Dear Bri of the future,
Our move to Port Hueneme went GREAT! But remember, no matter how smoothly a move goes, there are always a few little problems along the way. Here are some of the problems we had this time. Hopefully you can prevent them next time :)

• We had a ton of stuff that we left on the back porch that the movers would not move. I kept telling myself that I would pack it into boxes latter, but I didn't actually move it off the porch until the inspector was there to check us out of the house. DON'T DO THAT NEXT TIME!!! Package up all the stuff as soon as the movers leave. The cleaning materials that will be used to clean the house should be package, just don't close up the boxes. This will make checkout much less stressful!
• Get a babysitter for the move in day if the girls are not feeling too much stress from the move. It would be a good idea to have a babysitter for the morning of the inspection too.
• There was a lot of Change for the girls. They handled it really well, and I don't know that we could have done many things to improve this problem, just remember to be patient with them. (That is easier said than done!)
• It was a LOT harder to drive out of town than I thought it would be. After the check out from the house, I found my self crying while I was loading the last few items into the car.
• One night Maggie fell asleep before we got to the hotel, so we just put her to bed without getting her in her PJ's. She woke up several times through the night and Bri finally gave up around 2am. That was a LONG day for both Bri and Maggie.
• Be careful with what we use for indulging the girls. We tried to be a little more lenient with the girls than we normally are because of the stress of everything. I think a certain amount of this is okay, but one of the things we gave Gwen was gum. She has had it a few times before and is normally responsible about it. She started taking it out of her mouth and we gave her warnings, but didn't really follow through with taking it away from her. This resulted in a mini disaster. I got Magggie out of the port-a-crib one morning and found gum in her hair!!! Somehow Gwen had left the gum in the crib, or a place that Maggie could reach. That was not the circumstances I wanted to have for Maggie's first haircut! So don't indulge them in potentially disastrous activities. Just give them lots of chips and ice cream instead :)
• Look at the street signs when you get to the new house. We parked the car in front of the house so that no one else would block out the moving truck. But of all days, Friday from 8-10 am is the time the street sweeper comes by and we got a ticket.

And here are some of the things we did to make the move easier that REALLY helped out a lot! Hopefully we can do them next time too.

• Get a babysitter for the days that the movers are at the house. Even if Sam is available to be at the house for the movers, it is SO nice to have both of us available so one person can run errands and make phone calls while the other person is at the house, then you can switch places. Staying at the house with the movers can be boring because you are not allowed to help them pack. You can do a little cleaning, but you need to make sure not to be in their way.
• Have dinner with friends the last few days before the move. This was a fun way to say good bye to our friends. Instead of going out to eat or having dinner brought to us, we went to their house for dinner. It enabled me to clean the oven, stove and have all the dishes put away several days before the move. We just used the microwave, paper plates, cups, and plastic cutlery. It was also nice to be out of the house, so the girls were not pulling out a bunch of toys. The only draw back to this was that this is when Gwen normally got stressed out, when she was having a hard time playing with the kids, she began screaming and it was difficult to calm her down.
• splurge on getting a hotel room at least for the day before the movers come and the day after the movers bring your stuff. The Navy pays for a hotel from the day that the movers pack your stuff to the day they deliver it to the new house. But it makes things less complicated to pay for an extra day on each end so that you can move all the food out before the movers come and any items the movers won't take that you don't need for cleaning the house. The extra day comes in handy after they bring your stuff so there is a place for the kids to play and nap where they are not getting in the way of the movers.
• The night after the movers were done I had a cleaning party at the house. it was SO much fun to see my friends and have help with the last minute things. We had the kitchen and laundry room to clean. it took 6 of us 2 hours to do the work.