UGH!!

Bleh.

We should have known that something crazy would happen now that we're in the countdown stage. Joel and have a mile long to-do list and then BAM! The crazy hits. Here's what it be...

Apparently, we are expected to just "know" everything about the military and its process. Heaven forbid they give us a little guidance. That being said, somehow Joel and I both missed a key part to scheduling our pack out (when they come to our house and pack up what is going to storage and what we want in Japan) which was to print and forward the paperwork that took us 6 hours to complete online to the appropriate person in charge. It was assumed by us (and indicated online) that since they had us work through this incredibly complicated and inefficient program online that it would automatically alert the proper folks when the paperwork was completed. In fact, it even told us the paperwork was sent in and our online status informed us that we were just waiting for them to contact us with more detail.

But no. Alas, it was not so.

Thus, we will be in Japan before the movers come. Thanks to a wonderful mother-in-law who is willing to be our representative, we still feel comfortable that the right stuff will go to the right place. It just adds way more work to the to-do list. Sigh.

Countdown: 10 days 'til lift off. :)

Cake

Thank you Gentle Shepherd for my beautiful, Japanese inspired good bye cake!! You will all be so greatly missed!!

And thank you for not letting Carrie get a "Hello Kittie" cake.  :-p

Late Night Trips to Wal-Mart and Travel Plans!

Had a fun night with Kirkle at a surprisingly busy Wal-Mart in Wadsworth late this evening. We picked up a humidifier, a couple mini space heaters and a fan for those hot/cold nights in Japan (we've heard the insulation in most Japanese homes is horrible). By the way, when did razor blades and deodorant get so freakin' expensive?!?

Also, we now know exactly how long it takes to get to Japan...pretty much an entire day. We leave on Thursday, September 8th from Akron at 10am and head to Atlanta. From there we fly directly to Tokyo Narita, a 14 hour flight. THEN we catch a bus to the Tokyo Haneda airport and fly to Hiroshima which is only an hour and a half. At this point it's 9pm on Friday Sept. 9th in Japan. THEN somehow we get from Hiroshima to the base in Iwakuni hopefully making our check-in deadline. Phew.

Being a house husband!

Meet Joel the "House Husband. It's was a weird yet wonderful feeling to stay home this morning instead of going to work! But don't think I'm slacking off because I'm staying home to do work of another kind as I have a to-do list a mile long. There is so much to do to prepare for our move and much of it needs to be done in the next three days before I head north to Canada on my fishing trip. Priority #1 for today: get my resume up-to-date and apply for some jobs with the Navy in Japan. Then I will take all my unwanted clothes to Goodwill and start bringing boxes down from the attic and up from the basement (the movers won't go to either of those places when they pack us up). And lastly, I hope to find some Garmin maps of Japan in English today...wish me luck.

Goodbye Cookout

We had a fantastic time with wonderful friends this weekend. It may have looked like we were keeping it together, but inside, I think both Joel and I were pretty emotional. We will definitely miss the folks in Ohio and Pennsylvania that mean so much to us! We have terrific friends, that's for sure!!

And yes, we will consider wearing these outfits on the plane to Japan, LOL :-p

We have an address!!

How's this for a mailing address??

Joel and Kirsten Diller

PSC 561 BOX 971

FPO, AP 96310-0010

Hmmmmm.... don't know what any of that means! But we welcome letters and packages. :)

Travel Orders

So, after a lot of prayer and anxiety, it's starting to feel really real! We got our travel orders last night and have been told that the job is waiting for me as long as I make it to Iwakuni by September 9th, so I'm pretty sure we will be there. :) LOTS of work to go though as our next job is to locate the closest military base and schedule a pack and move date for all of our stuff! So now we have to decide what we're taking (without knowing what our apartment will look like!) and what we're going to put in storage for 3 YEARS!! Yikes!