Time Travel

It was around 5 am by the time we made it back to the hotel. We decided we were really going to push it and only allow ourselves about an hour at the airport to make it through security and to the gate. We knew exactly where we were going and were pretty certain an hour would be plenty of time. We all got another hour and half of sleep before we loaded up a hotel cart with our carry ons and headed down to catch the shuttle. Of course, since we were in somewhat of a hurry, the shuttle wasn't scheduled to make a run for another 15 min. But the shuttle driver was there. I talked the front desk into asking him if he would go ahead and take us now if we threw in a tip. Thankfully, he obliged! When we arrived at the airport the skycap was waiting right where the shuttle dropped us off! He carted our stuff to the security check point line so we only had to look like crazy people carrying far too many bags from security, to the gate! Which luckily wasn't far! We got through security only having my bag of snacks searched. I guess all the baby food was very suspicious?

We made it to our gate in plenty of time! We actually had to sit and wait for awhile. But of course the kids decided they needed to use the restroom. This was when they finally decided to start boarding the plane. Needless to say, we were once again 'those' people getting on last. But thanks to the four legged furry passenger who apparently went into heat, I didn't feel too bad about it. Once they got her taken care of, we had all been settled in for a bit. On top of that, Tracker and his big blue eyes and smiling face had won the stewardess over the second we walked onto the plane. I was extremely happy to see we were going to have MUCH more room on this plane than the last! The first leg of the flight was just over 10 hours. We would be flying to Japan first, have a layover, then to Korea. Though we had more room, it started out exactly the same. Carter played with the iPad, Addley people watched and colored, Tracker went to sleep and the stewardess served food and drinks and kept me up! ;) Although I wasn't able to get any sleep on the flight, it went amazingly well! All the kids (and Austin ;)) got some sleep and were happy the entire flight.

Tracker 

Gaming it up.

Playing!

What a 10 hour flight can do to a guys hair!

Catching flies!

We flew out of Seattle around 9 am on Tuesday morning and arrived in Japan around 11 am Wed. morning! Since we crossed the international dateline, we never experienced that Tuesday night. Tracker and I were on the bright side of the plane the entire flight. We had about a two hour layover in Japan where half the plane got off. The weather was beautiful  and it it felt great to get some fresh air and let Tracker run around for awhile. I'm sure the kids felt great to change their clothes too. I'm so glad I packed them each an outfit! I just wish I would have packed myself one! It's amazing how much food kids can get on themselves and you! The flight from Japan to Korea was just over 3 hours and surprisingly, went very quickly!

The only Picture I got of Japan. We weren't allowed to take pictures off the plane.

When we got to Korea it was around 5 pm. We got off the plane and straight onto a bus. We didn't go far, but it took about an hour to get to a small airbase where we sat through a 30 min briefing on what would happen next. (very unnecessary) After the briefing, we waited at baggage claim for what seemed like hours for our luggage to show up. (It was probably another 30 min or so) The baggage carts here were smaller, and we ended up with 5 carts. (I assure you, when we leave Korea, we will NOT be taking even 1/2 the luggage we came with!) Everyone was tired and had all just made the same trip and where not the least bit interested in helping the crazy people with all the kids and bags. Luckily getting through customs was a breeze. The hard part was getting all five of our carts to the next bus and packed under it. I still don't know how Austin managed to get all of our bags under that bus, but he did an amazing job! By this time it was dark out and we had a little over an hour...I think....bus ride to our final destination. We all passed out on the bus. It absolutely was not possible to stay awake, I tried my hardest! When we arrived at our new base, USAG Yongsan, we had to go into another briefing. By this time it was 10 pm, my patience was completely gone, and the fact the the Army was making my family sit through briefings, in a room that was FREEZING, when we had been traveling for two days, was not sitting well! It was obvious they were not thinking of families when working out the logistics of the evening. We were the only family with children. This briefing took a little over an hour. After, we unloaded our bags into a huge pile off the bus. The kids and I waited with the bags while Austin walked across the parking lot to the hotel to see about getting a cart. There was only one cart available and it took three trips to get all our bags to the hotel. By the time we got checked in there were two more carts, so we loaded them up, took two different elevators up to our room, all got showers, and passed OUT!!!

Pretty much sums it up! 

I have to brag. Our kids are amazing! Through 40+ hours of traveling with very little sleep, in an extremely overwhelming situation....there were zero fits, no whining (from them, I may have whined just a bit!), no acting up, they did exactly what we asked of them, when we asked them to, and behaved better than many of the adults who we were traveling with. I don't know how we got so lucky, but I know we are extremely blessed, and could not be more proud of all three of them! They are AMAZING!

