Exodus

[X-Forces]

Well, the family and I have packed our bags and we are finally finding our way our of Germany. After almost 10 years of European living I am finally going to be a U.S. resident again.

My wife and I thought we knew what fun was, until we started a trans-continental move with two kids, both under 2! If we survive this move we are going to take a month long vacation somewhere.

Has anyone else here done any cross country, or cross world as our case may be, moves with kids? If so what was your experience, and if you have any advice please share. We are trying to avoid all the land mines we can (and we have already stepped on a few, but that is another story).

Thanks

[H46Bubba]

We've done three cross country trips with kids. The first two we were lucky enough to have the in-laws watch my oldest who at that time was our only child. Our last one we did was quite an adventure and that was with both our boys ages 4 and 6 mos. In between PHX and Flagstaff our cars tranny took a dump. We had to leave the car in Flagstaff and continue on in my truck which is only an access cab! We bought our oldest a portable DVD player at Target and that occupied him the whole trip. He either slept or was watching a movie. We made multiple stops for diaper changes. You have it easy with both being under two. Just make sure you have plenty of snacks for them to chew on and make stops so they can get a small break out of their seats. You can't do a power drive with kids. When I was single and in the Navy, I did two cross county transfers and was able to power drive with minimal stoppage time and average a two and a half day trip coast to coast. No more of those. Good luck and have a good trip!

[Kristie]

good luck on the move! if i didn't already give you my number, PM me and if you need any help when you get here, let me know!

Doug and I only moved from Florida to Arizona using a uhaul.. we did have our dog with us and she was a good sport...but that's not even comparable to moving with kids!

should have Anita ask the girls over at Jetgirls cuz i bet they have a lot more experience with that!!

[H46Bubba]

Heck I lived there and I still don't have your guys' number!

[MQAAord]

We've never done cross-country with the kids, but we did move two summers ago when the boys were 6 months old and 2 years old. We packed 90% of our stuff, and spent the money to have movers help with the rest and have a moving truck. We had a couple days between house closings, so they held the truck with our stuff for a couple days. I left with the kids the day before the movers showed up at the old house. I packed enough stuff to get the three of us by for 2 weeks, to allow travel & unpacking time. Bill and his parents stayed behind at the house to be there with the movers and he had to go right to work. I spent the weekend at the farm in WI with my parents, and drove with the kids and my mom from WI to Indy where we stayed with Bill's parents, who already lived in Indy. Bill came back from work, we closed on the new house, and the next day the movers showed up with our truck and unloaded.

All in all it went very well. The movers were almost $5k, but worth every penny. In fact, if I had it to do over again, I'd pay the extra money and have them pack ALL our stuff too!

[X-Forces]

Originally Posted by H46Bubba

We've done three cross country trips with kids. The first two we were lucky enough to have the in-laws watch my oldest who at that time was our only child. Our last one we did was quite an adventure and that was with both our boys ages 4 and 6 mos. In between PHX and Flagstaff our cars tranny took a dump. We had to leave the car in Flagstaff and continue on in my truck which is only an access cab! We bought our oldest a portable DVD player at Target and that occupied him the whole trip. He either slept or was watching a movie. We made multiple stops for diaper changes. You have it easy with both being under two. Just make sure you have plenty of snacks for them to chew on and make stops so they can get a small break out of their seats. You can't do a power drive with kids. When I was single and in the Navy, I did two cross county transfers and was able to power drive with minimal stoppage time and average a two and a half day trip coast to coast. No more of those. Good luck and have a good trip!

H46Bubba,

Man, that sounds like quite the experience! Fortunately the majority of our move is going to be by plane, while our personal items lag behind in the Atlantic ocean. The logistics of the move, however, have been mind boggling so far, and I expect that the best is yet to come.

I have to admit, I think you are on to something there with the portable DVD player. That is something I am going to look into, as my 2 year old (Well, 2 on Thursday) need something to keep him occupied, and on long flights you run out of stuff fast!

Oh, I know what you mean about the single man moves in the Navy (Well, Army for me). Now those moves were a piece of piss! I never thought I could make money by moving!! (How many barrels filled with water and engine blocks can you fit in the back of a truck!)

Thanks for the well wishes, and we’ll have the best move we can. Keep you posted.

Originally Posted by Kristie

good luck on the move! if i didn't already give you my number, PM me and if you need any help when you get here, let me know Doug and I only moved from Florida to Arizona using a uhaul.. we did have our dog with us and she was a good sport...but that's not even comparable to moving with kids!

should have Anita ask the girls over at Jetgirls cuz i bet they have a lot more experience with that!!

Kristie,

Thanks for that, and no we don’t have your details so I’ll PM you later on. You have already helped quite a bit with the information you sent over, Anita and I are sincerely grateful for it, and for any other help you provide.

