The Adventures of a Military Move!

Since we have been settled in Kansas for almost 2 months now I thought it was time to share the crazy yet comical experience we had getting our stuff. Let me just say that if you make it through this whole post, you are a rockstar!

So if you have followed my blog for any length of time you know that I am 100% all for the military moving us. I have zero desire to pack all of our stuff, rent a u-haul, load it, and unload it at our new location. So I will take my chances and have someone else do all of the hard work. This is the 6th time we have had the Army move us and by far the craziest experience we have ever had. 

While by all accounts our move went smoothly, we had 2 things broke (an old plate and the tail off E's giraffe table, but that's an easy fix) and we received our stuff within a reasonable time frame. However, making that happen proved to be much trickier than we anticipated. 

Let's back up to the day our stuff left Louisiana. We were told by the driver that on Sunday our HHG (household goods) would be leaving Louisiana and would arrive in Kansas for an 8am delivery on Monday. This prompted a change in plans, I was heading to Kansas early to sign for the house and receive our goods. Yay right?! Well that's what we thought. 

I arrived in Kansas on Sunday night, unloaded E, and the furry kids into the hotel. Let me tell you, doing that solo is hard! On Monday morning, I loaded everything and everyone back into the car so I could rush to housing, pick up the keys to the house and wait for our goods. I honestly had never been so happy to be in an empty house.

Well, 8am came and went with no sign of the driver. Kyle and I both called only to be told that they were just leaving Branson, Missouri. Ummm Branson?! That's on the other side of where we are and completely out of the way but okay. They said they would arrive by 10:30. I'm sure you can guess what happens next. Yup, no goods at 10:30. After numerous phone calls to both the driver and the manager at the home office we were told our goods would arrive NLT 2pm. 

I get a phone call at 1pm from the driver saying that they are in line waiting to be inspected at the gate!

An hour passes.....my phone rings. The driver's helper can't get on post because he has a prior conviction on his record from 20 years ago! Now, not only is this frustrating for me but for Kyle as well. He was 12 hours away and could literally do nothing to help.

SO! I try to vouch for the helper because I want my stuff but that's a no go (which honestly is to be expected here). So the helper got dropped off at a hotel and the driver headed back to post to deliver my stuff by himself. At this point it is 3:30pm, I'm hangry and E is flaming out. I grabbed food, headed home, and then my phone rang. The driver can't get on post because his truck is leaking!!!!!! WTF!?

At this point I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I'm pretty sure I cried out of anger and frustration. Since the truck wasn't being let on post, the driver had to go rent a u-haul which was a 1/4 of the size of the moving truck our stuff was on. I'm sure you can guess where this is going. Our stuff had to be offloaded between two trucks without me or Kyle there to watch. Cue panic. It didn't help that the driver was pissed at us (I still to this day have no idea why) and he made it incredibly awkward. So our stuff was off loaded between two trucks in a hotel parking lot. 

The driver was able to deliver one load of stuff at 7pm on Monday night with the help of another worker they managed to pull from another crew. However, that worker was unable to help him on Tuesday so instead of bringing our stuff to start unloading he sat in the hotel parking lot pouting until his manager let him have it.

It took him 3 trips on Tuesday but we finally received all of our stuff. Typically the movers are supposed to put together anything they took apart at the origination location. I said no because I just wanted my house to myself. So that night, I put all of the beds together so I didn't have to sleep on the floor again haha. 

I'm not writing this post to complain at all because let's face it I would rather deal with this then pack my stuff myself haha. We can laugh about it now because it's over and done with. Plus we just got our travel money from the move and paid off my car so that's a win in my book haha! 

Have you had any out of the ordinary moving experiences?