Inevitable Issues during Deployment and TDY's

Our fish died today. I should have seen it coming, because my husband left for tdy (temporary duty) a few days ago. It seems like there is some sort of unspoken rule that when your spouse is gone on a tdy or a deployment there are certain things that are going to happen.

First, if your children own a fish, one of them will die. You, the left behind spouse, will get to deal with the crying and sadness. You get to deal with the clean up and all the explanations.

Speaking of explanations, it seems every time dad leaves my son asks a question about sex, puberty, drugs, or some sort of topic "dad" should have to answer. Instead it's me about a week after dad leaves.

Of course, your child's school will have a daddy/daughter dance right in the middle of deployment. This never fails. I swear my kid's school never even had these dances until my husband got deployed.

Also, all of your kids are going to get sick. My kids never get sick and now they are all coughing and congested. More than likely you will get sick to.

If you own your home there is going to be some sort of household problem as well. The first time my husband deployed the toilet broke and it took me about 4 hours of working on it and then eventually calling someone for help to fix it. This time one of the master bathroom sinks is leaking underneath the cabinet. I have no idea what to do about that, so it will just have to wait. Lucky for us we have two sinks, I'll just use the other one.

If you rent a house you might find out that your landlord hasn't paid their mortgage and the house is being foreclosed on and now you get to move houses with out your spouse there to help. You may think that's crazy, but I know multiple people in the military that this has happened to.

Related articles

• 6 Things you should NEVER say to a military spouse
• For My Fellow Military Wives
• When Dad Travels For Business... A Lot

Military move #8 is on it's way

You may have noticed that I have not been blogging as much as I usually do.  Mainly because I have been sitting around in shock for several days now.  We have been actively trying to get out of the military for some time now and we were finally told yes!  My husband is going to switch over to air national guard and we are moving back to Oregon.  All of these are good things.  The only bad thing was we were given two months notice.  Although we have two months notice we actually need to move a little sooner, because of schools and Christmas.  So, instead of blogging I am pricing Uhauls/Pods (again), packing (again), giving our landlord notice, looking and looking for a place to live and finally giving our tenants notice (painful), and all the other fun stuff that comes with moving!  Blah!

I hate road trips!

Here we go again. Through a random series of events I find myself driving alone with all three kids across the country. AGAIN!!

I can't complain too much, because my husband is taking me to Scotland for my b-day.  By taking I mean he is there for work and I will be joining him. After I get the kids to Texas where my mom lives. 900+ miles from my house!

I know what your thinking. Why are you not flying? Great question! I sure wish I was, but this has all come about since Wednesday July 5th leaving me with no option. That's one of the many perks of the military life. Our closest family is a thousand miles away.

Military Travel tip

Is your military spouse going tdy to somewhere cool?  AGAIN!  Don't get left behind this time, instead make it a family vacation.  Check out my article over at Travelingmom.com with 5 tips for turning your spouses tdy into a family vacation.

My airport disaster

After being delayed in Syracuse, NY by five hours I finally made it to the Detroit airport. I'm in the Delta terminal at the end of concourse C. Much to my relief and surprise it appears I will catch my next flight. I'm overwhelmed with joy because my husband leaves tdy with the air force in 11 hours. It looks like I will make it home in time. Did I mention my three little kids are at home. I run through the entire airport to get to terminal a. I make it and it is time to board. I get in the boarding line just in time for the girl at the counter to announce the flight is cancelled!
    
Now I'm running to the rescheduling desk so I can beat the others. I've beaten all but two to the line. I'm 10th in line. An hour and a half later I'm 2nd in line. 30 minutes later I'm being helped. They tell me I've already been re booked and I could have scanned my ticket over there. On a little unmarked machine. I ask for an earlier flight and explain that we are in a military situation now. They put me on an earlier flight.

Now who's going to watch my kids until I get there. I line up a friend. Then call a few hotels. It takes 3 calls but I've got a room.
    
Four hours later I got to my hotel room after trying in the freezing cold to catch the shuttle or a taxi or anything else with wheels. I got to my room a little 2 am. The room was very cold. I
ended up switching rooms at 3 am. My new room was also ice cold. I ended up sleeping in my hat, gloves, scarf, socks and all the blankets and sheets from both of the beds. It eventually warmed up. (I realized only later I left my hat in my hotel room. So bummed I've had it since 1996.)
    
I was suppose to get out in an early flight 8:35 am. So, I got up ate some breakfast and caught the shuttle back to the airport. This time I do not have to run and fight for a spot on the shuttle. Of course that flight gets cancelled. Now, I have several hours to shop at the airport. I finally got on the next flight to Vegas. My kids were only without parent 20 hours.

MIlitary move #7 (in under 10yrs)

I feel like I have been such a slacker on my blog this summer, but I have an awesome excuse.  We moved AGAIN.  We knew for about 9 months that we were moving to Vegas, but it didn't make it any easier for some reason.  We were once again stuck trying to stage and sell a house.  (no, it didn't sell)  Stuck leasing a house.  Selling our stuff, trying to find a place to live, screening elementary schools, collecting all of our medical records, finding new Dr.s, making sure we had all of our important stuff with us, booking hotels in five different cities on the 2,000 mile drive, living in two different hotels for a week and a half with kids until we could move into our rental, unpacking our stuff, writing down everything that was broken (a lot, worst move we've had), realizing that we have rented to small of a house and what are we going to do with the drinking glasses that we have no where to put, finding friends for the kids........