I used to complain about how hard it is to pack up a house and move. I will no longer fuss about domestic moves! When we decided to move to China, I had no idea how much time and work it would take. While Justin had the majority of the details under his wing, I still had my share of things to get done. Together though we discovered, if you want to move out of the country in a couple years; get started NOW!

 

I remember looking at our small apartment in San Diego and wondering what on earth we would take with us. We decided to leave all the furniture behind and start new when we got to HK, but what about the rest? I had  packed a section of the house for stuff to be shipped, another area for selling, one for storing in Oregon, another for our luggage to go on the plane, and the rest was to live with while we traveled in Oregon and Washington.

I still marvel that we got just that little detail done! All the logistics of moving seemed never ending. We had to do a lot of waiting as well, however God put things into order quite perfectly. When Justin applied for a job in HK through his company, we didn't know if it was going to happen and still had our other plans in the back of our minds. If this didn't work out we still planned for the following year. There were days I felt in such a limbo wondering what I should be doing while we waited for word of our impending future.

 

I eventually learned you have to embrace the present, since there is no guarantee of tomorrow. It sounds qliche' but everything cliche is true:-)

There were several people interviewing for the position, so when Justin received the offer, we were blown away with excitement! The official offer took a long time to arrive, and so we waited more. We thought we would leave in June, but in the end Justin left August 4th 2012, and I left September 5th 2012.

 

Because of delays, our lease was not able to be extended past June 30th, so we stayed in a hotel for 3 weeks while Justin finished up work San Diego. 3 weeks in a hotel with a 1 year old is an adventure! We did just fine though and Ryu celebrated his 1st Birthday in a hotel. We weren't able to give him the party I had hoped for but he was still happy and enjoyed being spoiled by the staff at the Double Tree. The Day before his Birthday we went to the county fair and Ryu got to see his First 4th of July Fireworks! (OK he fell asleep halfway through in Justin's arms)

 

I could bore you with all the details after that in our journey to Oregon, but maybe I'll just hit the highlights. We sold our car back to the dealership, rented a huge moving van, ( that was all the had for out of state travel.) we barely covered the back of the truck with our luggage and boxes to store in Oregon, and we headed off. I won't even go into what happened with the seating arrangements in the truck with our baby...lets just say that was the longest two days of travel in my life!

 

We arrived in Oregon on July 20th or 21st..I really can't remember anymore. The next day we were off to our family reunion! It was truly a blessing to be there after 9 years! After 9 days of camping the rest became a blur, we spent a week getting Justin ready to leave and visiting people all over. Saying goodbye to him was the low in my time in Oregon. I didn't want to travel on my own with a toddler. (Ryu has been walking since 8 1/2 months so he is a busy kid)

Some how we managed to visit a ton of people all over, my dear friend Jen came to visit me from Nebraska for a week, and I got to see the Ocean again before I left. There were so many I didn't get to see, and I hope that I'll get a chance in the future. Ryu did his best to cope with waking up in a different place all the time and not having his Papa, but I could tell it was wearing on him. He got very sick for a week, therefore we had many sleepless nights. In the midst of the travel and my baby being sick, I found out I was pregnant! It was a shock, and a very early morning call to Justin! Now all I could think of was wow, how will we do this? A new country and a new baby; never ending adventure for us I'd say!

 

OK I promise I'll get to the point of this site, (our time in China).

Ryu, (sounds like RE-YOU) is up from his nap, and we have shopping in the street market to do. If you read this far thank you; it should get more interesting:-) I'll also try to figure out how to post pictures and videos:-) God bless and enjoy the day before you!

-Shannon