For My Fellow Military Wives

I couldn't resist, this made me laugh so hard. My friends complain all the time about their husbands being gone for a day or a week and I just don't know what to say! It doesn't make me mad or anything, but it is kind of funny. Granted we are having an easy year this year. Hubby has only been gone about three months. He leaves again soon for three weeks, but still it could be way worse. Last year he was gone 7.5 months. I literally don't know how some of my friends do it. Their spouses are gone 12 - 14 months at a time.

Related articles

• 6 Things you should NEVER say to a military spouse (mommytravels.net)
• Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Coast Guard and Airmens Club (mommytravels.net)
• Military Lodging at Joint Base Pearl Harbor - Hickam (mommytravels.net)
• Beach Cabins at Bellows AFB (mommytravels.net)

6 Things you should NEVER say to a military spouse

You may have a friend that is married to a person in the military, so here's some things you should never say to a military spouse. I know these all by heart, because people say them to me all the time. Especially #1.

1. You must be great at packing! - Is this an actual compliment? Do you think I take pride in my packing abilities? Do you think I enjoy packing? I have had this said to me in some variation at least 200 times. I will never understand why people say this. I've even had people suggest I become a professional packer or moving consultant. Yes, I went to school and got a degree to become a packer. You complimenting my packing skills does not make me feel better about having to move again.

2. It must be so exciting to see the world! - Yes, that does sound exciting, but my husband has never been stationed outside of the United States. I have however moved all over the country. Mostly to desert like areas, where the air force owns the air spaces and nobody lives. That way no one can complain that the planes are to loud. Instead you should ask me, "Is it fun to live in the middle of nowhere? and "Is it true you get excited if you get to live in a town with a mall?"

3. If mom is happy everyone is happy. - This has been said to me several times by someone close to me. Talk about pressure on one person. Moving is stressful. Getting lost every time you leave the house is frustrating. Your kids reaction to stress is depressing. It is hard to just be happy at moments. Military spouses research their new locations and hit the ground running. I always made it a priority to get me kids some friends as fast as possible. If this meant sitting through mom groups where no one ever spoke to me, then that's what I did.

4. I don't know if I want my kids to make friends with your kids, because you are going to move away. - This is probably one of the statements that cut deepest. I've only had it said to me twice, but it always made me wonder are other people thinking the same thing. Ironically one of those people moved away before we did and they were not military.

5. Your life right now with your husband being deployed is no different then my wife taking care of things while I'm at work.  - Where to even begin on this one. Your at work, my husband is deployed to a hazard zone. I went four days last week not hearing from him once. I went a month straight without one break from all three of my kids at the same time. Last year my husband was gone for 7.5 months. This year we consider ourselves lucky because he will only be gone for 4 months.

6. You choose to live far from your family, we could never do that. - What?! Your right when my husband was 17 years old and got accepted to the Air Force Academy we understood exactly what we were getting into. There are tons of bases in Texas and I really thought we would get stationed at one at some point near our family.  Guess what? That never happened and it never gets easier living no where near family.

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.

Getting to Honduras

     We get up at the ridiculous hour of 3 AM. We hustle to be ready in time for our ride to pick us up. We drive thirty minutes to the Las Vegas airport. I try to curb side check, but apparently you can’t do that anymore for international flights. I take my three kids and go inside to wait in line. We get through security without any issues and on board our first 4.5 hour flight to Miami. My kids are excited to fly, but how long will the excitement last.

     None of the kids can get to sleep on the plane. I’m worried how to keep them entertained when they start a kids movie on the plane, Gulliver’s Travels. Yea! This kills a good two hours.  (Gulliver’s Travels was a good movie and my kids thought it was hilarious.  I thought it was stupid and I can tell why it didn’t do well in the theater.) 

     We get to Miami for our seven hour layer. We go eat at a Mexican food place, Jose Cuervo tequileria.  It looks nice in terminal D, but turns out to be just okay and expensive.  They also did not serve chips and salsa.  I think all Mexican restaurants should serve chips and salsa. 
     Now we have six hours to go. I make the decision to go over to terminal E to the Military Lounge. I’m not sure what to expect.  The last USO place I went to wasn’t that great. I was not sure if it would be open or not and we had to go through security again if we went to it. I am so glad we went. It is a large lounge with two rooms set up for families. Bathrooms, half kitchen, living room, computers, free food, and free wi-fi. We get set up in one of the rooms. It has two futons, blankets, sheets, pillows, tv, and vcr. My kids watch cartoons for a couple of hours and I lay down to rest. Again, no one sleeps, but everyone is at least happy. This is more than I could have hoped for. I assumed the entire day would be a disaster. We leave Miami and head toward Honduras. We are all very excited to see Daddy. We leave late, but at least this is only a 2.5 hour flight and they play tv shows to whole way down.
     We arrive in San Pedro Sula, Honduras at the crappiest airport I have ever seen.  My husband said this airport was way better than the one in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Mom Moment: We don’t spot a bathroom until we are already in the customs line.  I tell the kids to hold it.  Not realizing that we have gotten in the line of the girl who is being trained to process people.  It takes an hour to get through customs. 

     We get our luggage and asked by no less then 15 men if we need help with our bags. We walk through the double doors I have been staring at for an hour and the first person I see is my husband. Sweet, Sweet relief. Relief you can hardly imagine. He has driven 2.5 hours from where he is currently deployed to get us. The kids are positively giddy to see him for the first time in 3 and a half months. We have an intense 30 minute drive to the hotel. The locals drive like crazy people. There appear to be no traffic laws here. We make it to our hotel, the Hilton Princess at 9PM. We’ve made it to Honduras and go to bed.

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.

Military Spouses Scholarship

Operation Homefront and the Saban Family Foundation announce the 2011 Saban Military Wife Educational Scholarship. The scholarship is offered to wives of uniformed service members to attend vocational training programs in the medical field. Applications will be accepted March 1 – May 1, 2011. The scholarships will be awarded to recipients on July 1, 2011. The application is available on the Operation Homefront website.

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........

F-15 C figher jet refueling

     Yesterday, I had a once in a life time chance to watch my husband, Paul, fly. It was truely amazing to watch him fly in the F-15. I rode on a KC 135 which is a tanker aircraft. We took off and watched our husbands fly and refuel. We were also able to watch some of them do BFM (dogfight) but I am not sure who we saw. Here are some of the pictures I got of him while he refueled. I will be posting more pictures and video as soon as I have a chance.