Ellingson tales: Moving Days

May 4, 2011

The movers came right on time to pack us up and move us to Alaska. I have never had professional movers before and I was terribly nervous. They came in a big semi filled with crates and a large van full of packaging supplies. All of our personal possessions would be loaded into these crates. The crates would be sealed, driven to Washington or Oregon, then put on a ship. Estimated travel time is 42 days. Then the crates would be stored until we arrived some 4 or 5 weeks later.

Six very-rough-around-the-edges men showed up and took a walk though our house. After scoping things out, they split themselves into 3 groups of two and began to wrap EVERY-SINGLE-ITEM we own in brown paper.

Even the fellas doing all the packing complained a bit about this tedious task. I soon came to understand that a normal "PCS" move (Permanent Change of Station") in the military does not require crates or brown paper over everything. But because we are going "overseas,"....... literally, it is protocol to wrap everything in brown padded paper wrap. This was supposedly to help keep moisture out while it was on the boat/barge.

My mom flew out to help watch the kids and drive with me to Utah. I couldn't' have done this without her!

Here's my kitchen. Well, at least most of it.

We were advised before the movers came to put everything we wanted to take with us on our own journey to Alaska in a separate room. I cleaned out Lexie's room and began dumping our possessions in there. Then when the movers came, we just locked the door to keep them from packing it all up. The plan was to take a trailer with us. Which we did, but not after a handful of trials with getting the trailer hitch mailed to us and then trying to put the silly thing on. It all worked out in the end and as you can see by the likes of these pictures, the trailer was FULL. As a matter of fact, so was the car.

Living like this was hard for me. I've never felt so unorganized in my life. Sheer Chaos. I vowed any future moves, no matter how many kids I have and at what ages, I'm not going to be this unorganized again. Well, at least now I'll know what to expect! And since we're military, there's going to be a few more moves. I guess this means I'll get awfully good at it!

When the packers came through to look at the house and all our possessions, they found 3 shelving units FULL of mason jars out in the garage. Also out in the garage was a large chunk of our stuff that had been in storage while the house was on the market. They took a look at the mason jars, then the piles of stuff, then back to the mason jars. Audible groans were heard while they glanced at my beloved mason jars. As I watched the process over the course of the three days it took them to pack us up, the mason jars just sat there. Everything got packed except the mason jars. Until the bitter end when probably the fella LOWEST on the totem pole got the job of individually wrapping each and every mason jar. Poor guy!

Here's our garage. I couldn't believe they wrapped all of my Rubbermaid bins (full of kids clothing and fabric) in brown padded paper!

On the last day, they came and put everything in the truck. I somehow lost my pictures of that day, which is so sad, but suffice to say, we didn't fit in one semi. Ugg.