We have a commercial on AFN (American Forces Network) that says something like “In the military, it’s not the matter of whether you are moving, but when”. Never thought I would even be part of military life as a grown up (my dad was an officer too), and here we are, all ready to go to our new assignment.
As most of you know, we found out back in January (Jan. 23rd, to be precise) where we’ll be moving. Then, for several months all we could do was hope that our assignment would not be changed. Until you get your official paper orders, anything can happen. I should add that sometimes, last minute changes happen even after you are issued orders and your stuff is shipped. Orders, in our case, couldn’t be issued earlier than 90 days before our departure date (it is August 1st a the moment). In order to get “orders”, you are required to do a whole bunch of things and get a whole bunch of signatures and check marks. If you are going overseas, you are also required to pass a medical clearance so basically they know you don’t need any special care that possibly the clinic of your receiving base cannot provide. Anyway, it could be a complex process, but we did all of that. Our medical clearance interview lasted five minutes because, if we were cleared to go to such a remote place as Misawa, most other bases will take us with open arms, so to speak.
After we got our orders, the first thing we did was schedule our pack out date. We got our orders sometimes in the middle of May and had our move schedule for June 12th and 13th. That’s right—the packers are coming next Tuesday!
We are truly grateful that we don’t have to pack and move our stuff ourselves. Now that we have three kids and actual furniture (unlike our student years), it makes life a lot easier. The difficulty with overseas moves is that it takes a lot longer than a week to get your stuff on the other end. If you remember back to when we started this blog almost three years ago, we mentioned that it took our shipment two months to get from the states to Japan. Well, from what we hear, it takes full three months for shipments to get from Japan (especially from Misawa) to Europe because our stuff is first shipped by boat to the West Coast and then goes to the East Coast and then by boat again to England.
The good thing about an overseas move is that we get two shipments—one big one (household goods) and one faster one (unaccompanied luggage). This fast shipment is supposed to go by plane and take hopefully less than two months. Our unaccompanied luggage can be up to 1000 lbs and is scheduled for Jul. 20th (a week before we check out from our house).
The beauty of going FROM overseas and especially TO another overseas assignment is the fact that military lets you use their temporary furniture once your stuff is shipped (or while you are waiting for it on the other side). That is the reason why we are shipping most of our stuff next week and then staying in Misawa for another seven weeks. Hopefully, we’ll have both of our shipments by middle of September.
So, between now and Tuesday the biggest part of the move happens (besides the actual travel)!:) This is when we have to have our house completely ready for the packers by separating everything into what to pack and what to leave behind for the next shipment/mailing/suitcases. I feel like we have already done a lot of sorting, but the most intense work will be done the night before the movers come….so think of us on Monday night (Monday day if you are in Europe and as you are waking up on Monday if you are in the states).
I have to remind myself that it will not be perfect and that I know I will probably forget to leave out some items I will need. As a mom, I am trying to make things as comfortable as possible for our kids too, leaving some toys/games to use for the next few weeks we are here. I also have to plan ahead for our trips to hot destinations in HI/UT/MT and then chilly weather in the UK. Robert doesn’t want to be a mule this time around so we are going to pack light (yeah…right…). No…really, we’ll try…. (…maybe…)
Oh, and we just got our UK visas in the mail, so all kids and I are officially allowed to go live there (although we shall see if they let me into the country with the “wrong” kind of passport issued by the government….more on that in another post). Robert is permitted to stay in England over six months automatically because he has military orders.
After this detailed post, I hope you all still know that we are very-very excited to be moving to England! It’s interesting that this time around, I don’t have the same kind of worries and anxiety about the move itself as I did before coming to Japan. We learned a lot from our first move overseas and now, we feel almost like pros. (I’ll see how I feel about this in September).
Good night for now! Gotta go enjoy my couch before it gets packed up.
As most of you know, we found out back in January (Jan. 23rd, to be precise) where we’ll be moving. Then, for several months all we could do was hope that our assignment would not be changed. Until you get your official paper orders, anything can happen. I should add that sometimes, last minute changes happen even after you are issued orders and your stuff is shipped. Orders, in our case, couldn’t be issued earlier than 90 days before our departure date (it is August 1st a the moment). In order to get “orders”, you are required to do a whole bunch of things and get a whole bunch of signatures and check marks. If you are going overseas, you are also required to pass a medical clearance so basically they know you don’t need any special care that possibly the clinic of your receiving base cannot provide. Anyway, it could be a complex process, but we did all of that. Our medical clearance interview lasted five minutes because, if we were cleared to go to such a remote place as Misawa, most other bases will take us with open arms, so to speak.
After we got our orders, the first thing we did was schedule our pack out date. We got our orders sometimes in the middle of May and had our move schedule for June 12th and 13th. That’s right—the packers are coming next Tuesday!
We are truly grateful that we don’t have to pack and move our stuff ourselves. Now that we have three kids and actual furniture (unlike our student years), it makes life a lot easier. The difficulty with overseas moves is that it takes a lot longer than a week to get your stuff on the other end. If you remember back to when we started this blog almost three years ago, we mentioned that it took our shipment two months to get from the states to Japan. Well, from what we hear, it takes full three months for shipments to get from Japan (especially from Misawa) to Europe because our stuff is first shipped by boat to the West Coast and then goes to the East Coast and then by boat again to England.
The good thing about an overseas move is that we get two shipments—one big one (household goods) and one faster one (unaccompanied luggage). This fast shipment is supposed to go by plane and take hopefully less than two months. Our unaccompanied luggage can be up to 1000 lbs and is scheduled for Jul. 20th (a week before we check out from our house).
The beauty of going FROM overseas and especially TO another overseas assignment is the fact that military lets you use their temporary furniture once your stuff is shipped (or while you are waiting for it on the other side). That is the reason why we are shipping most of our stuff next week and then staying in Misawa for another seven weeks. Hopefully, we’ll have both of our shipments by middle of September.
So, between now and Tuesday the biggest part of the move happens (besides the actual travel)!:) This is when we have to have our house completely ready for the packers by separating everything into what to pack and what to leave behind for the next shipment/mailing/suitcases. I feel like we have already done a lot of sorting, but the most intense work will be done the night before the movers come….so think of us on Monday night (Monday day if you are in Europe and as you are waking up on Monday if you are in the states).
I have to remind myself that it will not be perfect and that I know I will probably forget to leave out some items I will need. As a mom, I am trying to make things as comfortable as possible for our kids too, leaving some toys/games to use for the next few weeks we are here. I also have to plan ahead for our trips to hot destinations in HI/UT/MT and then chilly weather in the UK. Robert doesn’t want to be a mule this time around so we are going to pack light (yeah…right…). No…really, we’ll try…. (…maybe…)
Oh, and we just got our UK visas in the mail, so all kids and I are officially allowed to go live there (although we shall see if they let me into the country with the “wrong” kind of passport issued by the government….more on that in another post). Robert is permitted to stay in England over six months automatically because he has military orders.
After this detailed post, I hope you all still know that we are very-very excited to be moving to England! It’s interesting that this time around, I don’t have the same kind of worries and anxiety about the move itself as I did before coming to Japan. We learned a lot from our first move overseas and now, we feel almost like pros. (I’ll see how I feel about this in September).
Good night for now! Gotta go enjoy my couch before it gets packed up.
No comments:
Post a Comment