Second Snag in the Move

I'm writing these back to back today as there is simply too much to go into one post. Especially since I began my last post 3 days ago and was unable to finish it until this morning. So, events of this post began on Tuesday...

I have to say that I must have died and ended up on Wisteria Lane. I LOVE my new neighbors as they are such a breath of fresh air from Nancy. I doubt I will be having to clean up their dog crap from my front lawn for sure. My next door neighbor showed up to introduce himself, and offer usage of his painting supplies before he left for a camping trip. He and his wife have 5 kids and they are home schooled. I have yet to meet his wife, but he and their children seem very nice. A few hours later,  my neighbor who lives across the street came by, and due to her red hair and homemade cookies, I will refer to her as "Bree." Yes, she brought us homemade cookies topped with very delicious homemade buttercream icing. She introduced herself, and invited us to a neighborhood bbq this weekend for everyone to meet each other and let the kids play. I thought to myself, this is really cool. I already feel that I will be very sad when the time comes for us to part ways with Fort Lewis.

The following day brought another neighbor who lives on the other side of us. They were very nice, and from what he told us about his job status at the moment, I have a sneaking suspicion that he is the person we've been waiting for to come take David's spot in the G-3 shop so he can be released to go down to his new job. He and his wife were very nice, and they offered help with anything we should need during our move. All in all, I already see us being very happy and at home in this neighborhood that resembles the Walgreens commercial where everything is perfect...complete with tree lined streets.

So, fast forward to Thursday morning, and Dave received a phone call from the transportation office. He had left a message on Tuesday afternoon for a transportation agent to call him to see if there was any way to expedite our move. This is one of those things that I wish they would have told him Tuesday morning instead of telling him to wait until next Monday. You see, the Army no longer contracts movers to do local moves. Local moves are all "do it yourself" with reimbursement from the Army. Wow, you think that they could have told him that Tuesday so that we could already be moved in. The one silver lining to this is that they will pay us very well for our blood,sweat and tears we shall shed in this fiasco. So now, moving the essentials which would allow us to functionally live in this house which would require the work of Dave, Jay and I, has now turned into a full scale moving operation requiring the work of many with much more lifting ability than Jay and myself.

I cancelled the trailer, and reserved the largest truck Uhaul has (26ft), and then called my parents to ask them to drive down to help. Of course, asking friends to help is not something you do at last minute, so the move has now been put off until Wednesday, and so begins the process of procuring boxes, and packing up my house. I feel the need to just sit and cry, and wallow in self pity, but I know that doing that will not change the situation. I shall make the best of it, and be happy to be out of this house, and into a wonderful neighborhood in a house that I wont have to pray that we will not have an earthquake in for fear that it will collapse. Trust that this will not be the end of this story, I'm sure there will be much more to add as we go along. Wish me luck.

And So It Begins...The Big Move

Here we go again. Two years down here in Washington State, and we move again. At least this time we are staying within the state and not PCS'ing anywhere. I've mentioned before that our new home is falling apart. If I could get Mike Holmes to come down and fix this I would, but the better answer in this case is to put it back in the developer's lap. I also might add that the contractors that have screwed over the many on the show "Holmes on Homes" have nothing on this builder. In fact the actual builder that built our home is no longer in business under the same name that it had when they build our house. They've since closed up shop under their old name and got a new license and a new name, and I'm sure they are still building crappy homes for many more unsuspecting people.

I should have known to run when we got here in September of 2008 when we showed up only to find the home that we had designed and picked out all of the items for would not be finished on schedule. The builder rep urged us into this house which was only a week out from completion versus the home we had picked that was still a month and a half away from completion. We needed a house yesterday, so instead of cutting ties with the builder for breech of contract (and I had proof of the promised date for move in), we took this house. My father likes to say that they saw us coming, and they probably did. I will now admit that we made a huge mistake, and have been paying for it dearly every month for the last almost 2 years, and will be out close to $20,000 when all is said and done when we hand the keys back over to the developer (I can't wait for that day, while my pocket book will be poorer, I will be doing the happy dance whilst saying "Yes, I won, and you get to take back this piece of crap house with bad wiring, faulty foundation (some cracking of the walls is normal with settling, but the ceiling upstairs is literally sinking into the walls), and cracked subfloor, and try to sell it to someone else!).

This past Monday, Dave and I signed our contract, paid our money, and got our keys for our home on Fort Lewis. Yes, we've decided to move onto the base. Although, I must say that this is the nicest home in base housing that I've ever seen. I'd even venture to say that it's actually nicer than the home we are leaving. They've totally renovated the entire house; refinishing the oak plank floors, renovating the bathrooms, and the kitchen. The kitchen, oh my goodness, it's gorgeous. Nice high end cabinets with granite counters, and nice, heavy, brushed nickel fixtures; it's my own little slice of heaven. The entire house is a blank slate for a photo shoot to be featured in a Pottery Barn or a Restoration Hardware ad. The best part is that we have a huge fenced in backyard for the kids. Everyone from Washington, and most of the west coast knows that backyards are a rare commodity, so I'm thrilled to have it.

So, as I said, we signed our lives away on Monday.  Monday was the best day (or so we thought) because we needed to schedule for the movers to come pack our stuff, and according to the housing office, the transportation office held the briefing for this on Tuesday mornings (the Army has a briefing for everything). So, we painted the house Monday afternoon, and were all ready to have a date scheduled for our furniture to be packed up and moved into the house by the end of this week. What was I thinking? Of course  this would not be as easy as it looked in theory.

David went to the transportation office Tuesday morning all ready to get this move going, and their answer to him was, "We're sorry sir, but this briefing is for incoming moves. You will need to go to the local move briefing on Monday at 1300." Monday...an entire week away, and the clock is already ticking loudly as Dave took two weeks of leave to make this move happen, and we will have already lost a week by the time he Monday rolls around. So, we decided to rent a U-haul trailer and move the necessities ourselves so that we could at least begin to live in the new house, leaving the rest of the items to be moved by the movers. So, trailer is reserved for Friday, and Dave is going to the "do-it-yourself move" briefing to see if we can at least get some compensation for moving part of our stuff. This move is already not going according to plan. Stay tuned as I'm sure I will have more to add to this fiasco before it is complete...