Making the Big Decision to move to Germany!

This is a big one for our family. It hasn't really been a secret that my husband hasn't been happy with the brigade he is in here at Fort Bragg. Since he finished Airborne school and got settled he has been even more unhappy with it, so since we've been here he's been plotting his way to get out of here. When we found out he would have to be here at least 2 years it kinda made life settle down a bit. Since his unit here is now disbanded and he's been dealing with a new brigade it's caused him to want to leave even more. So because his re-enlistment window opened and we are now expecting a baby I told him to do what he needs to do.

We were offered Germany and Alaska straight off the bat! I always knew I'd say yes to Alaska... but Germany? What a big opportunity... and a really scary one! I'm so close to my family, and the goal was to move closer to them... and Germany definitely isn't closer! After a few debates and a few discussions with a friend who's currently living there, we had decided to go for it, but when he went to tell them yes, Germany was off the table. He was disappointed and I even was a little bit. But I knew that P had more goals for his career and even though Germany is an amazing opportunity, there's not much excelling he really can do there... at least what he wants to do.

P decided he wanted to put in for it anyways and see if it got him anywhere, and if it didn't he would finish his Airborne contract (3 years) here at Bragg. Seemed reasonable to me, no moving after having a baby? Awesome! So that happened on a Monday, and I went about my week like normal... I was pretty confident that he wouldn't get it. I got a phone call on Thursday from P and this is how it went;

Me: Hello?
P: Hey! Guess what!!
Me: *thinking he's deploying*... great what now?
P: We are moving to Germany!
Me:....are you freaking kidding me?
P: Nope! I report in May!
Me: Oh shit.
P: You excited?
Me: Give me a few hours. I love you, congrats!
P: Love you too, thanks!

Yepp... I wanted to pass out. It took me a few hours to really process this. I have been excited to move again, but moving to another country? This is a whole new ballgame! I am obviously more excited now then I was for those few moments. I am ridiculously scared of being very far away from family and then something happening to someone. When we first got to Fort Bragg my little sister had 2 emergency surgeries, more crap went on with my little brother and my Grandpa's Alzheimer's got worse. I planned a trip home almost right after getting here, and if you followed my blog, I spent the whole summer in Utah, which was ok since P had trainings to go to anyways! So I'm a little hesitant to move, but knowing how excited my parents are to go to Europe is exciting me! I won't be the one not seeing family for 3 years and they have assured me, which makes me feel like 100x's better!

Its weird though.. I have babies and within months of them being born, I move. Evelyn moved twice in her first year of life! And now this baby will be born here in NC and then 4 months later we will be homeless visiting family and then off to Germany. I am however very happy that P is here and can make this move easy with two kids.

So now that I am excited I have been trying to learn all I can about where I am heading too... for one thing Germany is about $0.24 more expensive per USD, and it seems like you pay for almost everything... bathrooms, grocery carts, letting your kids play in the play area... I mean that's just a little much! But it's an experience, and I have yet to hear one person say they hated Germany... most tell me how much they miss it. So I'm embracing it. I know it will be hard to be far away... but I know that this is one of those once in a lifetime opportunities for us.

March? July? Next year?

I've talked a few times about P re-enlisting this upcoming year. His window is open and he has been just waiting for the 1st SGT...or someone, to transfer out the unit so he can re-enlist and get orders to somewhere else. This person is leaving the unit this month so P said he was going to try this month, even though he is obligated to this unit until July 20th of this year. Then last night, P says what if I wait until next year?....WHAT?!

Seriously you guys. I dont know how many times I can say "P hates it here and can't wait to leave" and then for him to say "What if we wait until next year"...just seriously babe. No.

I feel like I should almost take control of this situation. I wasn't planning on him doing anything until July, just incase someone decided to cancel his orders or whatever...I don't know the whole deal. But then he tells me March...ok then March, whatever...Next year? umm no.

I dont feel like listening to him whine for another year about how bad it sucks here.

Ugh men. He needs to just make up his mind.

