We had our housing appointment this morning to determine where and when we’ll be moving. Because we’re adding another member to our family, we’re authorized an upgrade from our 2-bedroom home to a 3-bedroom. I’ve been a little bit stressed out about this whole thing because voluntary, not forced on us, it’s a self-move, self-clean (unlike other military moves where they take care of everything for you.) I know it’s also stressful for Matt because he has to do a lot of the heavy work. I’m organizing, decluttering, packing, etc. but I can’t really move anything. We’re going to ask around and hopefully our studly friends will come to our rescue come moving day!

We found out today that we can move on Tuesday! That’s the day we’ll pick up keys to the new place, and we don’t have to have our final inspection on the old house until Monday, the 8th. That’s a relief! We get a week to take it slow and be thorough. We’re planning on Matt making daily trips with the van to move boxes, and small/medium items, then we’ll rent a truck for Saturday and have all our best friends-in-the-world! over to help us out. Then I’ll either be cleaning like a mad woman on Sunday (what a terrible day to do it, but maybe I can get some help between services?) or just end up paying a service to clean our home. The inspector’s coming by at 2 on Monday afternoon and everything has to be absolutely perfect by then. Yeah, I’m a little stressed.

But where are we going?? Well, there are two parts of base: “Main Base” and “North Area.” We’re currently in North Area, where it’s pretty quiet, sort of a small Misawa AB suburb, there are lots of trees and playgrounds, a shoppette and gas station, a school, and the base beach. It’s about a 10 minute drive to Main Base, which is where mostly everything is: hospital, commissary/BX, post office, the Weasels’ Den, tons more housing, etc. etc. Location matters to us and we love being in North Area, but the quality of the house was important, too. We were given two choices: one on Main Base and one in North Area.

The North Area choice is exactly, right across the street from our current home. That would be fabulous, because we could pretty much walk all our things over! These houses are pretty old, built by the Japanese military in the 50′s, cleaned up since them, but still not amazing. I’d never seen the 3-bedroom versions of these houses, so I definitely wanted to check it out. Unfortunately, right when you walk in the door there is a dark, extremely narrow, uninviting hallway leading to the kitchen and the living room. I’m not impressed. The kitchen was a nice size, the living room was kind of weird, and the master bedroom was really weird! There is one door in the bedroom which leads to a tiny room with a sink. From that closet-sized room there are two more doors: one to a medium-sized closet and one to a small room with a shower. It was kind of strange. The deal-breaker for me was actually the heating. Right now we live with these horrible radiators that I loathe. They sit along-side a wall in every room and we can’t put anything against or on top of them, so we pretty much lose out on most of a wall. Not all the houses are like this, but our North Area house choice had them. Yuck.

We went to see our Main Base choice, which is in the newly-built “800s” section of base. It’s on the northern edge of Main Base, sort of separate of everything. I guess the idea of being centrally-located, like some of the housing, is nice so you can walk places quickly or have lots of people around you, but Matt and I like being tucked away, somewhat removed from everything. The area isn’t as pretty as where we are in North Area currently, but it’s not horrible. Everything is new and shiny, which of course is appealing. The layout of the house is just like that of our friends the Armstrong’s old home, so we were all ready familiar with it. And guess what? No horrible radiators! All the heating is in the ceiling, so we can actually use all our walls! I really like the layout and it seemed a lot more open and bright than the North Area choice. There are two small bedrooms upstairs and the master bedroom, plus a main bathroom, and then a small bathroom off the master bedroom. The bedroom has a closet (just like the one we have currently) but then also has a large walk-in closet as well (wonderful!) Right now our bedroom is pretty cramped and Matt and I share a dresser and a closet, so it would be really nice to have some more space. There is also a small bathroom off of the kitchen as well as a laundry room. This is great because our current house and the North Area house just have the washer and dryer in a nook in the kitchen, not a separate room.

Anyhow, I’m sure you have guessed that we chose the Main Base house. I love it and can’t wait to settle in! Matt had leave approved for Monday-Monday so he can get to work moving us, thankfully! It’ll be a busy week, but I’m very excited. The house is great! The boys will share a room and then we’ll use the other bedroom for computers, crafts, toys, whatever. Right now it’s a pain because Matt uses his computer at the coffee table and I use mine at the kitchen table because we have no where to put a computer desk. All my sewing stuff just sits in Rhino’s closet because there’s no space for me to set up a craft desk. Our board games sit in our linen closet. It will be really nice to have a little more room!

So we’ll be working through the weekend, but come Tuesday you’ll probably see some empty house / move-in-progress pictures. Pray that we can get some help for Saturday moving all the heavy things and that the place gets cleaned up in time!