Whew! What a ride!

The move was a monumental feat.  Now that we are mostly settled, we are starting to breath.

HOW TO MOVE ACROSS THE WORLD (Stapleton style)

We decided to get rid of 95% of our things in Germany, and instead move what we had in Utah to Boston with ABF Pods.  To ship both and visit the family would have doubled the move cost, but this way would allow us to have everything under one roof that we owned and stay within our moving budget, while also getting to see the family.

We decided to take as much time as possible (2 weeks) to visit in Utah before moving out to Massachusetts, because it had been over 3 years since I (Katie) said goodbye to everyone in January 2012, and hadn't been back to the states at all.  Due to interviewing, Scott had had several opportunities to visit home, but it had been a really long time for me.

Lucky for us, we have an awesome family and had many able to make the trip across the world to visit us.  Still anxious to see everyone and be together, we made the trip home.   It was so nice to be together with everyone again!

Once we arrived in MA on a Tuesday, we planned to stay two nights in a hotel, buy a car at a dealership on Wednesday, and then move into our apartment on Thursday.  We planned 10 days to get settled, and then Scott would start working pretty much full-time.

THE GREAT CLEAR OUT:
You might think that shipping 2 %, selling 8%, giving away 90%  of your possessions would be a piece of cake.  It's not.

We were able to sell our kitchen (to the next renters, luckily), car, sofa, computer, TV and a few items of furniture and other household goods (for a screaming deal).  Everything else we gave away. We just needed it gone, but at the right time.  Not too soon, but definitely not too late.   It was very time consuming to sort through, find homes for, organize pick up times for, and generally get the entire apartment empty.

We managed this whole thing only because we started really early and because we had help at the end.  3 months before we left, I was taking paintings off the wall and giving them to people to take home.  Anything we could live without was given away or sold as soon as we could arrange it.  This required us to then sort and par down on whatever was in that cupboard or shelf or drawer that was going every week, a bit at a time.

This proved to be VITAL.   At first, it was annoying to have to empty something, and I would wonder if I should have set the pick up date for a later week.  But, it would end up taking a whole day or evening to have someone pick up a closet or bed or whatever, because we had to break it down, sometimes clean it off, then decide what to do with the bedding, or stuff inside of it.   Starting early didn't really make it easy, it made it possible.   Every time we had a "pick up night" and it took the whole evening, we thought "Man!  I am SO glad we are not moving still for 7 more weeks, because that took WAY more time that I would have thought, and we still have a, b, c, d....

We shipped 12 boxes home to the US for keepsakes, items we just liked or thought were useful. 11 of them arrived. One was lost.  Not bad odds.

Even with the best of preparation, the last couple of weeks were intense, and proved to be impossible without the help of our dear friends. Scott had to work right up until the NIGHT before we flew out!  Baerbel was keeping the kids happy downstairs many afternoons, while I tried to make dinners out of what was left in the cupboards, or get a piece of furniture ready for someone to pick up, etc.

We had such wonderful friends helping us the last few days to make sure we got everything together in time.  Heidi & Achim, Dipanchu, Christa, Baerbel, Mike, Mark, Elizabeth, Svenja, Tina, Steffi, Peter, the young men, & Mari......so many great people helping take our kids for hours and hours, getting stuff out, & wiping out cupboards or floors.  We felt so blessed to have people who would take their time to make our burden lighter.

  

We owe Lucia and Antonio a huge debt for letting us sleep in their home for the last few nights upstairs while they were on vacation.  This was the absolute best arrangement we could have dreamed of!  This allowed us to completely empty the apartment, and clean, stay all together as a family, have our packed suitcases out of the apartment, sleep in a real bed, and leave in the morning without any worries or having to bus/taxi/walk to and from a hotel.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!!  I want to cry when I think of how wonderful that was for us!

THE FLIGHT:
We had a Taxi van pick us up at 5:40 am the morning we left.  We had a teary goodbye with Mike and Baerbel, who met us outside and helped us pack everything in, gave us big hugs and good wishes, and waved handkerchiefs as we pulled out.   We miss them SO much.  They were like substitute parents and grandparents to us these last 3 years.

The flights went very well.  The boys were so entertained by their TV screens that they had no problem sitting still the entire 11 hour flight from Frankfurt to Portland.  We had to remind them to eat and get up to use the restroom every few hours.

Cora slept the first hour, then we played happily for about an hour in our seats.  Then, we were looking at our watches, getting fidgety, and realizing "We have NINE more HOURS on this flight!"  20 month old.  9 more hours.  No more sleeping.  You can imagine.  It was no cake-walk, we'll just say that.

By the second flight, we were all exhausted and slept for the whole 2 hours to SLC.

Janice and Debbie were there to meet us with her Suburban and a car for us to borrow with our 7 large suitcases and 5 carryons and 5 personal items!  Thank you!  Thank you, again!

We headed straight up to the cabin for the Parker Family Reunion, which I will write about in the next post, followed by a week with the Stapletons for Family Reunion #2, which I will also post about.

THE LOADING:
We loaded our storage items into 2 ABF Pods during the first week, and got it shipped off ahead of us, so that it would be there when we got the keys to our apartment.  (Yes, all of our worldly possessions fit into 2 5x7x8  containers.)

HUGE thank you to everyone who helped us load the PODS: Kyle, Kent, Dad, Scott, Wes & Megan, and Mike Kunkel.  We were lucky to have such strong movers - seriously.  SO kind to take the time to help us and to come say hello.  We appreciated it SO much! and it was SO nice to see you all.

And thank you to our generous family for donating us a kitchen table, bunkbeds, bookshelf, toys, clothing, an Amoire, a stroller, crib, carseat, and other useful items!  You are the BEST!

AND thanks to Mom, Mel, & Christa for watching our kids, and Nancy, Brooklyn and Jack-Jack for waiting while their dad helped pack our Pod like a Tetrix game.  He was good!

ARRIVING IN MASS:
Papa Stapleton drove us EARLY to the SL Airport (Thank you for that!), and we had great flights over to Manchester, NH.

Everything happened as planned, except that it took us 6 days to decide on a car, so we had to extend our car rental.  We also realized I needed a car for sure, and 5 days later picked up a mini-van.    That felt like a really big choice, but we are happy with our choices of a 2011 Honda Fit for Scott and a 2008 Honda Odyssey for the family.   We had a budget to get 2 cars for under $20,000.   Scott's car was $10,800, and the Odyssey was 6500 + 2500 for repairs = $19,800.   It took some work, but worked out well.

Burgundy Odyssey on the left is ours.

We had 8 Elders(men) and one young man come from our new LDS Congregation and help us move our POD items into the apartment the evening we got our apartment keys.  They got the beds put up, and everything from the PODS into the apartment.  It was excellent!   We appreciated their sacrifice so much to help us, and also that they would come and meet us, which helped us right away get to know each of them and feel a part of a new "ward family."   We found out that there were 3 families who moved in the same weekend, so we were even more amazed to have so many come and help!

That was all 44 days ago.   Basically, ever since then, we have dedicated every spare moment to getting the apartment and our lives in order. We're almost there.   The "survival mode" is starting to subside.

 We feel so blessed to have so many wonderful people in our lives who have helped us make this big "jump across the pond."