Three day weekends...

Well today is the first day of our first 3 day weekend. What do you do with a husband that only has to work four days a week? Well you put him to work of course. You make a huge list of all the things that have to be done on that one day. Thankfully I have plenty to keep him busy. I mean I wouldnt want him to get bored or anything. lol So today we are off to play catch up. I will get my official TX tags for the Sub and maybe even my very own TX drivers License!!! I'm so excited! I've never had a TX one before, but have always wanted one. It really makes it feel official, I'm really a Texan now... And speaking of being a Texan... I have news on that front to. At Tarleton State University they are called the Texans and as of Jan 19th I will be one of them. Thats right I'm going to a real University! I'm so excited about it, actually I'm not the only one... Ben's pretty excited to (partially because he will also be a student for the next 6 months at work) but mostly because I will be the first person in my family to get a degree. We decided that the older the kids get the more we need to be a two income family and we are blessed with the fact that the Navy is footing the whole bill. Thats right, something great is coming out of Ben's 12 years of service to the US Navy... a free degree for me! Thank you Post 9-11 gi bill!!!!!! I am planning to major in communications and minor in finance. I'm not really sure what kinda job that means I'm gonna look for after I graduate, actually at this point I'm just thinking about getting thru 4 years of school. Its been a long time and since I didnt technically finish school, I have a lot of catching up to do. But we are very excited about it and I'm very excited to have such a great support system. I'm a pretty blessed girl...

"Hey, lets let someone else move in our house!"

Okay so this ones gonna be a rant... So sit down, hold on tight and prepare for maybe some bad language. About four months ago Ben and I had an Epiphany. Since we cant sell the house, lets just rent it out. We'll find some super nice people and let them live in our beautiful home for a monthly payment, that I'm sure will always be on time (if not early) each month. Lets post an ad, meet with them and maybe even become friendly with them before they move in just to get to know them. Check, check and check... So month one arrives and hey, something funny happened at the bank and the direct deposit didnt go through. Well thats weird, but she's gonna wire us the money ASAP (one week later and 200.00 dollars short) and everything will be fine next month. She'll even change banks if she has too. Month two rolls around and wouldnt you know it, rent doesnt show up again. You know rent, plus the 200.00 dollars that she owes us from last month... Okay, well just send me a check. waiting....waiting....waiting... NOTHING. Then out of the blue one day 1200.00 shows up in my bank account. Then a couple of nights later (like 10) she shows up at Ben's house with 800.00 cash...and assures us that this will NEVER happen again. October 1st rolls around and thats right you guessed it, NO RENT!!! Only now we are waiting for her rent to pay our rent and things are starting to get ugly. I have to call the property manager and actually ask her to hold the check that I wrote her so that it doesnt BOUNCE!!!! UMMM Can you say embarrassing... Finally we get a hold of her "husband" (we're still not really sure about that) and he wires us 1500.00 dollars. Great, thats only 300.00 short of what rent is... I guess in their little world you just pay what you can and assume the universe will take care of the rest. So the decision is made that these people have got to get the H**L out of our house. Not to mention that we cant sell it with them in there. Oh and lets talk about selling it for just a second. They also told us that they wanted to buy our house and we went thru a entire month long process with them to close on the house, which they backed out of at the very last minute... So on Oct 15th we told them they had 2 weeks to find somewhere else to live and that we would be putting the house one the market. Meaning that they would be moved out by the 31st. Well the 31st came and went and they were still in there. Ben and I get a phone call yesterday ( the 1st) telling us that they house they were supposed to move into was suddenly bought over night, with cash, oh my!!!! And now they have no where to move :-(

So not my prob. So Ben spent the better part of yesterday watching them get all their shit stuff out of the house until 1am. Well all of their stuff except for the HUGE pile of trash in our garage and when I say huge, I mean taking up a whole parking spot huge and the broken furniture off our lawn!!!! But this is actually a good thing, well sorta...

They are gone and out of my house and it can now be placed on the market will we will NEVER EVER EVER rent out again...

Its a whole new world...

Ok so this post will most likely be premature. But I felt the need to say a few things about the fact that in just a few short hours my husband will no longer be active duty in the Navy and I will no longer be a submariner's wife. This change, as with all changes, will come at a cost. There have been many many many times over the past 10+ years that I have wished that we never had to have anything to do with the Navy again. A fact that ALL of my military wife friends can agree with. Being a military wife is HARD to say the least. We are the moms, the dads, the taxis, the bookkeepers, the maids, the chefs and the cheerleaders for our husbands. Some days it just comes naturally and when someone says " I just dont know how you do it." You smile and say " You just do." Luckily for those people that is usually a good day. Most of the world doesnt see the bad days. The days that you spend most of the day crying and telling your kids you just dont feel like coloring today. The days that you serve cereal for dinner because you just cant bring yourself to make a full dinner when the only other person that would eat it is gone. Those are the bad days, the days we as military wives try our best to hide and only share with each other.

But each other is what we have. I cant say there has ever been a time in our military life that I havent had a shoulder to cry on. The submarine force has always been like a family for me. Theres the family members that you love and feel like you were truly related to and then the family members that you "avoid" at the family reunions. Ha ha ha Theres the family members that take charge and make sure everyone is doing okay while the guys are gone and then ones that need that extra bit of help getting thru it all. But in the end the only word that comes to mind about my fellow submarine wives is... family. A family I now feel like I am losing. I have so much respect for all the wives of the guys that are "career" guys. They will do 20 years doing things everyday that women in the outside world would never understand. I'm proud to say that I was part of that. That I was strong enough... To all of my friends out there that are still doing the Navy thing, I love you, I'll miss you and just always remember.... YOUR DOING A GREAT JOB!