The Journey Begins!

The day had come! We were leaving for TWO years! The longest I've ever gone without seeing my family has been 3 months! TWO years? Of course some of them are planing to come for a visit, but I'm sure not every 3 months! I realize that being a military family and still being able to say the longest I've gone not seeing my family is 3 months makes me extremely fortunate! I suppose in some peoples eyes, even wanting to see my family that often makes me fortunate! I am pretty lucky! They are a pretty great bunch of people! We are all going to miss home and everything and everyone that comes with it, A LOT.

Our flight out of Kansas City wasn't until the evening. I was hoping to have everything done so that our last day could be spent relaxing and visiting. But just like the last 3 weeks, it was an extremely busy day. All of our bags were still not packed, I kept finding things that needed to be added. I needed to change our address, notify the bank, turn off our cell phones, pick up the last of our mail from our old address. The list just kept getting longer. But just in time to leave for the airport we got everything done and started our goodbyes. I'm not one to show much emotion, ever, over anything. I don't know why, I just don't. So I really wasn't expecting the tears to start falling, but they did. Non the less, we, and our convoy assisting in luggage transportation, made it to the airport with just enough time to get checked in, say more goodbyes and make it through security just as they were making the last boarding call. More tears fell and I think I told my mom goodbye no less than 20 times!

Getting ready to check in! 

12 checked bags, 6 carry ons, 3 car seats and a stroller!

Yes, that is A LOT of bags! We were authorized two additional bags on top of the number the airline allowed free....which is 5 on Alaskan Air for military traveling on orders. That means we could have checked 35 bags? Trust me when I say, we couldn't have made it with a single additional bag! Our first flight was only to Seattle. We had to claim and recheck all of these, without our families help! And check them again the next morning. 

 

The flight to Seattle was only 4 hours. Normally, a 4 hour flight with three kids would sound like a nightmare to me. But since I knew what was coming the next day....all I could think was shoot, 4 hours, this is going to be a breeze! And luckily it was! It was both Addley and Tracker's first time flying. Addley was pretty excited, of course Tracker is happy with whatever! Tracker had missed his nap, so he passed out pretty quickly after take off. The excitement and people watching was enough to keep Addley content. Carter kept himself busy with the iPad. Greatest gadget ever in my opinion! (Even if I don't get to use it.) I tried to get a nap in while Tracker was napping, but they served drinks and immediately after, dinner. Then of course nap time was over! We just played and snacked the rest of the flight. It wasn't until the last hour or so, the "Are we there yet"s, started. We arrived in Seattle around 7:30 local time, so it was 9:30 for us, which meant an hour and half past bed time. But the 'real' fun was just about to begin!

Where's Carter? (Kind of like 'Where's Waldo?') Not the best picture, but you sort of get the idea. 

Two adults are no match for 18 bags, 3 car seats, 1 stroller and 3 kids! Before we left Kansas City I had called and talked to the USO at the Seattle airport. I was about 60% sure if we could find the USO, we could find someone to help us with our bags. I also knew that they had a storage area where we could leave our bags overnight, so we wouldn't have to take them to the hotel and back to the airport. (The lady on the phone wasn't all that helpful!) By the time we gathered and piled up all our luggage, the only carts around where very small. We would have needed way to many.(And they were $5/ea, CrAzY!) So Austin and Carter watched over the bags and Addley, Tracker and I went and found the USO. They had HUGE, FREE carts and a sweet old woman helped me take the carts to the bags and showed us where we needed to take them to be stored overnight. Even though the carts were HUGE we still piled them to the top and had 3! It was insane! We finally made it to our hotel around 9:30. We ordered room service and grabbed showers, repacked our bags and got to bed around midnight. (2:30 am our time!) WE WERE EXHAUSTED! 

We had to be back at the airport to collect our luggage from the USO storage facility at 2:30 am so we could be checked in for our flight by 3 am. The second flight was not a commercial flight, It was a MAC flight, you know...

.....LOL. I'm kidding, I'm kidding!!!  It was a MAC flight, but not like ^ this! It was a commercial plane, just not commercially ran. The two hours of sleep we got before heading back to the airport was not NEAR enough, but I got the heads up from the USO lady that we could come check in for our flight and return to our hotel until boarding time. (Which was 8 am....that's right 8 am....we had to check in 5 hours early!!! Don't ask, because I don't know why!) 

