We would have to go back quite a few years but I will summarize as much as possible. The short version includes the fact that my parents are Australian citizens having grown up in the Sydney suburbs of Chatswood and Turramurra. This provided me the opportunity to obtain citizenship through descent which I obtained in the 1980's.
I also visited Sydney in 1988 with my mom while my dad headed on to Perth for work with Harris Corporation. During my visit I interviewed for a few jobs while trying to decide if I would like to live here. At that point in my life I decided against moving to Sydney for many reasons, most of which I cannot remember.
So, even then, I was interested in living overseas. Just when and where were yet to be determined.
During our trip around the world I had hinted to Erin that I would enjoy living overseas and had spoken about Sydney a few times. Even as we returned to the states from our around the world trip in 2003 we had decided then that we would target moving to Australia within the next 2-3 years.
When did the process start?
The process started as early as 2004 with further discussions about the possibility of us relocating and what it would take to move. We researched the proper paperwork for Erin to migrate to Australia (being married to an Australian) and sent in about $1000 US and a request for the documentation in late 2004. The documentation for Erin included 80 pages of questions and requests from the FBI and California Department of Justice for her criminal records, health checkup, and affidavits from friends and family to state that we were truly married and had been in a relationship for many years. I even had to fill out a 20 page questionnaire.
After working with an officer at the Australian embassy in Washington DC and forwarding on a few additional documents, Erin received her approval in November of 2005.
In the meantime, we had targeted the sale of our home in California for after October, 2005 due to the 2 year primary residence tax rule in effect in the states. We left at the end of August, 2005 for a road trip around the states to see family and friends before taking on this big adventure. The housing market was slower than we expected, which delayed the sale of the house until the end of March, 2006. Our flight to Sydney took off on March 30th (only 3 days after our house closed escrow).