This has been the roughest transition of all.
PCS-ing to Germany wasn't easy, but returning to the states was 110% stressful and the stress has yet to subside.
We are officially at our new duty station: Fort Riley, Kansas!
But settling hasn't been a walk in the park.
Another round of hotel living awaited us stateside. Thankfully the on post hotel in Riley is pretty darn nice and accommodating, but if we hadn't rented a car, being there would've sucked.
To sum it up, the on post hotel isn't near normal civilization. There is a clothing & sales and furniture sales store in the mini mall PX type of thing around the corner from the hotel (a minute or two walk), but this is not the big PX. The food court is bogus (many food vendors are missing and the few that exist close early and open late).
Luckily, none of this was a surprise, which is why I secured a rental car from the airport. If you want to know, the big PX and commissary are a drive away, across post.
Once we adjusted, we used our first Sunday back in the states to go and fetch our car from the VPC in St Louis, MO.
YES, our car beat us home! Shipping it from Germany almost two months before our flight paid off.
So we drove the rental across the I-70 on a Sunday, checked into a cheap hotel, played a round of mini golf, and picked up our beloved swagger wagon the next morning. From the VPC, we filled the car with gas and headed back to Kansas.
Before we had left to fetch the car, we signed a lease for a house!
House hunting in the area was WAY harder than it should've been. Many agencies didn't return phone calls, texts, or emails. Super frustrating. Okay, well one returned my call a week after we signed our lease...
We looked at four houses. Doesn't sound like a lot, but it was all the area could offer us for the size of our family and our budget. We actually had to go over our BAH for three of the houses we looked at. Two homes were in Manhattan, two in Junction City. We ended up picking a Junction City house that I had seen before online for sale, but not for rent. The day we went into the rental agents office to check out another property was the day the owner of our home decided to put it up for rent. It is $200 over BAH, but it's pretty spacious. Still overpriced for what and where it is, IMO.
But we still had time in the hotel that was already paid for. So we stayed in the hotel (with beds, towels, furniture, pots and pans) until our time was up because remember, we still don't have any of our household goods!
Once our time in the hotel was up, we had no choice but to move into our empty place. We went and bought new beds, couches, a new washer and dryer, some other random pieces of furniture, and before we knew it, school was starting. We also had to back to school shop for the kids in the midst of finding pots and pans. It was fun.
We enrolled the kids into school as soon as we had an address. It's kind of imperative to know what school they'll be attending based on your home location before enrolling!
Enrollment was easy because we hand carried records and all of the kids had updated immunizations before we flew from Germany. Their first day of school was actually the day before we moved out of the hotel. That morning had some crazy ass rain. Getting from the hotel room to the car was interesting. My poor kids were soaked before they had even made it to school. The sun cleared by the time we dropped off our oldest at HIGH SCHOOL! We officially have a high schooler in the house!
He even let me take pics and walk him to his first class. It was a neat experience, but sad, too.
While the kids were in school, the husband and I went shopping again and began moving stuff from the hotel to the house. It was easier to do this without the kids. They're not evil children, it's just we can fit more into our ride when kids aren't sitting in it.
The next day, we turned in our hotel keys and checked out, ready and not ready to be in our new place.
I was super pissed to find out that even though we live two miles from the middle school, there is no bus transportation for our three middle school girls. UGH.
Honestly, had I know how the dumb boundaries work here, I may not have chose this house. Kansas State cut funding about a decade ago and now you have to live 2.5 miles away OR cross a major highway to have free transportation to public school.
We'll be needing a second car anyway, but I didn't think it'd have to be this soon.
We began shopping for a used car with about a $7K cash budget (I really don't want to finance) and that has been hard. Still haven't found one.
As for our household goods, they are in limbo. The shipping company cannot locate where it is thanks to hurricanes in the south. All we know is that our stuff was supposed to arrive in Houston, but southern Texas was hit with the storms. Hopefully we'll have more info on that soon.
We have taken some time to feel out what's around here: We went to Manhattan a few times, and even though it seems but a short drive away on a map, the drive feels longer than it should. Kind of glad we didn't choose a house there, although Manhattan has a lot more to offer than Junction City. Can't lie about that. The downtown area of Manhattan is cute!
There doesn't seem like much to both Manhattan and Junction City compared to the Fort Campbell or Fort Lewis areas we've been stationed at before. But I will say Junction and Manhattan have much more to offer than our Vilseck duty station in Germany! Junction City has an old downtown area, too, though not as artsy as Manhattan.
I think I'm gonna like it here, but I already have a feeling that I will start to feel too big for this small town before the next PCS orders are cut!
We still have a ways to go before I will feel completely settled, but that's all part of the PCS fun. In the army life, it never fails that once you've made a good friend, know your way around, and hung photos up around the house orders come around again. I have yet to experience any of that here, but it's a matter of time.
Next post: Who knows?! Hopefully it'll be about our movers and HHG. If I'm lucky.
