Decisions, Decisions! Before the Big Move.

It has been a whirlwind of activity since we moved to Belgium. From trying to find our way around, to cleaning and furnishing our apartment, to grocery shopping, to meeting new people, it has definitely been a unique experience! I am thankful that things are starting to calm down and we are beginning to get into a bit of a routine. I wanted to write down what these last 4 months have been like so I can look back and remember how crazy they were and how good God has been to us through this entire process so far.

Let me start back in November - when we were trying to decide whether or not to take this opportunity. Cole's company had offered him an expat contract in Gent, Belgium. The package was designed as a 3-5 year assignment. Cole and I were not on the same page for quite a while. Cole, being the adventurous one that he is, thought that this would be an amazing opportunity with lots of fun and adventure. He also thought it would be a good challenge and a chance for growth within the company. I was never completely against moving, but I took a more realistic and cautious approach to thinking through the opportunity. I thought it could be fun, but we have two small children, I was going through some medical issues, and we had finally found a wonderful church family home and had started getting involved with music and an amazing small group.

It was confusing to my small mind as to why God would lead us to such a wonderful place in our lives only to ask us to move on. After a lot of discussion and prayer, we decided together that we would move forward with the opportunity. As long as doors continued to open, we would continue to walk through them and follow where we felt like God was leading us. As you can see, the doors did in fact continue to open because we are now in Belgium! Once we decided to accept the opportunity, we had to move fast as the potential leave date was sometime in the beginning of 2013. That only gave us a few months to go Gent to find housing, as well as pack, sell our house, and enjoy the holidays. Oh, and we also had to take care of the kiddos! :)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

 

In December, just before Christmas, Cole, the boys, 

my sister (our wonderful nanny for the trip) and I went to visit Gent. I don't remember a lot from the trip, partly because it was a fast trip packed with a lot of business, and partly because the seizures affect on my short term memory. What I do remember of the trip was positive. With the old buildings and architecture and decorations for Christmas, it was beautiful. It also seemed like a safe, friendly place. Cameron loved seeing all the trains and buses. We even took a tram ride around the city so he could have that experience. Oh, and the food was amazing!! This was important to me because Cole and I lived in England for a short time and the food was terrible! Those of you who know me well know that I like to eat...a lot! Anyway, back to the trip. We met with a potential school for the boys (they start school at 3 here) and found an apartment that we liked. We interviewed with the landlady, but she ended up choosing other tenants who promised to stay for 9 years! I can't say that I blame her. Unfortunately, we did not find this out until we had already left Belgium, so we had to find another apartment without actually seeing it! Yikes! We left there and headed to Florida for Christmas vacation with my family and tried to relax.

Quick side note from Cole: although we had done some traveling with the boys previously, Harrison had never been on a plane before and Cameron can't sit still for 10 minutes, soooooo you can imagine we were a little nervous about traveling for 20 straight hours, through multiple time zones and living out of a hotel.  Add 6 days of constantly going from one thing to the next, to getting on a plane and traveling for 24 hours straight before checking into another hotel (albeit one in Florida) and you very likely will do this to one of your children:

All things considered, the boys handled traveling better than we did.  Harrison was lucky enough to even get his own personal bassinet on the flight to Brussels. (side note over)






It was so nice to be with my entire family for last time in what will probably be a long time. I did some research to find another apartment that would work for us and ended up finding one online. We asked our relocation agent to check it out for us and take some pictures. She went to see it and told us that it was nicest apartment she had seen for us. We told her we wanted the apartment and to move forward as soon as possible to secure it for us. She was able to get it and sign all the paperwork before anyone else could come in and get it. So, we then had one major task to check off the list! That was a big relief!

Once we were back in South Carolina, we immediately got to work planning and preparing, sorting, packing, and throwing out, donating, and selling things we would not be taking. This process was especially tedious because we had to inventory every single item in our house and then find a replacement value in case anything happened during the move or in storage. I think it's safe to say this was a trying time for Cole and me. There were a lot of late nights and panic attacks (mostly by me...ok, all by me) during this process. We also connected with the relocation company who would assist with the moving and storage of our things as well as the sale of our house. We decided to wait to try to sell our house until closer to our leave date, so we focused on the packing. The movers came for the first round of packing on January 28th and 29th, taking the majority of our items for sea shipment and storage. This included all of our beds and furniture, as well as most of our clothes, toys for the boys, and kitchen items. Thankfully, our incredible small group helped us out by offering beds, toys, kitchen utensils, etc. so that we wouldn't be completely helpless in our house. What a gift each and every one of our small group members are to us!!  We sent our sea freight early so that it could arrive in Belgium closer to when we would arrive, but waited to send our essentials until closer to our leave date which was scheduled for February 18th. The movers then came on February 12th to get the rest of our things except for what we would take in our suitcases...it was really bare bones in our house after that!

Our stress level really went down after our air shipment was packed and taken away. We could look forward to spending time with family and enjoying our going away party thrown by our small group. My parents came Wednesday and Cole's came Friday. Everyone was a big help getting the house ready to put on the market and helping with last minute errands, etc. On Friday, we had a Belgian themed going away party with waffles, cheese and chocolates! It was such a wonderful time to spend with our great friends and family before leaving. I wish I had pictures from the party, but sadly, I did not remember to bring a camera. Believe me when I say that it was a good time! We woke up Saturday morning to find Cameron covered from head to toe in red spots that looked a lot like chicken pox.

We were shocked and didn't know what to do. Our plan was to leave on Monday, but we didn't think a plane full of people would like to be exposed to chicken pox! We took him to the doctor to see what was going on and found out that he was having an allergic reaction to some medicine he was taking for an ear infection. We felt like we could handle that, so we moved forward with plans to leave on Monday. Sunday, the day before we left, we had the honor of having Harrison dedicated at church. I know the people we've connected with in South Carolina have been and will continue to pray for us and our children while we are gone, so I was very happy to be able to take part in this before we left.

We woke up Monday morning ready for the last few tasks before heading to Charlotte to board our plane to Belgium. The last thing that happened before we pulled out of the driveway was the "For Sale" sign was placed in our yard. It was a very bittersweet feeling for me. I loved our little house. It was the first house we ever owned and the place where I brought both my babies home. But, we were called to move on, so move on we will!