Closer!

Weeeeeeeeellll.... tonight was the night for Eric's going away dinner! I was really happy to see that the people we've always considered friends showed up. I know that sounds weird, but you'd be amazed by how many people say they're your friend, but don't show up.

So yes, it was great to hang out with everyone, hear and share funny stories.. relax. All in all, it was a great time. Kinda hits you that.. YES.. we're leaving soon. Finally.. but we're leaving in a little over 3 weeks. Yay!!

Eric's shop made him two going away trophies.. one was made from actual parts of the Peace Keeper missle (it weighs atleast 15lbs), the other was a wood plaque in the shape of my beloved state; California :)

Front of the Peace Keeper trophy

Top view of it

At this point, where're about 23 days away from gettin' to Belgium! Yaaaaaaay!!! Till then, I've been working on the house, scrubbing things down so when our final week gets here, there isn't too much more that'll need cleaning.

Sorry for such a short blog, but I'm pooped!

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Project: Weenie

As most of you know, I (as well as my family) adore dachshunds. A few months back, my Dad across this Dachshund Swinger that's supposed to hang in your garden (or where ever you want), but he didn't like the coloring since it didn't look like either of his dachshunds.

Here's what it looked like BEFORE:

Well, I ended up getting it for him since I could redo it have it look like one of his dogs. He LOVES Waldie... she's the older out of the two he has and she's a complete diva / pre-madonna / cream puff.
Here's Waldie:

So, I had to take the rope / swing apart so I could work on the doxie without getting paint all over the wrong pieces.Primed it and did my thing.. now it's all done so I can finally give it to him, lol. Eric said I needed to add some sculpters cement to the tummy since Waldie is a bit of a fatty... but I think my Dad would get mildly pissed since he doesn't seem to feel she's "padded".
Finished Product :)

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Pooped.

Oh my gaaaaaaaaaaaaawd....The last 24 hours has been a total whirl wind!

The movers (an all girl packing team) came in yesterday and was able to pack up our entire house, well, the stuff that we're willing to take overseas, into every size imaginable as far as box sizes are concerned lol. I was pretty surprised as to how quick and efficient they are when it comes to throwing a box together, protecting our stuff as it's getting crammed into it's rightful spot then moving onto the next thing. After all was said and done, there were tons of boxes scattered throughout the house... it actually made me a little claustrophobic, lol.

Living Room

Part of the Kitchen

Walkway into the bedroom

Johns last night with his real bed (for the next 2 months, lol)

I guess the Air Force was anticipating on our house taking 2 days to pack and 1 day to load, but it actually took just 1 day to pack and 1 day to load ( thank god ).

The actual heavy lifting movers arrived first thing this morning while the gals finished up inventoring all the boxes. The guys were really nice, down to earth and were super considerate about getting things packed NICELY. I know it's their job, but shit.. don't mess my stuff up, lol. Figures that the weather was blistering hot today, but atleast it wasn't pouring down rain :) All in all, everything went smoothly and we officially have 7 crates of our goodies on our way to Belgium now. I'm wondering what the grand total for our weight was, hahahaa.. some of that shit was super heavy!

Since our beds are gone, we officially get to sleep on blow up mattresses till Feb. 19th. Damn ...we're gonna look like house squatters in our own house, lol.

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Ready? Set. GO!

Tomorrow's the day! The movers are arriving and will start the insanity in which we lovingly call PCSing! Wheeee!!!

Yesterday we went though the garage once last time to clear out the junk we REALLY didn't need. Dad & Uncle Tim were nice enough to drive down with some other pieces of furniture that we're taking / storing. There's a nice daybed that my Dad didn't want anymore, so I was all about taking it off of his hands since we'll definetely need a spare bed for when guests come to visit. Then there's also a China Cabinet that my Mom and Dad picked out when they first got married.. he doesn't seem to want it anymore since it replaced it with a different hutch he was able to find at a flea market. SO, now I have both of those items.. the China Cabinet will be going into Non-Temp Storage (NTS) for the next 3ish years since I don't want to chance it getting damaged during the shipment to Belgium. If it got damaged, I'd be EXTREMELY upset, so, I'm not taking any chances.

Dad was able to hang out for about two hours till he had to get going since his lady friend was itchin' for him to pick her up. On the way here, he stopped of in Cayucos and dropped her off at her brothers house since he needed to drop the cabinet here, which is another hour and a half South. In turn, I gave him my elliptical since I wasn't wanting to ship it overseas, and I'd rather someone get some use out of it besides it sitting in NTS. So in a sense, he was kinda rushed to get going... which bugged me, but hey, atleast he made it down this way. As for Uncle Tim, he ended up staying the night which was awesome! He was able to locate this property on his laptop that Dads' been talking to me about. It's located in a GORGEOUS area in Oregon, a good chunk of acreage and near places that they can go hunting. All and all, I'm very thumbs up about them seriously looking into this piece.

