One of the many reasons I'm doing this Korea specific blog is because someone may be able to use it as a resource when they have to move overseas. We can't be the first family to move from the United States to Korea, but there isn't a wealth of information about how to do all this. I knew I would learn things through the process that could help someone else.

So did you know that the shipment of your personal belongings is split up? There are three types.

Unaccompanied baggage: These are items you'd like sooner. It 'only' takes 45 days to receive this shipment of things like clothes, kitchen items, toys, but no furniture.

Household goods: That's pretty much everything else. This takes 72 days. We can take canned goods and spices, just no liquids like cleaners or sauces.

Non-temp storage: Since we are only allowed 50% of our weight allowance, a lot of our stuff will be going into storage. The government works with a commercial storage unit. Our stuff will be held here in Norfolk for the 3 years we are overseas and will be moved to our next duty station when that time comes.

Now did you know that we would have 3 separate sets of movers? One day for unaccompanied baggage, one day for household goods, and one day for non-temp storage? Yup, it's true. We will have 3 companies coming July 26, 27, and 28th (as long as the movers have openings for the days we have requested).

Did you know that when booking your flights you have to provide a ten day window? We wanted to arrive in Korea on August 15th, so we might fly out on August 5th-14th. It kinda puts a damper on what we were hoping to do. We may know our flight as soon as tomorrow and then we can make more permanent plans. If indeed we are flying out on August 5th then we will try and have the movers come sooner. We wanted to have about two weeks between movers coming and flying out so that we could take some leave and visit more friends and family.

We also learned that we will be flying out of Seattle into Korea. There is a possibility that we may be able to drive out to Seattle, ship our car and fly out from there, and even be reimbursed for our travel out there.

So if I seem a little spacey and not quite in the routine of things, it's because there's lots of information flowing through my brain right now. We get the next few weeks that are without friends or family visiting to purge through our belongings, donate, sort and label. Sounds like fun!