Aannd we're moving.. Part 2

I knew we were moving but I didn't know when I would actually have to get my act in gear because we didn't have orders. Orders are the military's "golden ticket" except you don't actually win anything or get to drink out of a chocolate river... anyway... You need orders to book flights, schedule house hold goods to be picked up, ship your car ect.

After a couple of intense weeks waiting for them, we got them and could finally get the ball rolling. The Army thought they would do us a favor by speeding up our time line and allowing us to leave June 8 but that was just bonkers! After a few more back and forths, we were able to move the move date to June 12, but since we shipped Chris' car to California (Not in any rush to get to MO and I was not about to put my fur baby in cargo!) we couldn't get to Cali any earlier or else we would have to spend $$$ at a hotel, with a dog while we waited for our car, so we had to get to Cali. early on the 14 so we could make it to pick up the truck before the weekend, well because they are closed on the weekeds. Ay caruma!

Anyhoo...I'm good but we had a lot of stuff that needed to get done and two weeks notice wasn't going to cut it. What made me laugh even more was the only day initially available for HHGs to come was June 8. I mean that was the day they wanted us off the island!? How am I supposed to move out, clean up and be on a plane in 24 hours? With that being said, after we wheeled and dealed our departure datem HHG was coming June 8, which only gave us a one day pack out, which is cutting it close. That meant I had to have the carpets/windows/house cleaned on Saturday so we could turn the house over on Sunday and then spend the next few days at a friend's house and the Aulani before saying Aloha on the 14th.

Whew.

Getting these orders was crucial since we were planning to fly to California and then drive to Mo., spending about a week with my family in Az., we had to make sure Chris's truck would be there when we arrived.

On top of quitting my job, shipping the hubby's truck and doing a premove purge my mom, dad, brother and Godmother are comming for a visit. Talk about timing right? They had planned and paid for this visit months in advance and we couldn't have forseen actually leaving before October, which was when he was supposed to leave. Well that's kind of a lie. We got to Hawaii July 2009 therefore we were supposed to leave July 2012 but Chris extended his "tour" because I was supposed to student teach. Well, in true fashion, once I started my master's degree program January 2010 I got the call I had been waiting almost a year for: The Hawaii Army Weekly/Honolulu Star Advertiser wanted to hire me! Since he had already put in the extenstion, it was a done deal but we didn't care. Heller, we are in Hawaii after all!

Before my fam came into town I gave my work my two weeks notice (May 31 was my last day) which was on top of my one week off that had already been approved months in advance, cancelling our trip to Maui (which was a nightmare since I didn't get the insurance but we knew we wouldn't need it since it was a preapproved leave but after an hour on the phone and two people later, I got all of our money back) scheduled to ship Chris's car the Saturday my parents were in town, and being the good wife I am I didn't want to leave him carless and housebond over one of our last weekends in Hawaii so I set him up with a rental car) and went room by room purging things.

Man, when we first moved here we had nada and now after three years we amassed a lot of stuff! I felt good about weeding out our stuff and reorganizing it all, plus with family coming the house had to be spot less and I knew they would open drawers and look in the closets to see if I crammed stuff in there in an attempts to clean up for them.

Aside: My advice to anyone PCSing:

1. Accept that no matter how much you preplan or prepack, things will go wrong.
2. Do a premove purge.
3. Start organized=stay organized,
4. Prepack! Bubble wrap frames, fragile pieces that are either $$$ or priceless because the movers don't know which items carry sentimental value and they are just going to wrap it in paper and throw it into a box; use storage bins and SpaceBag for clothes and linens.
5.Group items that you want packed together, like office stuff, decoractions and ect.
6. Stay on top of your movers and make your rounds to make sure they are on task and to let them know you are watching them to make sure things don't turn up missing on the other end.
7. Lable the boxes as they pack them! This helps you determine what's in what box, because if they see one Christmas decoration if your garage, all the boxes that come out of the garage are going to be lable "Christmas Stuff," and that way you know which boxes go in which room, which ones need to be unpacked first (Kitchen, bedroom, bathroom) and which ones can hang out for a while (office supplies, holiday decorations).

My family came and we had a great time! The timing, although a little stressful, was perfect because I got to play tourist and hit up my favorite spots on island one last time.

The day my family left was the day we went into prepacking mode. I bought a ton of Space Bags, which Chris thought was stupid AT FIRST, but then quickly changed his tune and several storage bins. Like the OCD person I am, our house was pretty organized to begin with and all of our holiday stuff was already packed pretty well in labled storage bins of there own so all we really pre-packed was putting stuff in Space Bags, bubble wrapping artwork and frames and organizing thing into bins.

In true Army fashion, when the movers rolled up in this

Soo i did't know whether to laugh or cry, but this is what the movers expected to move us in. Ya shoulda' seen there faces when we gave them a tour of our two-story, four full of stuff bedrom house and full two car garage...

I thought we were being punked! I mean the three dudes that showed up to pack us bearly fit in that thing! The movers thought they were just the pack up crew, and that the moving truck was going to show up on Monday. No bra! We need this stuff in a truck today!!! After an intense couple of hours, a moving truck with crates was on its way.

Oh it gets better. So although this truck had 4 crates, only two were usable so we had to wait for another truck to come. That one shows up with three useable crates but the longest part of our three piece sectional needed a larger crate, so a third truck was needed. Whelp they decided to eyeball the size of the crate and when it arrived it was too small! So our couch ( it was wrapped) was just strapped to the truck. It was a looong day.

 

Since we had a hiccup early in the day, we ended up being late for our own fairwell =/

Walking into our empty house after our farewell felt weird. If it wasn't real yet, seeing our house without our stuff made it really real. The next day was cleaning palooza: window washer, carpet cleaners and me. We met the landlord and turned in our keys and one less garage door opener, because welp, the movers packed it and said goodbye to our first place. It was a bittersweet moment.

Goodbye 91-724 Makalea Street, it's been a great three years!