Thankfully I'm used to moving every couple of years from our time in the military. It's actually enjoyable for me to declutter and dejunk the house. Seattle is going to be a lot more expensive than here, and our new house will be half the size of our Tennessee McMansion, so Goodwill and the dump have had several visits already on my quest to have a minimal amount of 'stuff'. Our family of 5 fit into a 3 bedroom apartment when we lived in Korea, we managed fine and it was actually very liberating living in a smaller space than we were used to. Less crap means less cleaning and less stuff to tidy up which is never a bad thing!
Some places we've lived, it took several months before we truly settled. It was different here. It was so easy to settle down, get in a routine, make friends and get on with life. It could have been so much worse - this was the first place we lived when the husband retired from the military, so it was definitely a leap into the unknown, but it was totally painless, mostly thanks to the lovely people of Murfreesboro!
Seattle is a huge distance from here. Huge, as in it might as well be an international move (we've done a few of those too!) Plus, seeing as I'm not from America, it might as well be an international move because it will be very different from Middle Tennessee! So far in the US, we've lived in North Dakota (yes, it was freezing in the winter, but the people were lovely), South Dakota (one of my favorite places in the world), and Virginia (not one of my favorite places in the world) and here in Tennessee. The Pacific North West will be a complete change of scenery and pace from Murfreesboro for sure.
We were really worried about how the kids would react to moving, so we made them a power point presentation about Seattle (which most of you have probably already seen on Facebook), talking about beautiful scenery, wildlife, crab legs and camping in teepees! They watched it, were silent for a few seconds and then started screaming with excitement. Now the hard thing will be to live up to the hype we created!
Things are happening very quickly. The realtor has already taken the photos and put the "Coming Soon" sign up in the yard, the house has been inspected, the moving company have been to see how much crap we have and we've told pretty much everybody we know that we are moving. I'm not really looking forward to the day that the house goes on the market because it's not fun trying to hide all evidence of family life - 3 kids and a dog, at a moment's notice to make the house look good for showings. It's also going to be heartbreaking saying "see you later" to all of our friends here, but I'm not going to think about that until the day comes. And anyway, I do believe it will be "see you later" and not "goodbye"!
A lot of people can't believe we're still moving around after leaving the military, but we're not ready just yet to put down roots anywhere and we're fortunate that the husband's job has many opportunities for us in different locations. It's an adventure and we're very lucky we get to still do this in the civilian world. Without going into too much detail, it's been a lot easier to move as a civilian so far. Way less paperwork and chasing around after signatures!
So for now, we're house hunting in and around Seattle, trying to suss out good schools, karate clubs, soccer clubs and all that you need to know when you move with young children. I'd be lying if I said I haven't been looking at all the Hot Yoga studios for myself too :) We actually don't have too much time before we leave, so it's all a bit of a whirlwind, but I'm hopeful it will all turn out fine. I'll keep you posted!
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