Moving to Italy Part 1

 As most of you may know, my husband and I will be moving to Italy here in a couple months, and as you can imagine, there is a lot involved when moving overseas, especially when you're a military family.

I wanted to do a "Moving to Italy" series because I would've seriously appreciated something like this in our planning.

The lists of available duty stations started coming out around February 2013 but each month the list never had the places we wanted. We knew that overseas would be a long shot but we held on. We prayed every day it seemed, sometimes more than once a day. This was going to be the place we were going to live for the next 3-5 years. This was a big deal, but we knew God (and Riley's detailer) would take care of us :)

Riley found out, officially, that we got orders to Italy in May of 2013.

On my birthday, May 31st, he took me to Olive Garden for my birthday dinner. He worked it out with the manager to have the server bring his bottle of wine that he got in Rome several years ago, then, he gave me my birthday card. 

When I opened the card all I saw was something written in italian then the word "Napoli" and right then I knew. I screamed and jumped out of my seat I think, and said, 

"We got it?? We're going to Italy???"

He had the biggest smile on his face and just nodded. 

This was a miracle because like I said, going overseas was a long shot for us.

Best. Birthday. Gift. Ever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So then of course the preparing starts.

The first things I did were joined several Facebook groups, made a few friends who are military wives who are already over there, bought some books and started scouring the internet and Google Earth for any and all information I could get.

Then I started thinking about what I want to do (besides travel EVERYWHERE) when we get there:

~Recently I was accepted into the cabin crew - flight attendant program for an airline company for all of Europe & surrounding!

~I also want to get an ol' wooden boat, paint it turquoise and become a fisher(woman)

~I have also been researching Italy's cosmetology schools

~ I will continue to make my wine

~ and of course I will still blog, in fact I plan on starting a Vlogging adventure!

MEDICAL

Next thing, we've had to get the two of us and our cat, Navi' medically screened and approved to go over there. Navi' needed to get microchipped and get several mandatory vaccinations, now we wait until we get our flight date to get the sign off from the vet.

Riley's good but I had to get medically screened and approved and I had to get 2 fillings.

VEHICLES

Riley sold his truck and leased a Toyota Corolla which we will give back here in a couple weeks (there is a military clause in the paperwork that allows military members return a car without any consequence if he's getting stationed overseas)

And we are still trying to decide whether to keep or sell my Mazda. As of today, we are leaning towards keeping it. However, we just found out today that we will have to pay out of pocket to store it here in the states while we're gone...

PASSPORTS

We had to get our passports, and I also had to get a "free" passport from the military, allowing us to live there for longer than 90 days.

That's it so far. I will be updating the "Moving to Italy" series as things progress. 

It still feels like a dream to me, I guess it won't hit me until I'm either on the plane or in Italy. It's such an amazing, exciting adventure we're about to embark on!