Orders!

Orders came in this week (YAY!) meaning we can actually start all this crazy overseas transfer stuff. As of today we only have the household goods shipments scheduled, but we have the game-plan for the rest.

The household goods portion is pretty interesting. A portion of our stuff will go into storage (family items that we don't want to run the risk of destroying on a long journey but that we don't want to get rid of either), another 1000ish pounds will be shipped airfreight, and the rest will be crated and put on a ship.

Next on the list are the overseas medical screenings. For all 7 of us. Adam's is easy, they have a day set aside out at NPTU medical just for overseas screenings for everyone transferring from there to places like Guam and Japan. The rest of us have to go through the Naval Medical center for our shots, screenings, etc. After a few days of being told that we weren't going to even start to get any of it done until April, the patient advocate was able to pull a few strings and get all of us in for everything we need on the 19th. (lesson: it's sometimes all in who you talk to). I'm prepared for this to be one of the longest days of my life and will be packing lunches for everyone as well as schoolwork, games, books and activities to keep them busy. In the mean time have a stack of paperwork to get done, and dental appointments to get through.

The last part left is scheduling the travel, which we can't do just yet because we applied for a tourist passport for the baby a little over a week ago. We knew that he would need a passport to enter Guam (even though it's a US territory) and anywhere else we choose to visit, but that he would not need a visa to reside on the island. Figured because of this he would not need a "no fee" passport and a tourist passport would be more than adequate. As it turns out, the military still requires a "no-fee" passport to PCS to Guam, just in case they have to evacuate you somewhere else for more than 90 days. Can't apply for one without birth certificate the state department now has, forcing us to wait for a bit longer to take care of any of that stuff.