It's Been Awhile

I decided this year I wasn't going to make any resolutions persay because Lord knows I don't ever stick with them. Instead I was going to try and just stick to a few goals--which is a feat in itself. One of them being keeping up with this blog, which if you have noticed has not been kept up with since October of '07! Holy moly that is a long time ago and my how things have changed since then! Cody and I are still doing the Geo Batch thing (for the non-military people who may read this, that means he is living in Hawaii while the kids' and I are living in CT) and it is definitely taking it's toll on all of us. We are in our third year of living apart with another year and a half to go :-/ I just brought him to the airport today and after him being home for 16 days, let me tell you that is not an easy thing to do. The kids don't usually go with me because they don't like to see my cry all the way home. But we made them this time because I just wanted to come home after, I didn't want to go anywhere else to get them, I just wanted to come home and to our house and be by ourselves. Skyler took it really hard this time, she cried with me, not all the way home, but she did cry. She doesn't understand why we can't go with him. Gage was o.k., but I know it will hit him tonight at bedtime and he will start thinking about his Dad. At this point a lot of you who don't know me, or know our story are probably wondering why we didn't go to Hawaii with him, I mean, after all it is paradise right? Well here is a little background on why I didn't want to go.

Cody had a year left in CA and I decided that the kids and I would move back here to CT to save money so that we could buy a house at our next duty station which was suppose to be in GA (that's right, we were suppose to be in GA right now). One day while I was at Target with Gage looking for pants for him my cell phone rings. It was Cody saying that he found these "great" orders....to Hawaii. Huh? That was NOT the plan. But he needed to know right then whether or not he should take them because they would go fast. I had no time to process anything (remember I was in the middle of Target) and the orders were something that he has wanted to do FOREVER--so really, who was I to tell him no, right? So, in a snap decision, I said yes, take them. OMG--what did I just do?!?!?! I don't want to live in HI! I have heard nothing but horrible things about the school systems, the natives, the prices, everything. (key word being 'heard') Later on that night when I talked to Cody we talked about the orders and what it was he would be doing. At the time it was understood that he wouldn't be home a lot, so why would I want to be somewhere where I didn't know anyone or how to get anywhere (if you have met me you know that I am geographically illiterate--even with a GPS) and my husband was going to be gone all the time? That is when I decided that the kids and I would stay in CT, we would buy a house and that would be that for the next 3years. Well my friends, let me just tell you that is not at all how it is. He is home more often than not (meaning he doesn't go out to sea hardly at all) so we could all be together as a family right now in HI discovering new and exciting things. All the people that he as actually spoken to (key work being 'spoken') about the school systems say that as long as you do your research and get them into the right school then they will be fine. I have heard many, many positive things about the island since he has been on it. Looking back, I thought I was doing what was best for my children, but it turns out what I thought was best for them really isn't. I'm starting to think that if we were together as a family they would do so much better emotionally and academically.

Cody has put in an officer package, so hopefully we will find out in Feb/March if he made it (keeping our fingers crossed that he does) and then in October he will commissioned and we can all be together again. Of course there are a lot of things that have to happen in the meantime, but that is the plan as of right now. I knew when I married him life was never going to be the same again and I knew it was never going to be easy. What I am just now realizing is that we are a Navy family, like it or not. And what that means is that every 2-3years we pick up and relocate to wherever the Navy tells us to go, whether we like it or not. But that no matter where we go, not matter how far away from "home" everything will be will be just fine because we will always have each other. And you ask, it took you 8 years to figure this out--why yes, yes it did. Eight years and A LOT of soul searching to finally realize what is right for me and my family and to finally stop worrying about what everyone else is going to think.

So, on that note, I have lots of research to do and lots of to-do lists to write myself. This journey is not an easy one, but no one ever said it was going to be right?