Moving

Moving sucks. Period. But we persevered and made the best of things...and now it's over and done with...and now it's being blogged about. But photos first:

The last day of school at ISWA. I have nothing but positive things to say about this great school. I love that my girls made friends with classmates from all around the world. Random side note- if you're bored you should take a look at the ISWA website HERE- the kids are featured throughout the website in various photos.

This is Emiko with her best friend, Rose. These girls were inseparable all year. Every Friday they were either at our house or Rose's house. There were tears when they said goodbye. Rose is from France and it isn't likely their paths will ever cross again. I hope Emi is able to find another forever friend like that here in Houston.

Packing Day! This photo is of the girls toys...our kids went nearly 3 months without their toys.

Moving Day! A photo of our sea shipment.

I wish moving was as simple as someone comes over and moves all your stuff to your new place. Not so. I had to go through our entire household and make 6 different piles:
1) Sea shipment- stuff you can go 3 months without
2) Air shipment- stuff you want within a week of arriving at your new location (for us it was mostly kitchen items, linens, and clothing)
3) Suitcases- everything we need to last us 2-3 weeks until arriving in Houston...we had to pack cold weather clothes (for the remainder of our time in Perth) and hot weather clothes (for Singapore and Utah)
4) Stuff to sell
5) Stuff to give away
6) Stuff to throw away

You have a relocation agent in Perth you deal with. You also have a Houston relocation agent too. And then there was another company we had to deal with and I'm not sure why b/c they did the same thing as the other 2 relo agents??? You also have to inventory your entire sea shipment and air shipment for insurance purposes...so yeah, I know how many spoons we have and how many skeins of yarn, etc. Then there's all the custom forms you have to fill out. Travel itineraries, canceling utilities, closing accounts, coordinating rental furniture, working with property manager to facilitate final home inspection (thankfully our Perth relocation agent arranged for house cleaning, window cleaning, painting, carpet cleaning, etc for us), removalist (moving company) arrangements... Anyways, the list goes on. I'm glad it's done.