Well, my goal was to have this blog up and running before we left Virginia on July 20th... obviously, that didn't happen so now I will play catch up and recap our move and then our first weeks here in Bangkok. I am sure these first few posts will be quite lengthy. However, after I catch up and begin posting on a daily basis, I expect the posts will be much shorter. Let me begin... I have a lot to cover!
In looking back over the few months, I am absolutely amazed at the amount of planning, organization and hard work that went into making this move happen. This move seemed to be a lot more difficult as compared to our moves from DC to Australia and from Australia to Miami. Kevin was offered a great job at the US Embassy in Bangkok late last Fall. Typically, the Government's moving process begins about 4-5 months before the actual move date so, knowing the new job started July 22nd, I knew I had plenty of time. However, given the type A / totally obsessive compulsive person that I am, I tried to get as much pre-packing/move "stuff" done in advance and I think I overplanned myself.
In addition to planning for the move, our Spring was busy with Christopher's baseball, Caitlynne's basketball, FCAT prep, school projects and readying Caitlynne for final exams. I was also the co-chair of Christopher's 5th Grade End of the Year celebration (a trip to Disney in early June) which required planning and organizing fundraising events and then putting the actual trip together. We were so successful in our fundraising efforts that we had enough money to have a pizza/dance party for all of the 5th Graders the last week of school. It was so much fun and it was great to see the kids have such a fabulous time but it was a lot for me to do, especially during the move "crunch".
School ended on June 9th and we completed our pack out June 13th and 14th. For the two weeks prior, our home was in a state of organized chaos... there were boxes to go airfreight to Bangkok, boxes to go sea freight to Bangkok and all of our furniture & other miscellaneous items to be sent back to our storage unit in Virginia. Every box, pile, container, etc. in the house had a "sticky" on it designating its final destination. I can only hope the movers got it all right!
After the pack out, we moved to a local hotel for two weeks. Christopher and a friend attended a basketball camp at University of Miami (UGH - Go Hokies!) and Caitlynne helped me wrap up loose ends and hung out with her friends. We spent a lot of time with good friends during these two weeks and it was nice to be able to have that time together before we said, "goodbye." On June 21st, we did the final walk through of our home with the landlord and then loaded the kids and the dogs into the Expedition (which was packed to the roof!) and headed North. We stopped in St. Augustine and spent the afternoon with my sister, Valerie and her husband, Todd and their son, Shane. Kevin and I slept a little while they all went to the beach. We left St. Augustine at about 10 pm that night for Virginia. It was a long but uneventful trip and we arrived at Clare's (Kevin's mom) home at about 9:30 am.
Next Up - Virginia & New York
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