One Down - Two to Go

We are Phase 1 - Mission Complete!  We were scheduled to have our Non-Temporary Storage pickup on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (today) of this week.  Our team packed quickly however and were done around lunchtime on Wednesday.  Note to all others going through this: the packers here get paid by the pound, so the faster they pack, the faster they can finish your job and move on to someone elses.  Not sure if this is the case with all moving companies or not.  In fact, our team in TX was particularly slow; they must have been paid by the hour.  ;)

All went surprisingly well as far as the packing is concerned.  It's always slightly disconcerting to see the majority of your earthly possessions in boxes on the back of a truck, but we'll probably get most (if not all) of them back in a year, so we'll make due for a while.

I guess the moving company did not mention anything to the Army transportation office about finishing early because - right on schedule - we had an ITO inspector stop by to check out the progress only to find everything gone already.  Oh well.  We had nothing bad to say about our team, which is usually why the inspectors come out - they're mediators more than anything else.

With all of our "extra" time today, we got prepared for tomorrow's pickup - Household Goods.  We are authorized 1/4 JFTR - code for one quarter of a normal move allowance.  I want to say it's somewhere on the order of 4000 lbs.  Since we're not shipping any furniture (with the exception of my piano), we should not have any issues with weight.  Who knows - we might even have space left over to bring home a few extra things :)  I also managed to get K in to see the pediatrician this afternoon.  Somehow in the all of the excitement, I totally forgot that her checkup was THIS Tuesday.  I was convinced it was next week.  Luckily, they made a huge exception for us and got her in for an appointment today so she's now complete with all of her required routine vaccinations for travel.  B will still have one more appointment before we leave to get his PPD which is required by the school he will attend in Dhaka.  We've been making the rounds picking up medical and dental records for everyone.  I'm having a bit of difficulty getting my doctor to release my records - I'm pretty sure I'll win this one, but we'll see.

We got some disappointing news today with regards to our visas.  It's looking like the office here will not be able to expedite the request for visas for the entire family - only the "official" traveler.  So we'll have to postpone some of the regional travel we were hoping to do as a family before school starts.  Round 571 of Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome goes to the Army.

The kids continue to be pretty excited about our upcoming trip.  B was actually happy when the packers got to our house because it meant he was that much closer to getting to Dhaka.  I'm not really sure what he's expecting to find over there, but we've been doing our best to keep him very positive about the upcoming move.  He had a rough time with our last move, and I'm wondering if I just didn't do enough to make him see it in a positive light.  So this go-around, it's all about the new opportunities we'll have.  I'll let you know if this is any more successful than our previous move.  K doesn't seem to care too much about the move.  She's a bit more cranky than usual, but you almost can't tell ;)

Well, I think that's it for now.  It's pretty late, and we've got another early morning tomorrow.  Josh and I are never really at our best when we're moving.  It seems to bring out a bit of the worst in both of us.  I love to procrastinate (which seems odd since I was essentially a professional planner in my previous career) knowing that it will all get done.  Josh on the other hand really wants everything to be done well and has little patience for my "wait til the last minute to get everything done" attitude.  Maybe we just need more practice moving...  I think we'll get to test that theory!

Busy, busy, busy

This week has really flown by.  It's Friday night already...  We had our last pizza and movie night in this house tonight - we'll have to work a bit harder to keep to our schedule once we're on the move!  We've been steadily boxing things up over the past week and most rooms in the house are now in some sort of order (or disorder).

Half of the kid's clothes are already in suitcases - have to get the rest of them this week.  Our clothes are mostly sorted into the different shipments.

We have managed to sell all of the big (read: heavy) items that we did not want to put into storage, so that was definitely a small victory for us.

We've been busily recording TV shows for the kids for those times when we really need to keep them occupied.  All was going well until the DVR stopped working.  One quick visit from our cable company later, and we now have a new cable box (for the last week of our service) and we are now in business once again.

Lots of last minute shopping!  Picking up a few more items for the consumables (we probably have way too much at this point) as well as last minute clothing items for Josh and I.

The cats (who will be staying with my parents while we're gone) visited the vet twice this week to get updated on all their shots.  They are now healthy and ready for the move.  We have also confirmed that they still hate their carriers.  Always good to check that one every year or so.  You never know when they might change their minds.

We had the furniture appraiser in and are confident now that all of the furniture is ready for storage.

