Busy, busy, busy

It has been a bit since I have updated this blog, but with all the prep for moving and a little of just plain laziness I just haven't had time. You would think that since we don't have to pack anything or move it ourselves there wouldn't be much we have to do but because we have weight limits and like five separate shipments we have to go through and separate everything. Yes, that is right, I said five shipments. Some are more involved than others but they are all still there.
(Nov 17) First off we have my car to ship, sounds like a no brainer but we have to take everything except the spare tire out of it and it has to be cleaned inside and out and then we have to drive it up to Baltimore and when we drop it off it has to have less than 1/4 of a tank of gas in it. I don't know about all of you but I am not one for driving around in a city I don't know with almost no gas in my car. So we will probably be sitting in the parking lot with the car running after we get there to get the gas down where it needs to be.
(Nov 20) Second is our unaccompanied baggage which is 1000 lbs of stuff that will be shipped to be there before we arrive there. This consist of clothes, air mattresses, sheets, blankets, pillows, folding table and chairs, and other stuff that we might need when we get there before our regular shipment of household goods.
(Nov 20)Third is official military stuff which is uniforms, papers, books, awards and other thing job related. I guess we can't really call this one a shipment for this move because we are actually shipping most of this stuff in our unaccompanied or we are carrying it with us. But it still has to be separated. We could ship this stuff at no charge to our weight allowance but since we don't think we there is enough of it to put us over our weight allowance we are just including it with other shipments.
(By Nov 23)Fourth is our actual suitcases for our trips to North Carolina for Thanksgiving (Nov 26-30), back to Virginia for out processing (Dec 1-5), Florida for DisneyWorld (Dec 6-14), North Carolina for Christmas (Dec 15-28), back to Virginia to sell the truck to CarMax (Dec 29-31), then Washington DC airport for the trip to Hawaii (Jan 1-2). I guess this one really isn't a shipment either but we have to pack for a month into one suitcase and carry-on for each person. Since the airlines have now started charging for bags we are only reimbursed for so much. If necessary we can pay for more bags but I really don't want to and it is hard enough to get through the airport with 3 kids, 5 suitcases, and 5 carry-ons. Not to mention getting to and from the airports. This also has to be done before they come to pack all the rest of our stuff because they will literally pack anything that is not nailed down, in fact if there is trash in a trash can they will pack it with the trash in it. So anything that is not to be packed and shipped needs to be out of the house.
(Nov 24-26)So that brings us to our last shipment of everything else. Like I already said they will pack everything and they do it so fast you don't have time wipe any dust, through out the trash, or anything else. So basically you have to do a complete spring cleaning right before they come unless you want to unpack boxes with the dust and trash from your last house.