Living in America 2011

[MmeBucket]

We were a few messages away from being closed on the other one. Hope everyone finds me here.

[GirlWithTheMouseyHair]

Whoop!! DD's passport has arrived, embassy interview booked for 4th Jan - any idea how quickly you then tend to get your visa? DH H-1B, DC's and I H4

[VintageNancy]

We got ours back in about 4 days by courier (L1 & L2 visas).

[kickassangel]

Yep, just a few days once approved. Take cash to pay for the courier service. Think it's about 20 pounds each. Not sure that they take credit cards. You have to use the courier service, and they will only deliver if they can speak to the named recipient, so make sure it's whoever can sign for them.

Hello to all new people. We ten to talk about visas and food here, with the occasional foray into clothes and/or kids

[GirlWithTheMouseyHair]

awesome - £20 each PER VISA????

Mega excited, checked BA website and flights are same price throughout Feb and March so looks like we won't have to delay, just hope they don't go up by much as we're a bit tight on the relocaton budget DH's work have given us as it is

[MmeBucket]

Merry Christmas to everyone. I think this is the last I'll be on here before Sunday. Both DCs have a party to go to (in opposite directions) tomorrow afternoon, and the ILs are set to arrive tomorrow.

[kickassangel]

Oooh - happy Christmas everyone.

Just finished at school today. As well as the usual offerings of home-made burnt goodies, I received a grand total of $145 in various gift vouchers!!

You can tell it's a private school, never got anything like that before!

[jabberwocky]

Happy Solstice everyone! Sorry to be so AWOL, not on MN as much anymore.

We had a Solstice dinner with sun candleholders, CD's with songs like "You are my sunshine and Ain't no sunshine when you're gone" and the boys each opened one gift wrapped in bright gold paper with little star-bursty patterns on it.

Now I just have to survive the next 4 days...

[tadjennyp]

Same here, jabber, trying to not spend half my days on MN so have taken a little break. Very refreshing! Hello to all the newbies.

Have a wonderful holiday season everyone and best wishes for a fantastic 2012! Enjoy the break!

[tadjennyp]

Same here, jabber, trying to not spend half my days on MN so have taken a little break. Very refreshing! Hello to all the newbies.

Have a wonderful holiday season everyone and best wishes for a fantastic 2012! Enjoy the break!

[tadjennyp]

Sorry for the double posting. I'm obviously a bit like buses!

[ForFigsSake]

Hi can I join please? We are hoping to make the move to Virginia in Feb/Mar. It's all happening fast so I may just lurk and come on with some random freaking out questions! DHs company is being a PITA as still negotiating a salary. They keep asking for our budget but as we have never been to USA have no idea of the cost of living. How do you all find it in comparison (we are in Scotland). The good news is I will be getting a L2 visa so if need be I can work.

We are initially going for 2 years so renting out our home. Does anyone recommend just buying second hand as opposed to shipping?

Just started the fast track vaccinations on DD (6) haven't thought about youngest DD (6mths), all this before we even have our visas. It's a bit overwhelming hope I don't crack before we get there! Though I'm thinking ahead to our less stressful quieter Christmas next year

[MmeBucket]

Hi FFS (that was really fun to type, hee)!!! Welcome.

I'm one of the few Americans who live in America, so can't help you much on anything. Hopefully someone will come along soon and help you sort that out. The cost of living thing can be hard. It can vary widely within a state. Where in VA are you moving to? The one thing I do know is that if you are moving around the Washington, DC area, (or most places in the northern area) negotiate big, because that is one of the most expensive places to live in the nation.

I'll be sending, quiet, sane thoughts in your general direction.

[ForFigsSake]

Hi Mme, thanks for your sane thoughts, hope they work!

DH will be working in Richmond so potentially we will go to the suburbs as from the looks of it the schools are not great in the city. I've narrowed it down to Chesterfield Co so far but who knows this could change as I am not familiar with the USA at all. We have contacted a few Realtors so hopefully they can give some advice as to best neighbourhoods/ schools etc.

I'm findig having no credit a problem even though it's fantasic here. Shame places won't accept it

[MmeBucket]

Greatschools.org if you haven't used it already to see the ratings of the schools.

I'm sure you know, but medical insurance is a big thing. If the employer doesn't pay 100% it can be quite expensive, so factor that in, also. DH's company pays for ours (we have really good coverage), but it isn't full amount, and we end up paying about $350 per month for our family.

[GirlWithTheMouseyHair]

Hi FFS

We're making the transatlantic move as well in feb, though to LA, and I haven't done ANYTHING towards it yet as we have our visa interview on Wednesday and I didn't want to jinx it, fool! Now we'll have 6 weeks to organise us, a 3yr old and a newborn!

DH was asked salary expectations/budget too so he just did some research into what other people doing his kind of work in that area were earning as it's so hard to judge.

We're also going to rent our flat and it's tiny with barely any furniture so we've decided to take our nice stuff (sofa and beds) that we've spent decent money on and leave the rest, seeing as we'll have to buy furniture for renters here or us there so figure we'll save money buying cheap stuff here to replace our nice stuff!

We've done some research into moving but no real work as DD was born end of November, now starting to stress about how much there is to do!

How did you find out about immunisations, did you just ask your doctor?

Want to hold hands over the next few weeks/months?!

[VintageNancy]

Happy New Year. We moved into our new (rented) home in CA 3 days before Christmas and gradually settling in.

I'm actually regretting the decision to ship furniture as it won't be here for ages so we're without a dining table etc until then. We bought beds new here as well as various other bits. We need to find a sofa still. I've lost track of the number of times we've been to Ikea in the last 10 days.