The boys weren't feeling the 2 am wake up call at all! But we all had to be there in person to check in....I checked!!!

When we got to the airport it was completly empty...until we got to our gate! The line was SUPER long, and Austin and I looked like crazy people. I was pushing one cart and pulling another and carrying Tracker in the ERGO. Austin was pushing another cart and Carter and Addley were doing their best to keep up with LOTS of encouragement! They were troopers though! We were all SO tired! Just as we made our way to the end of the line, a ticketing agent approached us and said that the family line was on the other side of the huge mass of people! We hadn't noticed because there was only one family waiting!!! I was SO happy!!!! It was around 4:30 when we finished checking our bags. We didn't have much time, but even 30 min of sleep sounded good to me! We went straight back to the hotel and right back to sleep! 

Tracker hailing our shuttle back to the hotel!

Loose ends

All the movers had come and gone, our house was empty and we had now invaded my dad's house! Austin's leave (vacation) hadn't started yet, so he was still going to work everyday, while two of the three kids and I finished cleaning up our empty house. (Carter was going to school) Besides the general cleaning, all I had left to to do at the house was figure out what to do with all the things we couldn't ship, or they wouldn't store.(i.e. food, batteries, light bulbs, candles) It was a huge relief to be done with the majority of the moving! Everything was on it's way that wasn't going on the plane, except for our vehicle! Whatever vehicle that might be. We still had two vehicles to sell, but we were getting lots of calls, so I wasn't to stressed about it. What I was stressed out about was the fact that we were basically homeless, all of our possessions were gone, and we still didn't know when we were actually leaving. Getting our tickets and passports squared away was up to Austin. But the fact that we didn't have them yet was not his fault. The airline tickets and passports had to come from the personnel travel office on post, and the flight dates had not been released yet. So there really wasn't anything we could do about it, but wait.

Finally, on his last day of work before his vacation started, the flight dates were released and he went to book our tickets. We knew Austin's report date was the end of October and were hoping to leave as close to that date as possible. Unfortunately, the Army had different plans, and we were leaving a week SOONER than we had been planning to! And we still didn't have our passports! We now had just under 3 weeks before we left. I thought they would be a relaxing 3 weeks, but they flew by! Between getting Carter off to school, Addley to preschool and picked up twice a week, last minute dental appointments taken care of, football practices and games and eventually selling our vehicles and buying a "new to us" vehicle to drive in Korea, there was no time for relaxing!

It was a good thing that we didn't buy our new vehicle a day later. In order to ship your vehicle it has to first be registered and titled. Since we bought it used and it had a crazy electronic Kansas title, it took until just days before we left to get everything we needed to ship it. It was a Tuesday when our title came in, Addley's last day of school was on Thursday, Carter's on Friday, and we were flying out on Monday. Since the closest vehicle processing center is in St. Louis, on the opposite side of the state, and not open on the weekend, that only left the next day to drive it out and drop it off if we didn't want the kids to miss their last days of school!(which we didn't) We don't like to do things last minute but ALWAYS do! We decided that since we had to drive all the way out there, we'd try to make the most of it and take the kids with us and take the train home. None of us had ever been on the train, and we thought the kids would really enjoy it. It was a crazy trip and we didn't have but 15 min to spare when we finally made it to the train station. If you are reading this and will be shipping a vehicle overseas....when they say no more than 1/4 tank of gas...they mean it!!! It doesn't matter how close the needle is to the 1/4 tank line, if it isn't under it....they aren't going to accept your vehicle until it is. Which leaves you with two options; drive it until the gas is low enough, or pay some dude to drain and keep your gasoline for you. Since we had a train to catch the later was our only choice.

It was an absolutely crazy day, and Tracker didn't enjoy it much...but Carter and Addley really liked the train ride. I'm glad we did it.

I did a terrible job taking pictures...she really did like it!