A Texas pumpkin patch

So every year we take the kids to a pumpkin patch. There has never been a year that we missed and even though Ben isnt here with us, I decided to hitch up my big girl panties and take the kids myself. Wow... I so should have rethought this idea. Not that we didnt have a good time. We had a great time! Despite the fact that there was NO pumpkin patch! Thats right there was only a big barn with a bunch of pumpkin sitting in rows. But thats not even the worst of it. After driving for about 45 minutes we were greeted at the gate by a nice lady (with a cash register) informing me that it would be $9.00 for me and $8.00 for each of the kids to get into the "pumpkin patch". Well we were there and its not like I could have looked at the kids and said something along the lines of "Sorry y'all, but mom isnt paying this outrageous fee just so y'all can roll around in some hay." Nope I gave the girl the money (after asking if they had a military discount, which they didnt. But the nice lady did say "But we sure do appreciate y'all" to make her me feel better) We went in and I paid yet another 18.00 for pumpkins for the kids to paint and 10.00 for a pumpkin to carve. So all in all it was a very expensive day...

That being said it also ended up being a great day for pictures. I got some really beautiful shots of the kids that day.

A castle of cardboard...

So we have been living in a much smaller house then we were in before. Which has meant that we have had to leave a lot of our stuff in boxes, Lots of boxes. We currently have one whole bedroom, the office and a storage unit filled to the brim with said boxes. At first I thought it would be no big deal, that in fact it would teach me to live without so much stuff and help us in our attempt to downsize our life. Which is something that we have talked about doing for quite some time now. Dont get me wrong I am still all for downsizing and I still truly believe that we have WAY TO MUCH STUFF. That being said I feel like daily something I need is in one of those boxes. Which I am trying very very hard to not unpack. Some of them just cant be unpacked due to the fact that in our current temp house we have not garage, but some of them we have just decided arent needed right now. But the problem with a box is that although you might not need 95% of whats in there.... that other 5% would really come in handy. So between living without and convincing myself NOT to buy something to replace something I know I already have life has been trying to say the least. I will be happy the day I dont have to see a single cardboard box in my home again. Even more so, I will be extremely happy the day I am no longer in a "temp" house and finally in our home.... So pray for us, keep us in your thoughts or just wish us luck. This to shall pass....

Welcome to Texas Y'all!!!!

Well its final, we are actually living in a house in the little town of Glen Rose, TX. And by we I mean the kids and I, Ben is still living up in WA finishing up his tour in the Navy. We have (officially) 33 days to go until we tell active duty to kiss our good-bye. Ben will continue his military service in the Naval Reserves, which we have heard is quite the cake walk compared to active duty. No more sea tours, no more duty (which we havent done in a while) and no more underways! These are exciting things to even think about... We have found our dream home and cant wait to move into it. Actually we can wait and we will be until December 4th, as this is our closing date. I know what your thinking. Dec 4th!!! But thats so far away... As most of you know we rented out our house in Bremerton. Well it turns out that our renters love our house so much they want to buy it. Thats right, we are currently under contract with them to close on the house on the 15th of October. We are very excited about this and it really feels like a blessing. Then we will be waiting for Ben to leave the Navy on the 30th of October and then start the drive down here. He will be starting his new job on the 9th of November. And since the new job will be giving us such a generous signing bonus we have decided to wait till we get that to use as a down payment on the home we plan to live in for longer then two years our kids will grow up in. Until then we will be living here... 101 Hunter Dr... Our cute little 1300 sq ft home for then next two months. I only mention the size of our "cute" little home because as of friday we will be trying to squeeze 2600 sq ft of stuff into it. Part of me has no idea where we are going to put everything and never wants it to arrive. Then the other part of me just wants to wake up every morning look around and see my stuff again, it feels like its been gone forever. Thankfully Ben will be here to help me out (theres a navy first I'm sure some of my navy wife friends will be jealous of) and we are hoping that everything we dont need will fit into the garage. Its only three bedrooms, so we are trying to introduce the shared room concept to them. I havent decided yet who it will be that shares a room. I tried Carolina and Laney first (sisters sleeping together of course) and that didnt work out well. It actually ended with Carolina crying begging for me to take her out. Soooo then we tried Laney and George and that actually went a bit better. And since somebody will be sharing their room when we more into the new house, now seems like the best time to figure out who the better roommates are. So as of right now we are living with two air mattresses, a futon, a folding card table and $11.80 worth of thrift store household goods. Wish us luck, pray for us and keep us in your thoughts...

I'm about to scream....

Ok heres the deal... I finally got around to editing all my pics and writing my blog and getting ready to post it. Anddddddd then my stupid computer or stupid blogger decided that it wasnt going to upload them. So I have been sitting here for the last 30 minutes trying to get anything... anything to upload to my blog and nothing has worked. So I am going to take little break and come back to it... Maybe I can fix it later. So I just wanted y'all to know that there are pics on the way, today. Just not right now....

Dang it!!!!!!