Frustrations include the lack of a social security numbers - we applied on 9 Dec but it hasn't come through yet. Until we have them apparently we can't get a mobile phone contract, credit card or, according the DH's work medical insurance system, health insurance (but I'm hoping he can sort that when he goes back tomorrow after the Christmas shut-down and speaks to a human). I'm 27 weeks pregnant on Weds so really want to sort an OB ASAP.

[InMyChime]

Regarding the question up the thread about costs of living, a good website is Glass Door, it has lots of information on salary ranges for jobs and even for specific companies in the US. Also lots of feedback from current employees on pay, benefits, culture at different companies etc. DH used it before we decided to make the move in order to check the offer his company made to him as we're moving to a very expensive part of the US (Silicon Valley) and while the deal sounded great by UK standards, we wanted to make sure it was on a par with local expectations.

This website is also really useful. It has threads talking about the specific cost of living in different US cities, often Americans asking other Americans whether a salary of x in city y would allow them to have the lifestyle they want etc. It helps to get a local perspective.

So now I have a question for all you US-dwellers: is there an equivalent of the NCT in the US or any other parenting network? I think I may have posted this question before here on MN but it's only 3 weeks to go until we move (aaargh!) and I'm still none the wiser as to what I'm supposed to do to meet local parents when I get there! My DS is 3 months so not old enough to make kindergarten / creche friends but not young enough to meet people through ante-natal classes either... any ideas? I'm not allowed to work as I'm on a H4. We'll be based in San Francisco initially (freebie for 2 months from company) but we're not sure where we'll be living long-term e.g. staying in SF or moving further into the Valley e.g Mountain View, Sunnyvale etc.

[VintageNancy]

InMyChime I've just moved to San Jose (Saratoga). I've joined some groups on meetup.com and heard good things about playgroups called Los Madres I think. I haven't actively been out meeting anyone yet as only been here three weeks. Baby due in April so hoping to have built up a few friends by then.

[spamm]

Hi all - been away for ages, posting elsewhere as I have been able to MN during the day.

Hope everybody had a great Christmas. We had fun, our first family Christmas in our new home. Then a few days down on the farm at my parents.

Forfigssake - let me know if you need help, advice - I know Richmond a bit as my parents have lived in that area 17 years. I live in Virginia, near DC. Moved here just over two years ago.

Sorry, Inmychime - not much idea on meeting other moms, as ds was already 4.5 when we moved over here. But if it is anything like our neighborhood, the library, the gym and your local park are as good a bet as anywhere.

[kodokan]

Hello, another US newbie here

We moved to Phoenix, Arizona about 10 weeks ago, so we're just coming to the end of the initial manic period of temporary accommodation/ SSN applying/ car buying/ bank account opening/ furniture arriving/ school starting/ etc etc etc... Oh, and hubby started work somewhere in all that.

Ours was an intra-company move on L1A/ L2 visas so quite straightforward, at least in retrospect. We moved from Switzerland, where we'd been living for 3.5 years, so will be facing the most horrifically complicated tax returns for 2011 in 2 countries (for which we luckily have assistance).

Our biggest worry about the move was schools - I have a boy of almost 12 (6th grade) and a girl of almost 8 (2nd grade), who'd both been in the local French-speaking school in Switzerland; I yanked them out in May when we found out about the move and homeschooled to drum some English skills into them. (DD couldn't even read in English, and I didn't want her new teacher to hate us on sight.)

I then spent ridiculous hours researching school districts (HOW did people do these moves pre-Internet?); Great Schools is marvellous, as is another site called Schooldigger. It was a bit complicated as my son could have gone into the first year of middle school or the final year of elementary depending on which district we ended up in, and I was angsting over which would be best - we went for elementary in the end as he's quite a 'young' 11 and the middle school felt like a social zoo. So now they both catch the big yellow bus together, and I get an unimaginable 7h 40m alone after having them home for lunch for 2.5 hours every day for the last 3.5 years.

They started school 3 weeks before the Christmas hols, which was perfect as they now think that US school is all parties, movies and themed craft :). So far they love it, naturally. We'll see what January brings... But I've high hopes - the other kids have been SO friendly, even the 6th grade class which I thought might be a bit awkward as they've all known each other for years and are approaching a 'difficult' age for friendships. But no, DS has tribes of enthusiastic kids following him around getting him to speak and telling him how much they adore his accent - he's quite the celebrity, and has even had his first sleepover already. I'm so relieved!

Looking forward to swapping info and stories on here - feel free to ask me anything about the moving over process whilst it's all still fresh in my mind!

[CheerfulYank]

Hi, I'm another American living in America, so no real practical help. :) But I lurk from time to time anyway so that if anyone ever moves to my neck of the woods (Minnesota) I can be annoyingly helpful.

[InMyChime]

Thanks for that tip, VintageNancy, I just checked out the Las Madres website and they have play groups all around the Santa Clara Valley, it says, and they're arranged according to birth year so I'll definitely look into joining them.

Meetup.com also looks good - I did notice already that they have some meet-up groups for mothers under 30 and over 40 and a couple of other parent-relevant groups so that might be useful. It seems daunting from so far away but I've moved country a few times before and always met people - I guess it's just new to me to have a baby in tow so I won't be as free in terms of socialising on nights out etc. It does all seem very family friendly in Silicon Valley though so that's good!

[GirlWithTheMouseyHair]

does anyone have a checklist for moving? It's our visa interview tomorrow (finally) and will the book our flights for end of Feb. DS has been with his Nana the last two days in theory so we could get stuff done but DD has been on a daytime sleep strike so now stressing about everything that needs doing but no idea where to start!!

[VintageNancy]

Inmychime - I'm definitely going to look at the playgroups for when my little one arrives. And if you want to keep in touch and meet up when you're over and settled let me know :)