Cliffhanger...

So I kind of thought that by letting y'all know in my last post that there were developments in our possible move that you'd be relieved that I am, in fact, able to talk about it casually without having a panic attack. Instead, I was surprised to find out that you weren't happy that I "left you hanging" and didn't update you yesterday. Ha! Sorry!

Anyway, a little back story. We are stationed here, and D is currently at the very end of a year long school/qualifying course for his new job. When we moved here and bought our house everyone who has ever and will ever do this job was always stationed here, so we thought we were safe in locking ourselves into a tiny 30-year mortgage. Ha! Almost immediately after starting this course, back in March, D was told that they were expanding the branch and that BNs were being started at a few other posts. The original BN is still located here, along with one additional one. Two others are not located here. Great.

We started out just hoping that we'd be able to stay here. As time went on, it started to look more and more like not only were the chances of us staying here growing slimmer by the day, but that we may not want to go to one of the two units here, based on D's career aspirations, thus cutting our chances of staying here even more. So this scenario is not just the Army saying, "Ha! You bought a house? Don't you know the first rule of the Army?" We brought part of this stress on ourselves, but I'm sure that many of you have been in a similar scenario before. We can suck it up and D could possibly go to the unit he doesn't want to go to, but then we'd be miserable for the next several years and his performance may suffer, along with possibly having a negative affect on the next stage of his career. Sometimes the decisions that we make are stress-inducing now, but will pay off later, and this, for us, is one of those decisions.

Jump forward to a few weeks ago. We found out that there are now only the three options, two here and one somewhere else. Well, that meant for us, two options, thus a 50-50 chance we'll stay, versus move. If you've never been in this situation, let me tell you, having a completely split outcome is not an ideal place to be. I was struggling with it because I wasn't letting myself prepare for either option. If I know that the odds are 60-40, and may change, I can at least tell myself that we'll probably be somewhere else next. Even knowing that the final outcome can (and probably will) change, I can at least start thinking about the next stage.

So when D came home on Friday night and told me that he was informed that they're not keeping anyone of his rank here and we're more than likely moving sometime in early summer, I was actually relieved, rather than freaked out. Just knowing that we're more likely going to one over the other was a weight lifted off my shoulders.

We still haven't decided what we're going to do with the house. We would like to be done with it and not have to worry about renting it out. We're afraid that since we've only been here for a year that we won't be able to get an offer high enough to cover everything and we'll have to pay. That is what we don't want. We are willing to walk away from this house, but we don't want to have to pay to sell it. Our realtor seems to think that renting might be our best option for a few years, but we haven't made any decisions yet. We did discuss what our financial preparations need to be in order to proceed with either option. So we're on the same page, but as of right now, we are pretty confident in knowing that we're moving, we know where we'll be moving to, but we don't know what we're going to do with the house.

That is the whole, long, fairly vague (sorry about that, can't release any specific details), story.

How Do You Move?

So the second I find out we *might* be getting new orders and therefore, could possibly be moving, I hop online and start looking at homes for rent in the new area.

I know I'm not the only one who does this.

I'm not talking about the whole, "we got our new orders and our report date is in a month" looking that most people do. I'm talking about the "we heard a rumor that we could possibly be PCSing in 6 months, so I'm going to 'get an idea' of what is available and what area of town we want to live in" looking.

What can I say? I'm a planner, and since the Army typically doesn't allow for much advanced planning, I just like to cover my ass bases. For me, this is becoming as familiar with a new area as one possibly can be using only Google street view and AHRN.com.

Its not like I physically inquire about any of the properties that catch my eye or anything. I am fully aware that most likely the houses that I like now will not be available when we finally move, I just like to start getting acquainted with my new "neighborhood" in advance. I know some people, (ahem, my husband) prefer to not "stress" over it until things are for sure. (Yes, "stress" was the word he used, and no, I was not stressing about anything, thankyouverymuch.)

I like to think that since I'm a professional PCSer, having moved 5 times so far, my system works fairly well. I mean, we only ended up in the ghetto one time. 1/5=80% success rate!

So what about you? Are you a go-getter or do you prefer to wait until the hard-copy of your orders are in hand to start your search?

Pictures of the House!

So I promised you all that I would have the house photos done and share them with you after the week long saga that was the appetizer recipe contest. I am holding myself to my promise and you have to wait no more!

