zipping up the last bags

We are finalizing the packing and loading now. My sister and her husband will meet us at the airport in about an hour to take the van off our hands and we fly at 7:30. We fly United to Japan, then All Nippon Airways to our little island, and we'll be arriving around Thursday morning EST. I believe I have set up this blog to take a post from my mobile phone, but there's a chance it won't work, as I've not tested it. And I'll only have the phone until just after we leave LA tomorrow morning.


I am going to join the kids outside for one last game of fetch with the dog. It is a beautiful day here, absolutely perfect.


See you on the flip side!

Posting from MILs house tonight. The kids and I made it here fine this afternoon, it was a very quiet trip, peppered with phone calls from Tim updating me on his progress at the office. Someone there was not doing her job and Tim had to babysit her, practically doing it for her, until finally he is officially re-enlisted. He has reapplied for country clearance (apparently they won't let us into Japan without this clearance), which should take less than one business day. He left sometime around 5:30 tonight to make the 6 plus hour trip here to meet us. He'll be tired, but he needs to be here with us rather than in a hotel alone again.

We'll be chillin' here for a few days, besides going to church - Papaw will play guitar (I think) in the service - we'll maybe catch a movie, walk to the park, I plan to crochet with my MIL, probably every night. We are counting down 11 days till our flight out of RDU.

homeless

We turned in the keys to our townhouse today then drove away from the town which has been our home for 14 months. My dear friend had us over for dinner Wednesday night, it was perfect - the kids had time to laugh and run and play and climb trees outdoors with their very close friends before enjoying the stuffed baked potato dinner she had prepared for us. I was surprised and pleased that there were no tears from the children when it was time to go. But I cried the whole way back to the hotel. Never in our ten plus years attached to the military have we had so many friends in one place. We are obviously going to miss family too, but we'll always come back to family. Friends, especially those in the military, will likely be scattered to the wind when we come back from Japan in three years.

Tim handled the inspection with the landlord this morning. All his hard work from yesterday paid off, as she was pleased with the condition of the house. It was immaculate when we moved in, having only had one tenant since it was built - a dual military couple with no kids who kindly put up fresh white paint before they left. I was worried about the amount of wear and tear we had put on it in the six months we lived there (the boys room and the stairwells especially looked like war zones), because of the contrast to the condition after the other tenants' three years. But Tim really did an awesome job overseeing the hired housekeepers and carpet steamers, plus patching the walls (the movers were not as careful as tey should have been) and touching up the paint and spot cleaning the carpet. We left the programmable thermostat (acquired new from our local freecycle), plus Tim offered her some leftover acrylic and oil artist's paints that the movers couldn't pack. She was obviously impressed, maybe even surprised, because she ended up giving us back more than the half of the deposit we were entitled to according to our lease (if we leave early, for whatever reason, she keeps half.)


We had to leave Tim behind in Virginia this afternoon, to finish up a few details at his office. If all goes well tomorrow morning, he should be on the way here to my sister's house in NC by noon, then we're off to my MIL's for a few days. The kids were great, as usual, in the car on the way here. But they had some trouble settling down for bed. We haven't stayed here in a while plus Daddy not being here and all our 'stuff' having been scattered in several places and no where to call 'home' for the time being. I think I'll have trouble settling down tonight, too. Mia told my BIL tonight very excitedly that we are living in a hotel. I doubt she'll be so excited when we are still living in a hotel in three weeks.
Thanks for checking in!

almost out...