It was now Thursday and only 5 days until we started our trip. We now had no vehicle, and public transportation is basically non existent where we are from, and not everyone we know has extra vehicles laying around large enough to pack all three of our car seats in. We still had to take Addley to school, pick her up, take Carter to football practice and a game, and had some last minute shopping to do. Luckily my mom's truck is big enough and my brother and sister-in-law are generous enough they let Mom barrow their extra truck so we could barrow Moms! I really don't know how we would have survived this entire process without our amazing family! Oh, and by the way, our passports STILL had not showed up. I was really starting to sweat. Austin and I had both talked to the girl in charge of passports several times, and finally figured out that my passport was the only one we were waiting on. The chick forgot to send our marriage license in with my expired passport that had my maiden name on it. So my passport was filed for a few weeks later then everyone else. I was seriously p.o.ed! When I asked the obviously childless woman what we were going to do if my passport didn't show up before Monday, she nonchalantly told me,"Oh it won't be a big deal. They will all go and we can change your flight to a later date." I won't elaborate on the rest of THAT conversation....but luckily they arrived the very next day. Rather than relying on my new favorite person to overnight them, Austin happily went and picked them up.

The only thing left to do now was pack our suit cases back up and figure out what the kids were going to do on the plane! After spending a small fortune and 2 hours at Wal-Mart, I was pretty sure if we didn't have everything we needed to make this trip successful, it just couldn't be done! I was also thrilled to know I wouldn't be going into another Wal-Mart for at least 2 years!!!! (a note for those who might be reading this in preparation for their own trip, since we were arriving in country after the school year had already started, I went ahead and picked up all Carter's school supplies, and am glad I did. The PX was no longer carrying all of the supplies from the list. Poor guy would have showed up with just a pen if I hadn't. The school he attended in the states had shared supplies for Kindergarten, so we just paid a fee and they provided the supplies.)

A few of the things we grabbed...

This iTikes Canvas for Addley. It's awesome, I might like playing with it just as much as she does! 

These neat little cars you can race on the iPad. Carter and Addley both really like these. 

We also got Tracker one of these. We probably could have saved our money on this one. He really doesn't care much for it. 

We also picked up some "old school" coloring books and markers, a new funny, squishy teether for Tracker, head phones for the kids so they wouldn't disturb everyone playing their games, and LOTS of snacks. I might have a tendency to get "hangry" as Austin calls it.


I spent every spare moment I had the next two days packing our bags and trying to make sure we didn't forget anything. We had a small family get together and even though our bags were "mostly" packed....it still hadn't set in that soon we were leaving for two years! It felt like any regular weekend!

No turning back!

Our command sponsorship had been approved and our passport applications filed! The dream of a leisurely move and being extra prepared was gone for sure! I had only 8 weeks to do a lot more than I had planned doing when we were moving to Hawaii! To start with...I HAD to have a garage sale. When you move to Korea, the Army only allows you to ship half the amount of weight they normally would. They will put the other half in storage. But we were nearly over our weight limit the last time we moved, and had acquired even more "stuff." I didn't want to store things that I really didn't want for two whole years. Thank goodness I had my mom and sister-in-law to help out...because I HATE having garage sales! After every one I say "I"m NEVER doing that again," and some how I end up doing it again. But I really think THIS was the last time!

Besides having a garage sale, we had to sell at least one of our vehicles. The Army only pays to ship one vehicle...if you're lucky. Sometimes they won't authorize you to ship a vehicle at all. We had Austin's Cobalt that he used to commute to Leavenworth and my brand new Armada, that I bought with every intention of driving forever. The decision of what to do was difficult. We were going to Seoul, where the traffic is worse than anything either of us have ever driven in, parking is scarce, and repairs are expensive! Based on those facts, we didn't want to take a huge, expensive, vehicle that was very likely to get banged up. We decided to sell the Armada and take the Cobalt. That was until we discovered it is absolutely impossible to fit three car seats in the back of a Cobalt. Not just the car seats we already had, but even the slimmest car seats we could find would not fit! 

This was something that made me happy, as well as caused me more stress! We are still in discussions on if there will be a forth little one, I say yes, maybe, he says no, maybe. We are both undecided, but leaning opposite directions! I would like to be done with babies by the time I turn 30. I mean, if I'm going to grow up and have a career one day, I can't be staying home raising babies until I'm old enough to retire! On top of that, the Mr. is just a tad older that I am, just a tad ;-). Which means the decision will be made while in Korea. Taking the Cobalt would only give the Mr. one more reason to not have #4! But not being able to take the Cobalt meant we either had to take the Armada, sell both the Armada and Cobalt and buy something else before we left, or sell both and buy something when we got to Korea! It took awhile, but we finally decided we would sell both of the vehicles, if they sold before we left and we had time to find another, we would. If not, we'd buy something there.

