We're Here!

Wow! That went fast! From t minus 7 days to arrival! We are totally exhausted and heading to bed but we're here!! This is a promise of a better update tomorrow.
Love to all!

7 (more sleeps!)

We really are in count-down mode now. There are sooo many things to do before we leave our fair village.
Yesterday we managed to get Joisan's room all packed up and she is mostly organized to go. We got a fair start on Taran's room too and we hope to finish it tonight. There are still a few cupboards and drawers to empty and boxes to fill but all the 'stuff' is making it's way under the house. The crawlspace is actually part of the house and so there isn't any concern with things getting musty and damp. I fully expect it to be choked full by the time we're done.
There are still a few errands to run - insurance to buy and vehicles to store. The visas arrived today, as did the electronic tickets. We are good to go! Now lets see if we can pack some more stuff!

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ...

We have a departure date!!! We found out this evening that we will be leaving on Tuesday September 29. Whew! It's nice to know when we go and it's also nice to have the extra time here to get ready. The house is currently in a state of emergency - the packing and sorting is not going well. We are up to our ears in recycling and 'stuff'. I have officially recognized that I have a problem with 'stuff'. I'm not sure there's a 12 step group for my problem (my name is Phaedra and I'm a 'stuff"aholic!) but I should probably look for one when we get back and start to unpack all this mess!
Tomorrow is our 'meet the people who've gone before' gathering and I'm looking forward to hearing their stories and getting their perspective on everything. Hopefully they'll have some good suggestions of things to bring and gifts to give.
More updates as they come.

Hurry up and wait

It seems we are coming up on a big week of celebration in Japan. The wonderful thing about holidays is that they bring family and friends together. Unfortunately they also mean lots of travel and not a lot of tickets available for us poor folk who just want to get there already!! We have been told now that we are confirmed for flights on the 3rd of October but they are confident they will be able to get us on to an earlier travel date. How much earlier??? When will we know??? Will we ever be ready???? These questions and more will (hopefully) be answered on the next episode of The Fireball Fairwell's Go To Japan! Stay tuned!

And we have cleared the (hopefully) last hurdle!

After much anticipation and countless emails to and from Japan today we finally received our official paperwork that allows us to apply for the visas!!! We took off first thing this morning and went to visit the Japanese consulate in Vancouver to do our offical duty.
Not wanting to get all psychic here but I sense a flight in our near future!!! The house is nowhere near ready and we are not packed to go yet but I'm hoping that a hard deadline will help motivate all of us!
We'll post again as soon as we have confirmed flights!

One Step Forward...

Just a quick update since it's been more than a month now and we're still not sure when we actually leave for Ohtaki. The contract starts October 1st and they have said that they would like us to be there by September 25th to get settled and organized. We have jumped through all the hoops that they've held up so far but the biggest one will come next week when we have to go to Vancouver to apply for our visas. Ugh!
On the bright side, we have rented the house to a wonderful family we know and we are getting things organized so they will be comfortable here for the year. Our cats are going to Phaedra's mums house where they will be able to hunt deer and laze in the sun. The kids are registered for distance education and we have purchased two laptops for them to use at school to do their work on. There is still much to be done but we seem to be in a moving forward direction at the moment. More later :)