Hurry up June!

June is going to be a fantastic month...I am sooooo looking forward to it. It begins by celebrating Autumn’s first birthday on June 7th! Her great-grandparents are coming in town to help us celebrate and to see us one more time before we head across the pond. We’re throwing her a birthday bash on June 12th and I am still debating whether it’s going to just be family...or if we should just go crazy and invite friends too. I better decide soon because I am running out of time. After her party, I celebrate my “unofficial” last day at work on June 15th (unofficial because I will be coming back on July 5th & 6th to wrap everything up and say all my good-byes). After that Jacob and I head off to the Riviera Maya Mexico to relax and celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. Oh my...I just can’t even believe it’s been that long! We arrive home late on the 20th and then head off again to Brussels for our apartment hunting on June 24th. It’s going to be a lot of travel, but I’m so looking forward to it! The only thing that will be hard is being away from Autumn during these trips. I know she’ll be in great care though with the grandparents...both sets get to spend some quality time with her as we travel the globe :o)

With the apartment hunting trip and my last day of work quickly approaching again, it is almost starting to feel real again (I’m a little nervous to say that out loud, but hopefully it really will happen as planned this time!). They did make the announcement at Jacob’s work, so that definitely made us a little more confident. We are still in the throes of trying to sell our house. Even with the guarantee of the company buying it, selling your house just plain stinks. We’ve lowered the price four times already and are getting really close to having absolutely no more negotiating ability. We were having a ton of showings and LOTS of “almost” offers, but no one ever seemed to pull the trigger...but things have slowed down a lot recenty...so we’re still doing all we can and just praying we can walk away too unscathed. The company does make up some of our loss, but unfortunately it is not anywhere close to being enough to cover it all...and it's even less if they have to buy the house. All we can hope for is that in two years when we return the market is still bad so we can get a bargain price on our next home!

We have also been continuing the French lessons. And they are just plain hard. It cracks me up, our tutor Sally always starts off the lesson by asking us each some questions in French…to try and master the art of conversation. She say something like “Maureen, avez-vous faim?” (that means are you hungry) And I’ll stare at her blankly for awhile, try repeating what she says, then likely glance at Jacob and shoot him the “can you help me” look...then try to start picking apart her sentence guessing what she is asking. And trying to figure out the easiest possible way to respond. I usually try just a “Oui” or “Non”, but of course she never lets me off the hook that easy. Haha...we’ll have to try practicing some of what we’ve learned on our trip. Hopefully it will come easier for me over there than it has so far. :o)

June better hurry up...because as you can tell we have lots of fun things planned and I can hardly stand the wait!! :o) I'm trying to just enjoy it all though because our days here in Missouri will soon be coming to a close...

Spring has Sprung!

Ah...spring seems to have finally arrived...with temperatures hovering around 60 or more...it seems that we can almost put the cold weather behind us and begin to dream of warm summer days! Even the wave of terrible thunderstorms we've been having remind us that spring is definitely in the air! And with the coming of spring I feel more and more optimistic about our late summer move abroad...maybe I shouldn't say that out loud yet :o) but as the temperatures rise I can't help but let the day dreaming begin. So hopefully we’ll have more to share on that front soon.

We have slowly been making plans towards the move. First our house has been on the market for a little over four weeks now. We’ve had two open houses and two price adjustments already...and although things started off a little slow (by slow I mean non-existent in the beginning), they sure seem to be picking up now! After our second price reduction we’ve had someone in to see the house pretty much every other day…and one offer (unfortunately the people just could not afford anywhere near what we were asking so it didn’t work out) So hopefully we’ve found the magic formula and will have a good offer soon. Please keep us in your prayers...for any of you that have sold houses in the past you know it is quite a process!

We’ve also been keeping up with our French. I can now tell you my name, the time, the date and a few other simple phrases. We’ve just started to get in to conjugating verbs...and as you probably remember from your lovely foreign language class in High School...learning a new language is HARD! My favorite part has been playing the game “guess who” in French. Jacob has been kicking my you know what at it, but I think he’s cheating...haha :o) We have one lesson a week and some things are slowly starting to stick. Hopefully it will continue to get easier!

We are also starting to think about our apartment hunting trip again. We are thinking sometime late June and will hopefully be able to book something soon. Jacob just approved the announcement wording to be sent out to his company about the move, so hopefully after that is out our confidence level will rise and we can start making some formal plans! Depending on the date of the trip (and another trip we’re planning in June to celebrate 5 years of wedded bliss) will likely help determine my last day at work. I’m considering possibly early to mid June, but have lots of factors weighing in that will need to shake out first. So stay tuned...

Thanks for following us along in this journey...I know it's been a slow start, but things will definitely be picking up soon!

