Twas the night before packout...

Twas the night before packout,
and all through the 'Wood,
not a creature was freaking,
(although maybe they should).

Hey folks! This is not my normal packout persona. Normally, at 8pm the night before packout, I am approaching my most miserable. The place is still a total wreck, I've been walking around for days taking things from one place and putting them somewhere else, and there is NO END IN SIGHT. Why do I do this to myself so often!? But this packout only involves about 1/4 of our stuff, so it's 8pm and I'm contemplating bedtime soon! Also, we are not moving to China tomorrow but rather my mom's house, where I'll have a few weeks to organize papers and such. Life is good.

Here's our UAB (unaccompanied air baggage) pile - after our fiasco in the DR when we tried to ship everything UAB, I think this time we are underestimating things a bit, but that's fine...I'll just grab some stuff from the HHE (household effects) pile if we have extra weight (we can ship 700 lbs. by air). This time, I'm basically packing all the kids toys, some art supplies, select kitchen stuff, a handful of clothes and linens, and a lot of storage containers. I'll be arriving about a month before the family, so I'm really hoping I'll be able to set up their rooms before they arrive. I'm also planning to send myself a package of room decals, new toys, and books. Traveling with older kids is so much easier than toddlers, but I've come to realize that spending a little extra money to help ease the first two weeks is worth it.

I've been ruthlessly getting rid of clothes and shoes- anything I don't like enough to wear frequently, or anything I have too many of. When you move this often, you don't need to keep all 10 pairs of white socks, when you always reach for just 3 of those pairs anyway!

The kids are doing really well so far. They seem fine about the movers coming tomorrow and taking all their stuff. L has packed about 20 of her favorite stuffed animals in her suitcase (luckily they are mostly tiny) and all M wants to take are a few Legos. I'm sure there will be some meltdowns and such, but overall I feel like they are both doing alright in this FS life of ours.