couldn't be done.  So, we have about a week and a half before we depart.  Now things get very interesting.  We have a lot to do.  For instance, what restaurants do we want to go to one last time?  These are important decisions!

As for the carnies, yes we had to move rooms on Wednesday morning.  The ironic part is that they moved us from a 2br unit on the 4th floor to a 2br unit on the 2nd floor.  Apparently, the Cirque people are very particular and someone was already told that they had our room.  In the end it wasn't a terrible thing, though.  It gave us a chance to weed out stuff that we've needed to go through anyway.  I took 3 totes of stuff to the storage unit.  Yes, we do still have some room in there.

So we have to figure out what we are going to ship that we currently have in our hotel room.  Some of that will get boxed up this weekend.  We have some plans with the kids.  We'll wrap up everything with their school and such next week.

Reality has fully set in.

Hotlanta, here we come!

Actually, here we are.  Yep.  We're in a hotel room in Atlanta. We have our appointment with the Consulate tomorrow afternoon.  It's been a long time coming.  I never thought we would be here!

So, when we go tomorrow, we will begin the final step of the visa process.  We won't walk away tomorrow with a visa. With any luck it'll take less than a week for us to get the visa so that we can head to Paris. Sometimes, it can take up to 3 weeks for this, though.  The catch is that we have to have our tickets booked before we can go to the Consulate. 

We hedged our bets and have booked flights for March 1.  That gives them over a week to complete the process and for me to drive back to Atlanta to get the visa and our passports.

My biggest immediate concern is that my wife and daughter are in the other room not feeling well.  I hope they are better in the morning.

I'll give another update after the Consulate meeting!

We're being kicked out of our hotel room by carnies

Yep.  It's true.  When I booked our luxurious 2br suite, I had only booked it through February 13th.  I've been able to extend it until the 18th, but the carnies are moving in and have taken over the hotel.  Okay, maybe not carnies.  Cirque du Soleil is coming to Charlotte and the hotel we are staying in is where a lot of the people are staying.  They've taken all of the 2br suites starting the 18th.  So I've been begging.  A lot. 

They can get us in a regular room with 2 queen beds.  With me, my wife, 2 kids, and 2 dogs.  Joy.  I've talked to the manager enough that she says, "Still no cancellations" when she sees me walking toward her.  It looks like we'll move all of the boxes and stuff to a new room.  If anyone has a phone number for Cirque and can tell them that our hotel is terrible and they should look somewhere else, I would greatly appreciate it!

Now, onto the real important stuff.  When are we going to the French Consulate?  I dunno.  I've been told they want us there the week of February 14th, but they want to speak to me directly to finalize a time.  The good news is that when they call, I will be able to ask them about the timing for the final visa creation.  If it will only be a few days, we could still be gone the week of the 21st.  WOOHOO!

Until then, we wait...