Thursday, January 1, 2009
Happy New Year 2009!
I thought for the new year I would update the blog! We have been really busy since David got back on the 18th of Dec. after 3 weeks in Brazil. The first order of business was to watch the one hour of footage on the different houses he looked at for us to live in. David met several times with our "destination service provider" in Sao Jose dos Campos. All the houses he looked at are all extremely nice and big. David originally liked one but it is not in a gated and guarded community and for safety reasons we're now focusing on a couple of other houses with more security. The house David liked the best is in the process of being rented to someone else. It is a gorgeous house with an orchard and an amazing view. There is another house in the same neighborhood that is ranch style with tile and granite throughout that has basically become the #1 choice but it has no furniture at all or appliances in it right now which means bringing practically everything we own. There is another house that is a little further away that looks like a celebrity's house and has a huge park next door. All the houses we have looked at have a pool and a private sauna. They also have maids quarters in case you wanted a live in helper! The kids and I were supposed to be leaving for Brazil in 2 days but we got delayed because we need a tourist visa. We finally got our plane reservations for Feb. 7-14th. Our Valentine date will be on a 12 hour red eye plane flight with our 2 kids! Yee ha! I am so looking forward to it. It is called our familiarization trip. Honeywell flies the family down there and puts us up so we can look at houses, schools etc. I can't wait to see the town and look at the houses David picked out along with others. David has been to the 2 international schools there and we're leaning toward the smaller one that would be 1/2 day in English and 1/2 day in Portuguese with the cutest uniforms. I'm looking forward to that!
Speaking of Portuguese (no pun intended:) we started our lessons right before Xmas and we've had 4 lessons so far. Crista is our teacher and she has been coming over every other day to get us jump started. It is really cool. David has a small background in Spanish and I do in French and I find that I'm pulling out French words that have long been dormant my brain! If only I had an ibrain or was 3 or 6 like my kids who remember more than us already. We each get 20 hours of lessons while we're here and then we get an additional 80 hours in Brazil. We should be "fluent" in no time!
The property manager came over yesterday to look at our house and tell us how much we should rent it for. Honeywell provides this service as well. When we moved to England we had to set is up ourselves so this is a huge load off my mind now that I have 2 kids! They recommend that you don't sell your house but rent it for tax reasons so we'll be working on that soon too.
There is a company helping us get our travel visas and permanent visas for Brazil. We are also working with the Honeywell tax people which is so nice because I can't even imagine figuring out international taxes let alone the ones here! We will also be meeting with movers once we know which house we want and how much stuff we will be bringing. We have an air shipment that gets there in about 3 weeks and a boat shipment that will arrive in 1 1/2 months or so for heavier, bigger items. A storage unit will also be available for what we leave behind.
We are currently negotiating with Honeywell to get them to pay for a 2nd car and for Brady to go to school. He is not normal school age which would be age 4 and since he is just turning 3 in 3 weeks they said they wouldn't pay for him. Currently Brady attends Foothills Montessori pre school at no cost to me because I have the nicest boss in the world. She puts an ad in the newspaper every month for the school and they let Brady attend for free! In the Honeywell contract it says if a child attends free school in the home country that if something free is not available in the host country they will pay for it. We feel it is vital for him to attend school for socialization and so he can learn Portuguese which he clearly won't learn staying home with me all day. Plus I need to meet some families with kids the same age as mine for MY socialization!
Apparently Brazilians LOVE to socialize and have BBQ parties all the time. I believe it since their outdoor BBQ areas are nicer than most people's indoor kitchens! We went to the Brazilian Steakhouse call Fogo E Brasa last night for dinner so I could taste the food and drink! Food was really good and drink was really bad! It gave David a chance to tell me what is the same and what is different. They serve pinto beans and rice at every meal and are huge carnivores! I hope I can get a filet there!
We have one major concern and that is our beloved golden, Chianti (aka Biggie). He is my first baby and at 9 1/2 years old he seems about 5. Unfortunately Honeywell will not help with the transport of pets and it is extremely expensive. According to airline rules, any pet that weighs more than 100 pounds including him and his crate (he's 100 on his own) must be shipped freight. I got a couple of names for places that do it and the service starts at $5000 one way for a dog his size. My sister looked into it when she moved to Turkey and for her 2 cats they wanted $2500 each so it is just really expensive. We do not want to leave him behind like we did for England but they had a 6 month quarantine and we were only there 14 months. This time it may be up to 3 years with no quarantine but I'm not sure if I want to pay that much either!
We get a puny allowance for the loss we will have when we sell one or both cars so we're still talking about what is going on with that. I have no idea what will happen with our boat since no one I know has a place to store it at the moment.
We are continuing with our vaccinations for the kids and Portuguese lessons. If you know anyone who wants to rent a house in Ahwatukee or buy a Lexus SUV let us know! We still don't know exactly when we are leaving but it won't be until at least March.
Happy New Year!
Jen, David, Marilyn, Brady & Biggie
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