Tag Archives: military

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So.

I’m kinda sorta in a HUGE funk right now. And I can’t shake it.

I don’t want to do anything, housework, cooking, leaving my house, I just want to stay home in my cocoon and be pissed off.

So to ensure that I actually get out of the house as well as hopefully get me in a better frame of mind, I have been scheduling the shit out of myself. PTA, fundraisers, Humane Society, dog sitting, Family Readiness Group, training, lunches, playdates, coffee, football. Anything so that I am not sitting at home thinking about how much longer I am going to be alone.

This sucks.

This wasn’t in my plan for Hawaii. We were going to explore the island together. I had so many more spots that I wanted to go to as a family and as a couple. We never made it to a luau and I won’t go to one without him now because that is something I want to do together.

I haven’t snorkeled since he left. That was our thing, man. Something that he found out he totally loved to do and something we loved to do together.

I was chatting with him tonight and mentioned how much they had done and he said something along the lines of it hardly matters. Which I understand. I mean what we still have left is more than a normal deployment, we have MONTHS to go before we even have a normal deployment left!

And I am angry. And sad. I feel cheated out of my time with my husband. Time that we were supposed to have together as a family. Part of it is the lack of warning or warm up time, it was so, so sudden. Part of it is the shear LENGTH! I don’t know how Army and Navy IA do this crap for a year. Over and over again.

I am just looking toward this sea of months left and thinking about everything that he is going to miss, and then he’ll be home and we’ll have to re-integrate which always sucks because he’ll feel like so much has changed since he was gone. And it will have changed, we’ll be different, the house will be different. And it’ll take time for us to get to the new normal after being separated for so long. I don’t want to deal with all that! We were in such an awesome space together as a couple and a family before he left.

Anyways. That is my vent. It’s not a unique one I know but this deployment has been particularly sucktastic.

So, pray for peace in the Middle East and all that, I want my man home.

End rant.

It’s my Blogoversary!

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So an entire year of nonsense. Who would have thought? Honestly, I have NEVER been one who has been able to keep up a diary or journal – and Lord knows I am not a writer – so I am pretty proud of the fact that 180-some posts later I am still enjoying this.

I am only kicking myself for not starting sooner. I’ve been reading blogs for years and was very intimidated. Finally decided to jump right in and I am so happy I have. I hope that people reading get a peek at our life and maybe learn a little about living in Spain or Hawaii.

So onto our day today!

Veteran’s Day so the kids were out of school. Once again I am sitting there wracking my brain trying to find something fun to do.  I have to try and force my children out of the house or else we will never go anywhere, become hermits and I’ll never shave my legs again.

So google, various military wives forums and bingo, out to MCBH to hit up their Tiki Island. I love this side of the island, it is just so beautiful and EVERY time I come out of the tunnel I just can’t believe I get to live here!

Started off with a little mini golf. Omar had never played before, and it was only a tiny bit frustrating to try and get him to hold the dang club the right way! There weren’t too many people there so it was great.

 

 

 

 

Here is Omar after hitting his hole in one. Guess he caught on pretty quickly, he was the only one to get one!

 

After a round of mini golf we hit up the bumper boats. Oh. My. Goodness. I don’t know when I last laughed that hard.

 

 

 

 

The boats have squirt guns on them. We were soaked.

 

 

 

 

Mckenna. Soaked.

Omar. Soaked.

 

Adios Tiki Island! If you go do boats first so you can dry off during golf!

After that I drove around the base a bit, ending up driving up this hill? Not sure if it was legal or whatever, but there were no signs and no one stopped us. And the view was spectacular!

 

We ended up having a great day (after a mandatory commissary run that was painless! A miracle!).

On to a busy week, thankfully it’s a short one!

 

 

 

So sometimes we sneak into pools…

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Okay, this was an honest mistake. Mostly.

See we knew there was this awesome pool on Fort Shafter, sand in the bottom, great splash area, beautiful views of Pearl Harbor and the ocean..

I assumed that is was the same deal as the pools on the other bases, like Hickam and Pearl and Tripler. They are there for all military to use.

So we get there and there is a sign in book and a sign that says something about a pool pass. Uh-oh. But instead of turning around I act like we belong there, sign illegibly in the book and grab a chaise lounge. It probably helped that it was late in the day and the lifeguards were bored.

I guess the pool is only for the residents of the Island Palm Housing, which totally sucks because we aren’t going to be able to go again and my kids LOVED IT.

