Getting Ready

We've been working hard on getting the house (and ourselves) ready for the big move back to the States.  All last week Josh was on leave and we spent that time picking through all our possessions, deciding what to sell or give away or toss.  We ended up with 3 van-fulls of junk, half a garage of sell, and another pile of give away clothes & baby stuff.  I didn't realize we had so much laying around. 

The playroom was by far the biggest contributor to our piles.  We needed to downsize since it's highly unlikely we'll be moving into a home with a large playroom with built-in storage like this one.  The kids were absolutely fine with everything, as long as they got to help throw it away.

This is the "Punto Limpio".  It's a neighborhood DIY recycling center.  Everything is sorted into specific categories: small home appliances, woods, metals, mattresses, big appliances, chemicals, batteries, paint, motor oil, glass, clothing.  Whatever it is, there's a place for it.  It's awesome! 

We got the carrier for Charlie, got him a new collar, added him to the HomeAgain database, got him snipped, got them both flea/tick/mosquito collars & all their shots.  They're all brushed out and bathed, ready for their big trip in a couple weeks. 

We have been talking with our realtor and she's been working hard to help us prepare from Spain, to buy a home in the DC area.  She sent us a box full of magazines, newspapers, brochures, and bus routes in the surrounding areas and we've picked out our top 5 choices for homes.  Josh will be looking at all of them while he's there... and hopefully making a winning bid on one.  We have a packet that's about an inch thick of our top 5, scored in ten different categories, re-scored against only one another, rated in order.  We've done research on the area to establish utility bills, grocery budget, fuel costs and overestimated on it all.  We've factored in our normal bills, and we solved for X (being our affordable mortgage).  Our bases are covered.  We're prepared.