Matt has arrived!

Matt arrived safe and sound on Thursday morning. He had no problems going thru security with his cello, and all his luggage arrived. Thanks Katie for the advice on the 18 gallon totes--everything arrived, and the only damage was a cracked lid on one of them. Matt started work yesterday, and today is doing some apartment hunting.

The kids are doing okay, but pretty emotional. Bea woke up this morning asking for daddy, and Sebastian asked if we were leaving for Brazil today. We are having a little picnic today to say goodbye to friends, and I'm trying to break things down into pieces that feel manageable. Five more days til departure!

finally, Visas!

It has been quite a crazy few weeks here, but finally things have worked out. Matt was supposed to leave on February 12th, but things didn't move as we had hoped, so he rescheduled until February 23rd. However, yet again things didn't happen as smoothly as we liked, so Matt had to scrap plan B. We did finally hear over the weekend that the Ministry of Labor had approved the visa, but we had to wait for the information to be communicated to the Consulate in Los Angeles, which was anticipated to happen on Tuesday. So Monday (Feb 22nd) we drove to Los Angeles and stayed with our wonderful, marvelous, amazing friend Meg. Yesterday morning we drove to the Consulate (which just happened to be in the Flynt Publications Building!) We parked illegally because we didn't have enough to pay the cash deposit for the parking structure, and ran to our 9:30 appointment. I won't go into all the details, but here is some of what was involved:
*a $65 parking ticket
*Running down Wilshire Blvd to get an additional $25 in US Post office Money Order
*unsuccessfully trying to get a criminal report notorized
*sitting down to lunch, only to get a phone call to rush back to the consulate
*seeing our dear friend Kyoko
*driving 11 hours in two days
*and thankfully, buying a next day flight to Brazil for Matt

As I type, Matt is flying from Miami to Brazil. And we have 8 more days til our departure. Hooray!
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Sunnydale Drive, Sun Lakes, AZ

Whew! It's been a full couple of weeks. We spent 2 weeks commuting from Matt's parents house to school/work in Tempe (about a 30 minute drive, plus traffic!). My last day at work was February 2nd, and then we took a short vacation in Rocky Point, Mexico. It was wonderful to play at the beach, to watch lots of movies, to swim and sit in the hot tub. There are so many details still up in the air, the main one being Matt's visa situation. He is leaving on Friday, but his Visa hasn't been released from Brazil to the Brazilian Consulate (in the states), but we are hoping to get good news soon. Overall, the kids are handling things pretty well. Though as we were entering Mexico, Sebastian asked "where are we going to live?" and we wondered if he thought that we were driving to Brazil, making our big move right then and there!

The kids are spending some special time with Aunt Katie today, Matt is playing his last performance with the Arizona Opera, and I'm considering a trip to the grocery store (always an adventure).

Tenha o grande dia!