I am afraid to say it...

...because it might jinx it.

We "set" our dates for moving today with the folks over at Mountain Home AFB.  So here it goes...
July 12th and 13th.

They wanted to know how many pounds of HHG (house hold goods) we had...
insert me laughing like a half mad woman....maybe 3/4 mad by now...hey just chalk me up as a certified loon.

12 months...

A year ago Savannah was on the B team for her middle school tennis team.  She was cool with that, but had aspirations for A Team.  This  year she is on the A Team, and her cute tennis skirt is too short and has been banned.  Personal growth.

 Last year I figured out my camera doesn't do well taking pictures of people on stage.  This is the best I got folks.

Last year Chris attended the commissioning ceremony of "his" cadets from BYU-Idaho.  This year, he is finishing up his time at Boise State University and is going to be commissioning.  In 15 days.  But who's counting.

Last year we were working on getting our family a little more fit and active....this year...still working on that.

This time last year we drove to Driggs, because the Army decided Chris couldn't drill with the National Guard Unit he was serving in, and we went to turn in his stuff.  That was hard.

But a cadet in their unit and holding up a E-6 slot makes him...well, how do I put this nicely?
About as useful as a football bat.

 So he cleaned out his locker.  And it was kind of weird.   Well a lot weird.  Maybe we should have kept the piece of tape that read "Old Man" to remember how much he was loved in the 937th?  Maybe it would just end up on the bottom of his boots and I would have to clean it up.

SSG "Skip" Thomas with the dh.

SPC Jeb Baker on the fence about something...har har (eye roll)

SSG Rob Parsons (retired last month)...Chris misses those guys.  I even miss those guys.  Firefighters are cool!

Maybe just because they toys are so much fun for my kids to play on...

What will this year bring? 
THAT is going to be a lonnnnng story I think...



Winds of change...

So today after much upset-ness on my part, I climbed out of bed to face my morning  day, and got dressed and went to make breakfast lunch.  I decided against making lunch and found some money in my purse and we went to El Giro Giro's taco truck and bought as many dollar tacos as we had money (tax is included at the taco truck.  hmmmm).  We then grabbed our drinks and a bag of chips that I had in the pantry and went and copped a squat in the park on the trampoline.  It was bright and perfect.  We ate tacos and fed chips to the dog.  And Chris and Olivia and I watched the wind spin the clouds in circles.  They weren't going anywhere, just spinning them.  Their form would change, and they either dissipated in the wind or got fluffier, but they didn't really  move.  The wind was really doing a doozey on them... I relate.

After lunch I just laid out on the trampoline and Chris and I discussed what to do about the new development of the kids and I not being able to move with him to Ft. Benning.  It was so surreal to look around my yard, that I WANT to leave to be with my husband as a family, and yet look at my yard and WANT to plant things in it and make it a pretty spot.  Change is hard.  Not changing is hard.  LIFE is hard.  Have you noticed? 

What is really difficult for me is that a lot of the upcoming decisions Chris is leaving up to me.  After all they won't affect him because he won't BE HERE.  He just doesn't have an opinion.  It is really weird.

So after discussing Kuna vs. Menan for the bazillionth time, life continued.  Chris went to class and I went to get  Colton from school.  Savannah had a tennis match, and cheer try outs, and Young Women's which she ditched because her schedule was too tight.  Braden had a science expo, Young Men's and track.  Did I mention I love having some younger kids that want to go outside to play?  I do.  It's nice.  Then they remind me that they want to play football and be a cheerleader and let's do that OK and I die because they aren't big enough.  I die because it is expensive.  I die because their schedules are going to kill me.  And then Savannah signed me up to "teach" some of her friends how to make hair bows for cheer tryouts.  I was gone til midnight.

So to cap the night off, Chris and I always check email, phones, Face Book etc.  Just in case we miss something.  I don't know.  Probably a bad habit, but we do it anyway.

Chris got an email from the lady at Household goods...saying pick two days after May 31 2011, and not a holiday or a weekend, and we will schedule the move.

What the !"&$%?  Talk about a roller coaster.  Tomorrow I call her.  I mean it.  I have to know she is serious cuz this is killing me.  I think I mentioned that though.

Did I mention that I am sceptical?
Did I mention that it is 1 a.m.?
Did I mention I probably am going to need to start taking sleep meds because I am worried and stressed and absolutely dizzy from how fast things keep changing directions?  Like the clouds...just spinning but not going anywhere.

9 years ...

Today, Chris had Mr. R and MSG. L look at his orders and they both this his orders say that the family will NOT be moving with him.

I want to scream.  yell.  AND kick someone in the butt.

If that is true, it will mean that our family will be apart for about 18 months (maybe more) and will be stuck here in Idaho while he is stuck on base in a barracks.  After training there is a high likelihood that he will be put into a command that will put him straight into the field which could mean another 18  months give or take because "into the field" = deployment.

It is super upsetting because that would mean Braden would be graduated from HIGH SCHOOL before my family is a whole unit again.

And that my friends is why we made the risky decision to take the family on vacation when we are poor broke students.  Because all the money in the world cannot replace time together and family memories.

I waver on my resolution about my feelings regarding vacation because of the crap we are dealing with now.

