Dear AF: All I Want for Christmas

Dear AF,

I've tried like crazy to think of things I "want" for Christmas this year. I'm at a serious loss for material things to want for, however, and this is where you come in.

You are moving us 18 hours away from our families 2 weeks before Christmas this year. Due to the fact that this timing is separating my husband and I for months while I finish my degree, and the fact that he will be gone from ou rnew base for several months for TDY, we have to live on base. You said you wouldn't put us on the housing list until we had his orders. We got those two weeks ago, called, and you said you wouldn't put us on the list officially until we literally got in the car and left our current state.

You said the house we're supposed to have is on a 2 year wait, so we agreed that the converted JNCO housing would be just fine for us. You said the wait for that would be 0-90 days. USAA said we can't get renters insurance the things we have to bring in our car with us without having an address to where we're going. Which you said we won't have for awhile.

So, all this aside, all I really want for Christmas is a place to live. I will only be with him for a couple days after that and then I have to come back here. Please don't make my husband and I spend our first Christmas as a married couple in a hotel.

Please.

Love,
Meg

A Plan for PCS

We FINALLY have a date. That's right! B's birthday was on Tuesday, and on Sunday he said all he wanted for his birthday was his date. It came on Monday! Ha! We are happy that, after 8 months of waiting, we know when we are leaving...not so happy that it's not until December. It also happens to be the weekend before my finals, so I'm working with my professors to be able to take them a week early--so far, so good.

The breakdown goes a little like this. We are going to the base first. We will be gone well before Christmas. But, with it being this close to the holidays, B's dad--who was originally going to go with us--can't join us to help us move. So, right now we're looking at possibly using ABF U-Pack services, which is similar to PODS, that we pack it up and they ship. Honestly, it would probably end up being cheaper than renting a Uhaul anyway.

I don't know how long I will be at the base with B, as it depends on how long my job will give me as a leave for it. I hope it's until December 27th-ish, but it could be 7-10 days. If they refuse to give me at least 7 days off for this, I'll most likely quit. It's not worth it.

"But wait, you're moving, what do you care about your job?"

Gee, excellent question.

I have to come back. I have student teaching starting the first week in January. Which, honestly, isn't that horrible because B will be gone to training schools for 5 of the following 8 months anyway so we still wouldn't be together. In fact, I will actually be staying here until late August of next year because I see no point in sitting at the base alone while he is gone when it's unnecessary. But that also means my husband will miss my graduation and our one year wedding anniversary :( Comprende? I hope so, because this paragraph was even confusing to me.

Over the summer I'll still be working on stuff in Wyoming from here--putting in resumes and hopefully doing some phone interviews. I may be in WY earlier in August or late July should I get a job that requires it.

So...that's the low down!

Tomorrow morning we are heading off to the lake for the weekend with these little cuties...


...and we even rented a pontoon boat for Saturday with a slide, so hopefully Brady will like it and it will be worth the $$$. Sunday it's back to our boring no-slide boat, though :)

A PCS full of PDQ's

I suddenly realize I have no idea what PDQ stands for. Why does that knowledge not come to me?? But I meant it to say "lotso questions" so...we'll just pretend that's what it means. Mmkay? Mmkay.

But I actually could use some advice and answers from some of you lovely military wife bloggers.



This is our first PCS. We're headed to the other side of the country sometime this fall (waiting on date orders, supposedly they will arrive by the 2nd week in August at the latest). We had decided to do our own move instead of using the military movers, even if that does mean we have to pack our own crap. We have heard far too many horror stories about bad moving experiences and we trust ourselves more. Or, we prefer to blame ourselves instead of other people. Whichever.

So here are my questions:

Uhaul or Penske?
Where can we weigh the vehicle before/after packing?
If we do two partial moves instead of one full move, will AF pay to transport 2 vehicles (truck & car) each time?
If we decide to tow a vehicle the second time on a trailer, is it part of the after loading weigh or before loading weigh?
How long is it typically before the reimbursement will get to us from the AF?

I'm positive there were more questions than what I have listed here, but I can't for the life of me think of them right now.

Help please???

Commissioning Ceremony

B's commissioning ceremony was perfect. My honey is officially a second lt in the air force! I'm not going to post too many pictures for privacy's sake, but there were a couple important ones that I wanted to share.

