Moving Update #2- Virginia

I updated you all on our move to Virginia awhile ago in a first post... http://www.jenerallylemonade.com/2022/06/military-update-were-moving.html

...but here is the consecutive post to update you on the latest!

As with all things military, things have changed 100,000 times. I wrote this before- but as of the past few years, the way I deal with military and huge life changes now is not even thinking about it until the day of. Then I'm like "Wait what? What's happening today?" It seems to work well for me, haha. 

This move has required some logistical planning ahead of time though, of course. I give all the credit to Shane- he has taken on 99.9% of this process, and I'm basically just along for the ride.

As of now (I'm writing this on July 11), the movers are coming this Thursday 7/14 to box up our stuff and they're coming to move out those boxes on Friday 7/15. 

We won't be leaving our "beach" house just yet though!

Shane is waiting to hear if the movers will come later because we aren't technically moving until July 28. (Update as of 7/12- the movers are now coming the 26th and 27th, and we will move the 28th!)

We have decided to move to on-base housing because they are really nice on Quantico, nearly everyone does it there due to nearby pricing, and the neighborhoods on Quantico are huge. We will save financially for our future "real" house. It will be good for us (especially me) to be surrounded by the other wives. If it's anything like Shane's base here (which we've heard that it is), the families and wives are outside basically 24/7, so that will be great for a sense of community for us. We would pay almost double out in town for something that is equivalent or less quality, and with the current housing market, on-base just makes sense for us for this go-around!

The way on-base housing works is that they assign you a house, luck of the draw. If you decline that house, they will no longer pay to move and store your stuff. Instead, they will give you a 2nd choice house, but there is no promise that it is any different from the first one declined. So basically, we'll get what we get and we won't throw a fit! They do assign housing based on rank, so we will have nicer houses/neighborhoods than enlisted, and we'll be surrounded by those that are of similar rank and experience as Shane. 

I am skeptical for all military all the time, but it is temporary for 2-3 years only, and it makes sense to give it a go.

Quantico base-housing is on a freeze until August 1 and Shane has to be there July 31 at the latest. We are also #48 on the waitlist for on-base housing. 

Therefore, Shane was looking into townhomes (with a fenced in yard!) for us to temporarily stay in until we can get our on-base house. However, townhomes don't do month-to-month leases and we don't know how long we will be waiting for our on-base housing for. 

Because of that, Shane then reached out to/researched a bunch of apartments that did month-to-month rent. He was looking for 1st floor apartments so we could at least just step outside to let the dogs out. However, we would be locked into a lease that is at least 2 months long and lots of signs are pointing to us getting our on-base house before that. It would be hard being stuck in an apartment knowing that our nearby on-base house was eventually ready for us. 

I swear we have looked at a million houses/townhomes/apartments in the greater Quantico area now.

So, that leaves us to our last resort, which I absolutely refused from the beginning...living in a hotel/apartment on base until our house is ready. Pray for my soul as that will be tough with the dogs, but it financially and realistically makes the most sense. They will store all of our belongings while we are there, and they will hopefully be ready to go by time we have our house. The dogs love a hotel, but for an extended period of time… that sure won’t be ideal.

Goodbye to beach living and hello to hotel living! Sigh...

As of now, our furniture is moving 2 weeks before we do, so we will be in our Rose Bud current house with minimal/no furniture. We could technically move earlier, but that leaves the question- would we rather be in our current house (with the doggy door and yard) with minimal/no furniture for longer or be in the hotel for longer with furniture but no yard? It's a tough call for us...haha. (Update as of 7/12- we will only have a few days without furniture now!!)

I'm super eager for all of this in-between time to pass and for us to be in our next house. We are so very excited for Virginia. It's time for us to be independent again and to start all over once again! This will be state number 5 that I will have lived in, which is pretty wild to think about!

Until the next update, we hope all goes smoothly and quickly. We hope to be in our Quantico house before you know it! Thank you ALL for all the prayers and support.