And somewhere in the midst of all of this, Christmas has snuck up on us.  Can you believe Christmas Eve is tomorrow night???!  Luckily Santa was busy earlier this year, so we haven't had to worry too much about that, but I have to admit, I'm having a hard time "getting in the spirit" with all of this other stuff going on.  Best wishes to everyone else for a very Merry Christmas!  Please wish us peace in the new year :)

One week - ACK!

Well, utilities are taken care of.  Mail is forwarded.  House is slowly but surely getting sorted.  We're trying our best to use up all the stuff in the pantry.  With as many times as we've moved, you'd think we'd get good at this, but it's really, REALLY hard.  Don't get me wrong.  The moving part isn't tough, it's just finding a way to move while still living in your house :)

And on that note, I have to say something.  There's something really nice about making new friends every place you go - even when it means you have to say goodbye sooner or later.  Things like e-mail and Facebook make it much easier to keep tabs on your "worldwide family" as they go off and experience new things in new places.  And I'm not terribly sad about leaving - not really.  I'll miss letting the kids hang out with their friends - maybe even more than they will.  They seem to be very flexible (at least at this age).  I'm sure it will be a different story when B is in 7th grade and would really like to stick around and graduate with his friends, but instead we'll be of to... who knows where.  But for now, they're very adaptable.  And going to Dhaka is a bit like getting in the car and going to Target.  He's been talking about it for months now.  He packs his backpack several times a week filling it with underwear, clothes, toys, etc so he's "ready to go to Dhaka."  Oh, how I wish it were that easy.  But, I stray from my topic.  I want to take this opportunity to apologize in advance to all of the people I'm going to sob on for the next three weeks until we leave.  This list can (and likely will) include anyone and everyone who talks to me about the fact that I'm leaving.  I promise - I'm not really that sad - or scared - to move on.  I just have some genetic inability to say the word "Goodbye" without sobbing.  You can ask my family.  I've done this my whole life, so why stop now...  I'll miss all of you.  But sometimes I really wish I could just kind of take off without anyone knowing.  At least I'd save some money on tissues!

Two Weeks To Go

And the countdown continues.  Every time I look around the house, I'm mentally processing what needs to go in which box.  Not that this is particularly useful since we're still using everything in our house and things keep moving around.  But I hope that by the time the packers arrive, I'll have a handle on what's coming with (not a lot) and what's going into storage (lots).

We decided to revisit a great local-ish state park this past weekend with the kids - Big Basin just north of Santa Cruz.  There are some great old-growth redwoods up there, and while it was a bit chilly, it was still a great place to "get away".  Combined with a trip to MyMuseum on Saturday night for a birthday party, the kids had a great weekend.

I've started contacting utilities to have them turned off, and I'm starting to make arrangements to have the house cleaned after we leave.  It's always fun when you don't even have a vacuum cleaner to clean the carpets after the movers leave because... that's right... the movers packed it.  Oh well.

We're waiting right now for our passports to come back with our visas so we can send them off again (and get another visa).  And instead of doing anything productive at home right now, I'm watching White Christmas - which truly, truly never gets old.

PPE

In Army-speak - this is personal protective equipment.  Since we're going to be in a foreign country, I think this definition should be expanded to include anything that protects our critical assets - our passports and important documents.

It was already recommended to us that we scan in all "important" pieces of paper and then make multiple copies on thumb drives to leave with people in the states just in case.  So far, I've included all of our birth certificates, our life insurance policies, the titles for our cars, and other things that might at some point be important.  But we're hand carrying papers with us as well.  We've been told that these can be stored at the embassy if we need someplace secure to leave them.  We also have a small lockable fireproof box that we're planning on taking (I think) so that we can lock up little items at home.

