Orders

We actually got our orders to go to Mississippi. There have been scads of rumors and such that all PCS's have been canceled due to a lack of funds, however, we are moving and that is that.

Having orders this early is a luxury. It gives us the opportunity to plan a smooth move. It takes quite a little bit of time for our belonging to be shipped from Misawa, Japan to the gulf coast of Mississippi. We have decided that we will ship the stuff early hoping it will be there and waiting for us when we arrive. We also have a car that has been in storage somewhere in America, a car we bought in Italy, we need to arrange to have it shipped to Mississippi and since it has been in storage for four years, we are thinking it will need a super-tune-up. It would be nice to have most of this arranged and taken care of so when we get off the plane, we have a house, a car, and all our stuff.

I am thinking this will help the girls, if the is less of a transitory time period. This decision means that the last couple of months here in Japan we will be without most of our stuff. We do get a second shipment, but this second shipment is of limited space, where we can ship the computer, some dishes, some sheets and blankets. And then we can also mail some things, and the rest we must carry ourselves. From Italy to Japan we carried a lot. As much as was legally permitted, two large suitcases, two large carry-ons, per person, and the cat. Now we have little little which means even more suitcases allowed. But, I have learned my lesson, less is more. I believe what I will be carrying is a toothbrush and a change of underwear. Plus, now we have a dog and a cat.

There used to be a plane that came here to the base and took us to America, due to budget cuts the plane no longer stops in Misawa. This means that we have to drag the kids, the animals, and all of that which we decided to carry with us from Misawa to Tokyo. The problem is that the airplane takes you from here to a domestic airport which is on the other side of Tokyo (1 1/2 hours drive) from the international airport. They do not allow animals on the shuttle bus between airports. There is a train one can take from Misawa and with three switched arrive at the international airport (Narita) however, they do not allow animals on the trains and there are many stairs. This is how we traveled one time on our trip to Alaska, it was hard with a lot of stuff. There isn't really any place to put your stuff on the train, and hey they don't allow pets. So what do we do?

It will be interesting to see how we get our pets to America. Most people are leaving messages on the bulletin boards around base, free pet to good home. We made the decision to keep our pets and to endure all the hell this decision will inure. I do think however, this will definitely mean that we wont be taking lots of suitcases with us on our move. We will arrive in Mississippi with the shirts on our backs and our two kids, our two pets and a smile.