20: The 20-Day Sprint

22 March 2026

I want to be honest with you.

There are moments in this process where the excitement of what's coming gets temporarily buried under the weight of everything that still has to happen first. This is one of those moments. Not a crisis. Not a reason to stop. Just — a lot. All at once. With a hard deadline attached.

Twenty days. That's what we have left in this house. Twenty days to close out a life we've built here and walk out the door for the last time.

I'm not going to pretend that's not a little overwhelming.

First, Some Good News

Before I get into the sprint itself, I want to close the loop on something I left hanging in the last post.

If you read post 19, you know we hit a wall with our apostilled FBI background checks — the certified copies required for our D7 visa appointment. We'd been told they wouldn't arrive until April 24th, which is nine days after our April 15th appointment. Not ideal.

We figured it out. And in the process, we learned something worth passing along to anyone else navigating this particular piece of the puzzle.

If you need an FBI background check apostilled, use Monument Visa — monumentvisa.com. Their prices are reasonable, their communication is clear, and their turnaround time is genuinely good. They are doing right by us.

Do not — I repeat, do not — use PDX Fingerprinting. They charged us more than twice what Monument Visa charges, couldn't give us a reliable delivery date, and then had the audacity to suggest we pay hundreds of dollars more to "expedite" the process — with no guarantee it would actually arrive any faster. That's not a service. That's a shakedown. If you're in the middle of planning an international move and every dollar matters, avoid them entirely and save yourself the headache.

The List

Okay. Back to the sprint.

Here's where things stand with 20 days on the clock. I'm going to lay it out plainly because I think that's more useful — for us and for anyone following along who's doing something similar.

The house. We're under contract, which is a genuine relief. But under contract is not closed, and closed is what we need. The inspection has to go smoothly, the paperwork has to process, and the closing has to land on April 17th as planned — two days after our visa appointment. We're cautiously optimistic.

The vehicles. Our cars are not coming to Portugal. They need to sell, and they need to sell soon. If you know anyone in the greater Vancouver, Washington area in the market for a vehicle, send them our way.

Temporary passports. This one surprised some people when I mention it. When you go to your visa appointment, the consulate takes your passport — and keeps it while they process your application. Which means you need a second, temporary passport to use in the meantime, in case you need to travel. We need to get this before we hand off our passports to the consulate. Getting those requires a trip to Olympia, Washington. That's roughly a 200-mile round trip. It's on the list.

The visa application packet. Everything has to be assembled, organized, and ready to hand over on April 15th. This isn't just gathering documents — it's making sure every document is in the right format, signed where it needs to be signed, notarized or apostilled when needed, translated where translation is required, and presented in the order they expect.

Plane tickets. We haven't bought them yet. We've been hesitant to commit to departure dates while so many other variables were still in motion. That changes soon. Once the house closes and the visa appointment is behind us, we book the flights. That moment is going to feel very real.

The stuff. Kitchen things. Some remaining furniture. Kayaks. Snowshoes. Yard tools. The accumulated evidence of an outdoor life in the Pacific Northwest that doesn't have a place in a Braga apartment. It all has to go — sold, donated, or otherwise dispatched — in the next twenty days.

The House Feels Different Now

I mentioned the to-do list because it's concrete and useful. But I'd be leaving something out if I didn't also say this:

Walking through our house right now is a strange experience.

The kids' rooms are completely bare. My wife has only her desk and chair left in her office. I have the same in mine. Our bedroom is down to the bed and two nightstands. The front living room is empty — just walls and floor and the particular silence of a room that used to hold a life.

We did this on purpose. We chose it. And I still think it's exactly the right thing.

But there's something about standing in an empty room or house that used to be full — that used to hum with noise and all the beautiful chaos of a family living in it — that sits with you in a way that's hard to explain. It's not regret. It's more like acknowledgment. This mattered. This was real. And now we're carrying it forward in a different form.

The OPM Situation, Still

I'd be remiss not to mention it, because people keep asking.

Six months. Six months since I retired from federal service, and I have still not received a single retirement payment from the Office of Personnel Management. Not one.

I'm still calling. Still pressing. My senator's office is still engaged – I think. And now the Columbian Newspaper is working on a story (I wrote a piece for them they’re using as the basis for the story they’re developing) — because this isn't just my problem. There are thousands of federal employees and veterans across the country sitting in the same position, waiting on checks that should have arrived months ago. It's a systemic failure and it deserves attention. I'll share more when the story runs.

In the meantime, we adapt. We planned for uncertainty. But I won't pretend it doesn't add weight to an already heavy season.

Twenty Days

Here's what I keep telling myself when the list feels long and the rooms feel empty and the clock feels loud.

Every single thing on that list is a finishing task. Not a starting task — a finishing one. We're not building this plan anymore. We're not deciding whether to go. We're not researching neighborhoods or comparing visa types or wondering if this is really something we're going to do.

We're doing it. We're in the final twenty days of doing it.

That's not nothing. That's everything.

Braga is waiting. The apartment there is nearly ours. Our friends are already there. And on the other side of this sprint — the paperwork and the packing and the empty rooms and the long drive to Olympia — is the life we've been working toward for years.

Twenty days.

Let's go.

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What's the hardest part of a big life transition for you — the planning, the waiting, or the final push when it all becomes real? Tell us in the comments. And if you're somewhere on this road yourself, we'd love to hear where you are.

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