After the emotional, chaotic moment of moving out of the house, we needed time to regroup, finish prepping, and hit some bucket list moments before we left Indiana. For that first full week, that meant living in a nearby hotel in the Ft. Wayne area. The same place we had called home for ten years, but now, that story had shifted—and come full circle from ten years earlier when we decided to build a home and move there. Same hotel, same feel, only this time, our new life was beginning in a much different way. And Fort Wayne was no longer “home”. It was simply the most practical place to pause, regroup, and get ready for the next chapter. A familiar backdrop for a completely unfamiliar transition.

A Week That Made Sense

There was a lot of ground to cover that first week. We had a moving truck full of boxes to unload at the storage units. Garbage bags full of odds and ends that needed to be moved into boxes to transport to storage, or disposed of; a car that needed to be taken to storage once the initial errands were resolved (i.e., last-minute doctor appointments, vet appointments, shopping, etc.). Visits with close friends who had moved to Wisconsin a couple of years earlier but were in the area during the same period. Amazon orders for tech to take on the journey. The list was long, and being in familiar areas while we covered these last few crucial steps made sense.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t misjudge just how crazy busy this week would be. I fully expected to have a few quiet moments to decompress, stabilize a runaway nervous system, and just kind of breathe it all in. For the most part, that didn’t happen. But it was still a good week of marking off that checklist, and being able to do that? As they say in the ads - priceless.

Hotel Living: The First Step Into Travel Mode

Living in a hotel for a week in the same area we’d lived for a decade was surreal. It felt like being halfway between two lives — not settled, not traveling yet, just suspended in a strange in‑between space.

The girls adjusted quickly. Chloe and Louise settled into the room because all they cared about was being with their family. And for us, it became the first quiet signal that our life was shifting. No house. No routines. Just a temporary room and a countdown to departure day.

Rebuilding Our Tech — Phones, Tablets, Computers

This was the week we rebuilt our digital life from scratch.

We upgraded everything:

• new phones
• new tablets
• new computers

This wasn’t a crazy shopping spree as you might think. No second Christmases for us because every dollar had to be carefully managed. But this was a necessity. We needed everything to be reliable for travel, from the 4-year-old cell phones that no longer kept their charge as they once did to the computers the girls needed for a new way of homeschooling. Plus, everything had to be travel-friendly, and I needed a stronger computer that could handle all the demands of editing, filming, writing, and travel. Our old devices had been stretched thin through everything we’d gone through. This was the week we finally equipped ourselves for the travel life we were stepping back into.

It was a bit like assembling the tools for a new chapter—piece by piece.

Meeting Up with Friends Before Leaving

When you are shifting your entire life around and leaving people behind, catching up is another necessary part of the process. We had said goodbye to neighbors, and that had been hard. Our friends from out of town were another important step not just for myself but for my youngest daughter, whose best friend was part of this family.

We turned their visit into a preview—a launchpad—of what was to come: visiting a local festival we had never been to, visiting the Ft. Wayne Zoo once last time (you can find details about this fantastic attraction here), and getting some chocolate at De Brands (check that out here) because who doesn’t need chocolate when they’re shifting a whole life around?

This was our last important goodbye and a soft pause before the momentum picked up at the end of that week of in-between.

The Important Stuff: Travel Prep in a Familiar Area

All the logistics happened here:

• packing
• organizing
• planning the route
• last‑minute errands
• making sure the girls had what they needed
• making sure we had what we needed

In all honesty, doing all of this in the same area we’d lived in for ten years felt strange. It was equal parts comforting in its familiarity, but also like preparing to leave a place while still being inside it. But the week wasn’t about the past. It was about getting ready to move forward.

U-Haul served as the home for our belongings (and still does at the time of writing this). We chose U-Haul containers for our belongings. These units were self-pack and can be loaded onto a ship and sent overseas—or even across the country—without ever touching them again. Unloading the moving truck took a day and a half of exhausting work. If you love puzzles, you would love this process. But knowing that we wouldn’t have to travel back up to Indiana to find another way to transport our items wherever we finally landed was worth the effort. U-Haul helped us every step of the way; prices are reasonable ($37 a month per pod), and each pod was securely locked while we had, and have, the only keys. That allowed for an important peace of mind.

