Ahhh...

WARNING: LONG BLOG AHEAD...SO MUCH TO SAY!!

Well, a few hurdles have been jumped. We can relax a little now. We have spent the last 5 days (which has all seemed like one, big, very long day!) moving, cleaning, painting, cleaning, painting, cleaning, eating out, cleaning, painting, locking ourselves out of our very clean house (ok...I have to take full credit for that...thankfully my heroic husband found an open window and climbed through...seriously, he did and he has the bruises and scrapes to prove it!), and more cleaning. Imagine out disgust when the housing inspector walked through and DIDN'T EVEN CLOSELY CHECK EVERYTHING!! As Cody said (after the inspector took 5 minutes to inspect our VERY CLEAN house), "I think we overcleaned!" Oh well, it sure looked good in that house. Too bad I didn't scrub like that before!! Lessons we learned during all this: 1. NEVER paint an on-base house...well, at least in dark colors; 2. ALWAYS have childcare arranged (thank you to great friends who, last minute, spent entire days at our friend's house with Jackson!); 3. DON'T try to make sense out of the AF minimum housing cleaning standards...your thoughts will never come to a conclusion; 4. NEVER live on base again!! I was worried about all this rocking Jackson's world...never thought about mine!!

On other subjects...our stuff was packed out in a wopping 4 1/2 hours on Monday. The packers arrived bright and early at 7:30am...about 1/2 and hour earlier than expected. So, you guessed it, we weren't ready for them. But, I suppose ready enough. After living three years in Japan, you would think that we would have expected them early...as they usually are. But alas, not that early! It was completely amazing to watch them. So efficient and friendly at the same time. Always asking when they weren't sure. And, catch this, no break in between packing!



Here's the glich we had...we actually had childcare arranged for Jackson, but this fell through that morning. So, Jackson hung out with us...and did awesome. He waved to the stuff as it was being packed, and seemed interested as I talked about where it was going and how hard the workers were working. At 10:15am, Jackson was quietly sleeping in his stroller (see picture below) for his nap. How blessed we are to have a truly flexible child.



So, as we speak, Cody should be outprocessing...although he's been there a while... Tomorrow, I will take one last trip to get a "Japanese pedicure" and to get my hair hilighted and cut before leaving the island. My hubby thought I needed to do this...he's just too thoughtful!

And then, on Saturday, with any luck, we will be heading to the states to start jumping the next hurdle...obtaining our visas. We will plant ourselves in L.A., where the Secretary of the AF International Affairs (yes, we have officially made a name for ourselves in the AF with all of this visa mess) has arranged for us to get our visas processed hopefully a little faster. I'll keep you updated.

With the way things are going, I'm sure there will be another story to go along with this move. Although, I will say, God works everything out, if you just give it all to Him and don't worry. THAT is the biggest lesson I've learned during this move!

Hmmm...

Something about the Air Force Housing Standards just doesn't make sense to us...

SOLD!

Car #1: SOLD
Car #2: SOLD
61" T.V.: SOLD
Carpets #1,2,3: ALL SOLD
Padding: SOLD
Hallway carpet: SOLD
Dehumidifier: SOLD

Although we sold some of this last week, I didn't want to write the blog and jinx myself before we actually did the deregistration (which was completed today) for the cars and the t.v. actually left our house. Now that the t.v. is gone, we have no movie theater in our house. So, we are borrowing Jackson's travel dvd player (of course we got one for him for the airplane) and watching our nightly movie on it. Quite a change...61 inches to 8 inches.

God has answered our prayers. The cars and t.v. were our big hurdles as far as selling things. Although, in comparison to the visa thing, they were small hurdles. However, still answered prayer...and that is nothing to balk at! God continues to be good!

The Jury's STILL Out!

(If you're just tuning in...read the first "The Jury's Still Out" post...that way, you'll know what's goin' on.)
Well, I can find comfort, also, in the fact that we are not the only family this fiasco has happened to. Apparently, there are several families up in the mainland dealing with the same issue. Alas, the saga continues...we will be known base wide at Kadena before we leave...just thought we'd leave our mark!! Continue to tune in for more details, but they're working their darnedest..."they" being several people in high up positions. Say another little prayer for us. I'm laughing now...sometimes, that's all you can do.

A Fun Day!

Two posts in one day...WOW!! Of course, this post is a delayed post. Seeing as we are leaving on 22 December to spend Christmas in the states before heading to Scotland, we had our own family gift giving this past Saturday, followed by a visit to see Santa, who arrived on none other than an F15!! Two things we discovered about this past Saturday: 1) We underestimated how much fun Jackson would have opening presents! For weeks we have been telling him, "Do not touch the presents. You must wait until Christmas." Well "Christmas" was here...and he tore away. When we took too long getting another present (a.k.a. longer than 5 seconds), he was under the tree dragging one out. He had a blast, with the paper and ribbon of course...not with the cool toys...Cody and I had a blast with those!! Until later, and then he discovered the toys, because the paper was gone!
The second thing we discovered: Jackson is not a fan of Santa. Not that we figured he would be, but we thought we'd put him through the torture of trying (I always said I would not do that...shame on me!!). He didn't get too close before he started wailing! Poor guy. I felt like a bad mom then. But, of course, we got a picture of the moment. Enjoy the pics of our fun day!!

The Jury's Still Out

Yep, that's right...no telling if Jackson and I will actually make it to Scotland with Cody. As of today, the answer is no. UGH!! To make a long story short, someone sent our visa applications to the wrong place, in the process of getting it to the correct place, it was discovered that the process had changed and the country now requires people to apply for visas in person...that's right IN PERSON!! And you know where the closest place for us to go is?? Any guesses?? TOKYO!! For those of you who do not realize, Okinawa is an airplane ride away from Tokyo (as Tokyo is on Mainland Japan and Okinawa, a little island all by itself). I have a wonderful husband though, and he is trying his darnedest to figure out what to do. The answer here was, "Well, you'll just have to do it on your own in the states." My husband's answer, "Negative!" We'll see...the jury's still out on this one! I'm trying to remain calm and not completely break down in tears, as I know that will not help the situation any. I've done pretty good. I figure, although we may not make it at the beginning of January with Cody, we'll make it by the end of January. Maybe that means more Target trips in the US?!?? Although, given the choice, I'd like to go with my husband to Scotland instead of Target! I'll keep you updated. God is good, and I know it will all work out the way it should...I can find comfort in that.

We're On the Move!

Quick update...the first set of movers came today. So, it's official, we're moving...well at least our stuff is. There seems to be some "glich" with our visas (basically, a comedy of errors, and NOT OUR'S!!)...long story! So, at least our stuff is on its way to Scotland!! Jackson was actually awake when the movers got here and seemed confused, fascinated and, well, did I say confused that our stuff was leaving our house...especially his crib. They were here all of 25 minutes...yep...25 minutes from start to finish to pack up, inventory and load about 800lbs of household goods. Of course, all the "must need" stuff went today, so no booster seat, crib, etc. Anyway, Jackson waved "bye" many times as the men were carrying out the boxes. That, my friends, was too too cute! More to come in the moving arena...the rest of our stuff leaves next Monday...let's hope we'll be leaving next Saturday as planned!