• 28Aug

  Quickie Update

  getting ready, random 3 Comments

  We got our FM3’s and menaje approval on the same day we submitted for them! Crazy! I really, really, hope that there will never be a reason for anyone except customs people to take a close look at the pictures. They are pretty horrifying. At least I hope we don’t really look like that!

  We are heading out this morning to our son’s family in Bellingham. The air is crisp and there is fall in the air. I plan on taking the grandkids school shopping. Paul is hoping that everyone will have fun playing with his new Nintendo Wii. The dogs and parrot are looking forward to the car ride. It will be kind of a preview of our big trip that is coming up soon.

  Almost more than anything, though, Paul and I are looking forward to sitting in a comfortable chair! (Just kidding)

• 22Aug

  FM3 and odds and ends

  getting ready, random 6 Comments

  We are getting down to the last couple of weeks in the Pacific Northwest. It has been a very strange summer here - and not just because of the strangeness of wrapping up our life here. The weather has been cold and rainy, which is very unusual for August. It has made Paul and me long for Mazatlan even more, as if that was possible!

  On the urging of a friend in Puerto Vallarta, we decided to go ahead and check into how difficult it would be to get our FM3’s up here. We had been planning on getting them in Mazatlan.

  So, yesterday we headed to Seattle and were told that we needed a notarized “good conduct letter” from the State Patrol. The State Patrol here in Washington are the recordkeepers for all criminal records for all jurisdictions. So, we headed south to Olympia to the State Patrol headquarters, and an hour later had our notarized letters!

  Then I made a bunch of calls to our bank trying to find out how to get a notarized letter stating that our income is sufficient ($1,500/month for both of us.) We got refusal after refusal from everyone we spoke to. So, I decided to call the woman at the bank who had helped me out with our wire transfer hassles when we bought the house in Mazatlan. She’s a career banker (as opposed to some of the people we had dealt with who were younger and probably less committed to their careers - and also less willing to try to help…) and she said she would do what she could for me. So I jumped in the car and gave her the sample letter from the Consulate. An hour later she had a notarized letter ready for me that was everything I could have hoped for! YAY!

  Today we are spending the day at home, pulling weeds and generally taking care of things that we couldn’t do over the last week of almost incessant rain. Tomorrow we head back to Seattle to submit for the FM3. The fellow at the Consulate said it would be ready the same day! We will probably head back there on Friday to pick it up since we will be out anyway going to the escrow signing on our house!

  So, we are making progress. Next week we head to Bellingham for a nice visit with our son and his family. I’m looking forward to taking the kids school shopping and having a nice relaxed visit since it will be a while before we see them again.

• 13Aug

  Organized? Hmmm.

  decisionmaking 2 Comments

  I have received a few compliments lately on the way I have organized our move. I think it’s kind of funny, because I don’t think I have been more organized than anyone would be planning a move of this magnitude. I mean you don’t just throw a few things in a box and head out….it is pretty complicated.

  I do think that what my organization has done for us, though, is give us a bit more cash. I have been pretty methodical about selling things and have used Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, garage sales, and passed the word to family and friends. If I had waited until the last minute I wouldn’t have done so well, I’m sure.

  All my obsessive preparation and attention to detail also helped us get our house sold quickly. I knew watching those home selling shows on TV would be good for something! Houses in the Pacific Northwest are selling better than in some areas of the country, but we sure didn’t want to be one of the unlucky ones where a sale takes a long time. We knew our time frame and we did everything we could to hit it. Of course, luck plays a big part in it, too - you need just the right people at the right time, too.

  The long timeframe for our move helped me, too. It’s easy to miss things if you only have a short amount of time. I was able to think about things (and make list after list) so that things didn’t fall through the cracks. Although once we are settled in Mazatlan I bet we will have found some things that we either forgot about or that surprised us!

  We are also making some choices that we hope we don’t regret. We aren’t doing a menaje de casa since we plan on getting our FM3’s in Mazatlan, and are just taking our belongings in our van. So - we have a little tension about the border crossing.

  Overall, though, I am happy with how things have gone so far and can’t wait for it to be time to hit the road!

• 10Aug

  We’re Setting Up Housekeeping

  getting ready 3 Comments

  While we are still here with all the proper addresses attached to our credit cards, etc. we have been getting some things set up for our life South of the border.

  We went ahead and signed up with Earth Class Mail. Formerly called Remote Control Mail, it is a mail forwarding business that is set up for people who are comfortable with doing work online. When a piece of mail arrives, you are sent an email. They attach a picture of the outside of the envelope. You can then choose whether to shred or trash the document, or if you’d like them to open it and scan the document for you. You can also have the envelope shipped to someone. So far it is functioning well and we are moving all our mail to them. (The link above gives us credit for each purchase, by the way…)

  We also bought a Vonage phone and service. We are really happy with it so far. It hooked up with no problems and we love that we get an email when a voice mail is received - and attaches a sound file so you can listen to it without dialing in to voice mail. They also have a great web interface for managing your account, voice mail, and features. Our Vonage phone has the same area code as our Earth Class Mail address, which we assume will help keep things less confusing along the way.

  We purchased car insurance from the same agent we have our house insurance in Mazatlan. We got a one year policy for all of Mexico for our 2003 Honda minivan for $408.00 USD. He emailed the policy to us so we have it ready for when we cross the border.

  We are going to give our son a bunch of deposit slips to our bank account for the odd check that may need to be deposited. We are changing our car registration to his house so that we can keep up on our Washington State car tabs in case we want to drive to the US.

  I have talked to our US car insurance and they will put our insurance on a kind of “hold” for six months for $50.

  We’ve changed all our bank accounts to be “online only” for bank statements. Our main bank is Wells Fargo. When we get to Mazatlan we’ll set up an account with Bancomer. The Wells Fargo account can link to the Bancomer one and we can transfer (up to $3,000 per day) from the Wells Fargo to Bancomer. This type of account was created to assist Mexicans here in the US who want to transfer funds to family in Mexico but it works just great for our needs, too. (There is a $5 per transfer fee)

  Both of us have been to the doctor in the last couple of weeks, too. Paul needed a tetanus shot and we both needed Hepatitis A. The Hepatitis A is two shots, six months apart, so I will need to get the second one in Mexico. We also had labs done and got written prescriptions so we have them with us in case we are questioned at the border. All in all we feel like we are pretty healthy. Our COBRA coverage from Paul’s job will cover us until we get health insurance set up in Mexico. We intend to have just “catastrophic” coverage, and will set aside a chunk of savings for medical use if necessary. We plan to pay out of pocket for our appointments and lab work.

  More later!

• 09Aug

  A Few Things We’ve Learned

  packing the house 5 Comments

  One of the biggest differences between the way some people move to Mexico and the way we are doing it is that we are only taking what will fit in our mini-van. That’s not a lot of stuff!

  We have made decision after decision to winnow the articles we are taking to only the bare minimum. I feel fine about the decisions we’ve made, and excited about the sense of freedom that goes along with travelin’ light.

  But somewhere along the way I forgot that our house closing isn’t until the end of the month and while it sounds kind of strong and sassy to “camp” in our house for a month….it can be a bit of an ordeal. I crave a comfortable chair. We are sleeping on a double bed mattress on the floor…wow, does that seem small! And the dogs can jump up without an invitation, too.

  The garage sale last weekend cleaned us out. Thank goodness the new owners of our house have bought the washer & dryer from us or we’d be going to the laundromat like we did long, long ago!

  The remaining chores will probably eat up the next two weeks, and then we plan on spending the week following that visiting friends and family with an estimated departure date from the Pacific Northwest of September 4.

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