Lucy

Our new house backs up to what we would call BLM land, here they call it Green Belt, either way it means no one can ever build there.  We did not know this when we bought the house, but had we known it would have been a huge selling point.

Moose are abundant here, they are everywhere, in our back yard and in the green belt live a mom and her baby, Staci named them Lucy and Brownie, they come to visit often so we have a lot of fun watching them from our window or the safety of the deck.

You can see little Brownie in this picture, Lucy was just off to the side and we needed to leave, since they were right by the truck Richard had to carefully walk down and start it in the hope it would scare them off (it worked) so the baby and I could come out of the house.
They are really interesting to watch, one morning we had five total all over our yard, they ate for awhile and then laid down under the trees, they could see me watching them and did not appear at all concerned with me, however I was being careful to stay far away and just watch them.
We also have two squirrels we can watch chase each other from tree to tree, Staci also named them, Bob and Emily, they give us much morning amusement.
A turkey wandered through yesterday, I did not know we had wild turkey here, turns out we don't it was one of the neighbors pets come to visit, I guess that would explain why it walked right up to Richard without any reservations.

Canada

We made it across Canada, it took four days, a pretty major snow storm and $1500 more than we had hoped (still within our Army move budget). 
I have been into Canada twice before but this was a whole new experience, we saw the little out of the way towns that are not tourist attractions, in fact several of them looked like gost towns, fairly deserted, building closed down and boarded up.
It appears the recessions has hurt them as well as us, with gas prices so high (about 7 a gallon there) people are traveling the Alcan/Alaskan Hwy less and less.
Hotels, food, everything is very expensive there, just to take the four of us out for hamburgers one night was 75.  We quickly learned to buy lunch at the grocery store and stop at a park for sandwiches etc. along the way, leaving a better budget for dinner.
Even at the high cost of food, gas and lodging it was a fun trip for us, I am lucky that the kids, Conner included travel well,t he girls read most of the way or we played the who can see what animal first game....I won :)
I suppose they are all memories that I hope the girls will think fondly of when they get older.

No news

We had expected to be out of here by now, we were told we would have orders as early as the end of December but January for sure.  Not only do we not have orders, we have no idea what is going on, it seems the VA does not agree with the Army on something in Richards medical file so there is sits while they say they are figuring it out.  No one will give us any answers, several people have said why are you still here, we are just playing a never ending waiting game.
It is frustrating, Richard cant put in for new jobs because he does not know when we can leave, I am not sure what to plan for the kids school, and we are at risk of loosing our new house since we do not have a for sure date and the sellers are of anxious to be done.
So I am angry and tired and there is no end in sight.

more ups and downs

Life has certainly been up and down the last couple months.  We continue to wait for answers from the VA/Army about retirement, basically all we get is a run around so life is up in the air and I feel like I have no control over it at all.  A feeling I really hate.
Christmas Eve we found out one of my dear friends was diagnosed with lung cancer and given a very short time to live.  Her mom and I were friends in Nevada, turned out in this small world that Steve had known her for years before I met him and since she lived in Colorado we got close while I lived there.  She lives in Grand Junction and helped so much with my kids when they would go visit their Dad, I always felt more comfortable about them going because I knew she was there to help. 
She had some serious feelings for Steve and I hoped they would get together, she cared deeply for my kids and they loved her and they are already part of her family, her mom is "Nanny" to the kids so I thought it would be perfect.  Instead I got a call from her brother telling me she was in the hospital and not expected to live long, my heart just broke, she is a caring, generous person who has been through a lot of heart ache and trials in the last year and I thought she was catching a break instead this....
She is fighting and we have so small glimmers of hope that may give her a little more time, I pray and pray for her but sometimes I wonder is anyone listening.

Things are moving fast

Well finally it looks like we are seeing some progress on Richards retirement, we got the initial paperwork back from Fort Lewis, Richard signed it and now it gets sent back to a rating.  They tell us this can take up to 6 weeks, but some have been coming back in as little as three, what that ends up meaning is we could be done as early as the end on January.  We have stepped up our house hunt and are now actually working with a realtor to have things narrowed down before we get there, with any luck we will only have to stay in a motel for a couple weeks while we look at the houses and determine what we want to do.
I found two perfect houses now, they both had exactly what we are looking for, are in the price we want to spend, but of course we cannot buy one now so I can only hope we will still be able to find what we are looking for once we have an actual move date.

