The Movers Were Here!

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Our move is starting to feel real.  We've had our orders for several months now, but this week our household goods (HHG) were picked up by the movers!  There's nothing more real than seeing your stuff loaded onto a truck and hauled away!

This was the first {big} step in moving back to the States.  I blogged about all the things we'll have to do…you can read about it (and all the crazy acronyms HERE!)

I had my camera out while the movers were at the house.  It took them a day and a half to get everything packaged, inventoried, and loaded onto the truck.  (Yes, we're lucky enough to have the movers pack for us.  It's a military perk.  I'm pretty sure no one would agree to moving every 2 years if they had to pack themselves each time!)

Here is the living room before the movers arrived:

This is the kitchen table and my desk:

Here's Maia being oh-so-helpful and unrolling paper towels while we disassemble the entertainment center:

If you read my post about the moving process, you read that we have 2 separate shipments.  One is our household goods (HHG) which goes on a container ship and takes roughly 2-3 months to arrive.  The second shipment is call unaccompanied (UA) and is flown to our destination by the US Air Force.  Obviously that is a much faster shipment - but it's also much smaller.  It's reserved for clothing, sheets, towels, a small assortment of kitchen utensils, etc.  You may NOT ship furniture.  

Part of the stress of the move is making sure everything is separated.  We like to organize before the movers come so that like items go in the same box.  The movers aren't going to wander around the house categorizing your stuff!  If it's altogether, it gets packaged altogether.  We spent the past week making sure everything was where it needed to be.  We also sorted out our unaccompanied (UA) shipment.  If it accidentally gets packaged with the household goods, you won't see it for months!!

Here is our UA stash.  We had a pretty nice size pile in the corner of one of the rooms.  Keep in mind, we also have suitcases for our flight (we are allowed 3 bags each because we are military!) and the pile also includes items we are going to donate or consign at the thrift store. 

Scary, isn't it?

Here is our bedroom:

This is one of the rolls of bubble wrap the movers brought!  It's HUGE!!!

Here is a pile of boxes and paper for wrapping things up.  

Here are more boxes in the kitchen...

The moving trucks here are smaller than in the States.  When we move, they bring a truck towing a trailer.  Here is the trailer - it was disconnected and parked in front of the house.  

Here is the entryway.  Looking pretty sparse!!

Maia found it all pretty interesting!  Here she's sitting on a roll of bubble wrap with her Daddy watching the movers pack our bedroom.

Here's our couch!  Bubble wrapped and ready to go!

Maia was having a BLAST playing on the lounge section of the couch!  Her socks were sliding on the bubble wrap.  She thought it was hilarious!

Here's a view inside the truck.  You can see a wooden crate on the right.  Everything going overseas has to be crated.  They put everything inside the crate and nail it shut.  These crates will eventually be loaded into the containers on the ship.

Here's the truck.  These movers were AWESOME!!  We've had a couple not-so-great movers, one REALLY bad move, and now, a really great one!!

They started putting boxes in the entryway to move outside and onto the truck.

Here is my school stuff!!  When the movers arrive, they do a walk-through to see what has to be packed in each room.  When he saw this storage room with my school stuff he cringed!!  He told my husband teachers always have so much stuff!  Haha!  He did a really, really great job of packaging everything though.  I've never had anyone package it up as nicely.  Usually I end up with packing tape all over my broken plastic containers!  It drives me nuts!

Here's the basement landing.  More stuff!

This is Maia's room.  Luckily the 'no furniture' rule for the UA shipment doesn't apply to baby cribs.  Lucky girl gets to keep her bed while Romas and I sleep on a plastic covered loaner mattress.  Yuck.

One of the guys (there were 4 altogether) brought a battery operated radio!  I haven't seen one of these in YEARS!!

Here is our bedroom.  All boxed up and ready to go!

This is the pantry.  We had them ship all of our kitchen appliances (my stand mixer, coffee pot, etc) but there are things we can't ship.  Alcohol is one of the forbidden items because of customs regulations.  Some of the alcohol you see on the shelf was gifted to us from friends who left!  Basically you have to either drink it, throw a party, or give it away.  We'll be giving most of it away.

Here is a picture of one of the boxes.  It's labeled "Kit. Moshines."  I love it!  Can you imagine having to label everything you package in another language?!?!  For one of our moves within Germany we had Polish movers…who labeled everything in POLISH!!!  That was a nightmare to unpack!!

Maia and I went to get the guys lunch and she fell asleep on the way home.  She had a really busy day! 

High-value items are treated a little more carefully.  Here is our TV.  It has a separate label with the serial number on it.  

Here's the living room, packaged and ready to get loaded up!

German staircases are generally slightly spiraled and pretty narrow.  It saves a lot of space this way.  However, it makes life with an American bed really difficult!  Queen size box springs and any King size mattress or box spring don't fit in the stairways!  When we moved into this house, the movers literally threw our Queen box spring up onto the balcony!  We told these movers and they were a little more classy getting it back downstairs.  

You can see they attached shipping belts to it.  They had two guys on the balcony lowering it down and two more waiting for it underneath.  It was pretty interesting to watch!

Maia didn't think so.  She spent the time playing in the now-empty wardrobe.

Down it goes!

Here is the living room almost empty...

Each item gets a number.  The sticker goes on the item and then it is inventoried on a checklist.  After so many moves, we seriously still find numbers on everything!  Here is our mattress...

The movers brought everything out into the street to make it easier to load.  Once everything was out there, they could decide how it would best fit in each crate.  Maia watched from the kitchen counter.

This is pretty much everything we own.  It's so crazy to see it all boxed up!

And…they're done!!

That's it.  It's all gone!  Maia loved playing with a leftover tube from the bubble wrap.  She was running around chasing it.

We have temporary furniture (a bed, dresser, couch, and dining room table) scheduled to be delivered.  It will make the next couple months a little more comfortable.  Moving overseas is quite an ordeal!!  It's better for us to move everything early on the way back to the States though.  Here in Germany we are allowed the temporary furniture and can live with our suitcases.  In the States, they do not lend furniture!  So if we waited to ship everything, we would end up living 2-3 months in our new house without a single piece of furniture!  It's just not a good idea - especially now with Maia.  So, it's on its way!

The mover told me the shipment will change hands at least 6 or 7 times before we see it again!  Scary thought!  First his team packs it and brings the crates to their warehouse.  Then, another mover picks it up and delivers it to the port (Bremerhaven, Germany).  Then another crew loads it into the containers and onto the ship.  Then it's hauled by another  company across the Atlantic.  (We're up to 4 separate companies already and it hasn't even landed in the States yet!!!)  It's a miracle it can even make it through all of those channels and be delivered to our new address!

So that's a recap of what we've been up to this week!  Now we'll be busy consigning and donating the things we set aside.  We also have someone coming to buy our Schrank (remember the wardrobe I showed you?)  It's big and won't fit in our new house in the States.  Someone here will get lots of good use out of it though!  We're also working on planning our last couple trips.  Plus, Romas has another rotation starting next week.  (At least it's his last one for a while!)  We're busy, busy, busy!

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