All our bags are packed, we're ready to go

Moving week is finally here.  It feels like for an entire year we were in limbo about finding out where we wound get sent after our time here at Barksdale.  In October when we finally found out we were going to be heading to Minot,  February seemed so far away.  Now, here we are. 

People move for many different reasons throughout their life, but most of these people have some say in where they move and when.  Life in the military is not this way.  "But you signed up for this..."  We knew we'd have to move, and we're not complaining, but there's always added stress and unknowns, and waiting wrapped up with military moving.  We are PCSing (Permanent Change of Station) in just a few days. 

I think we've gone through all the stages of preparing to PCS (excitement, sadness, anxiousness, anger, etc...) and now we're in the "let's just get there already" stage.  Mason had his going away lunch on Friday and has a few more stops left to out-process at tomorrow, but then we're "signed out" of Barksdale.  I've been getting together with friends and having last minute play dates, which has been great for distracting Theo. 

Theo has been a little trooper, although the past weekend and today were just overwhelming for him. He didn't nap at all during the weekend, and Mason was repainting his room back to "Barksdale White" so he's been confused about where he's sleeping, where his toys are, and finally this morning why are these people here putting things in boxes, making noise...all I want is a banana and milk with Sesame Street.  I'm REALLY thankful to our friends who are letting us come play this week so we can be out of the house for a while, and I'm SO HAPPY Theo decided napping was a good idea again today. 

Our packers came today and will return tomorrow.  So far, I'm so pleased with them.  They packed the entire downstairs and garage, and half of our office today, which means they really just have our bedroom and Theo's room left, which we think will take about half the day.  One of our movers, Alvin, looked at the stacks of picture frames I had on the dining room table, and just sighed and asked if those were all the pictures.  I'm sure they were glad to get all the breakables packed today.  On Wednesday all of our goods will be picked up and loaded by the movers and then we'll see them in hopefully about a week and a half- depending on how fast we get base housing in Minot. 

Thursday morning we have our final housing inspection and then we hit the road!  The military give us 4 days to travel with 1400+ miles, but we're taking 5 days since our travel falls on a long weekend, and there's no benefit for us rushing up there.  Our stops will include: Ft. Smith, Kansas City, Sioux City, Fargo, and then finally Minot!  Hopefully we won't have any weather delays and we can arrive on time.  Since we have 2 separate cars and the 16 month old, we're hoping that our plan of 5-6 hours of driving a day will pay off!  All our hotels have indoor pools, so we're hoping to exhaust Theo at the end of each day, but a nice swim. 

We're very excited to be starting this new chapter!  New adventures!  Stay tuned for more traveling tales.