Movers came today, the last shipment, not counting the (amazingly large amount of) stuff weĺl be carrying with us for the next 13 days and beyond. Very disappointed that they arrived late, reeking of alcohol, and moving slower than sloths. They also over estimated existing damage to our furniture and left trash all over the house. This being only our second military sponsored moving experience, it was surprising that a moving company who had won a government contract would take so little care to keep said contract. Fortunately, the military has quality control personnel available to help us negotiate for the best service from these moving companies. They have been on the phone with us and/or out to visit the house on every moving day so far.
The kids stayed at a friendś house this morning and some of the afternoon. Tonight and tomorrow night we are staying at a temporary living facility (hotel) on our nearby base, not Timś base, but the one where we met all of our homeschool friends. Tonight as they were reading before lights-out, Simon had his nose in a Japan travel guide, peeking out to tell me about things that interested him. This is not a childrenś book, per se, but he is actually reading this stuff. He turned to me and said 'Japan has some really nice places. I really happy we´re going there.' They do seem excited that we are finally taking a sizeable, noticeable, real step towards actually leaving. I feel like this is dragging on and on; we´ve been saying good bye to friends for two months now. Just put me on a plane already.

So tomorrow we meet the house keepers and carpet cleaners in the morning, then meet some friends at the park for one last play date. Thursday, we should be meeting our landlord for final inspection and then hitting the road for NC.

I just wanted to let you now where we stand and whatś next for us. Our home number is being forwarded to Timś cell phone, so if you need us... Also we have internet connection at the hotel, so we are checking email periodically. Thanks for checking in!

the hard part is over... now onto the difficult part!

The big shipment of our main household goods went out today. Not a lot to report here. The men arrived on time, worked quickly, and stayed for lunch but were still out of here in about 5 hours. The weather was perfect so we had the windows and doors open. The kids were at a friends' house and the dog went to daycare for the day.
Thursday night I kept saying the worst that could happen is that they would pack something they were not supposed to (we still have another load of stuff to go to storage yet) or that they would not pack something they were supposed to. And, well, both of those things happened, of course, so we are stuck buying sheets for the kids bed and a blanket for our bed, and I´ll need to replace my entire makeup bag including travel sizes of various toiletries. (update: I found my cosmetics case where I had apparently stashed it in a suitcase, but not after I had already bought a few replacements, of course.) But at least the stuff they did not pack that they were supposed to, we caught in time to load at the last minute, to include one each of three different pairs of shoes from the front hall closet.

??

And sadly, despite their extreme courtesy, advanced English skills, and love of music (the crew foreman plays bass and guitar by ear), all redeeming qualities for sure, they are human - someone accidentally marked on the couch with a permanent marker. Someone from the company is coming out Monday to see if they can get the mark out. This I gotta see.


In other news...
The storage shipment contractor decided that they only need one day, so they aren´t coming till Tuesday. That´s the difficult part I refer to in the title line - four days and four nights in this semi empty house (as far as the kids are concerned it´s empty, all their toys and books are gone) hanging out with the kids.
This weekend is the cherry blossom festival in DC, bound to be too crowded for my taste, plus we are expecting rain. If we can survive this, maybe we have a shot at making it in a temporary lodge in Okinawa suffering from jet lag.

a glimmer of hope, their former selves?

The kids have not really been themselves lately, and I don't blame them - there is a lot going on here. Tim and I try to keep lots of fun things in the schedule for them. We went hiking yesterday with friends, and next week we'll go to Mt Vernon, and have some friends over to play later in the week. But there is no substitute for good old fashioned family reading time. (think: little house style, sans camp fire and fiddle)
Gorgeous weather here yesterday brought us out on the deck for a few hours after our hike. In between the non-characteristic bickering, we got these pictures of the kids.

Here, Simon has a children's book of katakana, and Mia has the hiragana book. Two different Japanese alphabets are used together, but for different categories of speech and writing. I think the katakana is used for slang, and scientific terms, and maybe something else. The hiragana is much simpler and learned first by Japanese school children. Simon knows that the hiragana is easier so that's why he let Mia use that one. Chas has the best command of the kana (symbols) at this point, Simon isn't far behind, and Mia is just concentrating on the phrases and vocabulary.
Yes, Chas is really reading the WSJ. The front story was something about the yen/dollar and the Japanese economy. He read the title, but without a decent explanation from his economically challenged mother, he quickly moved on. I think Tim managed a better explanation, but I am not sure if Chas understood or not.