Today was a little on the rough side, lol. John thought his room was clean, but I think boys just have this heritary LAZY gene. It was still a disaster even though I told him several times this week to clean it out. When the movers come tomorrow, I wanna be able to know what's getting shipped / stored / thrown away since he'll be at school the whole time we'll be working on packing. Five massive black garbage bags later, his room is "sterile" and I got his laundry washed AND packed into his suitcase so the movers won't take 'em. No blood was drawn, so all in all, I'm a happy camper. I'm just AMAZED by how much crap that kid accumulates!!

Eric and I worked on our room, figured out what we're taking and what not. Our luggage pieces are pretty much packed excep for the things that're currently in the washing machine. Our room looks weird to me cause you can tell it's ALL going to be boxed up tomorrow. My happy zone (the bedroom) is getting crammed into a bunch of boxes and I won't be able to enjoy my bed for atleast 2 months. *whimper*

OH well..guess I better get to bed since they'll be here at 8am in the lovely morning..aghhhh

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Just...Meh.

I'm just in one of those moods where I feel like I'm kinda 'checked out'.

My Xterra is still at the dealership getting worked on since the air compressor finally decided to give out. So, the service manager is seeing what he can do considering I have a 60k warrenty (my milage is currently 59,102..hahahahaa), that way I don't have to shell out $1,2oo for a single part. In addition to that, it's also getting it's official 60k mile tune up, power steering check, oil change, tire rotation and new windshield wipers... alllllll before we ship it off to Belgium. I've been without it since Tuesday morning and I miss my truck!!! wah!!! I'm gonna go looney without it for 2 months.

Then Eric came home on Tuesday and the first thing he says is, "I have bad news". He has this tendency to pussy food around with news, so I'm instantly thinking his orders got cancled and I'm getting worked up. "Did the orders get cancled?" ... "Oh! No!".... ok.. then spit it out, geez. Turns out, Outbound emailed him due to the State Department contacting them regarding a problem with Johns No Fee Passport. What problem is that, you ask? Well. Johns mother had the passport authorization papers in her pocession for a month. Within that month, she signed the paper. She's not supposed to sign that paper until she's physically infront of a Notary. When she got it Notarized A WEEK LATER, the Notary didn't catch the mistake (even though it's clearly stated within the appropriate signing areas that she must've been present with the signature), did her Notary thing and sent Ginna on her way. In the State Departments eyes, it's invalid and WILL NOT process Johns stuff. I fucking lost it. I was pretty much livid considering we've gone through enough bullshit to get this all taken care of, yet Ginna, Ms. Mother of the Year, has found yet another way to fuck this shit up for John. We're 45 days out from our flight and we're having to re-submit forms YET AGAIN for Johns No Fee Passport because Ginna can't get her shit together. She shouldn't have signed the goddamn form until she was ready to have it taken care of. Eric called her and lit into her,which quite frankly, it's taken alot for him to get to that point. He's so laid back and mellow all the time, so I think he's finally hit his breaking point considering this effects John & him coming with us. He's still able to come considering we still have his tourist passport,but it's the fact that the Outbound office made a huge stink that we HAD to have our No Fee Passports in order for us to get to Belgium. So, Eric got yet another form, over nighted it to Ginna and paid for an overnight postage BACK to us so we can take care of it. I'm just so fucking pissed that this is taking so goddamn long... we've been dealing with her since late September. This is ridiculous...

I was pulling our luggage pieces out of the garage yesterday since this weekend, we'll be packing our clothes up that we don't want the movers to take on Monday / Tuesday. Earlier last year, Eric and I managed to get a great deal on some Samsonite luggage.. great sizes and will fit the majority of our clothes that we're wanting to take. We originally bought 3 large pieces, 3 carry-on overnight bags, 1 smaller roller and a garment roller. WELL...being that our luck is awesome, when I opened up the box that was supposed to contain the smaller roller, it's actually a second garment bag. So, now we have an extra garment bag rather than the smaller roller that we needed. Yeah, it's our fault for not checking it at the time when it was delivered, but hell.. this sucks. Now I gotta figure out what we're gonna do with it *sigh*

