Hi Kathy, We are in almost identical circumstances, only we started the marathon 1 year earlier in Dec of 2006. Everything went smoothly on our end, too - the FBI checks turned out to come back very quickly - but the very slow NZQA assessment caused us to request an extension. That wasn't a problem but of course at the time we were worried.
We did get everything off in the mail within the 2 month extension, mailing the package 15 May 2007. In hindsight I think the toughest part of it was getting the medicals done for 2 adults and 2 kids. Since there are no panel doctors in the US you are kind of winging it, walking in with your INZ forms and hoping that the doctor will be amenable to filling it out. The pediatrician was great. My doc was fine. She did remark how detailed and extensive the paperwork was, compared to what she was used to. I think the novelty of the request helped. My spouse had the hardest time getting it all filled out.
We got the "approved in principle" in July 07 and booked flights over to look around ( a reccie?) in September. I think all along the way we were thinking, well, this might not happen... So why for example go to the expense and hassle of an NZQA report before we really needed it? Same idea with actually picking a landing spot in NZ. I guess some people are more familiar due to previous visits but not us. So we came over in September and we were still open to bailing out, but nothing changed our minds. There are threads in this forum with negative aspects so I think we have our eyes... well... half-wide open.
We came back saying, Game on, basically. We put our house on the market in October. Another question mark - how long will it take? Would we be willing to leave the country with it unsold? We decided we wanted to try to make school start in NZ on Feb 7. Tickets are booked for Jan 22. We'll be in Nelson Jan 24.
So I think your time frame of spring 2009 is very realistic. It also allows you time to think, time to not have everything be a fire drill, which makes for a much happier process. Now we're getting down to crunch time but it's still not that bad. Thank god for Craigslist! We're sloughing off furniture and appliances on a daily basis.
At this point it's beautiful summertime in NZ and we are ready to get there!
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