Welcome

Welcome to my VERY random blog. The Home page will show you all of the posts in my blog. If you would like to find just the posts related to our move to and life in Hawaii, click on "The Journey"

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Dear Cats,

You are expensive.  Don't get me wrong, I love you all very much and of course you are quite worth it, but yes, you are expensive.  This move is going to kill us, and it is still at least 6 months away.

So, today 3 of the cats went in to the vet for their first round of rabies shots, and 2 of them had to get microchips.  I have to admit, the last one to get micro chipped it was done when he was neutered so he was under when they did it.  Splenda will be getting hers on Wednesday when she gets spayed.  So, I wasn't aware until I asked when I scheduled today's appointment that they don't get any sort of anesthesia for it.  I can't imagine!  Yipes!  But our two took it pretty well and so far it doesn't seem like they even notice it's there.

Splenda apparently has whip worm.  How she managed that is beyond me, being a strictly indoor cat, so unless she got it from the cat we were fostering when we moved in here, it is a bit of a mystery.  So we got a spot of treatment for that.

All in all in the past 2 weeks we're coming in just short of $600 at the vet.  That's before Splenda's spay and tooth cleaning on Wednesday.  Granted, we could have chosen to go with a military vet, which would have cost far less I am sure, I like this vet, they are close, and my cats have been going here for years off and on.

On the plus side, after Splenda gets spayed, which is unrelated to the move, the worst of the bills will be over for a while.

Know anyone thinking of moving or getting stationed in Hawaii?  Here is a break down of our costs for ONE cat, not including any of the treatments they may need since they were all due for a vet visit and not including the vaccinations that they need but are not specifically required to enter Hawaii:

So far:
Checkup: $42.50 (after multipet and military discounts)
Rabies vaccine: $27.50
Microchip: $30

Future fees:
Second rabies vaccine: $27.50 (I assume, unless they give us a 3 yr instead of the 1 yr, cost may be different)
Blood test: $55 (this is the fee for the military testing facility, civilians have to use a different facility which costs more.)
Check-up for health certificate: $42.50 (again, assuming it's the same as the checkups today)
Frontline: $22.50
Airport Release Fee: $165 (for cats who complete the quarantine process before entering the state)
Flying cat as checked luggage: $175-$225 (these are the rates I found for 2 airlines, others may charge more or less.)

So, that means, all things going right and getting the cats on a less expensive airline, the cats will cost $587.50 minimum... each... to get to Hawaii.

I would say "at least all that is less per cat than the flight per kid would be if we have children!" but if we had children the Navy would be paying for their flights.  I do hear a rumor that we get reimbursed for up to a certain amount of the quarantine fee though... we will see...

~Katy

Friday, July 26, 2013

Big News!

So, it's been a while.  Wow has life gotten busy!  This past weekend was the Virginia Beach Lindy Exchange, and event I have helped run for a couple years before this and did a lot of the organizing myself this year.  We started out with a decent sized group doing the planning, but as things got busy for everyone with work/school/life most people had to pull back from helping much.  It ended up going relatively smoothly though, partly from being a slow year.  Here's a few pictures for ya!

Dancing on the battleship Wisconsin- always a highlight of the weekend, and we had a great breeze this year!


Some people doing the Shim Sham

Dolphins at the beach!  We were dancing on the beach, a storm rolled past to the north so we had to move to the grass for a while, and then when we went back to the beach there were Dolohins... everywhere.


So, in addition to planning this event, life itself has gotten a little crazy!   My husband is getting to that time where in a few months he will be transferring to a new command, and his time period to negotiate for orders began in June.  We had been planning, if possible, to stay put.  I love it here, thus why I moved here, plus I have a job and it would let us avoid having to move.  We like where we live right now.  With so many Navy installations in the area, we could be fairly confident there would be a possibility to stay put. 
And there was!  But we chose not to put in for it.  Long story short-


 WE ARE MOVING TO HAWAII!

We don't have the official orders yet, but word from the detailing system is that he was chosen for the orders to Pearl Harbor.  Not yet sure when we are moving, should be 6 months give or take a month or two.  As excited as I am, I am also scared as I'm not so great at dealing with change.  I want to move like, tomorrow, to get it over with.  Even writing about the move I start getting tears in my eyes, cause I LOVE this place, and it's going to be a huge change.  I know I will love Hawaii!  But seriously, huge huge change being so far away from family.  So now we are working on the long, expensive process to be able to move our cats onto the island.  We should have a lot of the expences out of the way in the next month, a huge chunk of which is Splenda finally getting spayed.  That part isn't necessarily required for the move, but it's needed to happen so now it will be happening in addition to all the vaccinations and blood tests and checkups.  We already got Splenda her first vet visit, she got her first round of shots amongst other things making a visit of over $200.  OUCH.  Tomorrow the other 3 go in for their first round of shots plus 2 of them are getting their microships... not looking forward to how much THAT one is going to cost.  Seriously.

So that is my big news about our big move!  I may or may not blog about the whole process.  We will see.

~Katy