Toward the end of the week, my husband took his car and stored it there. We hadn’t wanted to sell the vehicles until it became clear where we would finally land, and mine was carrying us south

Pets – Another Key Piece of the Puzzle

Traveling with pets overseas was another important part of our journey. As I said before, they wouldn’t be left behind. Looking back over the last few chapters, I don’t think I ever went through all the steps to traveling with them. I should have. It’s a lot. I can say honestly that it was one of the most stressful parts of the journey.

Every country is different, and the laws are forever changing, but when we traveled last year, and at the time of writing this, we needed to cover important key steps. Failing to comply with any of these steps would result in the pets being unable to travel, or worse, being denied entry on the other side of the ocean. When I say we love our pets, they are family members, so this was enormously stressful from beginning to end.

The first step is making an appointment with a USDA-certified vet. Not all vets are USDA certified, so you can’t make this appointment with any office, and it may not be with the vet you’ve used for years. Before we left our home, I had called around Ft. Wayne area and even priced out vets in Orlando near where we were flying out to head to France. Thankfully, I learned the local vet five minutes down the road from our house was not only certified, but also far less expensive than many of the other vets we spoke with.

Our dog had to be fitted with a microchip (our cat already was), and both pets had to carry devices recognized by authorities overseas (again, not all are). Once she had that, both pets needed their rabies shots. We also ensured all other shots were up-to-date so nothing was left to chance.

It’s important to note for those of you who may be reading this and considering taking your pets overseas, the microchip had to be done before or at the same time as the rabies shot. If the rabies shot is done before the microchip, the shot is considered invalid. Just a heads up, because this process has to be exact.

Timing is everything when traveling with animals. After the rabies shot is received, the pets can’t travel for the first 21 days. Additionally, once you receive the USDA paperwork, you have to travel within ten days, or you have to start the whole process over again. And, at almost $900 for two pets (which is on the low side), starting over wouldn’t be cheap. Another date to consider is that, generally speaking, the USDA won’t have your paperwork to you until 24 hours prior to your departure date recorded on the official paperwork (I scheduled our flights for two days after the date on the paperwork. It gave us that extra wiggle room while still remaining safely within the ten-day window.)

I said that all to say that our time in Fort Wayne, along with our upcoming time in Orlando, helped us to meet these essential dates. To streamline everything so paperwork wouldn’t be lost in the mail, I also set up a PakMail address near Walt Disney World so the pets' paperwork could be shipped there and we could easily retrieve it. While we were in Fort Wayne, we also purchased an IATAN-approved dog carrier for our Pomsky, who would be flying in cargo, and for our cat who would be traveling with us in the cabin.

Want the free resource for traveling with pets? You can find it here.

More items completed on our checklist. And time was marching on.

Reservations – The Next Legs of Our Trip Set in Stone

Another item on our leaving-the-US-bucket list was visiting Covington, GA on the way to Florida. A few years earlier, I had watched Vampire Diaries for the first time, and not long after that, my oldest daughter did. We were both big fans, and she really wanted to see Covington before we left. It actually worked out well. Covington was eight hours from Ft. Wayne and was the perfect overnight stop for the pets to stretch their legs and for all of us to catch our breath before heading to Orlando and Walt Disney World the next day. But, again, traveling with pets presents its own set of challenges in that we needed accommodations that not only accepted two pets but allowed both a cat and a dog. The list is relatively small, but we found a La Quinta (more on that in the next chapter of our story) that was minutes from the town square.

Reservations were made for the pets to be boarded in Orlando for a week while we took a short vacation at Walt Disney World – the only real vacation in the journey. Reservations were made for Coronado Springs, a moderate resort at Walt Disney World, along with a handful of dining reservations for some of our favorite places. And reservations were also secured for staying at an Extended Stay just off-site from Disney for a five-day stay before flying out (again, giving us that little bit of wiggle room to ensure the pets' paperwork was received AND that the 21-day window from the time of their rabies shots was satisfied). Airline tickets were reserved to fly from Orlando International Airport to Charles de Gaulle in Paris for both us and the pets.

By the end of the week, our journey was planned and set in stone. The house sold. Pets ready. Belongings trimmed down to three suitcases and three backpacks, with everything else either thrown away or in storage. Devices set up. Plans made.

And us—finally ready to get on the road.

The Ft. Wayne prep week wasn’t dramatic, but it was important. It was the bridge between the life we’d just come out of and the one we were about to step into.

Next stop: Departure Day → Covington, GA → Mystic Grill.