Waist Wallet

Neck Pouch

While we're traveling, obviously the concern is keeping our passports, tickets, and money safe.  It's not really recommended that you leave your passports in a hotel safe, or even in a safe at the front desk.  We've picked up a couple nifty items that I'm hoping will work really well to that end.  First is the Pacsafe Cashsafe Travel Belt Wallet.  I'm sure the website does a much better job of describing this, but but the belt is hollow - on the inside, against your pants, the belt has a zipper that allows you to open it up and insert folded paper money.  The buckle on the belt is plastic, so I'm hoping it holds up, but it got fairly good reviews, and we feel it's definitely important to have a cash reserve somewhere while we're traveling.  Second, we got a Pacsafe Coversafe 75 Neck Pouch to allow us to keep our passports/money/tickets close when we need to.  I used something similar to this when I traveled in Europe as a teenager, and found it to be pretty useful.  This one is not fully waterproofed (or rather sweatproofed), so other users in humid climates recommended putting your items in ziplock baggies before putting them into the pouch.  I can easily fit 2 passports in my case, but I'm not sure I could put all 4.  It would definitely be much more noticeable and would not really lie flat under clothing.  We also picked up the Pacsafe Waist Wallet in the 25 and 100 sizes - the 25 really only fits cash.  The 100 will fit passports, tickets, cash, etc.  I don't think we really meant to get the 25, but since it's here, we'll use it.  Last, I purchased the purse I'd blogged about earlier - the Pacsafe Citysafe 200.  This purse has lots of great safety features including a slashproof strap and slashproof fabric.  The shoulder strap unhooks allowing you to loop it around a table base or some other immobile object and then locks into place.  The zipper to the main compartment can also be "snapped" in place so it is more difficult for someone to merely reach over and take something out of your purse.

And no, Pacsafe is not paying me for this free advertisement :)  We're just hoping their stuff works!

The Pre-Pack

Among experienced military movers (and by this I mean military families, not the actual moving companies), I generally find two main camps on how to "do" a move.  The first group does essentially no prep because the Army's contract with moving companies pays for them to come into your home, take your clothes out of your dresser, your dishes out of your cabinets, and your books off of your shelves, pack them, and unpack them all into the same locations in your new house - wherever that may be.  The other camp believes that they are somehow "better" than the people who get paid to do this all day every day - and they pre-pack all of their boxes.  I'm not sure if we're under the mistaken impression that this will somehow make our movers like us more and thereby not destroy everything we own, or if we really just have nothing better to do.  If you can't tell, we kind of fall into the second camp.  By myself, I'd probably go with option A, but Josh is a firm believe in pre-packing.

And so we spent the weekend sorting through boxes in the garage, emptying the linen closet, and packing up our spare bedroom to make room for all of our unaccompanied baggage and household goods.  Nevermind the fact that I'm also storing Christmas presents in the guest room.  I think he'd pack those up too if I gave him the chance.

In other news, we took the side rail off of K's crib and she seems pretty happy with the change.  For myself, I'd just as soon keep her in the crib as long as she's happy (and she is), but travel will be easier (we think) if we can count on her sleeping in a regular bed.  It makes me a little bit sad to not have her in the crib.  Guess she's not really a baby anymore... :(

Moving Right Along

This morning we had our survey visit with the moving company.  We are scheduled to start our pack out in a little over 3 weeks.  It's really amazing how quickly all of this is moving along now.  We've received confirmation from the shipping office at the embassy that we are not authorized to ship food items in our consumables shipment, so I guess we'll have to ship snacks and things separately at our own expense.  I've also finally (I think) kick-started the search for a place for us to live.  I'm not sure if everyone just assumed that housing was tracking our arrival, but I'm pretty sure - reading through the lines mind you - that somehow we had been overlooked and they're not really sure where we're going to live when we arrive.  Luckily, we've still got some time on that one as we're taking quite a bit of leave prior to heading overseas.

I've managed to sell some of the furniture we're not planning on putting in to storage.  We were very close to our weight limit when we made our move here to CA - and it's not like people accumulate less things over time, so we decided to get rid of our guest room furniture.  That will save us a couple hundred pounds at least.  Plus, there are all the things I bought when we got here intending to get rid of when we left.  There's the outdoor playcube I passed along to another FAO family who has some time left here and the double jogging stroller that I inherited from a FAO that needs a new home before we leave.

I mentioned that we saw some antique furniture similar to ours in a previous post.  On that note, I have made contact with a furniture appraiser who is stopping by the house next week to do a formal appraisal.  Send that stuff in to the insurance company and we'll be ready to leave it all in storage.

The kids are scheduled to have their last medical checkups prior to leaving, and then all I need to do is pick up all of the records.  Slowly but surely, I'm ticking things off my list.

Last, but not least, I contacted my insurance company and made all necessary changes to cover our items in storage/overseas.  I also had them put a travel notice on our charge card, so we should not run into any issues of our card getting turned down.

Next up, plan our travel back east and make hotel reservations.  Oh yeah, and scan in every important document from our file cabinet so I don't have to bring that with us when we move.  The prospect is a bit daunting...