More than halfway cleared!

The past several days have been a whirlwind.  Today is the first day we've had to actually take a breath for a half day.  We went grocery shopping this morning to have a good hearty breakfast.  We were then greeted by a party of the dachshunds at the dog park in our backyard...but I'll get to that later.

This week started with us finally selling the Polo to a young couple that just arrived a few days ago.  It was a good way to start the week.  It did take roughly a half a day to fill out all of the paperwork and get our rental, but it went as smoothly as one could expect.  Having that cash was nice too, knowing that it would all evaporate into other expenses for moving out in the next two weeks.

We managed to schedule and pay a private company to move our temporary furniture back to the military warehouse.  While many we spoke to were angered by hearing this, as removing temporary furniture is supposed to be a provided service, we noticed that all other people returning temporary furniture at the same time were also private companies.  Clearly, there is a disconnect between what is expected and what is possible.  If nothing else, it gave us a piece of mind.  The very next thing we had to do was start deep-cleaning the townhouse so that we could terminate our lease.

We did have a baby checkup before then.  All is well with the little one.  J got a hip strap as her hips were widening in a way that were causing sciatica issues.  The strap works like a charm.  She doesn't even need to use it anymore, but we keep it handy just in case.  We've also had problems trying to connect to the medical facility at Fort Leonard Wood, but fortunately one of the doctors in the clinic that day just came from there.  He gave us a number that hopefully works.  We really want to have an appointment scheduled before we get over there.

In the meantime, we were deep-cleaning the house now that the furniture was gone.  We did such an exceptional job that our landlord voiced surprise.  Not long after, she raised issue with something else.  I won't go into details, but we have a different issue we now have to resolve.  Once the dust has settled, I mention how it all played out.

We have spent the past three days moving our remaining items into and out of our rental car into various places and attending going-away parties.  While J was at a farewell gathering, I managed to pay all of our final bills except cell phones, which we will try to do today.  We did pretty well overall, owing 6 euro to one utility company, getting 5 euro from another, and then owing around 100 euro for a third.  Considering that some spend over 1000 euros in final bills, I'd say we've been doing pretty well thus far.

We now are spending our remaining days in Germany on military temporary housing until our flight out.

Etsy is showcasing our home for the next few days.

One nice thing about our temporary housing is that right in our "backyard" is a dog park.  There is occasionally a few dogs there, but today a party of 5 dachshunds were running around and barking.  Since we live in the pet-friendly portion of temporary housing (hence, the dog park), several other neighbors including myself took our dogs to the park to make a party out of it.  Needless to say, Etsy was a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of Dachshunds.

Here, the terriers come to join in.  The Coon Hound didn't join until later.  While it doesn't look like a lot of dogs, imagine this space being completely empty for 23 hours each day.  It was quite the spectacle :)

After roughly an hour, a tenant came over to complain about the nearly incessant barking, so we all parted ways after that.  The dogs that came were a total of 6 dachshunds, Etsy, a Coon Hound, a Shetland sheepdog, and two terrier crosses.  It was a fun time.

Starting Clearing

Things are starting to get real as we cram to close off all of our connections in Germany before we leave.

Tomorrow, we hopefully sell our second car...the faithful Polo.  It was a good buy, great to maintain, I learned a bit more about repairing our own car, and it was perfect for all of the German city driving and parking we needed to do.  Owning this car has convinced us that a small kit car for me would be a great way to go, but we need to do more research on that before we take the plunge.

I have my last practice and game with my soccer team next week.  They were literally the best team I ever had the privilege to play with.  I learned a lot, got a great workout, and had a genuinely fun time.  They were really sweet and got me a jersey as a going-away present for me.  I also took a picture of the team.  Not all of them were able to be present, but most of them were.  We'll buy them all a beer or two for after the last game as a thank you.

From the names I can remember, from left to right...

Top:  _, Stiefen, _, Philip, Marcel, _, Armin

Bottom:  Andreas, Mattson, _, Me, Harald

Unpictured (Not present at this game):  Deter, Sam, Lukas, Ralph, Joachim, Axel, and our alternate keeper

I unfortunately did not get to know all of them by name, but I have played with all of them on several occasions.  Someone just cracked a joke right before the picture, hence all of the odd faces.  :)  The initials at the top stand for "SportGemeinde Linden-Schopp-Krickenbach."  Sportgemeinde is essentially "sport club."  The other three towns make up the team's pool for players.  Most teams represent one town or city, but this team is a conglomeration of three neighboring towns.  J and I live in Schopp, so that is our affiliation with the team.

For the curious, yes this is an older team.  I also played with the Men's II team, but played very few games for them.  This team's only requirement aside from no conflict with a different team, is that you be 32 years old or older.  

J's pregnancy continues to progress.  We have opted to get a hip band for her to avoid sciatic pain from her relaxing hips.  It works like a charm.  We're combining it with heat at night and physical therapy and a belly-sling of sorts.  Sounds like a lot, but it's completely worth it.

Yesterday, we did our final yard clean up in anticipation for moving out of our town house this week.  We succeeded, along with both of us getting sunburned.  Even the dog was wiped out.

We're frantically selling as many items as we can before we move out and have been mostly successful.  Of course, we're at the height of PCS season, so a lot of people are moving in and out.  It makes selling things easier in a lot of ways.  The experience of selling things has made me a little more interested in craigslist upon our arrival and future moves.

The only major pain that has occurred thus far is removing our temporary furniture prior to moving out.  We scheduled a guesstimate date about one and a half months ago, but then later needed to change the date about two weeks later.  We were told that it was not possible and we would have to arrange our own transportation of the furniture at our own expense.  While we have managed to schedule something, many people have told us we are being taken advantage of by the temporary furniture people.  We unfortunately don't have the time to engage in such a fight, but I guess it's good for people to know to be prepared for such a possible event.

Grocery shopping is proving a little more challenging now because we don't want to haul a bunch of food to the hotel, but we also don't want to spend a lot of money eating out.  We're adapting as things arise, but I didn't anticipate such a quirk.

My goal of finalizing my medical school application at the end of this month may have been lofty, but I'll still try to shoot for it.  I'm largely done as it is, but I want to review everything before I send it off.  My letters of recommendation haven't come in yet, but that's not required for the initial application.

Lots going on at once.  Sweet J has set up lodging and car rental for us once we arrive in the States, and her dad R has set things up to meet us in Baltimore to help us with moving things to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, so that will make the craziness more manageable.  I can only imagine the whirlwind these next few weeks.  Hopefully, we have planned ahead enough where it won't be as wild as it seems.