Thankful

This Thanksgiving, I'm especially grateful that we have time for one last family gathering before we leave the country.  That's right, we're leaving the country - AGAIN.  I meant to announce on my blog earlier, but things just got kind of busy/stressful/crazy in the last month of planning.  It didn't help that Slik was away for 10 days right before we got packed and loaded up.  We are moving to Shanghai, China on another international assignment.  We should be there 2-3 years, but you never know what will really happen.

I have mixed feelings about the move, but now that the hardest parts of moving are behind us, I'm starting to look forward to our new adventure.  Unfortunately, we still have one big hurdle ahead - approximately 20 hours of travel with a 9-month-old.  Yeah, let's not think about that now.

Now, we're just enjoying some down time with our family in Dallas before we fly out this coming Tuesday.  Over the past couple of months, we've made our way around the US on our "farewell tour".  I'm so glad we were able to do this before we leave.  Now, we've got a couple days of rest before we make our big trek back to Asia.  We are definitely going to miss our family and friends, but I'm sure we will make many more friends in the years to come.  Life is such an adventure.

Since the weather is finally starting to feel like fall in TX, here are some pictures from our fall.  We spent a few weeks in New Jersey during the peak of autumn and got to enjoy the fall foliage and squeeze in some apple picking.  I'm not sure when I last got to experience a northeast fall - it's my favorite time of the year.

These are the woods behind my backyard

These are from Cora's first apple picking adventure
  

  

  


Oh, and how could I withhold this awesome pic?  I call it "princess bee and her worker bees."

Moving (again)!

      

Well, it's about time I made the official announcement seeing that I'll be on the move in one week (eeks!).  We'll be hanging up our expat statuses and are moving back to Houston!   I'm excited, but things are moving fast over here, and it's hard to say goodbye to friends, organize, and oh I forgot to mention, plan a trip to New Zealand before we leave.  Yeah, we're a little crazy.  

Next Friday, we're heading out to New Zealand for a last hurrah in the Eastern Hemisphere for awhile.  We'll be in New Zealand for two weeks, come back for a couple of days to take care of a couple of administrative things and then fly out for Houston on May 16.

It's been a bit of a whirlwind since we only found out about our move a month ago and received definite confirmation a couple of weeks ago.  Luckily, the company is moving us so I don't have to do much physical work for packing and loading, but of course I'm trying to do a little organizing since we'll most likely be downsizing and putting things in storage.  

Now you may be wondering, downsizing?  That means we're gonna be in an apartment - why not buy a house?  Well it looks like we may be returning to the East in a year or so.  Right now, the plan is to be in Houston for a year or so and then move to Shanghai.  Life is never dull over here!  Obviously things can change (just like how our Singapore assignment was cut short), so I'm just learning to trust God and His plan for us and take life one day at a time.

On top of all that, I've had to say goodbye to many of my friends this week since next week will just be crazy busy.  I've met so many interesting people and had so many great experiences in Singapore, it makes me sad to leave.  But, on the flip side, being back in the states means being closer to family, which is a big bonus.  

So Long, Farewell

I've been on vacation for a full week and a half now so it's high time I got my act together to give an update on how things are going.  For three days, I had packers packing up all my stuff....then on loading day, I had three trucks lined up outside of my house.  One for my sea container, one for storage, and one to transport all the boxes they used and the 8 person packing/loading crew.  Here was the scene outside my door:

In about 4 hours, all my stuff was boxed up and nailed in (I'm hoping that all of my stuff will show up in the appropriate places since as you can recall....none of it actually has my real name on it....):

So, farewell Spring, TX.  The last few days in TX were sad for me as I had to say goodbye to some of my favorite things....

My awesome house (these pics were taken when we first bought our house - can't believe it was 3 years ago!)

Some of my favorite little Texans

Some of my favorite big Texans

Unfortunately, in the craziness of things, I didn't bother to heft my camera around to all the events and therefore did not get as many pics of my favorite people as I would've liked....so my awesome neighbors in Mulberry Park get a very special (pictureless) mention.

