What about your husband's cellphone? Can he get an international plan from your carrier, or is it cheaper for him to buy a calling card to use? I'm sure you will want to be in touch with him.
Hubby has traveled in Asia, and he rents a cellphone at the Asian airport, to use while in the country. He's done this in Tokyo, Seoul and maybe in Taiwan. It makes things WAY cheaper.
Just remember to return that phone before flying back home.
I'm so sorry for your loss! That's so sad.
Is she from the country where she was living? Does she have family that lives there and is from that country? If so, they can help pave the way much more than making it all up. Does he know what religion she was, and what her wishes were?
If she's Asian, and especially if she's Buddhist, taking care of *her* can be less expensive since they tend to go towards cremation, but from our experience with FIL (who wasn't Asian but MIL is Korean, and he converted to Buddhism when he married her) the *memorial service* a few months later is the big money thing...
If this happened with us, we would just postpone celebrations. If you do the Santa thing, maybe have those gifts, but everything else just delay it.
If you don't have skype, but do have gmail, gchat with video is pretty decent, FWIW. A bit of a delay sometimes, which can be frustrating, but it's free and that's hard to dislike.
My MIL unexpectedly passed away this morning - overseas. So we have been scrambling to get my DH a flight out in the morning to Asia. He'll have to stay at least 2 weeks. I think we have the flight lined up, and I have him packed as much as I can. He'll be staying at his Mom's place to wrap things up over there, so at least we won't have hotel expenses. We contacted the credit cards to let them know of travel plans. I am pretty sure the funeral will have to be paid in cash when he gets there, but we have no idea how much that is going to run. Is there anything else major I am missing? We've never been in this situation before. It is bad enough when you are trying to plan things here in the States; having to do this overseas is so overwhelming, especially because his Mom had no plans for what should happen when this time came. I know this is going to end up being $$$ when all is said and done. Trying to get a last-minute flight over there is bad enough but throw in Christmas travel and it is downright nauseating when I think of what this will run. I am SO grateful we went to visit her this summer and took our 2 older kids with us, since she had never seen any of our children before. I am just heartsick for my DH, and my poor kids are so upset about having Daddy gone for Christmas.
