OMGoodness! So much has happened.

February was a very busy month for us.
We took a well needed and deserved  family vacation down to Orlando in the beginning of February.  We went to Sea World, Disney World, Medieval Times and to Gator Land.  We had a fabulous, fun packed week and happily came home to a Squadron Mardi Gras party and then we moved on base.

TMO came on the 29th of February to pack us all up and on the first of March we moved from Crestview, FL to Eglin AFB in Fort Walton Beach, FL to help down size our over sized bills (thank you influx of 7th Group Special Forces for giving the economy in Crestview a ridiculously huge boost and all that that entails.) and to get closer to the beaches as we suspected this would potentially be our last year in Florida.  Booooo!

If you didn't know it, you do now, we LOVE Florida and would happily stay here but as we suspected we were very right, not exactly how we thought but none the less right.  It was announced to the  public on March 07, 2012 that the 728th would be decommissioning by October 2013. 

Good by Demons, good bye Florida for the majority of the Demon personnel and hello somewhere not nearly as awesomely cool for that same majority.  (I will update you all on this in more depth when we know.)

Most of March was a pretty quiet month after we got the house all in order.

Zack is still in the process of trying to cross train (another when I know, you will know) and we are hopeful he will be approved.  He's never been happy in his current job but as any good provider does, he works with what he's got.


I can't believe how quickly April has come upon us.  Easter is tomorrow.  The girls are super excited and are driving me crazy about dying their eggs.  I've told them not until after dinner this evening after Daddy gets home.

Zack is busy today at Outdoor Rec getting his boaters permit so that we have the ability to rent boats and play out on the water this summer. We are going to try to smash in as much local Florida fun as possible this summer as it may be our last one here.

Time sure does fly.  Wow! Tate will be three on the 16th and Zack will be turning 27 the next day.  I am so unprepared for their birthdays.  It feels like they crept up on me.

On another note, yesterday I finally got in to see the doctor about my crap, crunchy, painful knee.  I apparently have Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome.  It is fairly common with active individuals, though unknown what causes it, and it is treatable without surgery.  (I guess all of my running was good and bad for me.)

Yay! No surgery but sucks that I will have to do some painful Physical Therapy to retrain the muscles around my Patella in order to get it back on track, yes, my patella is riding and grinding out of its groove on bone causing inflammation and pain and it was the doctor who said that the PT was going to hurt.  he prescribed me some anti-inflammatory painkillers that I can take on those PT days, I was also instructed to ice my knee in the evenings and to follow a certain stretching routine along with learning to run in the barefoot method.  Something I will have to do some research on.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter.

Wow!

So a lot has happened since I last blogged....the most exciting thing to happen was Zack's return mid January.  We didn't do much for the first two weeks with him home, just lazed about the house and got back into the family grove.

We took a well deserved family vacation to Orlando the first week in February.  We hit up SeaWorld, which was AWESOME, more so than even SeaWorld in San Diego.  That was day one.

Animal Kingdom was next and honestly a HUGE let down.  I think we would have enjoyed a real zoo more.  So much walking, so few animals in regards to park size and little much else to entertain the girls, so we went to Epcot before ending our night well with dinner theater at Medieval Times.

It was a neat show about knights, and yes, on REAL horses.  It was really fun, the food yummy, and the overall experience one we would do again.

Epcot is definitely a neat Disney park, mostly because of the World Showcase, as many of the rides there like Animal Kingdom, the girls were too small for, and Remi isn't short for her age.  Everything though is over priced at Disney.

Day three was Magic Kingdom, which from the kids perspective, ruled! With all of the characters to meet and greet, the rides that were small child friendly and all of the Disney eye candy to ogle we had a great time and killed most of our day at Magic Kingdom.  We did head back to Epcot from there to wind down our evening and to pick up the girls their souvenir of choice and to watch some of the evening World Showcase shows....it was a nice wind down from the crazy hectic of Magic Kingdom.

Day four and our last in Orlando we went to Gatorland...
It was neat to see all of those big gators up close, and safely, while teaching the girls some stuff about Florida and it's native Flora and Fauna.  We all really enjoyed spending a few hours viewing these amazing and scary creatures.

All in all this family holiday ROCKED!  The resort we stayed at was uber nice and we all had a wonderful time, if you don't factor in all of the useless walking, the annoying placement of bathrooms, the ridiculous prices, the rude employee I dealt with or the annoying, stupid, and rude Canadian woman, surprised at a two year behaving like a two year old and picking a flower. 

If we did Disney again, we would probably skip Animal Kingdom altogether, do more local attractions outside of Disney, and punch idiot tourists in the face when they deserve it for freaking out on a two year old. 

Well, life goes on...

We are moving to base, as thanks to the Army SF (Security Forces) prices have gone out of control here in Crestview, along with incidents of crime, and the crowding is just too much.  Since we are no longer saving any money by living out this far, we figure why not get closer to the beaches and what we would like to do more of...unfortunately besides living on base we really can't afford to live anywhere else.

On the plus side, our place is on the water, with a fenced yard and we don't have to worry about horrific electric or water bills in the summer.

Our place is a three bedroom, two bath, plus den with a miniscule kitchen.   We won't have a two car garage anymore but a carport for one, but there is plenty of outside storage.  It's give and take.  Save money, lose space.  Follow more rules, less privacy, run AC with the windows open  :) LOL!

I keep trying think of all of the positives to living on base, like more kids for the girls to hang out with, less bills to worry about, less driving for us in a few short months, closer to the hospital, less space to care for, and more local fun and try not to think of it like being penned up like DoD cattle.  I have a crazy fear of being on base, for irrational reasons, and am working through it. :)  Funny, now I wonder if this wasn't a big part of why I got out on top of those paperwork issues because of my issues with restrictions....oh well, no big loss there.

I will have to drive Remi up to Crestview still until June 1st for her VPK as I can not transfer her again but that will give me a reason to visit friends up this way. 

Oh, by the way, thank you Dumb Ass Obama for the cuts in our BAH (this doesn't affect us directly as we get to keep what we already get, but all those poor folks pcsing in have to live on less housing when our prices have actually gone up and it is already impossible to find a three bedroom place let alone one in a nice neighborhood at a lower rate).

Note to self....Shara, though you have a tendency to ONLY speed when on base, DON'T as you will live there now and astronomically increase the chance of being pulled over and suspended from driving on base, which will royally suck butt.