The Joys of a DITY Move

In the military, last minute notices are just part of life. But I'm still adjusting to all this. So when Daniel found out that his training got bumped up from the end of July to next Wednesday, it was a bit of a curve ball. However, after the initial shock, we have found some positives in the situation and one is that we get to move into a new home before he hits the flight line. We had hoped to move in the latter half of June so we could avoid moving while we had house guests. But that isn't happening...

What is happening? Well, we found out on Wednesday that we have to move by June 19 or we'd have to wait until August to get into a renovated house. With that in mind and knowing that in August Daniel would be flying, we decided to move this weekend. It all happened really quickly. We got a call Wednesday at 4:30 that we could move and by 6:30, we had a list of 4 houses to choose from and toured one of the possibilities. Yesterday morning, I looked at another one and decided to go with the first option. Daniel and I wanted to stay on our current street and it turns out that our move will be across the street...literally feet from our driveway.
Easy move, right? Just walk everything across the way and be done with it.... Not quite. Not when the Air Force is reimbursing us for the move and they need to know how many pounds of stuff we have to move. So we rented a 26' moving truck which we'll pick up, drive to a weigh station (to weigh it empty), drive it to our house, load it up, drive it back to the weigh station and then take it back to base to move our stuff about 50 feet across the street from our current home. It's not exactly the most practical, but it's the way it has to be done. Thankfully, Dan's family (mom, dad and brother) and his best friend from home are driving up tomorrow to help get us moved and set up before my friend and Anna's godmother, Sharon, arrives on Monday.
Once we're moved, we'll have lived in 7 'homes' in about 7 months and Anna will have lived in 2 different houses in less than 2 months. The house we're moving to is the same type of house that we're living in now but with a few improvements: wall-to-wall carpeting, new tile in the kitchen and bathroom, ceiling fans and new light fixtures, new countertops, updated shelves in the laundry room, and the exposed brick walls are now covered and so are the cedar ceilings. Also, instead of a carport, we'll have a garage which will be so nice in the winter!
I'll post again when we're moved in- now it's time to get packing!!

The Eagle Has Landed!

We've finally moved into our on-base house and couldn't be happier. Daniel's parents who have been storing most of our things drove them up to Enid on Saturday. Like mother-in-law, Pat, said, it was just like Christmas- opening all of our wedding gifts again and remembering all of the beautiful things we have to make the house a home. It was a long day of unpacking and setting up, but it was well worth it when we got to curl up on our new bed with our bedding and silky soft sheets in our bedroom.

Daniel and his dad, John, did most of the heavy lifting and assembled the baby's crib and two twin beds. The twin beds used to be Daniel's and Ben's (Daniel's brother) but now that both of them have flown the nest, Pat and John are going to turn their room into a guest room with a queen sized bed and they were kind enough to pass on the beds to us. Since our guest room is on the smaller size, we put one bed in there along with Daniel's old dresser and put the second in the nursery for those late night feedings that will be here before we know it.

While I set up our kitchen and sorted through boxes to find things like towels and things, Pat set up our bathroom, made beds and put our linen closet together. I can't imagine how long it would have taken Daniel and I to do everything that was accomplished on Saturday- we are so grateful for his parents' help!

Here is a link to some photos- I documented a lot of Saturday's work. I'm looking forward to when our bedroom set will arrive along with our sofas, but that won't be for a few weeks. Thankfully, we have our washer and dryer, our wonderful new mattress, as well as cable, internet and phone. If you'd like to have our new address and phone number, leave a comment or shoot me an email- I'd be happy to pass that along.