But good news for us though, is P got permission to wear his old unit's crest on his Dress Blues, from Fort Riley, which means wecan have the chance to go back to Fort Riley, which we wouldn't really mind. Or go to Hawaii! Bonus on both parts but I think we like the chances that we could possibly go to Hawaii one day :) All part of the adventure!

2013 the year of the Unknown

Usually I go into a New Year with lots of expectations. Especially since I got married I could predict how the year would go and usually thats how it went. 1st year we got married we got married the day before NYE so no surprise I would be moving and get a job in a different state. 2nd year, P was deployed, I moved home and I was pregnant, so I knew I'd be having a baby and moving back to Kansas when he got home. 3rd year we knew we were moving to NC and I had huge plans to go to DisneyWorld and DC, Fort Bragg was going to be amazing (yeah right). This is the 4th year and all I see is a giant black hole.

We have no idea whats going to happen this year, and its always given me bad anxiety. I'd love to say that 2013 will bring us to a new move, hopefully to Fort Carson, that it will bring me weightloss so I can get pregnant towards the end of the year, and it will bring us more money to the bank account. But lets face it...P doesn't know what he wants to do, which means I have no way to plan for what he wants to do. I am trying to lose weight for my health and have failed consistantly. We can only save money when we really really try to cut back, which we've done better at, but could still do better.

I'm currently standing in front of a big black hole. What will this year bring us? Hopefully at least my weightloss and us being better with spending and saving. But thats about all I see...and I barelly see it.

I guess thats another thing that comes with being an adult...you cant always plan everything.

Why we can't wait to leave Ft Bragg..

I really thought I would never say that.

Before we got here...before we even knew we were moving here, I wanted to come here. This was my dream duty station. I have always wanted to come to the Carolinas, and see this beautiful place. To live here would be a dream.

I really do like living here. I enjoy being near the coast, all the trees and the beautiful sunsets.

However, this post has seemed to have its major downsides.

Now I am not speaking for everyone, or even this whole post. Fort Bragg might be the place for certain people. I honestly sometimes wonder if Fort Riley just spoiled us...but that being said, P and I cannot wait to get the eff out of here.

I used to hate when P would say "I cant wait to move!!" But no, I get it now.

P is constantly working late...and I mean late hours. Sometimes he leaves at 5 AM and wont be home til 7PM and then he'll come home and tell me he was so busy he didnt even get to eat all day. Seriously who does that? Maybe its in his control, I do not know I am not at work with him, all I know is he is sick of it.

I am getting sick of it too. He comes home, late or not, and his phone goes off constantly, he goes to bed at 8 or 9 and at least 4 times a week someone calls at 10 to change something else. Its getting rather ridiculious.

I understand that this is his job, and I "signed up for this too", but really? some days he gets zero time with Evelyn. I don't care if you say "the army comes before families", this is bullshit. I can handle getting only a few hours a day with him. I can text him and interact with him some how. Evelyn, gets that 1 or 2 hours a day with him and its not fair.

I've mentioned before that I am not 100% sure if P is reenlisting or if he is going to get out. We still have 6 months to decide. But we do know if he is able to get out of Fort Bragg...we are going to do it. Hopefully get stationed somewhere closer to home. Until then...I guess we just got to buck up and deal with this type of work he is doing. But I honestly cannot wait for it to be over.


BTW...dont give me comments about how "at least he is home"..."my husbands deployed be glad yours is"...I've done deployments..I know the difference. My thoughts dont change.

Fort Bragg or Bust!

Here we go!! Off to Fort Bragg, NC! We'll be arriving there on the 13th!! Got a few stops along the way to make. St. Louis! Charlotte, WV and then Bragg!!
Hopefully I will be back to blogging soon until then you can keep up with me on my twitter account (@optimisticarmyw) or if you'd like email me or comment below and I will add you on FB!

She's all ready to go!!

Hitting the Fan

So this is the last week before moving, and we have barelly anything to do since we are doing a Army Move. I have noticed more and more how OCD I am with it though, I hate that in 4 days we are out of the house and only our nessesitys are packed. Its driving me bonkers! Yes, I said bonkers.