I signed us up for Vonage around mid December so we could get it figured out and set up before we leave. Plus, it'll make things easier for when friends want to call us without having to hassle with international dialing. Yesterday I was finally able to fiddle with it to make sure it worked properly, lol. Our internet is kinda fussy and I usually let Eric mess with it, but since he's been at work alot and trying to get things taken care of for the move, it was up to me to figure it out. After about 30 minutes of fiddlin', I got it up and running *SO PROUD OF MYSELF*. lol. It sounds so stupid, but I got it done without burning the house down. It's pretty cool cause when we're overseas, the people here can reach us with the Vonage number as if we're still in the states. I mainly got it since it'd be easier for my Dad and Grandma to call us. Plus, we'll it'll be more convieniant for stateside business's to reach us. I guess I'll pack that in our suitcase so we're able to hook it up right away rather than wait for our housing stuff to arrive in late March..eekkk.....

There's so much more going on, but I figured I should post some sort of blog so I can vent a little big. This whole move is getting irritating and stressful in addition all the other shit I have going on.

BLAH!

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*Sigh*

My husband is such a giving and loving man. I truely couldn't have asked for a better person to call my husband. Honestly.

In the midst of us getting ready for this move, we came down to the decision that Cali, our Boxer, is going to stay in California. There's a major risk with her to be in the airplanes cargo area due to her respitory issues (boxers have the short, smushed in faces). That's our primary concern because we really don't want anything bad to happen to her during the flight. In turn, since Cali is staying here, the 3 Dachshunds will be coming with us as carry-on.

Eric is not a very emotional guy. I've never seen him cry, weither the situation was sad or happy, to be honest. Well, he started talking about Cali today and he started to cry. That freaking broke my heart because that's HIS dog. That's HIS baby. He got her earlier in 2006 before he and I met. So, I can't help but feel like it's my fault that I'm to blame for Cali not being able to come. The dogs we got together are coming to Belgium, but not Cali.... :( Cali is such a loving & sweet girl. She thinks she's the big momma to all the weenie dogs, absolutely loves kids.. i can go on and on about her. She always always always sleeps with John since all the weenies sleep with Eric and I. Whenever John leaves the house, Cali will run into his room and stare out his window to watch him walk to school. She's one hell of a sweet dog, so this is totally killin' me.

I know my Dad has offered on several occasions to take Macie and possibly Izzy if we needed to leave them in California. I've debated back & forth on it, but Eric is insistant that we bring all of them considering they're our "kids". BUT, if Macie and Izzy stay with my Dad, atleast they'll still be in the family. If we leave Cali, she'll be going to a friend of ours, but we'll never get her back. Macie is Eric's little shadow, so I can see why he doesn't want to leave her either..

This is just so heart wrenching :(

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!

IT'S OFFICIALLY 2009!

*WOOT WOOT*

Last night, we ...well...I got completely smashed on raspberry lemonaide with raspberry vodka. I'm payin' for it a lil' bit this morning with a mild hangover, but it was worth it, lol. Todays events are going to be pretty laid back since UGA is playing Michigan State at the Capital One Bowl, which is about to start any minute now. After that, Eric and I are gonna start figuring out what's going to come with us overseas and what is staying here in Non-Temp Storage. Thank gawd for the Non-Temp Storage since I was freaking out about taking my moms China cabinet with us... my Dad was rather insistant that I take it NOW since he's been on a buying spree for more furniture *sigh*. SO, I'm super super relieved that we can store it here rather than risk taking it to Beligum and possibly getting damaged during the shipping process. We're also going to be leaving our washer, dryer, fridge and a meat freezer in addition to a chunk of our book collection. I guess we'll get an inventory of what's staying and what's going :)

We have a breifing with TMO (Traffic Management Office) on Monday, so I'll be able to shoot my millions of questions to them regarding this entire process and what I should be expecting. I've been trying to ask Eric, but since his last overseas PCS was 7 years ago..things have definetely changed since then. Then on the 12th, the movers are actually showing up to take all of the stuff we're wanting in Belgium. On the 13th, we'll be shipping out our "Unaccompanied Baggage", which is the stuff we're gonna need right away once we arrive. That's mainly our dishes, pots and pans, clothes (that wasn't in our luggage), basically whatever we're gonna need right away. Most likely, our 360's, PS3 and Wii are gonna be in that shipment, lmao.

It dawned on me the other day that we're gonna have a really empty house after everything is gone... seriously, it's gonna be weird. All we're gonna have in here is our couch set that we're throwing away, an air mattress to sleep on in addition to our washer, dryer and fridges. February 10th is when the appliances are being picked up...agghhhh... and we're not going to be out of the house till the 19th since that's when our final outprocessing is from the housing office.

I'm gonna be bald from the stress by the time we leave this place, lmao

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