Here are some pictures of the house that we took this weekend when D's family was in town helping us get moved in. They drove a u-haul down here with lots of furniture for some of the extra rooms in our house. I can't tell you how grateful I am that my Father-in-law is an interior designer. I would seriously be lost without him! It not that I don't have my opinions and my own taste, but its more like he tells us how to arrange our furniture and helps us to decide where our art and wall hangings should go. It just makes our stuff look so much nicer!

Anyways, these pictures were taken mostly before all that happened, meaning things are in random places, there's a lot of crap laying around and not very much stuff hanging on the walls. Basically, I'm going to take more pictures and post them again once we finish some rooms.

The front of the house!

The back of the house!

View looking in from front door. We now have a mirror hanging above the cabinet.

The family room with me sitting in it. This couch is recovered with a muted zebra fabric and will eventually be in the living room (or maybe our sitting room in the master bedroom) when we get our new sectional!

The fireplace in the family room.

AJ's room.

Opposite view of AJ's room.

Kitchen and breakfast area. Through the archway is the dining room.

A shot of the dining room from the living room.

The living room from the front hallway.

A closet in a spare bedroom.

D's office.

Master bathroom.

Sitting room in the master bedroom. Bathroom is to the right.

Master bedroom.

Backyard.

My office from the living room.

Guest room bath.

Guest room.

Guest room.

The First Part....

So I have been promising pictures for, oh, I don't know....ever?! Well, I'm going to start at the beginning of this "move" which takes us allllll the way back to the middle of December. Remember that?

This post is just the pictures from the beginning of the move. Then I'll get to AJ's baptism, followed by Christmas at the in-laws and then our Florida pictures. After all those pictures are uploaded and you all ooh and ahh over them, THEN I'll post pictures of the new house! No, I'm not trying to torture you all, its just that we still don't have our stuff (grrr) and I figure that by the time I get all those other pictures up we should have it and I should have all the pictures on my camera uploaded to my computer!

Soo, hang tight and for the time being, enjoy looking at all the fun (and also somewhat boring) things we did over the past month!

AJ checking out the snow at the old house.

No doubt she was trying to figure out where all our stuff went!

There's nothing fun to do in here anymore, Mom! I want your iPhone!

"Helping" Dad drive the car at a gas station!

"Driving" is so tiring you could end up drooling like this cute baby. ;)

Hallelujah and Thank You Jesus!

We have Internet again!!

That's right folks, I'm blogging from my computer and not my phone! I can't even begin to explain how wonderful it is!

A quick update on all our scheduled activities for the day.....

1. As I said last night, our household goods didn't come today. Boo. The good (?) news is, our move manager called this evening and asked how the receipt of our goods went. I was like, wha? We didn't get our stuff today. She seemed genuinely surprised (and really pissed) about this and I'm pretty sure that she called several people after that and bitched them out for dropping the ball. Hopefully we get our things tomorrow. The snow has basically stopped (we did end up getting a significant accumulation) but we're supposed to get some freezing rain tonight which could make the roads treacherous tomorrow.

2. Cable guy showed up and informed me that he couldn't set everything up without the TV. Went out to the van to reschedule us with his supervisor, then came back to the door and said that he was actually going to set it up for us and come back once we get our TVs to finish the installation. Weird, but okay.

3. Internet guy came a little later and we are all wired for the Interwebz! Woo hoo!

4. D drove all around the county this morning and got the water, energy and garbage all set up for us, so we're totally good now!

I'm not gonna lie people, I'm kind of almost glad that the movers weren't here today while all this was going on. It would have been a total clusterf*ck trying to keep AJ and everyone else out of each other's way. As it is, I'm feeling optimistic about getting our stuff tomorrow and if all else fails, at least we have the Internet to watch Netflix and TV shows on!

As soon as I find my camera cable, pictures will be posted, I promise!

No ID Card For You!

Since we moved here 6 months ago my friend Meghan and I have been talking about going to get new military ID cards. Its recommended (but not required) that you update your ID card when your spouse makes the rank that ours are. We've literally been talking about doing this since the first week we were here.

Well, last week we decided to make appointments and go do it. You know, as sort of a last hoorah! Ha. We had plans to go to lunch afterwards.