Thankfully though we havent had to do anything since Evelyn has gotten super sick! I mean like flu sick. She has been throwing up since last night, and thankfully we now have food in her belly that she's keeping down for now. Just 3oz of formula for right now until we're positive she can keep her food down. She hates her pedialyte and doesnt like water too much. So we've just been trying our hardest to keep her hydrated.

The husband is also very conviced we should do everything later on. The movers arrive tomorrow to pack our things and he wants to lay on the couch because he thinks he was up with a baby throwing up on him, so he didnt get any sleep. Evelyn slept with us so she did take alot of the bed but we needed to watch her. But no it was me getting thrown up on, taking multipul showers to wash it out of my hair (I miss ponytails!) and me feeding her and checking on her. I swear this man is about to drive me mad with this move and his need to have a nap everyday...end rant.

I am also frustrated with Picerne. I love them! I am so glad their inspection is not a white glove inspection of the house, but I am a little pissed. They informed us that we cannot have ANY trash in the trash can when we leave. Trash gets picked up on Monday and we leave Friday! No one is moving in on Monday for sure! So I dont understand why they wont let us throw trash out. Its so stupid! We now have to drive to a dumpster to dump our trash. I love moving!! its so much flippin fun!!

Last Girls Day

I had my last offical Girls Day on Sunday with my girlfriends. We drove to Topeka and went shopping and had some yummy Red Lobster. All of us girls have this special bond, and its hard to imagine us not being a few minutes away from eachother.

I never realized how much I would miss these girls until Sunday. We will probably never be at the same Duty Station again. 1 friend is pregnant and I wont be seeing her baby.

I know that this is a life we have to live, but it doesnt make it any less suckier!

I dont have pictures of Girls Day, my camera is kinda a pain to drag around. BUT I DID find my camera, you know the one my husband lost at the Military Ball! After the fact of course! Heres my girlfriends!! I am really going to miss you girls!!

(Sara's Husband, Sara, Me, Hubs)

(Cassie and Me)

A Downer.

So since we now are in the offical moving to NC in less then a month stage, I have really REALLY started to miss home. I think we all know as MilSpouses that one of the things that sucks is living away from family...ok usually!

I do love having my own life, and not having the option to run home when things get rough. It makes mine and Hubs relationship alot stronger to be away from everyone.

I do however hate not being in my nephews lives. I miss those boys soo much! I hate that I can't be "cool aunt liz" all the time. I have been trying to find ways to make myself and the Hubs and Evelyn more apart of their lives. Ashton is almost 2 and isnt very interested in seeing me on Skype, he just loves to point to Evelyn and say "baby!" (too cute!). Mackey lives with his Mom so I almost never get to skype with him, but he is 9 and he's at that super fun age, plus Mac acts like he is 12! So he is a blast!

I guess one thing that super sucks is they will no longer be that long, boring, flat 16 hour drive away anymore. They will now be more the 33 hours away from me. Evelyn wont have her cousins in her life very much, and her uncles wont be either...and thats a hard thing to accept since I grew up with my cousins and my Aunts and Uncles. I loved it!

I'm super excited about us moving to NC, and I cannot wait for this adventure...but it does have its downs. We were hoping to get stationed closer to Utah so we could see family more often.

My optimistic side in me says it will be great and I will see my family for longer periods of time when I go home, plus who knows where the next duty station will be! It could always be worse, we could be moving to Germany or Italy, but we're staying on the Mainland and thats still closer the most familys in the Military have it. So I should be grateful about this. Hopefully when I got home for my month and a half in August I can enjoy a ton of family time and Evelyn and eat it all up!! More reason to save our money so we can go home more often!

BTW heres my cute awesome nephews!

30 Day Notice.

So on Friday I turned in our 30 day notice to the housing office! Its really happening, its really going on. Its strange.

I am so glad that everything at Fort Bragg is going to be set up for us when we get there as far as housing goes! Because I cant imagine trying to find a house right now!