In other news, we had one shipment of essentials (haha) go out last Wednesday. Believe it or not we were ready about 24 hours ahead of schedule. We had moved about 95% of the stuff into the front room, closest to the door, so the movers were here and gone in less than two hours. They used these giant tri-walled boxes, 5 of them, and then fitted those into larger standard crates. The kids were thrilled to see the size of the boxes. We promised them that they could have them for forts when they are unpacked. It is my understanding that they will go by truck over to California and then be flown to Okinawa. We will take delivery as soon as we have our permanent home, be it on or off base. Our last call to the housing office in Okinawa revealed a zero to 2 months wait for housing.
We now have less than 2 weeks until our next shipment goes, which will take about 2 months, and will go by boat from California. There are less than three weeks till we turn in our keys here and begin traveling to see family.

med clearances close to completion; lockdown lifted...

All four of us, the kids and I, had to get vaccinations today. I was convinced that the clinic was missing records, I just know I had all of the kids vaccinated on time. Turns out there are new regulations put in place since Chas and Mia had their's done, and I still have no explanation as to why Simon was missing some - he was just in for a well child visit, with shots, last month.
It took them a while to get it all set up, they wanted to be damn sure they had every shot ready to go and lined up in the trays, etc. It was like an assembly line. Mia volunteered to go first, while Simon was frantically shaking his head no, no, no, and trying to get away, and Chas broke down in tears before anyone even touched them. Mia screamed, of course, well, she laughed first, I guess it tickled when they swiped the site with alcohol. The looks on their faces are priceless, hers was disbelief that such a pain could ever exist, or maybe it was disbelief that I would allow anyone to ever hurt her that much. Simon's expression was more of resolution of futility, although he fought us the whole time, kicked the tech at least five times, and when he finally surfaced, was missing a shoe! The techs commented that he was the strongest five year old they had ever seen. Chas, I held between my legs wrapping my arms around him; he's old enough to get shot in the arm now. Needless to say I am so glad that it's over. And of course, we treated them all to 7-11 slurpees, as promised. This nearly completes a big to-do list item for us. We are counting the days, something like 4 weeks till we vacate our rental house, and 40 days till our flight out.

In other news, the lock down on Okinawa has been lifted. The only restriction in place now is for servicemembers, not civilians and family, and it is a simple curfew from 10pm to 5am, with an additional 'no alcohol off base except in private homes'. The government is still not convinced that the Americans have learned anything, and they are, of course, calling the lockdown a 'show'. JapanUpdate has some brief articles reporting the local sentiments.

more updates...

Not much to report here... still plugging along with the to-do list. We went to a briefing this morning at the family services building on Tim's base. A few new pieces of information, but not much. To ease my discouragement at the seeming waste of time (and effort - 3 kids and one semi-grouchy wife, fed and nicely dressed out the door at 7:30 am, 19 degrees, frost on the car, rush hour traffic into DC), Tim pointed out that, hey, if we already knew most of what they had to tell us, we must be doing alright.
We are still working on the dog situation. One thing that we found out this morning is that, until our airline tickets are printed, we can change the itinerary as may times as we need to in order to get it right for our situation. At their suggestion, we are looking at a different airline (not ANA) to take him from Osaka Kansai to Naha Airport in Okinawa. The trouble now is that they are telling us he would have to stay in Osaka in quarantine for 12 hours before connecting to Okinawa. We also found out that everyone arrives on the island between 7pm and 10 or 11 pm. There is just no getting around that.
It is interesting to note that the social climate in Okinawa is not at its best right now. The entire military community is in a base ordered lockdown as a result of some poor decisions by a few American military servicemembers. As of now, it is indefinite, which is something, not scary, but hmmmm... interesting to think about.
You can read more about this from these news links.

Japan Update

U.S. orders total lockdown of troops

it's always something...