PCS-ing to Germany wasn't easy, but returning to the states was 110% stressful and the stress has yet to subside.
We are officially at our new duty station: Fort Riley, Kansas!
But settling hasn't been a walk in the park.
Another round of hotel living awaited us stateside. Thankfully the on post hotel in Riley is pretty darn nice and accommodating, but if we hadn't rented a car, being there would've sucked.
To sum it up, the on post hotel isn't near normal civilization. There is a clothing & sales and furniture sales store in the mini mall PX type of thing around the corner from the hotel (a minute or two walk), but this is not the big PX. The food court is bogus (many food vendors are missing and the few that exist close early and open late).
Luckily, none of this was a surprise, which is why I secured a rental car from the airport. If you want to know, the big PX and commissary are a drive away, across post.
Once we adjusted, we used our first Sunday back in the states to go and fetch our car from the VPC in St Louis, MO.
YES, our car beat us home! Shipping it from Germany almost two months before our flight paid off.
So we drove the rental across the I-70 on a Sunday, checked into a cheap hotel, played a round of mini golf, and picked up our beloved swagger wagon the next morning. From the VPC, we filled the car with gas and headed back to Kansas.
Before we had left to fetch the car, we signed a lease for a house!
House hunting in the area was WAY harder than it should've been. Many agencies didn't return phone calls, texts, or emails. Super frustrating. Okay, well one returned my call a week after we signed our lease...
We looked at four houses. Doesn't sound like a lot, but it was all the area could offer us for the size of our family and our budget. We actually had to go over our BAH for three of the houses we looked at. Two homes were in Manhattan, two in Junction City. We ended up picking a Junction City house that I had seen before online for sale, but not for rent. The day we went into the rental agents office to check out another property was the day the owner of our home decided to put it up for rent. It is $200 over BAH, but it's pretty spacious. Still overpriced for what and where it is, IMO.
 |
| After we weeded the heck out of the flower bed. The yard was a mess before we moved in. |
But we still had time in the hotel that was already paid for. So we stayed in the hotel (with beds, towels, furniture, pots and pans) until our time was up because remember, we still don't have any of our household goods!
Once our time in the hotel was up, we had no choice but to move into our empty place. We went and bought new beds, couches, a new washer and dryer, some other random pieces of furniture, and before we knew it, school was starting. We also had to back to school shop for the kids in the midst of finding pots and pans. It was fun.
We enrolled the kids into school as soon as we had an address. It's kind of imperative to know what school they'll be attending based on your home location before enrolling!
Enrollment was easy because we hand carried records and all of the kids had updated immunizations before we flew from Germany. Their first day of school was actually the day before we moved out of the hotel. That morning had some crazy ass rain. Getting from the hotel room to the car was interesting. My poor kids were soaked before they had even made it to school. The sun cleared by the time we dropped off our oldest at HIGH SCHOOL! We officially have a high schooler in the house!
He even let me take pics and walk him to his first class. It was a neat experience, but sad, too.
While the kids were in school, the husband and I went shopping again and began moving stuff from the hotel to the house. It was easier to do this without the kids. They're not evil children, it's just we can fit more into our ride when kids aren't sitting in it.
The next day, we turned in our hotel keys and checked out, ready and not ready to be in our new place.
I was super pissed to find out that even though we live two miles from the middle school, there is no bus transportation for our three middle school girls. UGH.
Honestly, had I know how the dumb boundaries work here, I may not have chose this house. Kansas State cut funding about a decade ago and now you have to live 2.5 miles away OR cross a major highway to have free transportation to public school.
We'll be needing a second car anyway, but I didn't think it'd have to be this soon.
We began shopping for a used car with about a $7K cash budget (I really don't want to finance) and that has been hard. Still haven't found one.
As for our household goods, they are in limbo. The shipping company cannot locate where it is thanks to hurricanes in the south. All we know is that our stuff was supposed to arrive in Houston, but southern Texas was hit with the storms. Hopefully we'll have more info on that soon.
We have taken some time to feel out what's around here: We went to Manhattan a few times, and even though it seems but a short drive away on a map, the drive feels longer than it should. Kind of glad we didn't choose a house there, although Manhattan has a lot more to offer than Junction City. Can't lie about that. The downtown area of Manhattan is cute!
There doesn't seem like much to both Manhattan and Junction City compared to the Fort Campbell or Fort Lewis areas we've been stationed at before. But I will say Junction and Manhattan have much more to offer than our Vilseck duty station in Germany! Junction City has an old downtown area, too, though not as artsy as Manhattan.
I think I'm gonna like it here, but I already have a feeling that I will start to feel too big for this small town before the next PCS orders are cut!
We still have a ways to go before I will feel completely settled, but that's all part of the PCS fun. In the army life, it never fails that once you've made a good friend, know your way around, and hung photos up around the house orders come around again. I have yet to experience any of that here, but it's a matter of time.
Next post: Who knows?! Hopefully it'll be about our movers and HHG. If I'm lucky.
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