Packing Day

So yesterday was "pack day" and Monday is "move day".   Meaning they basically got everything *almost* ready to load onto the truck... and four guys did it in six hours!  Professional movers are.... professional, I guess! ;o)  A couple of the guys have been doing it for over 30 years!  They were very hard workers, easy going, and funny.  And they did a great job! 

It was funny, the guy packing the kitchen was joking that we could drop his boxes of our kitchen stuff from a helicopter and nothing would break!  I chuckled as I tried to remember how many of my dishes broke during our last move cause I'm not so great at packing carefully... too bad I didn't have time to watch and learn! :o)  All in all, I was VERY impressed with how they did it.  It's funny to see all of our stuff wrapped up in paper... it really *will* feel like Christmas when they unload it in Germany!  Lily isn't gonna know what to do with herself when we unwrap all her toys!

So I made a few boo-boos, but none were super major.  It *is* my first time using a moving company and moving overseas, after all! :o) 

Boo-boo #1 - WAY too much hold baggage.  The AF is paying the company to move 1,000 pounds of hold baggage over... it should be waiting for us when we get there!  Now, in typical AF fashion, no one gave us any *actual* information about what to pack in this pile... so I did as much research as I could online (that "I Love Germany" facebook group has been sooooo helpful!  I was able to shoot some questions out to real people who are over there right now!) and then I just wen hog-wild because I wanted to be over-prepared.  Well, apparently that is fine... except when they charge you A DOLLAR A POUND over your allotted amount!  Yikes!  The remedy was simple: the guys picked on me a bit and then Lily ate breakfast while I took 10 minutes to remove a lot of non-essentials from the pile.  Once they told me I was definitely under 1,000 lbs, they packed that pile up first and got it out of the house.

Boo-boo #2 - Having "to donate" stuff in the house still.  We couldn't get a friend's truck (and the muscles to help Jesse load everything) till today... so all of the Airman's Attic donations are in various piles all over the house.  This was pretty confusing for the movers, and a bit stressful for me as I had to run around the house putting pink sticky notes on everything that *wasn't* going.  And even with the notes, they kept asking and asking and asking.  (Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that they triple checked!)  So it wasn't a big deal and as far as I can tell, they left everything that's supposed to be left.  But going back, I would have tried to get that stuff out of the house before they came.

Boo-boo #3 - Not having a room empty for the girls to sleep in.  (Getting a babysitter would have fixed that, too!)  They tried to help me out by packing up the small bedroom first so I could put both girls in their pack and plays in that room for their 10am nap... but by the time it was ready for them it was almost 11am and I had a headache from trying to keep two babies happy and out of the way.  Sam fell asleep in my arms and Lily whined me to death, but they both slept for about two hours after that.  We went out for a relaxing walk in the afternoon and then they both slept at the same time again in the afternoon.  They really do spoil me with how easy they are!

Boo-boo #4 - Forgetting to have them leave out the lawn mower and weed whacker.  Jesse was going to do all the inspection yard work this weekend.  Oops.  The best part about this is that I was talking to the guy as he was wrapping up the weed whacker and didn't even think about it until after they were gone and Jesse asked where it was.  We have some options (borrow from friends or neighbors, pay our neighbor's son, pay our cleaner, etc.) so we'll see what we come up with!

Boo-boo #5 - Forgetting to have them leave out a coffee maker.  I purposefully put my French press in hold baggage, but my other coffee maker is... somewhere in a box in my kitchen :o)  Easy fix = Starbucks run this morning!  And tomorrow... and the next day... and the next day! ;o) 

Well there you have it... my lessons learned from packing day.  We'll see what moving day has in store for me!  Here are some before and after shots:

For hold baggage 

They asked if my husband was a doctor cause we have so many books! ;o)

And that's a wrap!