After making my appointment I made sure to get my Power of Attorney (POA) out of the filing cabinet because I would need it to get a new ID card issued. If the military member is there, then you don't need it, but we didn't want the husbands tagging along on our girls afternoon out, so yeah, you get the picture.

Well, I stuck the POA on the front of the fridge and then didn't think about it again until this morning. When I realized that it was no longer on the fridge. I was secretly hoping that D had moved it from the fridge and stuck it in the portable file box we carry our important papers in when we move.

After frantically searching through each and every paper in the box, I did not find the POA. I knew that they wouldn't let me get a new ID without it, but I went and tried anyway. I mean, I had an appointment! As you can probably guess by the title of this post, I did not get a new ID card, but my friend Meghan did!

So, the moral of the story folks, is that you should never try to do anything extra the week you move. Just stick to moving, its stressful enough.

If You Love Barry Manilow, You're Going To LOVE Insane Clown Posse!

What do you do when you officially have no furniture in your house and the baby goes to bed at 6:30 pm?

You watch stand up comedy, of course!

We're currently watching Zach Galifianakis (the weird guy from The Hangover) and he is so funny! (The title of this post is a line from the show we're watching right now.)

via

I have always been a fan of stand-up comedy and I am really enjoying the time we've spent sitting around watching funny, funny people the past few nights.

I have been working on my cross-stitch stocking that I'm making for AJ and just laughing. I'm looking forward to ordering Chinese food and spending some more QT with D tomorrow night. Even though moving is pretty stressful, its helpful to relax and decompress by laughing together.

via

We always order Chinese food the first and last night we're in a house. Its kind of a tradition we have.

What are some of your moving traditions?

Mish Mash

This past week has been kind of crazy (to say the least). I mentioned a few days ago that the movers came and went. We also had D's graduation and the graduation reception for the course he just finished.

Here are a few pictures from all the festivities.

D's BFF, right after he realized that his name tape broke...

The whole group that is heading to our next duty station.

N was presented with this "doo rag" because at one point during the 6-month long class he wondered out loud if he could get a wave in his hair.

These two boys love each other too much sometimes. :)

As their other (better?) halves, at least we get along!

A quick prom pose.

D, right after graduating from his course!

Posing with the graduate!

All four of us after graduation.

Our backyard this morning!

WE'RE DONE!

The movers are done that is!

This was officially the fastest pack/load we've ever had. And can I say Hallelujah to that?!?

Packers showed up at 0930 yesterday and left around 1700.

The loaders were here bright and early this morning (read: 0745) and were driving away with all of our HHG (household goods for all you civilians out there) at 1145! WAHOO!

I'm sitting here on our couch with my feet propped on the ottoman waiting for 1430 to roll around so I can leave to make it to D's graduation on time! AJ and the dog are both napping and life is good!

Wait.

You thought I said that all of our stuff was gone, right? Well, I think I mentioned before that my little (24 year old) brother moved about 2 hours away from us right? Since this is his first apartment he is going to be inheriting our couch, loveseat, and ottoman when we leave and we're getting new ones at our next duty station.

Considering the fact that we have to hang around this hell hole place for another 5 days our plan to have the brother get the couches early next week could not have worked out any better. We have somewhere to sit for the next 5 days!

After our last move I could not be happier with the way things went over the past 2 days. To give you an idea of how bad that move was, I'll attempt to explain what happened when the moving truck finally pulled up to our house (14 days after we got here).

Side door of the truck opens.

Driver pulls several random objects off the top and starts holding things up in the air asking, "Is this yours?"

One of the things he held up was a pillow.

I'm not kidding.

It wasn't our pillow. Thank the sweet baby Jesus.

If you've never had the military move you before (or just professionals in general) then let me explain a little something real quick. When you move the packers and loaders (usually two separate crews) go through everything you own and tag it with little numbered tags. The tags are a specific color and they write down what each and every item is on an inventory as they go through.

There is no reason that the driver should ever pull something off the truck and ask if its yours. He should know that your shipment is everything with the yellow tags (or blue, or green, or whatever) and as the crew brings the boxes and furniture into your house, they call out the number on the tag. 47! 189! 2! etc. As you hear the numbers, you quickly scan the 8 (or more) sheets of inventory and check off the number.

At the end, you should know exactly what you're missing.

