We have a secret. We have a monster Resolution for 2008. Since we have discussed this a) privately, b)with family, and c) with close friends, I feel I can now let the cat out of the bag. We are feeling pulled to move this year to Vancouver, British Columbia. Stefan and I first made the decision to mark 2008 as the year to move for a number of reasons. Some are little, some are big, some are more important than others. A few of them are: We have always had the desire to move there and have never wanted to settle in Nebraska, when we first got married, we put a "5-7" year time frame on the calendar and never (really) intended to stay past year #5 or 6. We feel a sense of urgency in 2008 because the 2010 Winter Olympics are in Whistler (http://www.vancouver2010.com/en) which means housing and costs in general are going to SKYROCKET for that, and we feel that we should 'beat the crowd' (if we can) by moving sooner than 2009, if we don't, we'd have to wait until 2011 or 2012...this would be our 7 year marker. We would like to have more children but our healths costs are literally consuming our income. After the 3 month waiting period, a family of 3+ costs $112/mo. This would save us annually closer to $10,000. That's no joke, we've heavily researched it. The main reason, however, is a job change. Stefan can't apply for citizenship in the USA until Aug. 08 and then we would have a waiting period and how much it would cost. The reason he would get his citizenship here in the first place would be so he could become a Lincoln Policeman (they only accept citizens) so he could 'gain experience' so he'd have a better chance of getting on the force out in Vancouver. We don't feel this is a good enough reason to waste time and money...just to have the mindset of quitting from the beginning. There's another catch. We found out if any American citizen requests citizenship from another country (i.e. ME in Canada--for work purposes in the future), they loose their initial American citizenship. This is a bit bad...people have asked us, "what if you want to move back? You'll never be able to!") We have found a loop-hole. It's called a 're-entry permit' and it would allow us two years to make our decision. Stefan can keep his green card and I don't have to apply for citizenship until after we make a decision to move back or stay. So we have two years. Of course, through the last two weeks of Stefan's time off we have been doing everything possible as far as research, having Realtors come by the house and explain the options to us, getting rid of EVERYTHING we don't need....if you live in Lincoln, we are gonna have a massive yard sale come summer. We have even went through all our books, cds, and DVDS and have listed them at half.com. I am shocked at what I'm willing to give up to move. Furniture, Refrigerator, etc.etc. We're going to sell our two cars and just buy one that is able to tow a Uhaul Trailor (we looked into semis...too expensive for us). Already we have some had over $60-some dollars in sales for our items on (http://www.half.com/) and we've only had them up for a few days. We are pumped, excited, and scared. We have tons of renovations to do (small things that we have put aside since Lukka joined our family), but we are ready to finish things for selling. We'll see what happens, pray we are actually following God's Will in this move, that He would guide our path, because at this point, we know nothing, He knows everything...and that's a pretty good place to be at. Until the next Vancouver update, we'll leave this to put in your back pocket:
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