So upon reading that there is an option for the dog to undergo an on-base, in-home quarantine in Japan, we had our flights adjusted to accommodate the dog joining us (all legs of the journey need to be under 12 hours). Only to find out that All Nippon Airlines (our final leg from Osaka to Naha) has a crate size restriction of 19" width. Doesn't sound so narrow, right? Well, crates for sale on the internet which state this width, are about the same for height, and Nigel is 22" at the shoulder. So we are back to where we started... oh wait, no were not.
We now have an 9 hour layover - 12 am until 845 am in LA and have to change planes in San Fransisco, as well as Dulles, LA, and Osaka, before finally arriving in Naha at 9 pm - Okinawa time, mind you - which will actually be 11 oclock in the morning for our happy band of travelers.

It's an adventure. It's adventure. It's an adventure.


Besides this news about the dog, there is also the news that the overseas suitability screenings office is backed up until March 23. There are roughly 500 things to be done, and some have to occur in a certain order. These appointments could not be scheduled until some other form had been printed, and they have to be completed 30 days in advance of detachment.

So I revert to my DGF's sage advice. Breathe in... breathe out... take a sip of wine. Repeat.

And the good news is: even if it isn't an appropriate time to pour a glass here, it probably is over there!

update

Would you believe I have a minute to post???
Actually, I am at a stand still, and waiting to hear from Tim on some issues. He's gone in to the office to check on a few things.

Here's the news so far: our flights have been arranged - could possibly be changing - but for now we expect to leave out of Raleigh on the 15th of April. Raleigh to Dulles, then to Tokyo, then to Naha Airport. This airport is right on the beach and, from the pictures I have seen, will be a beautiful first look at our new tropical home! We hope to be packing up and leaving by the end of March in order to travel through the south and see family and friends one more time.



Are we ready to go though? The short answer is: nearly. My multicolored easel display is helping tremendously in keeping us on track as far as getting rid of stuff, deciding and organizing the three separate shipments of goods we are being allowed. Each shipment or final destination has its own color marker to list the different items - example: pink is regular shipment (I call it the slow boat), red for express (35 days is express??), and blue marker denotes non-temporary storage (this is actually not permanent, believe it or not, this means the military would rather pay to store most of our household goods than ship them to the island, instead they issue out furniture - including brand new mattresses). So I have listed in blue marker such items as our couches, coffee and end tables, tv cabinet, dressers and night stands. There are also separate marker colors for donate, sell, store with family, and undecided.


Keep in mind when we moved here to VA a year ago, our shipment was weighed at 9200 lbs. Our weight allowance for this move is 200 lbs per person for express, including 400 lbs of professional gear (Tim); 2750 lbs for the slow boat; and 6850 for the non-temporary storage. The next step in the process is a list paper posted on the door of each room with columns (color coded, of course) for each intended final destination, including when each shipment will be packed out and when it is expected to arrive in Okinawa. Chas and I were talking last night and decided when he and Simon get their blank list, they will be responsible for listing what they think they will need in each shipment. Then we looked at how to weigh the items on the bathroom scale, with themselves as a 'tare' weight, and adding them all up to determine if they are withing their weight allowance. Unschooling strikes again!
Something else that has come to our attention is the mild weather in Okinawa. We'll not be needing our winter and fall clothes once we leave, but I haven't bought the spring and summer clothes yet! Tim tells me that April and May are the rainy season, and since we'll be living in a temporary living facility (efficiency or kichenette type hotel) without a car for a while, should be an interesting start to our adventure.



So Tim has just called and I need to go rearrange the schedule for the week. More later!

Orders...

Please excuse my delay in posting the news: we are moving to Okinawa Japan in April! We had suspected this for a while, but the phone call came in Friday morning. Tim has gone today to go pick up the actual paper orders. We have a lot of questions awaiting answers, as I am sure you all have questions too. Of course, I'll post more information as it becomes available.