The best laid plans…

Well as much as we try and plan for things, much of the time they are just totally out of our control! And we found that out two weeks ago when we got the unsettling news that our move to Belgium has been postponed…not cancelled, just postponed. So as of right now we are told that Jacob’s new start date will be August 1st in Brussels. We are still cautiously optimistic that the move will indeed happen and are trying to focus on the positives…like spending Autumn’s first birthday here with family and friends! Still it was very hard to hear the news…especially as I was wrapping up my final days of work. Luckily I was able to get a hold of my boss last weekend and asked if I could stay a little longer. She was excited with the news and said “sure, stay as long as you want.” Phew…that was a relief! It was actually somewhat of a hard decision whether I would continue to work or just take a nice little summer break as we prepared for the move…after all I had (after a LOT of thought) decided I was ready to move on from Boeing and enjoy the luxury of being a stay at home mom. I was all but walking out the door when everything was put on hold…so to have to mentally and emotionally refocus and decide that I was going to work a few months longer was somewhat taxing. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, but this back and forth is emotionally draining for sure. I’m adjusting though and am hopeful that the next few months will fly by and we’ll be planning again for our European adventure soon!

And with the extra time we are excited to continue our French Lessons (we’ve had one so far and have our second one tonight) and get the house on the market! We have decided on a realtor and hope to get it listed in the next week or so. Hopefully we will sell it quickly and have someone that wants like a 90 day closing…haha…wishful thinking! More likely is it will take forever to sell (and maybe even have to be sold to the company after the 90 day period) or will sell right away and the three of us will be packing up to live with my parents or the in-laws for a few months…oh my! Don’t get me wrong…I love both sets of parents, but I prefer living in our own house…and I’m sure they do too!

Hopefully things will continue moving forward, but I will keep you all posted…

The Countdown Begins

Things are finally starting to move along quickly now! We have an official start date of May 2nd so we will be buying our one-way-tickets to Brussels for probably April 27th. Which gives us only 51 days left in the states...and that's not counting the house hunting trip to Belgium!! Wow...that time is going to fly by!! We also have our house hunting trip booked for March 25th and will be spending the week there exploring, looking at apartments, and trying to plan for the move. Jacob's parents will be watching Autumn so it will make it a little easier to get things done, although it's going to be really hard to be away from her for a whole week! We will have a consultant on the trip that will make the appointments with all the realtors (I guess in Belgium realtors will only show you their own properties, so we will likely have lots of separate appointments and it will be several pretty intense days of searching). We've been looking online at apartments over there and it seems like we should be able to get a pretty nice one. We definitely want a three bedroom (so all our visitors will have a private room to stay in), one with a washer and dryer or atleast a hook up is a must, close to parks and grocery and everything else we might need since Autumn and I will be walking everywhere. Here are some pics of my favorite one right now although I'm pretty sure it's in a bad neighborhood because it's too good to be true :o)






I just love the french country style of the kitchen. I know for sure I want something with some character...some wide plank wood floors, tall ceilings with crown molding, that type of thing...something exciting and totally different from what we can get here! I was told to watch out for fireplaces though...so we need to find a place that the fire places are closed off because cleaning them is a pretty penny and you have to do it monthly! Something else I've learned about renting in Belgium that could be challenging is they typically only do 3, 6, or 9 YEAR leases over there! Since we are planning a 2 year trip that could be interesting. Hopefully our consultant will be helpful in negotiating that for us. I'm really looking forward to this trip and getting to explore our new home!

In other countdown news...I have EIGHT days left of work! Oh my! I have really been struggling with giving up my job. It's just so scary to let go of something when I don't know what the future will bring. I've also been advised that the transition would be easier if I was able to work over there. Surprisingly there is a Boeing Brussels office...it has about 55 employees and is mostly commercial airline sales. There was the possibility of me being able to just transfer there and as tempting as it sounded, in the end, I decided to turn it down. I feel like the opportunity to stay home with Autumn is something I may never have again and for that reason it just felt like the best decision I could make. So I have officially turned in my resignation and will be here only 8 short more days...sigh :o(

That's probably enough of an update for now!! There are more things to tell...like about our French lessons, and selling our house, and shipping our stuff...but I'll save those for next time! Au revoir...

Belgium or Bust!

That's right...as you've probably heard Jacob, Autumn, and I are moving to Brussels Belgium!! It's crazy to think in just a few short months we will be living across the "pond" as they say :o) Our lives will be forever changed as we pack up our most prized belongings, downsize our possessions, and head off for the adventure of a lifetime! As soon as Jacob's company offered him the opportunity to live and work abroad for two years the decision was really quite simple...there was no way we were going to let an opportunity like this pass us by. We had talked about the possibility of it when he started working at Solutia, but talking is one thing...actually doing it is quite another! So when the day-dreaming became a reality we had some serious discussions about what made sense for our family. Ultimately we determined the timing couldn't be better and that we were ready to take a leap of faith and pull up the St. Louis roots and head off on a European adventure. We know there will be some challenges...like learning a new language (they speak French and Dutch in Brussels...and the extent of my French vocabulary is currently "bonjour" and the very important "Parlez-vous anglais?"), navigating our way around a new city, and being homesick without the support network of our friends and family nearby. But we also couldn't be more excited about living somewhere new and different, traveling ALL over Europe (ummm...the eiffel tower is an hour and a half train ride from Brussels...WOW!! If you know me, you know I am obsessed with the eiffel tower and I've never even been there...so I can't imagine how head over heels in love with it I'll be after actually seeing it!) and just growing even stronger as a family as we experience all of these adventures together! It's going to be a crazy ride...and I hope to document as much of it as I possibly can here...so check back often to see what we're up to!