Just to busy

I have not posted in such a long time, because I simply do not have any extra time these days. 
I agreed in June to take on the GM job at the airport while they looked for someone to take over (my plan had been to quit in June and go to school full time) then I agreed to put in for the job after all my employees kept asking me to, I interviewed, cleaned up the station, helped finish an investigation, worked A LOT, finished up my volunteer position with the FRG, spent a week at the hospital with Richard as he had some health issues, my GPA dropped from 3.82 to 3.60 (not good) and I dropped my next set of classes to concentrate on work with the hope that I would soon get a break.  Instead what I got was a phone call telling me they had decided to bring in someone else, I was the second choice and had she not come along it would have been mine, and I was next in line.  And they wanted me to stay on and work on some special projects with her.
After I got over the initial shock and hurt I was semi relieved and again thought now I can quit and take care of some family issues, school etc. but no instead I asked for military FMLA to give me a few months to see if I could come up with some balance before I left for good, but they turned it down since the Army is not (understandably) willing to turn over all over Richards medical records to civilians, so instead I worked a deal where I could work a reduced schedule, train the new girl and have more time to take care of my needs.
The best laid plans seem to rarely work and I am now working everyday, even if I am not supposed to be there I am getting called in for something, the new girl is struggling to catch on, most of my employees have either given notice or are actively looking for new jobs, they are upset and unhappy at work, I am stressed all the time, Richard wants me to quit, I want to as well but at the sametime I am concerned about money and making sure we are pretty much debt free prior to his retirement so it is a hard choice, and evertime I think I have made it I second guess myself, I know I just need to make up my mind and stick with it, but I am not a quiter, I am worried about leaving my employees, I am worried about money, I guess I am just worried about everything all the time...no fun!!!

Could the Army give me a break PLEASE!

In January Richard decided he wanted to retire, after 21 years in the Army he was ready to move on, leave it to a younger generation, settle down and stay in one place I agreed and so we started the process, our plan was to retire in October of 2011 at that point he would have served 22 years.  during the initial process a doctor told Richard he was going to insist he have a med board, based on his medical history, problems developed while in service etc. we were not sure we wanted to do this but after researching decided that yes that would be the best way to go.  We were told this takes 230 days, we would still be close to our goal of Oct. and hoped to leave Fort Riley as early as Aug with leave time etc.
About a week ago (on day 132 of the process) Richard got a call that he was to attend a mandatory briefing about med boards there he was told the Army is stream lining, they are going to combine the process and let the VA handle everything from here on out, so all his appointments now have to be repeated and this process takes 295 days, this was day 1!!!! That puts us into March of next year before we can leave, he will have served 23 years by then, the kids will be 2 months from the end of next years school, I am not thrilled about moving them with only 2 months of school left and once the process is done we will loose our house so staying an extra 2 months in not an option.  I was pretty depressed for a couple days, everything was based on moving this year and because it is the Army I had figured it may be as late as November but never thought it would take until March!  Our plan had been for me to quit working in June or July get ready to move and then go to school full time once we were moved.
After I got over my initial depression of not moving as quick as I wanted I decided to make the best of it, I decided to sign up for some classes here and we went in to see about transfering Richards GI bill over to me, our plan was that would pay for my masters degree.
Well....It seems as now the Army has also changed the rules on that, now if you had served 19 years or less on August 2009 (Richard 20 years was Oct 2009) so he is considered 19, you have to agree to serve one more full year in order to transfer your GI bill, well he can't agree to that because the Army initiated the med board AND he times out at 23 years meaning he would have to promote or get out at 23 years, there is nothing he can do to promote it is all done by needs of the Army at his rank and his MOS is being fased out there are only 230 people in the ENTIRE Army who have made his rank with his MOS so to go above that is next to impossible, and with is medical profile making his non deployable at this time his choices are limited.  Without that money we cannot afford a masters program everything was based on transfering that to me, moving, retiring, and finally getting to decide for oursleves what we were going to do, but it seems now that even with retirement around the corner our choices are not our own.
Richard still has to call the VA see if there are any loop holes so I have not given up completaly and in the meantime I do qualify to take free classes at the university here but I have to take the day classes in the classroom, if I want to get them for free so that will make it a little more challenging with work, however we have determined we will somehow make that work, I hope it does!!!!