Our sabbatical created a deadline to take care of many things we put off for years.   So we called our attorney and started going through the list of stuff.

One item is under the heading of “estate planning”, which is really thinking about the scenario where we die and people get to divvy up our stuff.  We updated the will/trust and confirmed we have the beneficiaries correct.

We confirmed the guardians for the children in case us parents don’t make it – but the kids do.  We also discovered that we need to have the guardians prepared to jump on a plane, where ever we are in the world, to quickly claim the children. If they don’t get there within a few days it could take quite some time to repatriate the children back to the US.  It is not much fun thinking through these scenarios, but this is about being responsible adults and parents.

Another major category is Health Care Directives.  Even less fun to think about!!  You know, when will the plug be pulled…and who will make the decision.  We found a very good template at the Kaiser Permanente web site that I would recommend for anyone in California.

We also set up durable power of attorney documents so we will have people state-side to deal with in-person business when we are abroad.

Overall, it feels nice to have all this organized.  We should have taken care of it sooner – but better now than never.