Needless to say, we had a few missing items last time, not to mention a few broken items. Couple that with the fact that it took 14 days for the truck to arrive after we got here, and well, you could imagine that I was less than pleased. We didn't get here super fast or anything. We had a 3 month old baby at the time.

Anyway, there's your little lesson on how to move when you hire a professional moving company. I consider myself to be somewhat of an expert considering that this is the fourth time we're moving in three years (fifth if you count when I moved from Hometown, USA to GA to join D at BOLC).

Alright folks, I'm signing off for now. I'm going to relax for an hour until our neighbor gets here to watch AJ for the graduation.

Following Up....

I've noticed that a lot of bloggers are struggling lately with motivation and I think that its just that time of the year when life gets crazy and blogging takes a back seat. I think this is especially true with commenting on other's blogs as well.

The reason I bring this up is because I don't know if you remember a few weeks ago when I told you all that to celebrate reaching 100 followers I was going to collect your favorite recipes and randomly choose a few to make a celebratory dinner. Well, due to lack of comments, I'm going to have to postpone for a while.

I only got 2 comments and that was going to be a pretty interesting dinner of 7 Layer Bars and Cheese and Chocolate Tunnel Cake (although a whole dinner of just desserts is my type of dinner, I don't think the hubs would go for it. He's so responsible sometimes....).

So anyway, I'm going to continue racking my brain for something exciting to blog about so that I don't bore you all to tears any longer and hopefully I'll be back very soon with something interesting to say!

Oh, also, bear with me if this week is slow on my blog, we have a formal tonight (I'll post pictures) and then the movers come tomorrow and Thursday.

I'm excited to get all dressed up for the ball tonight, even though I'm wearing a dress from my closet. I knew that we had the reception coming up, but I hadn't gotten any information from D before we went back to Hometown, USA for Thanksgiving. When we got back here he handed me the invitation. If he had let me know a few days earlier I could have looked for something new while we were in civilization. I think that he purposely held out on me so that we wouldn't have to spend money on a new dress. Grrrr.

Oh, also, I mentioned the other day that I was pretty sure he scheduled the movers the same day as his graduation so that I wouldn't be able to attend. Well folks, I got confirmation of this last night. I swear, he's lucky I'm so madly in love with him.

Anyway, I should have plenty of time to blog after the movers are done, since we won't have any furniture or tvs and the internet will be our only means of entertainment for a few days.

So, look for some new stuff soon!

Who's Ready for a Vacation?

I know I am!

D and I were talking yesterday about something and I mentioned that we're going on vacation in 3 weeks. After saying it out loud I almost had a break down because I couldn't believe that it was still that far off.

Seriously. Could we fast forward through this move and go right to vacation?

Oh, I forgot to mention, we're moving next week.

D graduates from the school he's in next week, the same day the movers are coming. I'm pretty sure he planned it that way so AJ and I wouldn't go to graduation. At least I am able to go to the reception on Tuesday. One of our good friends here is going to watch AJ for us.

I'm excited about getting dressed up and going out, but kind of bummed that since we live in the depths of hell middle of nowhere the reception is being held at the Officer's Club and not somewhere else that could possibly be fun/cool.

Have I mentioned that I'm glad we're moving?

I'm not excited to move, but I am looking forward to being done with this whole moving every 6-10 months thing we've been doing the past 3 years. Ugh.

In other moving news, things with the house are going just swimmingly. So well, in fact, that I'm allowing myself to get excited about it. I know, I'm weird. The thing is, I've gotten excited about enough stuff that was hardly even remotely related to the Army and had my soul crushed over and over again. Now when something good looks like it may happen, I have to remain uninterested and stone cold in order to not have my hopes and dreams dashed again.

I know that all you MilSpouses know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, the move update is this:

We took everything off the walls yesterday. I bought Mr. Clean Magic Erasers at Lowe's (after 5 moves, these have really proven to be one of the most valuable tools you can own). We made a list of things that we should put in the car.

This move is infinitely more complicated than the past moves for a number of reasons. They are:

1. We're buying a house.

2. We're leaving here mid-December and not moving into our house until mid-January.

3. We're spending half the time in Hometown, USA (cold climate) and half the time in FL.

4. We have to pack accordingly for the climate in each place while still keeping what we bring in the car with us to a minimum.

Okay, I know there are more reasons, but I am getting a little overwhelmed thinking about them all right now. So, if we could just fast forward a few weeks and get to my vacation, that would be great!

