Moving 101

Well folks it's gettin' to be that time where we officially count down (though I've been counting down for months) to the move.  Two weeks from tomorrow movers will come to our house and box up all of our things, minus the few "most important" items we take ourselves, and move us to Virginia Beach, VA.  We will then spend the next four years there and then repeat this process all over again :).  Ahhh, the military life.  For those of you who are extremely curious, if Brennan does a total of 30 years in the USCG, we probably have another FOUR moves ahead of us.  Anyway, I digress...

So I know you're asking yourself, well they have movers coming, it's not like she's doing it by herself so what's the big deal!? Well, for starters for we're only allowed so much weight paid for by the USCG or we have to pay the difference/move it ourselves.  Thus why we have chosen to rent a UHaul trailer and pull as much as we possibly can all by our little selves.  Obviously we plan on being in-between homes for about 10ish days, so we'll need personal stuff along with some other items we really only trust in our possession.  So since Brennan is an E-6, we're allowed 11,000 pounds of stuff all together.  Note  - We had 9,000 pounds of "stuff" when we moved here from Minnesota (with only 1 child) and have acquired the following large pieces of "stuff" since we got here: washer/dryer, Logan's bunk beds, three coffee tables and ANOTHER CHILD! We are crossing our fingers and purging as much as possible since we anticipate being close if not over  this crazy limit they've given us. Another bonus we get to consider is that Brennan's work stuff doesn't count against our weight limit, so that's a plus.

Anyway - as soon as we arrived back to Greenville after our last vacay to Charlotte I began organizing/throwing stuff away/ deciding what has to travel with us versus what the movers can pack themselves.

Here's what I'm working with...the movers will not pack the following:

• Liquids (i.e. cleaning supplies, toiletries, food items, detergent, etc.)
• Candles and anything that can melt/cause a fire hazard
• Anything prepacked in a clear storage bin will be taken out and repacked
• Hazardous Materials, i.e. batteries - AND YES, this means no batteries can be in ANYTHING!!

Here are items we DO NOT ALLOW the movers to pack:

• Jewelry
• Guns/Gun Safe
• Playstation/Games
• Piggy Banks

And as I mentioned before we will be bringing clothes/food/kids stuff/toys to last about two weeks. So you can see how important planning/organizing you is to this whole situation.  Not to mention I have to set-up everything at the new house (electric/DirectTV/water/natural gas) and arrange for everything to be turned off at the old house all in an organized and time efficient manner.  I also have to arrange for hotels along the way since we will probably stay in a hotel while the house is being packed up and again in VA while our stuff is being moved in.  With two (you could count Brennan as the third) little ones in tow, this is quite a feat.

My strategy has been to buy a million ziplock bags and organize all the items I have stored in clear storage bins as best as possible so that when they take all the contents out of my precious bins it isn't hard to reorganize upon arrival.  I have also gotten rid of 3216846351 pounds of stuff! So I'm pretty hopeful that we make it to VA in one piece and not over our weight limit and can possibly be fully moved in by June 24th (I'm going out of town on the 28th, so this kind of has to happen).

The best thing about all this moving s*it is the AWESOME house we are renting in VA.  It's in an awesome location and looks like this:

Front of House - yes that's a 2 car garage, just like Brennan wanted!

Living Room/Stairs to Loft & 3rd Bedroom

Coat Closet under stairs

Dining Room

Kitchen & Door to Backyard

Pantry in Kitchen - I have NEVER had a pantry before!!  (it's the little things people)

Hallway to Master Bedroom & other bedroom

Kids Bathroom

Linen Closet - never had one of those either!!

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom

Loft

Looking down at living room - yes those are sky lights...

Bedroom upstairs with full bath & walk-in closest

Loft area

Backyard big enough for a swing set!!

And it's on a cul-de-sac

So as you can plainly see we pretty much got EVERYTHING we wanted in this house!! And the best thing about it, besides all of it, is that it's close to Logan's new preschool - Sterlitz Early Childhood Education Center which he will attend for 3yr old and 4 yr old preschool and then he can move to The Hebrew Academy for kindergarten and 1st grade!! We were extremely impressed with their programs and know Logan will LOVE it!! This also means we will be close to the JCC of VA where I'm sure we will spend most of the summer!

I'm sure I'll have lots more to discuss as things unfold in the next few weeks - but for now, I think I've given you a pretty good glance at what life's been like the past few weeks.  I know I owe everyone an update on the kids, but that will come...eventually...

Happy Memorial Day! So honored to be partners with someone who has dedicated his life to serving our country!!

Diana