A nurse practitioner in the foreign service. Moving to DC for orientation.

Last minute packing and finalizing the move.

These past few months have really flown by, and I can hardly believe moving day is here!

Let me preface this by saying I’m a bit of a procrastinator. In lieu of packing, I’ve basically been eating and touring my way through San Francisco like a tourist (see my GoCar tour pic below). Our moving day was on a Wednesday and the weekend before we stayed in wine country with some friends. Don’t get me wrong it was a great time but we came back and had to really hit the ground running.

Blissfully avoiding all moving and packing responsibilities.

In this post, I’ll detail the moving process and exactly how it went for us. My hope is if you are interested in the FS or if you are in the process of applying, and want to know what lies ahead, this may be helpful- to everyone else this will probably bore you :)

About 3 weeks before orientation started I received a welcome email with details on orientation (Our flag day will be August 9th!!), what to expect, general schedule, how to get a FS travel credit card and links for Whatsapp groups to connect with others in orientation. I’m now in a massive Whatssap group with our entire orientation class (nearly 200 of us!) so I’m hearing about some of the issues that other’s are running into such as EFM’s not being on travel orders or no available pack out dates. Several of my classmates had trouble scheduling pack out’s and were given dates after they already would have arrived in DC! I think the trick may be to email transportation immediately upon accepting the invite (you don’t need travel orders to reserve your pack out day, just be sure you have them by the time the movers show up at your doorstep). I had no issue scheduling my pack out and reserving housing but I did this shortly after I accepted my invite on 4/29, so I would recommend doing that ASAP (although not helpful advice if you get a last minute invite, as one in our MED cohort did- only about 1 month prior to orientation).

I received our travel orders on 6/13 via email- this is essentially our official green light to move to DC. Once you have travel orders you can schedule a flight and basically pack up and head out. Our flight leaves July 2nd but PCS lodging is only covered starting the day before orientation. Luckily we are able to move into our apartment earlier and just need to pay an out of pocket per day rate ($190 a night-probably cheaper than a hotel so totally worth it IMO).

My only headache thus far has been scheduling a flight to DC and securing childcare. After several days of being on hold with the travel office for one hour plus (don’t book your own travel or else you may not get reimbursed), someone in class gave me an email address to try and within 2 hours I had a response and a flight for July 2nd for me and my family! Pro tip: email if you can’t get through on the phone. Send your name, DOB and the exact flight you prefer to be on.

Childcare in DC seems to be notoriously impacted, and most places have a wait list (with a $50-$100 application fee). I had a mini breakdown when all the daycares that we were on the waitlist for informed me they wouldn’t have openings until August or September. As a Nurse Practitioner, I never really worked from home during the pandemic but I heard plenty of horror stories from friends and family so a visual of my 2 year old roaring like T-Rex into my computer screen flashed before my eyes 😳. Luckily FSI came through and saved me from this nightmare! We got a spot just a few days ago, starting on the day of Orientation, July 5th.

The actual moving process: How it all went down!

Before the movers came we took most of our stuff out of drawers and closets and organized things in piles and loosely packed boxes (left open) then labeled whether they were UAB vs HHE. This made the process much easier. We actually had a lot of clothes for UAB and had to downsize and send some stuff as HHE but we also had several heavy items like a car seat, high chair and other baby stuff that took up a lot of our UAB weight.

I also made a separate pile for long term storage stuff that I likely won’t ever want sent to post but want to keep in storage (ie. baby items I’m too sentimental to throw out.)

The UAB was the first thing they did and the most time consuming because they have to really monitor what goes inside and check the weight of each box. After that was squared away the HHE was less rigid and went pretty fast. That’s the part where we had to pay attention to what was going into what box so that we could remember for when we have to pull things from storage and send to post. They did our entire pack out of UAB and HHE all in one VERY long day.

FYI for UAB they wouldn’t let us send anything open, so I couldn’t send used and open spices, dried beans etc. So just give those away!

The only furniture we sent was two beds with nightstands and a desk and chair. We got rid of the bulk of our furniture with the expectation that we would be in the FS for some time and not want to come back in 10+ years to a crusty couch that barely survived the toddler years.

With an empty house, we now stay in a hotel until our flight leaves on Saturday (and yes we will get per diem and M&IE for these days- woot woot!)

Pro tip: it’s a long day for the packers I recommend snacks or lunch for them (we did burritos) and of course a tip for their services.

Some random tips..

If you have small kiddos, get a sitter for the day of the move. It was super helpful NOT having him here. My husband and I were able to monitor the packers, and keep track of what went into which box.

Take time in the beginning to really show them exactly what they need to pack out, we had a bit of a miscommunication and they didn’t realize they had to pack out our kitchen so last minute we were scrambling.

I got the impression from the moving manual that we do no to minimal packing, just let them come and pack up your house- easy!! That was absolutely NOT the case for us AT ALL!! Highly suggest organizing each room into a UAB and HHE pile, put things in loosely packed boxes (they will transfer to their own boxes but this just keeps things organized).

If you plan to get to DC earlier than the day before orientation, try and set up an early check in with your PCS lodging. Moving out of our house, staying in a hotel, then flying cross country is really taking it out of us and it would be an added pain to check into a hotel in DC for a few days and then move into PCS lodging the day before.

As an added FYI: If you have school age kids or multiple kiddos that would be difficult to relocate to DC for only 3 months and then relocate again abroad- no worries! You can go to orientation without them and they can pack out at a later date from your home state/city. If i had more than one kid to enroll in school and daycare I may have taken this route.

Lastly, Just breathe. It will all work out, albeit maybe last minute but you will get to DC!