We are doing an Army move, but thinking maybe a partial. We have to drive both cars to Bragg so we want to fill up my Edge to the exteme with things we will need before transportation brings our things. Such as pots and pans! and dishes! Plus all the crap you need for a baby! I dont know much about any of this crap! I have our final appointment with Transporation on the 22nd and then we'll be able to find out more.

This is the Hubs and Mines first PCS so we're fuzzy on details, and we've got a million friends telling us a million different things! all I know for sure is I am going to feed my movers! It shocked me when I read a blog that said some people dont feed them or give them even water! RUDE! I dont want my stuff to get broken, so I will be feeding them and giving them water.

Other then turning in our 30 day notice, I had no idea that I might be paying out of pocket for our clean up! Even if we clean up. What the hell was the money I gave to to move in for then?

The Hubs and I have started planning our road trip to Bragg...we thought we wanted to do a longer trip since its a long drive and alot of places to see, but we know that one day we will have to move back to the West  Coast one day, and so we've decided just to do our trip in 3 days and spend the rest of the month that he has off, getting our home together and getting to know the area. We have a friend in the Marine Corps thats stationed in North Carolina and we are planning on picking him up for a weekend and going to the beach.

Its amazing how fast this snuck up on us! Its also really sad that we're the first one of our friends to leave, and I've never had a friend PCS...so its a really big sucker for our family. We have such great friends! It will be sad to leave, but hopefully I can find friends fast! Especially friends that want to go to The Hunger Games movie with me! Dying to go much?

Offical

(question at end of post)
Hubs got a call from Fort Bragg Picerne saying we have a house!! We are living on post since he has 2 different trainings to do when he gets to Bragg, such as Airborne training and ALC, So I will be home alone alot and as excited as we were looking at homes to rent off post, the worse I felt about how I know I'd feel being in an area alone.
If you'd like to know where we applied to live in Bragg just ask and I'll let you know.

The house we're going to live in is a single home, which is great! I am excited to have a home with no one I dont know 10 feet away. Our housing also goes off rank, unlike what it does here, so Hubs can make friends his rank. Our neighbors are all PVT's and he is an SSG so it doesnt work too good.

Anyways! I am still freaking out about the move but that made me really happy and excited that we could get the house we want and it will be waiting for us!

Can anyone give me advice on how everything will work when the Army moves us? I've never PCS'ed before and neither has my husband. Anyone got tips for us?

Anxious.

So I have mentioned before that we're PCS'ing to Fort Bragg, North Carolina in March...looking like March 10th. I have been wanting to go to North Carolina for a long time! I have been excited about moving...BUT the last few days I have felt my anxiety level rise.

I guess mostly its because I have really good friends here finally! I love my house and I finally feel settled. Now I am about to move for the 4th time in 2 years and I am scared. Yepp scared. My doctor has given me xanax because I do have anxiety at night time especially. But I am now more nervous then ever.

I am sure I am not the only one who is scared to leave behind a good life and start a new life somewhere else. I am ready to leave Kansas behind, but I am not ready to leave my friends.

I am scared that I will get to North Carolina and have no friends. I am not the most open person, and I know how some Army Wives can be. Plus it doesnt help that my husband is a 24 (almost 25) E6 and most E6's are older and so their wives and kids are older. So I have no idea how this is going to work! My husband is NOT one of those guys that only hangs out with his rank dudes. He hangs out with E5's and even one E4 as long as he's not their NCO. But I dont know how this is going to work.

Plus...I have no idea if I should even plan Evelyn a birthday party. :( We are planning on taking her to Disney World which would be a birthday thing...and I will be home in August for a month and we'll be throwing her a party then too. But none for Hubs and I? I am conflicted.

My body is not accepting this very well, I am certain that I am about to loose a ton of weight because I have so much stress and worry going through my body, over something I cannot control.

Speaking of non controlling...I am pretty sure that the Unit my husband is joining is deployed right now, which means no deployment for a while, which I NEED! 2, 12 month deployments in 3 years, ya we need a break! But what if something happens?

Yepp...I am in a sea of "what if's". I am not crazy to be so anxious right??

longer...