This one got me, and created a wave of tears down our aisle of B's family. He asked his dad to give him his first salute.





B's dad is a really good guy. I got really lucky with my in-laws. If I could pick another set of parents, it would be them.

And then we took a picture by the flags. We're such tourists.



Lastly, we left. After the ceremony, they lined up all the ROTC non-commissioned students on the walk way, forcing them to salute to all of the passing NEW 2nd Lt's. It was quite the ego boost.



All in all, it was a great ceremony!

Commissioning: What to Wear?

I'm roping you all in for help on this! On Sunday, the hubs is commissioning! It's really exciting for him, and I'm excited for him as well!

However, he knows what to wear ;) I don't. I asked one of our friends fiance what she was planning on wearing, and I quote "I went last year and most of the girlfriends had cute little sundresses on." This doesn't suprise me, because it's going to be in the 90's on Sunday (and raining, but we're pretending like that's not happening). So I went with this idea...and hope that the regulations for wife and girlfriend aren't different.

I actually planned on wearing a dress I already owned. But, apparently, "B has an air force event" really means "Via needs a new dress" to me...because I went to Kohl's for some shorts yesterday and after multiple hours, three cities, and two states I came home with two dresses and no shorts. And I might still end up wearing the one I already owned.

And now I can't decide which one to wear....which one do YOU think?

1.


2.


3.

Tuesday Tribute: Memorial Day Edition

Two great charities have come to my attention this week as Memorial Day was creeping around the corner, and I decided that would be perfect for a Tuesday Tribute...on Memorial Day...on a Monday.. ;)

The first is an organization called Fisher House.



Fisher House was created in 1990 to help military families in need. Because many military members must travel great distances for specialized medical care, these houses were created to keep their families close. These homes (45 currently) are built on many major medical military bases(18) and VA medical centers (15)both here and abroad. The goal of Fisher House is to keep families together during the incredibly stressful time of injury recovery, and the family never pays to stay. Each house has 8 to 21 suites and can accomodate 16 to 42 family members.

Since 1990, Fisher House has served more than 130,000 families for over 3 MILLION days and has saved families over $150 MILLION in lodging and transporation costs. They have provided 19,000 air tickets to family members and almost $7.5 MILLION in scholarships to military children. It's definitely a charity worth standing behind. Even Obama agrees--he donated $250,000 of his Nobel Peace Prize earnings to this fabulous organization!



The second charity that I just came to know about today is a charity called the Wounded Warrior Project.



WWP is a much smaller scale charity, but is fabulous in it's own right as it is just growing. The mission of WWP is to "honor and empower wounded warriors." They offer physical and mental help to those who are wounded and their families, and dispense backpacks with some essentials bedside to those wounded. These backpacks contain such things as clothing, toiletries, calling cards, and playing cards. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this charity grows!



Hope you take a moment of your day today to remember the heroic men and women who gave their lives for us, and to take a look at these great groups who are working to help the heroes who made it home.

A Little (Heated) Plea

Dear AF,

I love you. Don't get me wrong. But I have a favor to ask.

I want heat.

I know you are thinking "We don't control the weather." And usually you would be right, but this time you are wrong. You do, indeed, control the weather.

See, you gave us a list of bases and told us to rank our top six. We ranked them all on the East coast and southern California. You laughed in our faces and stuck us in the middle of nowhere west. We were shocked, but we accepted it.

Then you said that we would know in December when we were to report to the mountainous terrain, and we didn't. Then you said we would know in January, and we didn't. Then you said we would know in February, and we...well, that's not over yet. But we've accepted it.

But don't get me wrong, I'm not asking you to speed up the process or to change your minds and throw us in SoCal (...unless of course you feel so compelled, in which case we would not be sad). I'm just begging for some warmth before we disappear into the coldness.

We need one week. One week between commission and reporting to the base. Just one. Two, if you really feel like you owe us and want to be generous. But just one week and B and I will take off to the south and enjoy the weather (that you would be granting us, of course) in Mexico, or the Bahamas, or St Lucia...anywhere with sun and sand and a coast, really.

B and I hate cold. We hate snow. We hate winter. It's a fact.

So please, grant us some warmth. Just this once.

Like this:


Or this:


Thanks for your help,
Meg

P.S. If this is undoable, could I get a monkey instead?