Livin' the McDream: We're moving to Japan?!?!

February 1, 2013 we found out that we were going to get orders from the Air Force to move to Misawa Air Base in Japan. Yes, I cried a lot that night and the next day and then a little bit off and on for the next couple days. I cried because that meant being soooo far away from family and friends and limited trips to visit due to the expense. And we definitely did not have Japan on our "dream list" of places we'd like to be stationed. I had never said "I'd love to visit Japan" or any other Asian country. I'm not sure why, I just always dreamed of tropical islands, Central America, Europe, Alaska, Pacific Northwest, etc, etc, etc. So, being a "knowledge is power" and "plan every detail" type of person I began to read and read and read and read as much as I could find about Misawa AB, Japan and the Japanese culture. The more I read and the more people I ran into that had been stationed somewhere in Japan the more "ok with it" I became. I finally got to the point where I was excited! I quickly had a long list of "Things to do/see in Japan."

But before I could get too excited I had to manage my first PCS (Permanent Change of Station) move. I found out that we would be required to live on the base and that our assigned apartment or townhouse would be quite a bit smaller than where we were living at the time. We would be allowed two shipments of belongings to Japan one called Unaccompanied Baggage (UAB) and the other called Household Goods (HHG). The UAB is a quicker shipment of things that we would want soonest, limited to around 900 pounds and estimated to take 1-2 months to arrive in Japan. The HHG is a slower shipment and would include everything else we wanted to bring, I believe our weight limit was something like 12,000 pounds, and it's estimated to take 2-3 months to arrive. So I went to work trying to sort through our belongings, trying to decide what we didn't need anymore, what we were keeping and how quickly we would want it in Japan, what we needed to/could fit in our 4 allowed suitcases and a few things we wanted to mail to ourselves. When stuffing our suitcases we had to plan for everything we might need for the next 3 1/2 weeks until we left for Japan, plus the time after we got to Japan but before our UAB arrived...sigh...very stressful trying to decide what we absolutely needed for those 2-3 months.
May 29 the movers came and packed up the house and May 30 they loaded it into crates and took it away. I had set aside sheets, pillows, towels, blanket, internet router, etc, to mail. Once we get to the base we will have a hotel to stay in until housing is assigned and then we will get loaner furniture until ours arrives. The items I mailed were not going to be provided so I wanted them there before we arrive. They let us set up a PO Box ahead of time and will hold the packages until we get there. We stayed in a hotel June 2-7 and to add to the drama I had to have eye surgery that week. My left eye needed a "touch up" of the laser correction surgery I'd had in February. That meant 3 visits to the doctor, pain, barely being able to see out of my left eye and not being able to drive for a couple days. We officially moved out of our house in Warrensburg on June 7 and drove back to Nebraska on June 8 for a couple of very busy weeks spent with family and friends. Our flight from Omaha to Seattle is scheduled for June 20.

Goodbye Missouri house
(this was not the "spider house" for those of you wondering. It was Missouri house #2)

KC Royals game on our last night in MO

Keenan with me and our nieces in the matching kimonos my mom made for us. This was at a going away party.

My mom and I with my nieces at the going away party.

Keenan and his family

Fishing at Sherman Reservoir

oh Matt...

After I think 3 previous scheduled attempts the weather finally cooperated for Amy and I to go hot air ballooning!
We took off from their front yard a little before sunrise!