Look mom! Sand. IN THE POOL!

 

Seriously, this is a genius concept. It’s like the beach but with clean, chlorinated water. Heaven.

The sandy beach side of the pool is shallow and great for little kids (and big kids, Mckenna loved it).

 

There is this rock wall divider that separates the sandy, shallow part from the non-sandy deeper part.

 

 

It really was a great pool and I’m bummed because we probably won’t be able to sneak in again and it’s the ONLY pool that Omar actually asks to go to. And yes we are spoiled by a ridiculous amount of pools (and beaches!) but dang it! This one was awesome!

So, yeah, this happened…

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I finally went to the doctor today to get my finger looked at. It was the same finger that I had jammed in our last game and I kept telling myself that I just needed to give it time to heal. Well it just wasn’t feeling any better, it was still swollen and every time I tried to straighten it or hit it on something it still hurt like hell.

So off to get it checked, got some x-rays taken, doc tells me that it’s fractured for sure, there is a chip somewhere. So just great. I have never broken anything in my life, but I guess a finger isn’t a bad bone to break! So all was fine up until I got turned over to a corpsman to have it splinted. He made sure that finger got as straight as possible. I. Almost. Died. And I have a pretty high pain tolerance. So now I’m all wrapped up for a few weeks, hopefully my finger is normal after this.

I will say, I never realized how much you use your ring finger until every time I try to use it, it hurts! I can’t put my hair up, type, wash dishes, open jars! It’s terrible! My husband told me I should send his ship a red cross message so he can come home and help me! I can’t do anything, I am broken!

Living in Hawaii {4 Month Update}

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We have officially hit four months of living in Hawaii.

And I am in love with this state.

Hawaii can be a difficult place to live. It is so very different than living on the mainland. It can be hard to not have every store and restaurant you are used to having around the corner. (No Olive Garden, Michael’s or Chik-fil-a!) Living here means that you are living far from family, at least a 5 hour plane ride away. It can be expensive, housing is expensive, food is expensive, we are on an island so you will pay more for everything. We are lucky to be able to shop at the commissary and exchange which offer a huge savings over shopping on the local economy.

But with all that it is still magical to live here. I will be driving and then all of a sudden see a gorgeous rainbow, a vibrant green volcanic range, or a stunning sunset over the beach.

We did come here with a bit of an advantage. After living in Spain for four years we learned to live without many of the American conveniences that people complain about not having here. Plus we’ve been living far from family. So when we moved from Rota to Pearl Harbor it was awesome for us! We had Target and Starbucks and T-mobile…

It is like most places for me, it depends on what you make of it. If you spend your time here complaining about how much you hate it, you’ll end up hating it.

We’ve had a great time getting out and exploring the island, learning about the culture and customs and eating!

Don’t get me wrong it’s far from perfect here, the DMV is a nightmare, the traffic is the worst, and the bugs are out of control. There are shady parts of the island, it sucks being 6 hours behind all my friends and family on the east coast (especially when your husband deploys!)

I have found some fun friends by stepping outside my comfort zone and playing football, volunteering with the PTA and getting together a FRG for the Paul Hamilton.

The only thing that would make it better would be if my husband were still here to explore the island with me!

Happy Halloween!

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We had a GREAT Halloween this year… It was Omar’s first Halloween in America. Wait I lied, he did have one before when he was a month old.  We did celebrate in Spain on base but it was not quite the same. So this year he was SUPER excited.  He dressed as Darth Vader and then decided the mask was too annoying to wear the entire night but at least I got a picture with it on.

Mckenna was a dark fairy. This is our homemade costume this year, I had a lot of fun making it and she loved it.

I also tried my best with her makeup. I am NOT artistic or good with makeup but she thought it looked great and that’s all that matters!

Although I did it a few hours prior and it did get smudged and had to be fixed before we headed out.

Me, I was pretty boring this year and did a cop out with a witch had and some awesome feathery eyelashes…

And then was irritated because the breeze kept blowing my hat the whole time we were out, AND I carried a light saber that SOMEONE just couldn’t carry.

I can’t post the aftermath sorting of candy because Omar stripped as soon as we walked in the door and sorted in his underwear. Sounds about right.

Also? People are getting WAY too stingy with the chocolate. Keep your Laffy Taffy and Twizzlers, mama wants Snickers and Reese’s!

Oh I had to go snooping for pictures from Halloween past. I can’t believe how much my babies have grown over the past few years!