June 2020

After finding out in May that we’d be moving in July, June became all about trying to accomplish as much as we could to make the move go smoother. Right now, we feel satisfied that we have taken care of almost everything that is in our control. Now all that’s left is for the Navy to issue us our PCS waiver and schedule our flights. It’s just a waiting game at this point, and we pray we don’t have to wait until the last minute, like many others have…

Anyway, let’s start with the beginning of June. I shared in our Moving off the Island post that Curtis went on potentially his last underway. For once, I can actually share what they did because the Navy released this awesome video of their mission. I’ll share the Youtube video below:

And like I mentioned in my last post, while he was doing that, I was frantically printing, filling out, signing, and scanning forms so that our household goods move could happen on time. He clearly had the more exciting mission!

During the first half of June, we packed, cleaned, disassembled furniture — all that fun stuff before the movers came. Curtis stood his final duty days on the boat. I began the process of talking with our realtor and figuring out the steps needed to have our house go on the market, and lined up a place to stay for our last weeks here once our stuff was gone and the house was staged and listed.

The moving company came by a week before our move was scheduled to survey our belongings and determine how many crates and boxes were needed for the move. They told me that it would be 2 days of packing, then on the third day they would bring the truck and take everything away. Given that timeline, I told Curtis it wasn’t necessary for him to take off work for the Monday and Tuesday, that I could probably handle that on my own.

However, on day 1, three guys showed up early with the truck, and the move that was scheduled to take 3 days ended up taking 3 hours from when they arrived until when they left. Curtis barely made it back in time to have them pack a few last things he had brought home from the boat. It was all so much easier the second time around, compared to our move out of New York when I had to handle everything alone! We’re pretty proud of ourselves for only owning enough to fill 3 crates.

Following the moving day, we spent our last night in our little house sleeping on the floor, just a little too uncomfortable to be emotional about it. Our rental home is actually right next door, so we haven’t really had to say “goodbye” to it yet. We moved the few things we kept with us over to the rental, and began the process of deep cleaning, scrubbing every surface, repainting, and finishing projects. Our last house project was installing a new backsplash in the kitchen, a white ceramic subway tile to go with the new butcher block countertop. I’m in love with the way it looks and sad I never got to enjoy it…though I guess this way, it will look brand new for the next owners.

When our projects were done, we were able to enjoy the last weekend together revisiting a few of our other favorite places on the island – Kawela Bay, the Old Pali Highway, and Kailua Beach. It still doesn’t feel quite real that this was our last full month on the island (as long as our move remains on schedule…). I’m still waiting for the real emotions to set in, but for now am still stressed enough to preoccupy my mind with everything that needs to happen before take off. It’s a lot to process, but I’m thankful we at least have time to make a few more memories at our favorite places. I’m sure that in the not-so-distant future, we’ll be reminiscing this time and missing the island, missing the familiarity, the routine, this life that we’ve grown used to here.

And now here we are… July is here, and life is about to be turned upside down again. So far, PCS-ing during a pandemic has created a lot of extra obstacles, but I’m sure that we haven’t seen the worst of it yet. We know we can rest knowing that God has it all planned out, and somehow by the end of summer we will *hopefully* *Lord willing* be settled in our next home, back in the Midwest.