Oh, sorry for being MIA and then posting a big, long, complainer post.

Home Sweet Home....

Well, we're back from our whirlwind house-hunting-Thanksgiving extravaganza! Its really nice to be back home but I have so much stuff to do over the next few days that I want to just head back to Hometown, USA and lay around!

Seriously. The laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning, etc. has really piled up over the past week. I realized this morning though, while menu planning and writing my grocery list that we have less than three weeks left in this house. Ack!

The movers are coming December 8th to start packing our stuff up. I knew that it would come really fast after Thanksgiving, but I wasn't expecting it to come this fast! I feel like there's too much to do and not enough time to get it all done! Oh, did I mention that we got the house? We're currently under contract and choosing carpet, tile and hardwood colors for the house! Things are moving fast, but we're very excited to finally be in our own place and have room to spread out.

I'm going to really make an attempt to get back into the blogging groove now that we're back! I didn't have my computer at my parent's house so it was hard to blog while we were gone. So anyway, I know I keep saying it, but I really am back!

A Few Randoms....

I don't have anything to write a whole post about, so you're going to get a little random list of things that are on my mind. Enjoy!

• Each time I think that AJ has settled into a sleep routine she mixes things up and wakes up a whole bunch during the night. I don't get it! I haven't done anything differently in her bedtime routine, so what gives baby?
• I have a few trips planned in the next month and I feel like they've been on the books forever, but they're finally in sight! The first is to my college town to reunite with my six (6!) roommates from college and the second is to San Antonio for the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon. I'm super excited about both!
• I'm super scatterbrained and just realized that we never got our security deposit back from our townhouse in Washington. I emailed our landlord yesterday and they didn't have our forwarding address, so the check got mailed out yesterday! (Um, hello Beth, that's quite a bit of money that you forgot about....Mommy brain, anyone?)
• The dog is currently laying on the ottoman and just started sliding off...Hilarious.
• Christmas is just around the corner, which means that Thanksgiving is even closer. Both of these facts mean that we're super close to rejoining civilization, moving, and spending time in Florida! Can't wait!
• We're officially cloth diapering full time and its going pretty well. We've had a few leaky diapers (mostly in the morning when she sleeps the whole night) and I'm still getting used to using the diaper sprayer without drenching my whole bathroom, but we're getting there. I'm happy with the way things have been going so far. Its almost at the point when it doesn't feel any different from using disposables now.
  
• Running has been going well this week. One of my IRL friends (oh how well she knows me) suggested on here that I just let it go, not feel guilty about it and start fresh this week. Well, I've run 9+ miles already this week, today is my rest day and I have cross training tomorrow and a long run Saturday. Excited to bust my butt the next month and be ready for the race!

Anyways, that is where I'm at right now. Hopefully you enjoyed this little random glimpse into what my life is looking like right now. AJ just woke up from her nap, so I'm off to get her!

House-Hunting....Online?

We are at sort of a crossroads in military life. We just moved here to FLW and we already know when and where our next PCS will be. I'm pretty sure this is the first time in the history of the Army that this has happened to someone. ;) D is only here to attend a 6 month long course, we we will be moving on most likely before 2010 is over. Yep. We're moving twice in 7 months with a baby. Sounds fun, huh?

Well, I think it will be fun! Our next post is more than likely going to be our "home" for the rest of D's time in the Army. We have lots of friends who are stationed there or will be stationed there about the time we get there. We can settle in and raise our family there. We can move there and probably never have to move again with the Army (there might be one more move in there, but we'll always end up back at the "home" base).

We decided to buy a house there.

Eeeek! D and I have been grateful renters for our entire married life, me for several years before that as well. I love renting. If something goes wrong, you call maintenance and they come fix it for you. For free. You don't have to deal with broken AC units or plumbing problems. You don't pay property taxes of HOA fees. All that will be thrown out the window when we buy a house!

Even though I'm silently freaking out about this change, I am also really, really excited about it. I feel like we're ready for it and we will finally be able to make changes to suit our tastes. We will be able to paint the walls, put up a fence, or plant a garden and we know we will be around to tend to it next year.

