Our move to Germany came earlier than we expected as Bryan chose to take a contractor job and retire, instead of the limited-term military orders. So, right after returning from the Grand Canyon we had his retirement and started to schedule the move. It became complex with Germany and airlines still under stricter COVID regulations. But, eventually, all paperwork was ready and flights were booked.
We went through a ton of our stuff, taking a lot to the dump and donating quite a bit. Movers came at the beginning of March and packed it all up into a giant moving van and drove off.
We moved into the TLF for a week with both cats and the dog. This gave us the chance to get last minute things like covid tests and paperwork taken care of. The brown Outback was shipped to Germany and the old green one was sold to a friend from the squadron for his high school daughter.
From there we rented a minivan and drove to LA- we went there for a direct flight, which is better for the pets and also Our flight was early the next morning, and it took a while to get the pets situated. But then we were at the gate and watched them get loaded.
The flight was long, but we all just watched movie and tried to sleep. The best part, though, was that at some point Zoe opened her window shade and saw the aurora. It was there for so long and so gorgeous!
Arriving in Germany, my friend Jacquie picked us and all our stuff up at the airport and took us to our new house. We had chosen a house ahead of time, after a quick zoom walkthrough, that was in Kaiserslautern. There were very few available at the time with covid preventing most people from getting transferred. But, our house is right beside the woods and has a great view over town.
We had 10 days of quarantine before we were allowed to wander outside our yard. My sister had come to put a few things in place ahead of time for us. We had a table with camp chairs and some inflatable mattresses, food, puzzles and a little projector for watching movies.
After getting official negative tests, our first trip was to the wildpark, and we found it was even closer to our house than we thought. After that, we had to navigate store closures and pick-up only options at IKEA to try to outfit our house with a decent kitchen, wardrobes. Zoe designed her own bed and we built it together. Avi helped me ton with building the kitchen and furniture.
Eventually we got our car and our ‘quick shipment’ – a small amount of additional stuff like our favorite cooking times, dishes and stuff for school.
A month later we got our shipment and were finally able to move in! Zoe helped me establish a garden plot, Avi got involved in the local baseball scene and the sun finally came out.
