Boxes are driving me crazy

I am shaking things up a bit. Instead of a morning photo you can see the sunset to the west in the top photo. We are truly right on top of the hill. The foothills in the photo are of Tiger Mountain, near the town of Issaquah.
In the photo below, taken the full moon night of January 22, you can see the...full moon.
I took this photo about an hour after the sunset. It was amazingly bright and the full moon hung like that in the sky forever. This is the beginning of the good2go2mexico moving sale....

and these are the boxes that have been driving me crazy.

When I decided to start packing, I just started packing and I wrote on the outside of the box, in both Spanish and English, just a few of the things that could be found in the box..china...crystal...dishes...glasses...radio.....on and on to the count of 30 boxes.....and sealed them right up. Only afterward did I bother to visit the Seattle Mexican Consulate website and research the border and customs regulations.

Every box must match an itemized list (photocopied 4 times), listing all items to be imported. Brand, model and serial numbers must be stated when listing electrical appliances according to the website.
Thirty useless packed boxes. That is what I have had in the living room for a week.

Of course, I had to unpack them and repack them. The good news is that in the repacking, I decided I did not need some of the things (like a couple of hundred little sea shells) and after consulting Bill on the items being packed and putting some of those things in the good2go2mexico moving sale pile, I now have only 19 boxes!!

How great is that! I am so proud of myself!

A menaje de casa is an itemized list that alot of people use to cross the border. It seems that it is most often used when a moving company is taking your belongings across for you or if you have huge amounts of things to take across or if you are just plain scared to cross without it.

It's our understanding that if you move and use the menaje de casa you will need to pay a Mexican customs broker to check your things and help you get through customs. And you pay alot of US dollars to the customs broker.

I am close to being blogread out about people and their Mexico moving experiences. The mexican consulate website for Seattle does not mention a thing about the menaje.
So we are just making the itemized list and calling it 'a typed list of household effects' (something like detailer lista de casa).
I have to run that phrase by Violeta, our spanish teacher....
The word menaje means household goods, but we are going to try not to use it.

So, anyways, then we will have to take the detailer lista de casa and 4 photocopied sheets of it and the following to the consulate:
application for FM3 visa
valid passport
police clearance letter
2 front view passport photos
proof of income for the previous 6 months
After all of the above is appoved, we are given the border permit for taking our belongings and also given our permit for taking our car and the trailer we plan to buy.

Well, I think this is how it will go, if it's a good day. I have read many things about folks being turned away at the consulate and asked to go get this or that apostilled in Olympia with the Secretary of State.

. This is Ian's collection of little leggo and playmobile ponies. I may be willing to give up one hundred pretty little seashells, but these guys are packed and ready to go.

Our 19 boxes, a number I am sure will continue to grow, are now each numbered and coded to the detailer lista de casa (I'm starting to like the sound of that, but I bet it's wrong) The list itself is very itemized with everything inside each box.

I'll let you know what the consulate thinks about that....