We have moved 4 times since D commissioned in May 2007. Yep. That is 4 times in 3 years. We're not talking about cross-town moves here, either. We are awesome at packing up all our worldly belongings, driving across the country, baby and dog in tow and sleeping in hotels for weeks on end. I am also excellent at looking at rental houses online and finding our newest temporary lodging home from more than 2,000 miles away.

This time its a little different. We are looking at houses to purchase online. Obviously I will make a trip to our new base before we buy a house, but the bulk of our house hunting is being done on a MacBook from more than 1,000 miles away. It just seems different from all the rental searches I've done in the past. I feel like I should be there looking at these places instead of sitting on my sofa. In due time, I guess.

Looking at houses online can be tough. You are dependent on the pictures that are provided to you. There is always a lot more to the house than you can see in pictures. I think that freaks me out a little bit. In the past the mindset has been, well, if we hate it, we only have to live there for a year. When purchasing a home though, the mindset is there that, if we hate it, we have to still continue to pay the mortgage for another 29 years! Yes, we can change things, but that costs money! What if the neighborhood looks great at first viewing, but once we move in we realize that everyone who lives there are actually swingers?! Okay, so that is unlikely, but you get my point.

What are your thoughts on this? Any other milspouses (or civilians) "house-shopped" online before physically viewing them?

The Move From Hell

I'm sure some of you are wondering how the move is coming along. Well....let's just say that this move has officially been dubbed "the move from hell." The moving company that moved us is by far the worst we have ever worked with. We're talking, people not returning phone calls, and worse.

Our household goods arrived on Tuesday (YAY) at around 4 in the afternoon. Seriously. The truck pulled up at 4:00 pm. The driver and one other guy unloaded everything and started putting some of our furniture together and finally left at 10:00 pm. Nothing had been unpacked because they told us that they were just movers, not an unpacking team. They also informed us that they had been sitting in the office since 8:00 that morning waiting to get dispatched to bring us our stuff. WHAT?!?

So anyway, we're happy to have our stuff and call our move manager the next morning (Wednesday) to see about have an unpacking team come to the house. She didn't answer and still has not called us back. D called the local JPPSO office Wednesday about mid-day and the manager there told us that if we hadn't heard from her by yesterday at noon to let him know. Well, we let him know. We also let him know that we were going to unpack and that someone needed to come get all the garbage when we finished.

We are still unpacking, the completion date for the contract has come and gone and this is what our house looks like now:

AJ's room. Yes, that is the crib leaning against the wall, unassembled.

Living room.

Bedroom.

Kitchen.

I'm a little annoyed, to say the least.

Day 1 Completed

I meant to get on last night and let you all know that I started my exercise regime yesterday. I went to the gym here on post and plodded ran on the treadmill. I ran about 2.5 miles. It wasn't pretty. I walked some (I didn't count the walking in my mileage, in case you were wondering). I just had to keep reminding myself that if I keep it up, it will get easier. I also weighed myself, which I think was probably the scariest and ugliest part of the trip. Ugh.

Today is day 2, so by default, it shouldn't be quite as bad as day 1, right?!

On a side note. The movers still aren't here. We were assured that they would be here today and that they would call us in the morning to let us know when to expect them. Well, the clock is ticking and the morning is slowly slipping away. Its 1028. I'm guessing that we would be wise to not expect them today. GRR. I was really hoping to have furniture and not have to sleep on an air mattress for another night. We have officially been "camping" in our own house for 7 nights. I just don't understand what could be taking them so long to get here. You had better believe that when the survey comes and its time for us to rate these people they should run and hide. I'm not going to sugar coat it.

The same exact thing happened to us this move with the packers. The company said that based on our inventory, our house would take 2 days to pack. We told them that we didn't have 2 days, so they said that the packers would be allowed to take overtime that day to get it all finished. Well, the packers took advantage of that and literally took 4 hours to pack one room in our house. It wasn't even the kitchen. Needless to say, when the manager stopped by that afternoon to check on progress, he wasn't happy and yanked their overtime. The company sent out a crew of packers along with the loaders to finish the job the next day. Seriously though, I think the packers thought that they would milk the whole overtime thing and slack off. So annoying.

Now the movers know that they have until the 17th as the last possible day to deliver our HHG without penalty. I'm thinking that they're just taking advantage of this as well. Sure, if something happened along the way that held them up or whatever, I understand. That is why they add the cushion in the delivery guarantee. However, we have called them numerous times, both the driver and the dispatchers and never got in touch with them nor did they ever call back. That is completely unacceptable, and unprofessional and you had better bet the Army will hear about it from me.

