Hayley

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too true- I think I must have been born into the wrong bloodline- wasn't I supposed to be so comfortable I didn't have to work?

Well my hubbies back at work- he has 2 jobs and the night job does leave the house all the more empty- but we got a boost of news. With all the DIY we have done on our house Shaun (that's my hub) laid a tile floor in both the kitchen and basement, they came out so good that friends of ours have asked him to help them. He said how much he enjoyed it and so then we started thinking why not look into that when we return (I think I mentioned the crappy jobs we both had before leaving england) so we looked into courses using the internet and they've just build a brand new technical college in my home town! We are so excited! So now it means that when we return we have a new direction.
feeling much more positive now. I wanted to ask you, when you had made the decision to return what time frame did you look at and did you adjust that and end up going sooner - kind of how did it flow from decision to actually getting there? If it's not too nosy. I think it might help me as I am now thinking we may pull our date forward to a max 2 years instead of being here for 4.
ta ta for now!

Always21

It kept changing! When we first thought about moving we had a baby on the way, due in September 05, so we were looking at December to leave. However, when we decided we were really going to do it, we decided I should get my US citizenship to allow for unforeseen decisions in the future. The indications online were that this could take up to two years, so I resigned myself to staying put for quite a while. However, as it happened it took less than three months from start to finish of the process and I had my citizenship by December. By that time my sister-in-law got out of the army and was engaged and planning a wedding for September 06 so my wife wanted to stay to help her plan that. It seemed like such a long time to hang around for, but I was still finishing some decorating in the house and we had SO MUCH to organize that it really was a good time frame. SIL ended up bringing her wedding forward due to her OH's possible deployment in September, so we could have brought the move forward to, but needed to secure a visa before we put the house up for sale, and then wanted to allow some time for the house to sell, so we requested the visa be effective from September anyway, which, if it had to be used for first entry within three months (which I was led to believe, although I think it was incorrect) would have given us until December to get the house sold. As it turned out we had a buyer for the house within a week! It was still good to have the extra couple of months though as we had to do some repairs and then the buyer kept messing things up with her mortgage. It also gave me a couple of months off work to relax and enjoy the boys and Baltimore.

Phew! What a saga.

Work was a bit better today. I managed to figure out a couple of things with the software.

I feel like we should be PMing as nobody else is posting in this thread! Oh well, hopefully it will be helpful to somebody at some point.

Hayley

I know where is everyone?

What a drama! you should write a book

I feel like going soon and so that is what my hubbie and I are debating and it's really the house sale that is holding us back torn between waiting as prices in spokane are going crazy at the mo and just cutting our losses and moving quicker. Also not sure I want to risk having 2nd child in english hospital as have heard from family members who have had stateside and british births that it's worlds apart :scared:

My mum is still in the states and is moving back in a year so I don't know whether to go before her or after. decisions decisions!!

Always21

Decisions, deisions. As much as I support the principles of the NHS, I do believe you get hat you pay for and can understand you preferring to have another baby in the US. Having said that, my sister has had three NHS babies without any problem... but then she's never known anything else. What would be the citizenship differences if you had children in different countries? Our boys were both born in the US and so are American by birth and British by descent. If we had another baby here then the citizenship they would not be able to pass on their American citizenship to their children like their brothers can (unless their OH is American or they move to the US to have the baby!).

Decisions, decisions. I hope you get it all figured out.

Hayley

You're right Any child we had in the UK would be British and not a US citizen- I am a US citizen by descent and so cannot pass it on to my kids (so my son has it because he was born here) I don't want to burn future bridges for my children but the citizenship I really care about is the UK one, I think having 2 citizenship's for me has caused more choices and problems really. My family goes back 3 generations with one half in us and one half in the uk, it broke my Nan's heart to have her kids split and when I return to england my sister will still be here meaning that my mum will only be close to one half of her kids. My sister's 15 year old grew up in britain and chose to stay when she moved to the US and her 4 year old daughter is in the US so she also has a divide.

I want my son to live his own life and I know I can't stop my kids being curious about the rest of the world but I don't want my kids to feel divided as I have done, so if they don't have both citzenship's as long as they have the UK one- which is where both their parents will be that's all I really care about.

Hope this makes sense- when we return it is with the understanding that it is for good. I can't really say if I'll be completely happy in england but if not then I'll just have to make it work.It's a case of saying never! hubs is pretty set on never moving here again so much so that he doesn't want US citizenship and I have to respect that. He has no real ties here- family or culture wise, he is very British and proud of it so I can't see him feeling the pull for the States. It is hard with the finality that we have but Ce la vie!

Always21

That makes a lot of sense. It is certainly a unique situation you're in with so much family divided between the two coutries.

I feel the same way as you about making it work here even if I'm not entirely happy. I can very well imagine once I start to get fed up of the traffic and everything becomes normal again that there will be days when I want to get back to the blue skies and open roads. However, I have to remember that moving countries doesn't fix the problem of missing things; it's just other things that you miss.

I'm so glad my first week of work is over. I am exhausted! Going to Brooklands museum with my sister and all the kids tomorrow for her birthday tomorrow.

Hayley

glad you made it to the other side of the week! I too am so glad it's friday- it was columbus day monday so as I work for a bank had that off but still with the short week was crappy! Enjoy the weekend!