Cargo shipment

As we are sitting in the Japan Airlines lounge, Lee gets an email that says the ship carrying the container of all of our belongings will not leave the Port of Houston until May 15th! That means it arrives in Singapore on June 22nd! I am so unhappy I don't even know what to say. We are on a wait list for an earlier ship but who knows. Grrrrrrrrrrr!

Here in Tokyo

Well we are in the Japan Airlines lounge in Tokyo. The second flight was a little over 12 hours and it was harder and easier than I expected. Madeleine did not want to sit in her seat for take off or landing on either flight. Lots of crying and awkward hugging over the armrests to calm her down. It was nice having her sleep in her own seat. On the long flight she had two nice meals and ate pretty well. We have a four hour layover here and I am very happy about that. They have a nice play area here and she is running off all of her bottled up energy. One more seven hour flight to go! Singapore here we come!

Spanglish

The movers today have been very professional making certain all the boxes are properly labeled. So far we have "pots and pants," emty baxes," and "miselaneas." Let's see if Singlish is anything like Spanglish.

Good By Old Blue

Good bye Old Blue. We've had a great 14 year run and you have been a trustworthy friend. Tanner will take good care of you from here on out. We couldn't ask for a better buyer of the old truck and it's exciting to be part of the memory in Tanner's life. Tanner turns 16 this June and this will be his first car.

Less than 12 hours after he took possession of Old Blue he had it in the shop for a 3" lift kit and new wheels.

MSC Freedom

We learned from our movers that the ship scheduled to carry our stuff is called the MSC Freedom. While the name is exciting it looks like a beat up old vessel. Current cargo is listed as hazardous and explosive materials. Let's hope that unloads before our stuff gets on board. We found a couple web sites that track vessel progress around the world. Right now it's scheduled to arrive Singapore around June 15 which is about 2 weeks longer than we expected. Anyone thinking "slow boat to China?"

Moving Day 1 Completed

Moving day 1 completed in the rain. Rain is a good thing, right? It rained on my prom and I married my date. It rained on my wedding day 16 years ago. It rained the day we moved into this house 10 years ago. Let's hope the luck continues. Let it rain!

Dwight's Movers did a great job and had the furniture out of the house within an hour, the storage sheds loaded an hour later, and the stuff to Barbara's in less than another hour. Money well spent every time we hire these guys - this is the 5th or 6th time we have hired Dwight.

De and Tanner later helped us with a few last items to Dickinson and the fish to Colleen. It was a long day we finished it by drinking the last of my cold beer.

We will spend the weekend cleaning and organizing for the packers to arrive on Monday. They asked for 3 days but I think they can finish in 2. Since their original inspection and quote, we have thinned things out once we realized how little space we will have in Singapore.

Moving Day #1

It's finally here, moving day. Today the local movers will take the large pieces to our local storage that will not be going with us to Singapore. We then have the weekend to purge anything remaining - including cars and pets - because all that remains on Monday gets shipped overseas. On Monday the international packers arrive. These guys will pack all the appliances, wrap furniture, and box the small stuff so that it can all be packed into an ocean container on Tuesday.

Hurray!!

I am so doing my happy dance!! We have a renter for the house. This takes such a load off and now I can concentrate on packing. I left on the walls all of the decos so the house would look nice and now they are coming down, baby! I don't know how much of the deco stuff I will take to Singapore. The walls of our town home are concrete and I am sure the landlord will not permit drilling into them. Overall the packing is about 80% done and I feel like I am right on schedule. The local movers come April 23rd and the international movers come April 26th. Singapore here we come!