• broken suburban
• empty wallet

I am not really having fun at this point.
Not a single bit. 
I have a daughter trying out for cheer this year here in K, just in CASE we don't move.  But I haven't signed Olivia up for cheer or Colton up for football yet in CASE we do move (at $85.00 a head I can hardly just write out the check right now anyway).  Braden is working on his Eagle, and needs to have everything DONE up to his project, and maybe even his project before we move.  A moving date would help all of this.

And if we have to stay behind, well, I have to decide where I am going to live for crying out loud.  I have a good house here, and really like the people I go to church with, but saying that, I really would like the chance to be near my family and spend time with my sister before we ship off to no mans land to be alone while Chris deploys somewhere.

This is really a hard start to the whole thing and it is too bad.  We have a LONG commitment to the Army and I would hate to start a  countdown timer for the big R before we even start.  But I might. 

9 Years....
Braden will be 25, Savannah will be 23, Colton will be 20, and my baby will be 14.

I will be standing with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. 

scrapping the itenerary...

When we got to California we were completley exhausted the next day.

Chris and I looked at the expense of our plans and the fact that we had absolutley jam packed every second into the five days we were to be in Mission Beach with everything we could possibly think of.

Not that the plans weren't gonna be fun.

But they were going to be expensive.  Tres tres expensive.

And we could foresee exahusted grumpy-ness coming before we even started the vacation.

So we called it off.

We did things like walk around the area in which our rental house was settled in.  What a charming place it was too!  We were within barefoot balking distance of the beach, and the atmosphere was so completley chill and relaxed we instantly settled in on a routine.  Routine being....

Sleep til we woke up,

ate when we were hungry,

went to the beach when is sounded good.

The other things were kind of the break in routine.

AWESOME-ness.

We drove out to Ocean Beach to visit Hodad's that was on diners drive-ins and dives, and right at lunch with every other tourist from the US and beyond.  It was fun.  And really...the food?  MMMMMmmmmmMMMM.

And we went for a walk for a bit around the town...after all Chris

being a master parker of the Suburban in a non suburban friendly place

had found a good parking spot for 2 hours, we figured we should probably put it to good use.

So we went a strollin...

And what a colorful place it is.

I was so glad we had the chance to share some of this with the kids, although we could have spent three weeks in SoCal (San Diego to be specific) and still be finding stuff to do.

Karen was feeling lonely so we started her up and went for a "drive" (more of a I hope Karen knows where we are cuz I sure as heck don't recognize any of this stuff kind of a blind following the GPS kind of thing).

Some things were just the same....

Our first home.

We call it the Troy St. house.

It is almost exactly the same, except there wasn't anything growing in front of the house except for a

 yucky Yucca, and I tried to grow something...with no luck.

Then we drove to Lakeside.

O my.  We found the apartments we used to live in, but we felt like stalkers taking pictures when people were watching us in the parking lot so we moved on to what we call the

Lakeside House.

It HAD changed.

At some point it had been for the better, the carport had been turned into a garage, and an in ground swimming pool was outback.  The house had been stuccoed and a pretty tile roof put on.

Something had gone terribly wrong for someone, as the garage looked like someone had tried to shut the door on a car in the way, the yard was dead and horribly abused.  A beautiful security gate was now zip tied shut with a bank foreclosure notice on it, and it looked like someone had taken a crow bar to several spots.

It was sad.  And unrecognizable.  Really.

We drove by it four or five times with Karen the GPS blaring at us that we had missed the turn. 

Crazy.

Some things don't change a lot.  The kids were impressed, even though by the time we got to see the Temple it was at night, none of us could get a good pic and they were all kind of blurry.

We spent the rest of that night chasing down meds for poor Savannah, who apparently is allergic to something in California and was sick most every evening from all of her symptoms, and the OTC allergy medicine wearing off.

Hi Dad!

So now that the breakdown fiasco at the end of Spring Break is behind me, I am  able to look back and ignore it and not be traumatized, and I can continue on with my vacation photos and not cry. 

Really I can. 

 Until I walk outside and see the gigantic black driveway ornament with custom wheels and new tires that I still owe money on staring at me with lifeless headlights that is most likely going to cost more than it is worth to fix...  THEN I cry.

Annnnyway...

When we were in CA, and having fun and oblivious to the crap that we were about to go through getting home,  we went to the USS Midway museum.

Holy holy, they didn't have this when we were stationed in San Diego in the dark ages (1995-1997), and how I wished my Dad could have been there for THIS tour.

He is a lover, and enthusiast, and a gigantic kid when it comes to WWII and vintage aircraft.

He would have been in heaven and we would have all had to have just rotted and died waiting on him before he would have been done exploring every inch of the place.

The only thing that would be better would be if it was combined with oh....

ALASKA, where he served an L.D.S. mission

and he LOVES...

Wow!  That is just uncanny.  How fun would that be!?  I wanna go.  Wait I can't.  We just RE joined the world of active duty military families and are going to be moving...  but Mom and Dad can go!? 

Well maybe just Dad.

How fun would this be in stadium seating in a media room!?

 Chris didn't want his pic in the brig... ?  But it was appealing to Braden.  Ummmm.....

 Hi Jenny!  And can I say that Olivia and Jenny can get Chris to do ANYTHING they want him to that normally he would be a grump poo over?  And he likes it!?  Girl power!

 I do have pictures of me.  As much as I detest them. Just not so photogenic.  Bleh.  I will stop there.

Sorry, I don't know a single name of any of those aircraft, and am not going to even attempt to recall them.  It was awesome.  There were a LOT of them, and we didn't see everything. 

over n out....