Since it takes SOOO long to ship you're stuff overseas, and since we were "home," where we had plenty of family to stay with comfortably, we chose to have our stuff packed up ASAP. We figured we'd much rather be home with nothing than in Korea with nothing! BUT, I had to have the garage sale first! The bright side to the command sponsorship taking so long was that the city wide garage sale weekend was only two weeks away. We scheduled the first set of movers to come the following Monday. These movers would pack and ship the majority of our stuff. (Household goods shipment) This would also be the shipment that would take the longest to get to Korea.

You would think that two weeks would be plenty of time to get ready for a garage sale. But, since the movers were coming the following work day, I had to not only get ready for the garage sale, but also divide our entire house into 4 different shipments. (five if you count the garage sale) Household goods, (the majority of our stuff), unaccompanied baggage (800 lbs of things we would need immediately after receiving housing in Korea i.e. baby bed, bedding, pots and pans, some dishes, etc.), storage (stuff we wouldn't see for two years), and our luggage (everything we would need until we left for Korea and until we received housing). Austin was still working everyday at this time, so that left me to do all of this while still carrying out the daily tasks of a stay at home mom of three. I know all of you stay at home moms out there know, that alone is a full time job! I was just a tad overwhelmed to say the least! Thank goodness I was bless with a wonderful mom who came over after working all day to give me a hand!

Moving day!

You can't tell by the picture, but Guinness was totally freaking out! Poor old man! This being his 4th move, he knew what was going on, and wasn't the least bit happy about it! (shhh, don't tell them they are getting left behind at Grandma's house:-( )

You might notice furniture already getting damaged! :-/ One day I'll be able to have nice things!

Our household goods shipment! See ya in a couple months!

So we survived the garage sale and the first set of movers! We spent another week in our house until another moving company came to ship our unaccompanied baggage, followed by a third company the following day to take the rest to a long term storage facility. We got lucky and had a great group of guys from the first moving company! Unfortunately I can't say the same for the following companies! I'm just grateful the majority of our stuff went with the first movers! No turning back now!

How we ended up in Korea; Pt. 2

After determining there was nothing we could do about our orders to Korea, we now had to decide if Austin was going alone, or if we were going as a family. If you choose to go to Korea unaccompanied (without your family) it's only a 1 year tour. If you bring your family it's an automatic two years, and if you want, when you get to Korea, you can sign up for a third year and make a few extra bucks. At first, I was SURE that we were not all going. Austin had nothing good to say about his time in Korea. But I could not get over the idea of not seeing my husband for an entire year, by choice. And didn't even want to think about the kids not seeing him for a year. He's sort of a big deal to them! Decisions, decisions!

Since I knew we were NOT going to Hawaii, I talked to our friends in Hawaii to share the sad news. The conversation went MUCH different than I had anticipated. She was actually JEALOUS!! I was shocked. From what Austin told me of Korea, I thought, "who in their right mind would WANT to go to Korea!" After getting a different perspective, I started looking into it myself. There wasn't a lot of useful information out there, most of it was conflicting or several years old. I finally ran across a blog by another Army wife, stationed right where we were suppose to be going, who had JUST returned to the states. They had actually chose to stay for three years. From what I could tell by her pictures and what she had to say, it didn't look bad at all.

My jealous friend and I! Miss her!

 
When Austin was stationed at Camp Hovey in the 90's, soldiers didn't have the option of bringing their families. Families have been coming to Korea with their soldiers for awhile now. Also, Camp Hovey is much further north than Yongsan. He was surrounded by a small town and farm lands. And not the kind of small towns and farm lands we have in the mid-west. Yongsan is surrounded by one of the most populated cities in the world. It was obvious looking at the bigger picture, that life where we were suppose to be going wouldn't be as bad as he was imagining it would be. The decision was made, we were all going. That was of course IF we could get command sponsorship.

In order to bring your family to Korea and have all the same amenities accessible as far as Army life goes, you must be command sponsored. This just means, "basically," that your sponsor's (military members) chain of command says, "yes, you can bring your family, we have a place for them to live and room in our schools etc." After filling out all the proper paper work and getting all our physicals, we had to wait for SEVERAL weeks before hearing back. It was now mid August and we had less that 8 weeks before Austin HAD to be IN Korea. This meant 8 weeks, to get all of our diplomatic passports and our entire house packed up and shipped out. Of course we also decided that we needed to have a garage sale, considering that we could only take half our normal weight allowance. (The Army would only allow us to ship half the amount they normally would, due to housing being much smaller in Korea.) We also needed to sell at least one of our two vehicles. Let the fun begin! 

