It’s official – We have a date!!…

It’s official… we have a date.
And guess what…
It’s way sooner than we had originally anticipated –
As in, on Monday I will be able to say “we are moving back to New Zealand next month!”

Yes that’s right folks, we have booked our flights for the 27 May 2013!

Seriously, that is SO much earlier than we had planned! ** Cue total freak out!!

First we were aiming for December so as to not disrupt Hannah’s school year. But then I reasoned with myself that working while Mr Flutter was working away was a bit of an unreasonable expectation of myself, so we decided the July school holidays would be better so that Hannah could finish a term here and start a new one in NZ.
But then when Mr Flutter got his flight dates July just wasn’t going to work.

Unless I packed up the house & flew with the children all by myself (hmmm let me think about that – ummm NO!) then when faced the decision of a few weeks either side of the school holidays.
Then it occurred to me that if we were going to have to leave in the middle of the term of Hannah’s school then my original reasons for staying that long were all shot…
You see my parents have booked to come for a visit in May so we can’t go earlier than that, which is why we were waiting until the July school holidays. But since that doesn’t work, and Hannah looks like she’s going to have to move in the middle of a term, we have decided to go home with my parents at the end of May, on their same flight.
It just made the most sense.

I actually booked our flights on about Tuesday and started a post to tell you. But I just needed a few days for it to sink in.
– Now that we have flight dates it has all become real for me.
Not just some seemingly wonderful, exciting pipe dream, but actually happening
And it’s caused me to really take in and think about everybody that we are leaving behind.
I am a bit tearful when I think about it if I’m honest!!

Not to mention that the list of things that needs doing before then is overwhelming!

I guess that it’s time to tell you the other part of our moving plan… the other part I can’t think about too much.
Most of you will know that Mr Flutter has worked away for most of the last 4 1/2 years. Well, in November he started working in Perth doing an office job. It was lovely having him home. Wonderful in fact.
But
I’ve also been honest about the fact that at the same time it really stagnated our ability to achieve our ultimate goal of moving back to live near either one of our families. And as much as we love living in Perth, it has never been our forever home. So achieving that goal is very important to us.

A part of New Zealand we are missing – my home town of Wellington…

Not to mention getting Neil permanent residency status here was proving really hard, which meant in many ways the decision to settle here for longer was taken away from us and made moving back to NZ easy.

So we reassessed and discussions were had with Mr F’s work about other options we could take to make our dream come true.
Then the miraculous happened… Mr Flutter got offered an awesome promotion and the ability to commute to work in Australia from NZ on an even better roster than he used to work.
Needless to say we jumped at the chance and that is how come we are able to make the move so much earlier than we’d ever imagined we would!!

Mr Flutter will be seeing a LOT more of these in his future…

Obviously it’s not ideal that we will be living in different countries for much of the time, and it’s certainly not a forever plan. But, this way not only can we can afford to move back to NZ and settle, but Mr F is still getting the really valuable work experience that he needed in order to eventually get a better job in New Zealand in the long run.

It will be a sacrifice, but we feel that it’s better to work hard towards our goals now while we are young and make hay while the sun shines.
We have a very clear 18 month plan and I just know it will all work out for us…

And that’s the full extent of where we’re at…
Excited, overwhelmed, happy, sad, a little anxious.
I think now that we have a date so soon it’s made it feel real for my friends too.
I have a lump in my throat as I think about saying goodbye the them all. And our Perth family, especially my brother Malcolm.
So we just have to concentrate on what we are going to and making the most of every minute we have left here!