Ok. Rant over. Have a happy Tuesday everyone!

Thank Goodness for Internet!

We finally have Internet and cable in our house. This means I can do everything so much easier! The only downside is that we still do not have our household goods, which means we have no furniture, pots, pans, dishes, linens, clothes, etc. other than the stuff we brought with us in the car. Our TVs are part of that shipment. We will just have to download shows on iTunes and watch them on the computer for a little while longer. We're hoping our stuff will be here Monday.

So you're probably wondering what the first thing and Internet addict like me did when we finally got back online. D, AJ and I hopped in the car and went to the farmer's market! Seriously. We got a bunch of great produce and some bread as well. Before you go getting all excited, just envision a park with 2 tents housing some Amish people selling tomatoes, zuchini, homemade bread, and blueberries. That is where we went. They also had some homemade laundry detergent which I might be adventurous next time and buy.

This afternoon will be spend installing the new Apple AirPort Extreme wireless router that we bought last night at the PX. We are so excited to finally have a Mac compatible router! I know, some of you are thinking, "all routers work with Macs." Yes, they do. They don't work well with Macs. The router we had typically required a whole day of phone calls and tech support from India just to establish a shoddy wireless connection to my Mac. D has a PC, and the Internet is always fabulous for him.

We did some research and found this router. In the description and the reviews it says that this is the best wireless router for mixed Mac/PC households, which we continue to be for the time being. Once I finally lure D to the dark side (a.k.a. get him a Mac) the router will still be just as easy to use! Hooray for simplicity!

Blogging From My iPhone

We're in our new house! Unfortunately, we have no furniture and certainly no Internet connection. It is starting to look like we'll have Internet before furniture. The cable company is coming out tomorrow to set everything up and we still have no word from (and can't get ahold of) our movers. GRR!

Seriously. I could understand if we got here super fast or there were other shipments on our truck, but neither of those thongs happened. We have a 3 month old baby, we took a LONG time to drive the 2,700 miles. D also informed me yesterday that we are the only shipment on the truck. He was able to get ahold of someone in WA yesterday who told him that the truck was scheduled to be in Idaho last night. Is the truck actually a covered wagon?!? How does it take 6 days to drive from Washington to Idaho? It didn't even take us 6 days to do the entire trip!

Needless to say, I was starting to get a little bored (and broke) so I decided that I needed to find a way to distract myself. Hence, I downloaded the blogwriter app for my phone so I could update y'all on our fiasco. Oops, I meant, our "move."

On a positive note, I met and had lunch with a friend that I had only previoulsy known online! We had a great time and I forsee many more get-togethers in our future here!

That is all for now!

Moving Update

We're officially on our way to our new duty station. We finished up with the movers yesterday and turned in our house keys and garage door openers this morning. After that we hit the road! We're done with the first leg of our drive and settled into our hotel.

We ended up staying the night in a hotel last night since we had no furniture at our house. It was kind of sentimental because it was the same hotel we stayed in a year ago when we first got to Washington. Last year we got in on 4th of July and we spent the night watching the fireworks and drinking beer on the roof! This year I have a 3 month old baby and fell into bed, exhausted! LOL Oh, how the times have changed.

AJ has been pretty good so far considering the fact that her schedule it totally off. She really only cried the last hour of the drive today, which for an 8 hour day is not bad. The scenery was beautiful, so I enjoyed the drive as well.

I'm hoping that tomorrow will be a little more eventful. We don't have as far to drive so we should be a bit more relaxed than we were today. We were really just trying to get as far out of town as we could today. I will make sure to do a full account of the trip (hopefully with lots of pictures) once we get settled in at our new house.

Still Alive...

Barely.

Got food poisoning on the way home from the wedding. Spent most of Sunday afternoon/evening sick (and on an airplane, with a baby...fun, fun).

Today was D's promotion to Captain. I've been crazy busy and will continue to be that way until we get to our new duty station next week. I'm not sure if I will have time to blog between now and then, but I hope to be on a few times. Hopefully I'll be able to post from our hotels along the way and possibly upload pictures from the wedding and the promotion tomorrow!

Packers come tomorrow and movers will be here Thursday! Eek!