Moving from Del Rio: Phase 1 & 2

(*For all of my Air Force friends, highlighted is my advice for you from my move)
All of August, David and I have been preparing to move from Del Rio, which has been our home for almost two years. We arrived in January of 2012 with a puppy and a lot of unknowns and stayed in a beautiful 3 bedroom duplex. In April of 2013 David Graduated and we have been waiting for our departure date of September to roll around since then.

Once August came, we were finally able to start packing our house. I have saved most of our good boxes from our move up here and was able to use those instead of buying new ones. We are doing a full "do it yourself move" or DITY so whatever we spend comes out of our profit in the end. We almost had enough to pack the whole house but needed just a few more boxes. I went to the base recycling center and was able to find hundreds of used moving boxes in the cardboard bin, in almost new condition. I only needed about 5 but could have packed my whole house twice with what I saw in there. As we were packing, we kept out all the things we would need over the next three months to live on. We decided that we were going to rent an apartment at David's next training, a non-furnished apartment, so we were going to need bathroom, kitchen, and cleaning supplies with us. After everything else was packed we were ready to move. Reserve your local truck rental earlier than one week before your move! The Monday before our move date (Sept. 2nd), I found that there was not one truck in all 10 U-Haul dealers in my area. There weren't expecting any coming in till Sept. 4th. Can you feel my head-ache? Del Rio is in the middle of no-where and to ship over a truck was not an option to U-haul. I called Penske. They were a bit more expensive but worked through our trusty Home Depot to ship down a truck just for us. It was to arrive the morning of our move out date, Sept. 2nd. We prayed and prayed that it was going to be there since our move depended on it. Praise Jesus, It was! For Del Rio, it was no short of a miracle that the 26 foot truck was in the parking lot when we pulled up at 10:30am to rent it.

David and I were so blessed to have three wonderful friends come over that afternoon and work their tails off loading our Penske truck for 2.5 hours in terrible humidity and then unload it into a storage unit down the street. The whole ordeal took about 5 hours. The Storage unit was another way God provided for us during this crazy move. We used Del Rio Self-Storage and the owner of it is the President of Military affiliations. HE IS WONDERFUL!!! He wasn't going to be open on Monday, our move date, but gave us the codes and left a lock with keys in our unit for us. Then he said he would come to us on base to do the paperwork, at our convenience, later on that week. I don't think I ever got off the phone without hearing how much he appreciated me and my husband for what we do for our country. What a guy?!?! True to his word, upon pulling up at the unit, we had keys and a lock free of charge- and a clean unit that fit our stuff perfectly. God took care of us and provided us the safest place for things. 

Once we were completely moved out of the house we went to work cleaning. Monday night we shampooed carpets (so they'd be dry Wednesday for check out) and spent 9 hours on Tuesday cleaning, and 5 hours on Wednesday cleaning- everything had to be in tip top condition for check out. Charlene did the walk through and was 30 min early, but I was ready. She walked through the house, opening each cupboard and drawer, touched the tiles checking for hard water stains, and each room for damages. She was lively and wonderful- calming my nerves- and helping me to feel at ease as she inspected my beloved home. It passed. She found plenty of damages but they weren't from us and I was VERY thorough about marking them down upon move in- so we weren't charged for any of them. (When we received the house, the walk through lady told us upon moving in that most of what I wrote down WOULD NOT BE CHARGED as it was natural wear and tear. I wrote it down anyways and during our check-out we found that we WOULD have been charged for each one, had I not written it down) Charlene actually high-fived me on trusting my instincts and said she really didn't want to charge me for new siding, paint spills, broken window seal, and a bent fence. Phase one complete: Move out into storage and survive check-out.

She left us to say good-bye to our home-which was WAY more emotional than I thought it would be. Wheew. It was a good house to us and I loved living there very much. We left and stayed in a hotel that night. Thursday Morning we ran around and said "good-bye for now" to loved ones and left base at 9:00am. The drive was long but we arrived to our new apartment at 6:00pm that same day. Finding this apartment was another way God provided for us. I have been looking high and low for the perfect place to stay, within our budget, close to base, offered a three month leases, and allowed my dog. It wasn't until one week before we left Laughlin that we found our new home. We signed the lease, sight unseen, and trusted that God was going to take care of us. Not surprising at all, He did. Our little tiny apartment will suit us perfectly these next three months and we even had extra allotment left over the rent furniture. Anyone looking for TDY reimbursement info (as in, what your allotment can be used for) click here. We were excited to find out that furniture rentals were inexpensive and reimbursable by the Air Force. Living on the floor and eating on a cooler is hard to do for 2.5 months. Phase 2 complete: Move to Sheppard AFB for training. 

This is home-sweet-home for a little while. So thankful to have Phase one and two done with. Thanks to all of you who prayed for us :)