A not so glamorous surprise: how we ended up in Korea

As most of you know, before coming to Korea, Austin and I were lucky enough to have been stationed at Fort Leavenworth and to live in our home town for three whole years! Not many military family's get that kind of opportunity. Yes, the commute for Austin to work was quit long, but we both agree it was worth it to be "home." Because Austin sacrificed 3 hours of each day driving, two of our three children were born while living in Missouri, and our oldest was able to start school in our hometown, with the kids we hope he will one day graduate high school with! How awesome is that, for an Army Brat!

Our sweet baby girl

Our BIG baby boy

Carter's first day of school

Having been in the Army for 15 years, Austin knows, once you've been somewhere for three years, it's likely you'll be coming down on orders to move soon. And having been in the Army for 15 years, we also know that only leaves 5 years to retirement! (yeah baby!) Which means, not to many more opportunities to get stationed in those cool places we wanted to go. So a few months short of our 3 year mark, Austin put a call in to his branch manager to check on open requisitions (job openings) in Hawaii! He knew that's the one place I REALLY wanted to go before we get out! He's a good husband like that! I was a little nervous when he called from work one day and said to check my email....he never emails me. I was beyond thrilled when I read a forwarded conversation between him and his branch manager stating that we were on orders to Hawaii with a report date of January 10th! 

It was going to be great! At the time January was about 10 months away. That was 8 1/2 months more notice that we were moving than I'd ever had before. I'd have time to plan the move, research our new home and be extra prepared for once. And I wasn't going to be pregnant or have a newborn! (another glamorous detail of our army life...move from Riley to Benning, we had a 10 week old baby, move from Benning to Leavenworth....I was 8 months pregnant. Not conditions I would recommend moving under.) Carter would be able to start school and stay until Christmas break, an ideal time to move if you have to move during the school year, and Tracker would get to celebrate his 1st birthday at home with all of our family! And January would be a perfect month to be leaving the mid-west for Hawaii! To top it all off, our neighbors from Fort Benning had just moved to the same post in Hawaii we were going! Our neighbors that we love and missed! I couldn't have been happier! 

We had made it to the end of July. We were about 5 months out from moving and needed to start preparing certain things for the move. The required doctor visits and such, to make sure the Army has the resources available at your new duty station that you may require. Nothing to concerning, but I wanted to get  everything done as leisurely as possible. The same day I called Austin at work to discuss what day that week would work best for all of us to come up and have lunch before or after our appointments, Austin had received the DEVASTATING news! For some reason, he was now on orders to Korea, not only that, but the report date was October! 

Now if you read my "About" page, you know Korea was Austin's first duty station. Straight out of basic training 18 year old kid. Back then...families weren't allowed to come to Korea with their Soldiers. And the only thing I knew about Korea, was what Austin had told me from that time. I and my children were NOT going to Korea! All I could think was, "How could this happen?" "How are we going to get out of this?" "How are the kids and I going to handle a year away from Dad?" And what if he get's deployed when he get's back from Korea? Two years with out seeing Dad? Two of our children wouldn't even know who "Dad" was! (I know this is a sad truth for some military families, and that my family has been extremely fortunate as far as deployments go! And I am EXTREMELY grateful for that.....but those are not facts that were on my mind in that moment!)

After a couple of very long, tense weeks, we found out that due to a lovely clerical error by the new branch manager, who had replaced the wonderful branch manager who had put us on orders to Hawaii, our orders to Hawaii had been deleted by mistake. When the mistake was pointed out, it was determined that it could not be fixed, due to the fact that the number of soldiers they had predicted to be leaving Hawaii 4 months prior was much higher than the number that actually left. Leaving Hawaii over strength, and absolutely no requisitions open for Austin to fill. This left us with the next priority fill assignment that just happened to be Korea! GREAT! Now what...

Dun, duh-dun Dunnn!!!!

Ok, here it is! The "official" Hodson family blog to share all the glamorous, and more often not so glamorous, details of our daily lives! I know...you must be SO excited! You can thank the Army for the title "The glamorous life...," taken from my Facebook post referring to our 2:30 am check in for an 8:50 am flight! (details coming!)

I decided to start this blog to share our Korean adventures with our family and friends, and to maybe help another military wife out there, who like me, may have been devastated when she got the news she'd be moving to Korea. (I'll elaborate later! I now feel very different about this assignment than I did when I first learned of it.)

Stay tuned for the first "official" blog post! ;)  (yes, I use "quotes" A LOT)