I hope you really mean it, because we are certainly going to need some kind of help at one point or another, so expect a call . Seriously though, Anita has already made a lot of contacts on Jetgirls, and she has gotten a bunch of good information (Well, we hope it’s good), but we were just talking about it the other day and we really don’t wish to be a burden on anyone, so when we start calling for help it probably mean that we have set sail up the creek, and left the paddles behind!

Anyway, although we have started the move we are still about 4 weeks out of PHX. We are moving in hops, first to London and Bristol for a couple of weeks to see Anita’s family, then to New York for a couple of weeks to see my family, maybe with a side trip to Atlanta to see my brother but that is up in the air right now, and then we are off to PHX, so we still have a bit of time before we arrive.

Never the less, we are really looking forward to getting there!

Thanks again for the offer, I’ll PM you soon.

[X-Forces]

Originally Posted by MQAAord

We've never done cross-country with the kids, but we did move two summers ago when the boys were 6 months old and 2 years old. We packed 90% of our stuff, and spent the money to have movers help with the rest and have a moving truck. We had a couple days between house closings, so they held the truck with our stuff for a couple days. I left with the kids the day before the movers showed up at the old house. I packed enough stuff to get the three of us by for 2 weeks, to allow travel & unpacking time. Bill and his parents stayed behind at the house to be there with the movers and he had to go right to work. I spent the weekend at the farm in WI with my parents, and drove with the kids and my mom from WI to Indy where we stayed with Bill's parents, who already lived in Indy. Bill came back from work, we closed on the new house, and the next day the movers showed up with our truck and unloaded.

All in all it went very well. The movers were almost $5k, but worth every penny. In fact, if I had it to do over again, I'd pay the extra money and have them pack ALL our stuff too!

Amber,

Your post highlights one of the biggest problems I think we are going to encounter. You guys had family nearby to lend a hand, and we will be on our own. If there is one bit of this move that keeps me up at nights that would be it. I might have to hijack my mother and ship her over to PHX for a couple of weeks to help out!

Oh, by the way, you mentioned that you guys packed up most of your stuff on your last move, but the movers still cost you almost 5 large???

Where did you guys live, The Pentagon or The Museum of Natural History?

[H46Bubba]

Is uncle sam footing the bill for the move? Oh man I wish I could have movers move us every time we moved. Moving's such a pain in the azz!

[MQAAord]

Yeah, the movers were a big chunk of change. Part of it was that we crossed state lines, so apparently there's taxes/whatever associated with out-of-state moves. Also we had the 4 days storage, which added to the bill. We had a 4 bedroom house, with a fair amount of furniture & books (which significantly added weight). It ended up being 10,000 pounds of stuff! We filled an entire tractor-trailer. We had several quotes from multiple companies, and they were all within the same ballpark. If it had been a local move, it would have SO much cheaper, but we wanted to stay with a brand-name company since it was a long distance move and we were leaving pretty much all our worldly possessions with them for 4 days!

But, it sure beat packing & driving a truck ourselves. We've been there done that, and we're far too old to go through that again. It was worth it. I'd have 'em pack my whole house next time.

[Kristie]

I hope you really mean it, because we are certainly going to need some kind of help at one point or another, so expect a call . Seriously though, Anita has already made a lot of contacts on Jetgirls, and she has gotten a bunch of good information (Well, we hope it’s good), but we were just talking about it the other day and we really don’t wish to be a burden on anyone, so when we start calling for help it probably mean that we have set sail up the creek, and left the paddles behind

not a problem! really.. we'll be in town and there are others here that can help as well!! if there's manual moving, all we require is pizza and beer! haha

did you find a place to live?

[X-Forces]

Thanks for the replies and support all!

I am happy to say that the first, and probably biggest, stage of our move is complete! As of yesterday we have left Germany and we are currently hanging out in London.

The transition of our apartment to the new tenants came with the arrogances and inhospitality that we have become accustomed to in North Germany, so we weren’t disappointed!


In the end we packed up 89 boxes, as well as various other pieces of furniture. In total it came to 1890Kg and 12 Cubic meters of space, which was a bit of a shock as we sold most of our big stuff.

So far of son is taking it like a champ, and as we are in London and the grandparents are here he is being spoiled rotten, so I don’t think the move is bothering him much at all at the moment. Our little girl is only 2.5 months old, so as long as she has a boob close by she is happy!

As for the wife and I we are enjoying being in a country where the people were actually born with personalities, and word like please, thank you, and excuse me are actually part of everyday conversation. We took in a night at Tony Roma’s, and all you can eat Monday, and we were in heaven! Ahh, the little things you miss!

So, technically we are homeless, unemployed, and parents of two! And we are loving it! We are letting our stress fade away, at least until the next big part of the move comes along.

Originally Posted by H46Bubba

Is uncle sam footing the bill for the move? Oh man I wish I could have movers move us every time we moved. Moving's such a pain in the azz!

