Once we decided that we were committed to making this temporary move happen, we secretly started making plans. We didn't want to tell anyone we were moving only to find that we can't because one of the obstacles in our path was not able to be overcome. Eventually we reached the point where it was necessary to include others in our planning, so we decided to tell my parents first.
We invited them over one night and told them our plans. They were not completely shocked, because they knew that my wife wasn't happy that she lived so far away from her parents. Save for a few offhanded comments about the irresponsible nature of our decision, my parents seemed to be ok with the idea. Despite their nonchalant faces, they were actually rather upset that we were leaving, or so I heard from other family members. I can't say I blame them, what they were really upset about is not that we're leaving, but that they won't get to spend the next year with our son who will be a year old at the time of our move. My whole family is completely in love with him and they resent us for taking him away from them, fair enough.
Telling my in-laws was a completely different experience, complete with excited shouting and shrieking. Instead of offhanded criticisms, we received words of encouragement. In short, they both acted exactly as could be expected.
Once the cat was out of the bag (I never got this expression, I don't like cats, but I wouldn't put them in a bag), we began making plans in full force. We looked around for flights for a while until one day we saw on Dansdeals.com that Air France was having a sale on tickets purchased with Flying Blue miles and a one way ticket was as low as 12,500 miles. We missed that deal, but as it turns out it was for the best, as the 25,000 mile flight we found after the deal ended, had no fuel surcharges and the total cost was similar. This flight also was on Delta, instead of Air France with a stopover in NY instead of Paris, which really turned out to be for the best, considering the horrible events that have unfolded in Paris lately.
We originally planned to carry the baby the entire flight, which wouldn't have been so easy considering that he's in training to compete in Sumo Wrestling in the baby olympics (I still maintain that Baby Olympics would be awesome). I also don't consider it to be very safe (flying with out a car seat, not baby sumo wrestling) and I was hoping that the seat next to us would be empty so we could bring his car seat. It turned out that with miles it was a better value all around to book him his own seat. We also found that even though Air France and Delta both said it was impossible, we were able to get our Delta Platinum benefits on the flight, which gave us 2 bags each (including the baby) plus the normal baby allowance and gave us free premium economy seats.
Booking the tickets was the most exciting part of the planning and finally made us feel like we were really moving. The rest of the planning was kind of anticlimactic.
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