PCS-ing Stuff....And STRESS!!!

Vin finally got his orders so we're in the process (and the AF just HAS to make it as painful a process as possible) of shutting down our German experience, looking forward to visiting my family and then Vin's as we slowly make our way to CA. I think this will benefit the boys in getting adjusted to the time difference as well as they'll get to see and be seen by family that has been LONG-deprived of their cute little selves.

My parents are coming here 4/4-4/12 to watch the kids so Vin and I can get errands run and our "junk" gone through and they'll be taking Cleo and Simon back with them to make it as easy on the cats as possible. They have a direct flight from Frankfurt to Boston. My dad will have a couple of "furry" roomates for a couple of weeks till we get there.

I think the plan right now is for Vin, the boys and I to travel on the Rotator out of Ramstein Air Base to Baltimore and then head from Baltimore up to Mass. either by renting a vehicle or taking a train. We'll get more of that figured out in the next couple of weeks. Then we'll spend a week or so with Mum & Daddy and visiting family, then off to WI for a week and a half to visit family, friends, participate in the Memorial Day graveside tributes (Vin's Grandpa Melssen should be the Honoree for Dickeyville as we sadly marked his passing this past October), then head to CA to we don't know what yet.

We have a realtor a friend of ours who moved to that area in Nov. recommended and she's been quite helpful by visiting places we've found on-line and warning us of termite damage, leaky roofs, offers already made that are above what we're looking for, and a few places that she looked at that she said she knew we just wouldn't be happy with. Yay for Realtor Mary!!!

We hope to find a place and put an offer in *before* we move so that we have a place to go immediately, but that's unlikely so we are glad that there are furnished places to rent near Travis for us and the cats to go to together until we can find a place. The Air Force is good in providing us THAT information at least.

Our big hurdles right now are notifying the landlord who is not all that nice in general that we are moving and would NOT like to have people randomly stop by with no notice like he likes to do as we have 2 children that nap and will have company besides, selling the BMW (YAY!-I HATE that thing, not just because it's a station wagon but because of all the gremlins that live inside it to make my life more difficult than it already is hauling my 2 young children around. The back windshield wiper started acting funny and only wiping 1/2 the window the other day but I left it on and it finally *decided* to function properly. Maybe it's not gremlins. Maybe there's a Beamer-Poltergeist. Poltergeist IS a German word after all.), selling the SmartCar--sad as we LOVE that thing and how much gas mileage we get but it's Euro Spec so we'd have to pay thousands to get it switched to US Specs and it would just be cheaper to buy a new Smart in the States which we haven't ruled out since we'll need a 2nd vehicle when we get there, getting everything sorted into Household Goods, Unaccompanied baggage, stuff to actually take WITH us, and stuff to ship to ourselves *somewhere* in the States.

I personally have a goal (please don't laugh Kathy L.) to get the boys' baby books completed so I can carry those precious and irreplaceable tomes of their lives WITH me, only to be pried from my cold, dead fingers and NOT lost in the mail, ocean, or wherever they could possibly end up.

Going through the slideshows given to us from the AF about claiming damaged items was interesting and terrifying. They had a slide of a huge oceanic barge swaying in high seas with the shipping containers breaking from their chains and toppling off into Davey Jones' Locker. EEEEK!!! NOTHING we have is worth ANYTHING monetarily--it's ALL heartstring stuff.

Pray for us during this process as it is ALL in God's hands which is difficult for someone Type A like...oh say...me to be happy and joyous about but luckily, whenever bad BIG things have happened in the past, I've been able to believe there's a reason that only He knows and be comforted by that and sure enough, that's ALWAYS been the case even if it's taken a few years for my pea-sized brain to figure out just exactly the reason.

Luv-n-Stuff,

Shannon ;)