Preparing for a Move to New Zealand

Preparing for a move to New Zealand is daunting.  There was so much that goes into it. 

The House
The most important thing we had to figure out was our house....do we rent?  do we sell?  The idea of getting our house ready for the market was extremely overwhelming......a full house and 3 young kids makes it seem impossible.  We were lucky enough that the market is hot and we live in an incredible location.  To top it off, we knew our neighbor who invests and rents properties would probably be interested.  We had a few realtors come in and give us an idea of what they thought they could sell our house for.  We shared that with our neighbor and he came up with an offer we were happy with. 

It feels weird and sad to sell our house.  We LOVE our house and LOVE the location.  We are so close to the beach and all the wonderful festivities our town has to offer.  Our future in unknown, but we have faith that it will bring something incredible.  No matter where we are, we have to focus on the good and look forward, not backward.  We can't dwell on what our new life does not have.  We need to focus on the incredible things it has to offer!


The Visas
Visas are confusing.  The good news is that New Zealand's immigration office is super helpful.  We made many Skype calls.  There are several different types of Visas available.  We were able to get Work Visas.  Hobie received the Student Visa so he could go to school.  then the 2 little ones received Visitor's Visas because they are not of school age. 


Getting There
New Zealand is probably as far away from Michigan as you can get.  We got creative with our flights.  If you were to search Chicago to New Zealand, the flight is slightly expensive, super long, and inconvenient with awkward layovers.....5 hours here, overnight there.  We soon realized it was better to book the segments separately.  This would also give us the opportunity to explore an area.   The cheapest options we could find were Chicago to LA, LA to Fiji, Fiji to Auckland OR Chicago to Shanghai, Shanghai to Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur to Auckland.

Chris preferred to go to Fiji, but Hobie and I wanted to go to Shanghai Disney.  Chris so graciously accepted going to China.  We don't know any Chinese, nor have we had much time to do research...but should be fun!  Usually you need a Visa to go to China, unless you are like us, you can do a 144 hour free Visa, which gives us 6 days to explore.

Our next stop is Kuala Lumpur.  We were going to spend a couple days there, but opted for a 12 hour layover.  It gives us just enough time to see one or two things....then we can head on to New Zealand.

The flights will be long.  I think our 6 and almost 4 year old boys will do great.  As long as they can watch TV, they will be fine.  Our 17 month....that's another story.  She just likes to move and walk around.  Hopefully the people won't mind too much.  She is a super happy girl and smiles at everyone.  Fingers crossed we will survive!!


Our Stuff 
We are doing a variety of things with our stuff.  The most important thing we did was purge.  I don't think we did enough, but it was a start!  9 years of marriage and 3 kids....and no garage sales during that time.......we have accumulated a TON!

We decided we wanted a shipping container....and a good size one so we could fit our kayak and boards....plus some household items, toys, and furniture.  We wanted to make sure we took plenty of our things because the prices of them in New Zealand are significantly more expensive.  The shipping container will be roughly half the size of a semi.  It should only take about 40 days...so we shouldn't be without our things for too long.

We have some things that don't need to be sent over...silly mementos and items I used when teaching.  We decided to leave those here in a storage unit. 

We are taking a minimum amount of things with us on a plane.  Just a few carry-on backpacks.  It is such a hassle traveling with too much luggage.  We found we are so much happier when we pack light.  We will figure it out when we get to New Zealand.  We will survive with just a few small bags of things....we're going to have to ;)