Moving...

 So I fell way behind with the blogging... I figure I'll do it in steps, since I should have some free time on my hands in the next few days when I (hopefully) get to Germany.  I should start from where I left off last, and that is Moving day.  I left off right before the first set of movers came to take away our unaccompanied baggage.  We started by piling up all the things we wanted to send in one room so that we knew what was going and what was staying.  As we put things in the room, we listed and weighed them so we'd have an approximate weight and wouldn't go over our 950 lb limit.  We got to about 800 lbs and stopped to make sure we didn't go over.  When the movers came, we had a lot more than they had planned for.  Apparently most people only send about 300 lbs in their unaccompanied baggage and they thought that was all they were allowed.  We got pretty scared we would be over, so we called the TMO (they take care of the moving your stuff part) and they let us know we were right and really could send 950 lbs, which was a big relief.  This is what we'll be living off of for a few months.  It should be in Germany on the 21st of Oct, and our regular stuff won't get there until December!  We wanted to use every ounce so that we wouldn't have to buy doubles of things we already had but didn't pack.  anyway, the movers packed everything up for us, and really quickly! They were like packing machines.  They brought in tons of boxes and papers and packing material.  It went really well.

These are some of our boxes

We tried to coordinate our list of items with which box they were taken in.  Later that month we sent off our household goods, or the rest of our stuff.  This time, instead of putting everything we were sending in one room, we put our bags we were going to pack to take on the plane all in one room, and the movers packed the rest.  We had to take all our pictures off the wall, but other than that, we left everything as it was.  They had to mark down anything that was scratched or broken, and to be safe, we took pictures of everything they said was broken, so we could prove exactly what shape it was in when it left.  That way, if anything broke more, the moving company couldn't say it wasn't them.

This is them packing our couch in a giant box.

 It took them two days to get all our stuff packed and sealed in crates.  They came on the 26th and 27th of Sept, and we didn't leave Utah until the 30th.  They had some rough stuff to pack too.  All of Colin's models, RC planes, tools, and really fragile stuff. 

 

This is Colin's Fw-190 Focke Wulf he built this year.  Its pretty small, this doesn't give great perspective.

this is his S-100 Schnellboot. It's a German torpedo boat that he built.  Lots of tiny parts.  I try not to touch it for fear of breakage...  And these movers have to ship it like 5000 miles.  

These are his RC planes already in pieces for easier transport.  When our nephew saw them like this he pointed to a set of wings and asked "Wheres a nose?" He loves the planes and always asks Colin to fly them.  Most planes he builds himself, others have been bought.  Once again, not the easiest thing to transport...

We'll see how that turns out, hopefully nothing will be broken.
So after they took all our stuff, we slept on a borrowed blow-up mattress on the floor, cleaned our apt for check-out, and packed our bags to head to Baltimore, where Colin's dad picked us up and showed us Virginia for a few days.  More on that later.

This is the blow up mattress with all of our regular bedding.  We had to pack it in our luggage, since when we get there, we can borrow a bed until ours comes, but we can't borrow bedding or towels.  Those are packed in our luggage too.  We had lots of luggage.