The wheels start to turn

...Christmas came and went and the year began like it normally did. My daughter had her birthday and mine was right around the corner. As my birthday approached I decided that I would email Germany again re: the job in Mannheim that was mentioned as a possibility for July. A week later I received a response, in essence it stated that of the three people that had been originally chosen for the job one had to back out for personal reasons and would I like to take the position. Um...YES please! My name was submitted to CPAC, which takes over the hiring process once you have been selected by the hiring official. Now I had to wait again...at least I knew I had been chosen, so the waiting was a little easier on the stomach this time. A week later I received an email communication from CPAC that had 5 different attachments, all of which had several pages of applications and information sheets that needed to be filled out. We filled out all of the paperwork within 1 day and emailed it back...can you say 'anxious'? CPAC said once I filled out the paperwork and sent it back I would know within 2 weeks if I officially had a job offer. Three weeks later I had my official job offer. FINALLY! Now that it was real we had to start to work. We had to prepare and plan for the move of our household items, our car and 100 other things that needed to be done. We had to get military passports from Ft. Bragg, so we made a special trip to do that. All the while we continued to fill out more paperwork they kept sending our way. The wheels were now in motion...