No man, my DD214 hasn’t seen the light of day since 1999, so this move is all on us. Actually the financial aspect of the move is not much of a concern, it is the logistics that is killing us. Moving trans-continental is a real chore. Even if you have a wad of cash it is not so simple to find a service that will take you from door to door. Once our stuff hits the U.S., the move continues with a different firm, and that is where the logistical complications come into play.

I decided to ship our things to New York, rather then to PHX directly, as I still have things in New York with I would like to move as well, so we are going to combine the things in New York and send the off to PHX from there. I can’t wait to see how that is going to pan out!

Originally Posted by MQAAord

Yeah, the movers were a big chunk of change. Part of it was that we crossed state lines, so apparently there's taxes/whatever associated with out-of-state moves. Also we had the 4 days storage, which added to the bill. We had a 4 bedroom house, with a fair amount of furniture & books (which significantly added weight). It ended up being 10,000 pounds of stuff! We filled an entire tractor-trailer. We had several quotes from multiple companies, and they were all within the same ballpark. If it had been a local move, it would have SO much cheaper, but we wanted to stay with a brand-name company since it was a long distance move and we were leaving pretty much all our worldly possessions with them for 4 days!

But, it sure beat packing & driving a truck ourselves. We've been there done that, and we're far too old to go through that again. It was worth it. I'd have 'em pack my whole house next time.

I have to agree with you, our next move will be done by a company and not by us. I never even though we have so much stuff in our little apartment until the boxes started to fill up. On top of that we lived on the third floor, and our building has 5 meter high ceilings (Typical 19th century German building), so we had a bunch of steps to go up and down.

I’ll have to look into a good solution to getting our stuff from New York to PHX, but I’ll look into that once we get to the states.

Originally Posted by Kristie

not a problem! really.. we'll be in town and there are others here that can help as well!! if there's manual moving, all we require is pizza and beer! haha

did you find a place to live?

Thanks for the offer! It is really sweet, and we might take you up on it, but we’ll worry about that once we are over there, we are just looking forward to meeting people (Before putting them to work!). As for manual moving, god, I don’t we could ever ask for help like that in good conscious. We are a weird couple that way, we will bend over backwards to help others, but we are reluctant to accept help ourselves. Then again, that might change when we have a stack of boxes in front of us in a town where we don’t know anyone!

Oh, we would certainly do a lot better then pizza and beer for favors of that magnitude!

As for a place to live, well, we have decided that we are going to pick a place once we get there, and we have abandoned further research for the time being. We have gotten so much information about different areas, and eventually opinions tend to conflict and contradict each other, so we simply don’t know what to believe, so we are going to stay somewhere for a couple of weeks while we look around for a rental house. We are going to take the time to check out different areas, at different times of the day, to form our own opinion. We are pretty certain it will be somewhere in the north of Phoenix though.





More to come!

[Kristie]

The transition of our apartment to the new tenants came with the arrogances and inhospitality that we have become accustomed to in North Germany, so we weren’t disappointed!

you mean they weren't happy to get the place? weird...

[X-Forces]

Originally Posted by Kristie

you mean they weren't happy to get the place? weird...

No, Not at all! It had more to do with the landlord being a prick!

It is like an hour long story, Anita and I will tell you over a beer and one of those slices of pizza!

[X-Forces]

The joy of traveling with two young kids!


Two car seats
One double buggy
One travel cot
One changing bag
3 weeks worth of kids clothing and toys


Oh yeah, a few bit of clothing for mom and dad.




3 trolleys worth of stuff, 89 Kg at check in!

A total stranger came up to me when we were leaving the arrivals gate at Heathrow and says "You deserve a medal!," as I was pushing out all three trolleys myself. (Wife had the kids).




Would I trade this for child free travel again.......


NEVER!

[H46Bubba]

Holy crap! That's a lot of stuff!

[X-Forces]

Originally Posted by H46Bubba

Holy crap! That's a lot of stuff!

A dad gotta to do what a dad gotta do!

[H46Bubba]

Sometimes I fell like I'm taking the whole house with us just for a couple days of vacation!

[X-Forces]

Originally Posted by H46Bubba

Sometimes I fell like I'm taking the whole house with us just for a couple days of vacation!

Odd as it may sound, I am actually looking forward to packing up a bunch of gear and going on vacations with the whole family. I have gotten to a point where I don’t mind packing up a car load of stuff to travel, I am kind of getting used to it.

The good part is that with two kids when you fly you almost don’t have to think about your baggage allowance anymore! I’m losing count of how many bags we are taking from London in a few days.

Once we get settled in the U.S. we are looking forward to lots of road trips (as I have seen more of the world then I have the United States), and we are planning several trips to South America, so guess I am going to have the opportunity to put my money where my mouth is regarding traveling with the whole family!

[X-Forces]

Does anyone know of any moving companies or moving equipment rental companies that you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole? We are weighing the options on what to do (and how to do it) next.

Thanks for any input you might have.