All our bags were packed

Our pack-out is done.

We’ve handed the keys over to our property manager.

Athena has her health certificate.

Flight confirmations for all three of us have been printed.

That’s right, we are finally ready to leave!!!

I was dreading our pack-out.  You hear horror stories about passports getting packed in HHE, or trash (like, out of the trashcan) going into storage.  Packers going through your house like Tasmanian devils, breaking and stealing your stuff along the way.  For us, it turned out that the movers showing up and packing/moving everything was the easiest part.  Prepping for them to come sucked big time, but the crew of four that packed and moved us out of our house was courteous, careful, and competent. Although we haven’t yet received any of the stuff they packed, so who’s to say they didn’t steal something or break anything.  But from our impressions that day, they seemed pretty good.

I had the house professionally cleaned yesterday, which was easily the best $215 I’ve ever spent.  Angie’s List, for the win! After that, we did a few more painting touch-ups and yard work, and we officially handed over the keys to the property management company.  It should be on the market soon, and hopefully we’ll have renters in no time.

Athena went to the vet yesterday to have her teeth cleaned and to get her final health certificate.  We had to decrease her food so that she would weigh less than 45 pounds, and she weighed in at 42.8.  I feel terrible for making her lose more weight than necessary, but at least now we don’t need to worry about her flying on Qatar Airways with its ridiculous 32 kg weight maximum.  Her crate weighs a whopping 26 lbs and is so big I could fit in it.  But she’s tall and leggy, and she needed a taller crate than the travel crate we already own.  So that’s all squared away and good to go!

My last day of work is tomorrow, and then we’re off.  It’s pretty crazy how quickly time has flown.

Now we just need to deal with a hotel room so full of stuff, it looks like we’re squatting.  Hurray for the digital luggage scale!