The last box.

We've had a bit of an odd year. We PCS'ed ("permanent change of station'ed" aka "moved") twice in one year.  The Army usually has a rule about staying at a duty station one full year before a PCS, but they made an exception this time and so after moving from Washington State to Louisiana in the spring, six months later we were packing it all back up to come to Kansas.

There we are leaving Washington:

And arriving in Louisiana:

 We put in a lot of work painting and getting the place perfect since we knew we'd be around a while...

...and then we got orders.  All that work for nothing!  (By the way, painting in 100 degree heat when you are seven months pregnant is not happy for anyone.)

We got rid of a lot of furniture and other stuff in order to lighten our load before both moves...and then we added in a baby. So it all evened out.

Random cute family photo.

Moving around so much, plus a new baby, equals a little bit of chaos. Our very first move was so carefully planned and organized, there were lists and photos and color coding... I think I give up a little each subsequent time. I don't even have any pictures of the Kansas move! For shame. Here's just one of the new digs:

Well, we have been in our new house roughly two full months now. We are pretty settled in, fairly organized, pictures on the walls and all.

But there are so many items that I am now realizing I have no idea where I put them when I unpacked them...and then I try to remember where they could be...and then I realize I don't remember even where they were in our house in LA and the last time I really had a set place for the item was in our house in WA. So trying to figure out which drawer or closet it is now shoved in is near impossible.

Then there are things that just magically vanished into thin air.  A chef's knife disappeared (watch out people of Fort Polk for a pampered-chef-knife-wielding employee of the local moving company) and a rug.  I mean, where did an entire floor rug go?  Has no one reported an extra rug around the moving van?  Or did the same person who absconded with the knife take the rug too?  Hmmm...knife and rug combo is kind of shady if you think about it.  I really hope my things are not part of some unsolved mystery.  I do not want to see them appear on an episode of Dateline one day.

And then there is the "last box." We usually have all the boxes unpacked by the movers the day they unload the truck so they can haul away the materials before they leave (they really love this part of their job, trust me).  But there is always a box or two that doesn't get unpacked for some reason...and then it gets shoved in the corner of the room, and then it gets shoved in a closet, and then you start throwing stuff on it...and it just remains there...the last box...until you move again.