I guess I might not sound very excited, right now. We are thrilled, but a little overwhelmed by the amount of work to be done in a short amount of time, just 8 weeks, maybe a little longer. This week's goal is to decide what to bring, what to store, and what to sell. All three cars have to be sold. And the timing has to be just right so we still have them to get around until it is time to go. The dog will stay until his quarantine period is up. If he arrives in Japan before the six months is up, he'd be required to be quarantined in a kennel over there, in unknown conditions and at our expense. The kids are excited, but I can occasionally detect a hint of sadness and maybe even panic when thinking about letting go of toys and friends and family. We are looking into homeschool support groups, but the military community is so transient and fluid that it's hard to find current information. This may be one of those things that will need to wait till we arrive and get a house. Off base housing is expensive, and while there are compensations for the extra expense, we are looking into living on base at first. There are advantages and disadvantages to either, it comes down to personal preference.

That's about all we know for now. There isn't much we can do, except start paring down to bare minimums and apply for passports (in progress). We'll keep updates posted regularly. My sister may be doing a going away party for us, so check back in for that news too!

in, barely, but not quite settled...

We have landed, with a thud...
This move was not quite as smooth as I like our moves to be. It just plain through me for a loop, for whatever reason. I like for things to be organized by what goes on the truck, what we will take personally, what needs to be packed last and unpacked first, keeping tabs on phones, and remote controls, computers, school books, etc. None of that really happened this time. And on top of everything else, the air conditioner stopped working sometime in the day or two before the movers arrived. It was cool enough to have the windows open, so we weren't using it. I just happened to look over at the thermostat that morning and see that it was blank and not responding to any of the buttons.
But we left the other place completely empty and broom swept on Wednesday. We are in the new place, and have finally turned in the keys to the other place - that didn't go very smoothly either. The real estate agent handling the deal for the bank, which now owns the property, was delayed by a few days in getting here from Maryland, and then got a flat tire on the way here Saturday. The bank offered us a small cash payment in exchange for our quiet exit from the property without a lengthy eviction proceeding. Keep in mind, we did nothing wrong here, and were technically bound by the lease we had signed with the previous owner. We had every right to stay if we were so inclined to fight for that right. But our decision was to leave on our own terms. In fact, we had already given our notice to the original landlord two weeks before, on the grounds that he was in violation of the terms, by not paying for the water bill, lying and neglecting to make necessary repairs to the property (such as the kids' bathroom sink was spewing water from beneath the sink.) I cannot imagine the surprise we would have been in for had we not seen this foreclosure coming. From first appearance of the bank's real estate agent (three days after the auction) to the date we negotiated for our exit, was merely two weeks. Their small cash offer was less than half of our lost security deposit, but covered most of our moving expenses.

It's over now, the worst part, I guess. We still have a lot of unpacking to do. And since Tim was home for two weeks during the house hunting and packing portion and he is back to work now, the unpacking portion is bound to take a while.
We'll keep posting as things settle down more.

saw the new place for the first time today.

It looks like it will be just fine, we kind of thought so as it is almost the exact same townhouse. Looking forward to getting in and unpacking, getting back to a routine.

almost through packing

If you didn't catch the news yet, let me give you the short version: our landlord lied to us and then let the house we are renting go into foreclosure. It was seized by the bank on September 10, and they have offered us some cash in exchange for vacating quietly without destroying the place. They gave us two weeks, which we were already planning for. We had already found a place by the time they came around anyway, piecing together information from mailings we were receiving, searching the internet, consulting the legal assistance office on our military base, and scraping together the money for the deposit on a new place. We'll have to take the landlord to court if we want to see the deposit for this place ever again. Believe me, we have already looked into this and it shouldn't be too expensive or difficult to do on our own. By law, he has until October 19 to return the funds, so we wait, but we are prepared to file the following day.

We will be moving to the new place this Tuesday, and turning in our keys here on Wednesday afternoon. We have been packing like maniacs for three or four days now and we are exhausted. We were spoiled the last time - the military arranged for our move.

So we'll get an email note out to you all soon with our new address, but our phone number and email will be the same.

Miles to go before we sleep...