Some of my favorite Texan eats (Goode Company of course!)

We spent our last night in Texas partying it up with our neighbors.  One of my sweet neighbors hosted a party for us and we got to say goodbye to everyone one last time.  Unfortunately, I don't actually have any pics of that either.

So, farewell TX, I'm going to miss you!  As a Jersey girl, I'll probably never consider TX it's own country, but I must admit that I've really grown to love TX and will really miss all the wonderful people I've met here.  Perhaps we'll be back after this overseas assignment....who knows?

All Packed Up

The past couple of days, I've had 3 people packing up all of my stuff.  Today, I've got a crew of 8 to finish wrapping my big items and load the truck.  Last night was our last night in the house!  I can't believe it.  

Yesterday I went through a little tour of my house, looking at all the boxes I have...and I saw about 7 different variations of my name spelled out....Mind you, my last name is Sokolik.

Sokoyka

Sokokea

Sokoyea

Sokoyik

Soyoyik

Sololik

Skokoea

..and my favorite:

That's right, KOKOKE!

Ahh how I miss my simple Chinese last name.

Here are a few more interesting labels:

For the longest time we couldn't figure out what Spicks were....

VT room? or TV room?

Xmas Lights...

and...that would be Xbox in hieroglyphics. 

Alrighty, they're about to pry this computer from my fingers to pack it up.  Signing off for now!

Cleaning House

Well this weekend flew by and we said goodbye to our last set of visiting relatives before we depart from sunny TX.  I had to say goodbye to my wonderful Civic:

If one could give a world's best car award, this car would deserve it.  It's pretty much earned it's value back through various minor accidents (all of which were not my fault).  So long fair Civic, Hello Singapore MRT! 

Yesterday my good friend Annie came over and I whipped up the "I'm-clearing-out-my-fridge" special.

Annie brought the french fries - she knows me so well - I am a woman of simple pleasures and one of the greatest treats in life are McDonald's french fries :-).  Otherwise, the meal was pretty healthy and delicious...not to mention, random.  We've got some pan fried tilapia, 3-day-old guacamole (still green under the brown layer!!), asparagus, and pot stickers.  Oh and I can't forget the bbq sauce and salad dressings for extra flavor.  It was a good meal :-)

The packers have been packing away all day today.  I've got two more days of it and all my stuff will be on various routes to their destinations.  I think they must have chopped down a whole forest to furnish the boxes and paper for this move....it breaks my heart.  You don't realize how much stuff you have accumulated until you try to move all of it.  I hope everything arrives at the right place and everything I bring fits into the apartment....yikes!

Going Once...Twice...and it's Sold!

It's official, we've sold our house!  We've finished taking care of all the nit-picky little things the inspector found issues with and no longer have to think about it!  I've sold my car to my neighbor and am handing over the keys in a couple of days.  Whew! It's really amazing and I can only praise God for how quickly our house and my car sold.  Everything is working out really smoothly...it makes such a big difference.

Now, I'm deep in the thick of packing/organizing/cleaning.  It's a company paid move so I don't have to worry about the actual packing process, but I do have to go through and organize what I want to take and what I don't.  For those of you who are wondering how an international move is done....here's what arrived in the mail for me today:

These are post-it stickers and I will now have to tag everything into one of the three categories.  One more week and all our stuff will be en route to where it should be going. 

It's really amazing how much stuff you realize you need to get done when you only have 1.5 weeks left in the country.  When you've got all the time in the world, you just keep procrastinating.  Now that I have these looming deadlines, I feel like a chicken running around with my head cut off.  For example, I went to the lab to get some blood work done, and somehow managed to leave a folder with all my immunization records in the bathroom.  Lovely.  I now have to trek out there and pick up my folder.  Another example - I drove an hour into downtown Houston to get a part of my camera replaced....only to come home and realize that it wasn't done correctly and my camera is only semi-functioning.  Now I need to make another trip out there...

I'm just ready to be done.  Ready to go up to Jersey where it's cooler and spend time with family before I head out...to just relax and let my mom take care of me. Boy I sound like a big baby...but moving is hard!