Can I just say, no internet and no cable makes me go nuts!!!
It would probably be better with Paul was home, but I literally have nothing to do. Once again I am on my crackberry blogging because I miss it so much.
Luckily I've been able to do so many things to blog about. Even think I have an idea on doing a link-up!
My cupcake kitchen/dinning room is coming along amazing! I am super proud and my husband even likes it!

One thing that's been on my mind a lot is this deployment coming to an end. We are not very far from it. But my husband gave me a detail that he thought I should know...and it's a not a good detail. He also informed me not to talk to my friends about it, since their husbands probably didn't say anything about it to them. I was pretty mad he told me. So not only am I upset about this, but now I can't talk to anyone about it. Well besides my mom.
Also we are getting ready for the Homecoming Ball!! Its December 1st! And my husband has to get his dress blues, which I am sooo excited about!! His Class A's are too small and his rank is much higher so we figured we might as well get him, his new ones. I have never seen him dressed up in person and its the same for him with me. If you didn't know, we didn't have a wedding. So this is perfect for us to get dressed up for eachother. I am so excited!!

My house is coming along so well! I am so happy with it! I am learning how hard it is to get everything done with a baby in tow, but Evelyn is slowly letting up on wanting to be held all the time and I can say I sucessfully cleaned the downstairs...once. Upstairs....ya, not so much.
I cleaned up the mess from the sewage pipe mess, yuck. It was sad to watch all my favorite books go into a trash bag and out to the dumpster. But its done! Nothing I could do to save my books.

Ok everyone...if I can blog better from the crack berry I just might do that, but I really wana show you pictures! Stupid blackberry...its really not that useful. So glad I get a new phone soon! BTW does anyone have phone recommendations? We have Sprint.

I miss reading about you guys! I swear when I get internet I'll try to read everyones posts!

Until then have a good week!!...and a good weekend....and possibly another week.....and maybe another weekend. Damn Allegance.

little longer...

Well everyone....I am at Fort Riley and most of my house is unpacked. Sadly I won't have internet till maybe the 7th..maybe earlier...it really freaking blows!
I've already had a few issues with my house, like let's say clogged drain and sewer water damage to my stuff. Yepp! The guys who unclogged the drain didn't even take my damaged belongings either! Made it my problem. So now I have to buy gloves to take my books and sheets and comforters to a dumpster. Yepp. Freaking gross!!! The only thing I cared about was my 20 books that are ruined. Sheets can be replaced easy! Books I got from family members and from high school...that's what I am so bummed about.
Anyways I hate that my phone won't let me read or comment on blogs. Its awful! I miss reading about you guys!
Let's hope I get internet much sooner!

On My Way...

Today I have left for Kansas...I wont be there till Wednesday and I wont sign my leave for the house until Thursday morning, but I am excited to finally be going...

One step closer to Paul coming home!

Wish me luck with Evelyn :)

I'll write you all as soon as I get internet. Until then you can follow me on Twitter :)

Is It Time Yet?

Since my husband left, and we found out about me being preggo. I couldnt wait for July to get here! July has come and gone and July was exactly what I thought it would be.
August was my month of prepping to go back to Fort Riley. Since the other day when I found out my new address and my move-in date in Fort Riley, time has seriously slowed the hell down!
I'm packing up 3 people and heading to Fort Riley on September 13th. Arrive to Riley on the 14th and sign the papers on the 15th!....but its only the 10th of August and my whole world has slowed down!
This was not suppose to happen. I've been waiting forever to move! Don't get me wrong...I loved working on my family relationships, even though this whole experience of moving home has cause a lot of problems with one of my family members.
I told myself to keep everything organized *CHECK* and make sure that I can fit all of this into one vehicle...hopefully*CHECK*. Those two were super easy long term goals!
I have been downstairs packing up everything I dont use and I am almost done....wow that only took a few hours, even with a baby! BUMMER...less stuff to do.
I now just have the car to take care of and then packing all of the last minute things.

Really...I need more things to do.

BTW this is my house :)

thats my best friends daughter

they went to check the house out for me.

I'm totally stoked...even if it is on post.

P.S heres my cute little one.

I LOVE that binkie!