Answer: We dealt with both this week (you weren’t expecting some kind of clever, smart***y answer, were you?).
The appraiser came out on wednesday to tell the bank what our house is worth. Hopefully it will agree with what the buyers offered us, but it’s never a given. We should hear early next week what value the appraiser came in at, so for now we’re crossing our fingers.
This week we booked two of the five nights we’ll be in Fiji. We’ll be at the Navini Island Resort, which is a tiny island with ten bures (small cottages). It’s supposed to have some of the best walk-out snorkeling in Fiji which is why we chose it for our splurge. We (err, Kelly) thought it would be a good idea to do a stopover for a few days on our way to NZ since it’s bound to be crazy before we leave, and bound to be crazy when we get there. A few days with nothing to do will be a welcome respite. It seems like there’s a good number of activities and a nice beach for hopscotch. They also have glass bottomed kayaks so we’re hoping that’s something she’ll be able to do too.
The other accomplishment this week is that we got the application to import our pets sent in. Their new crates arrived as well. As you might imagine, bringing pets to a foreign country involves a bit of bureaucracy, and when you’re bringing them to a rabies-free country, there’s bonus bureaucracy. In order to get the import permit application submitted we had to have the results of their rabies titres (showing that they are immune to rabies), plus certificates from our vet for their last two rabies vaccinations, plus a confirmed booking at a quarantine facility. The forms had to be signed by my vet and then endorsed by a USDA vet (which naturally they charge you for) before you can send them to the NZ Ministry for Primary Industries (not sure why they’re the ones handing pet importation, but there you go).
Our nice new crates for the pets arrived today too, although Hopscotch had much more fun with them than either of the pets (go figure). We had to get new ones because Greta’s was not approved for airlines and Tiki’s was too small for air travel. The upshot is that Greta will probably have more leg room on her flight then we will. We still have lots more vet appointments in order to get them ready, but that’s all in the last month before we leave, so we’re in good shape for now and won’t have to do anything else pet-wise for a while.
Kiwi Bound 