Preparing for 'Goodbye'...

This year has, and will continue to be, the busiest year of my life. My precious son was born last October. Four days later, my husband left for a deployment that would last for 4 months. We lived in Georgia at the time, and before Squirt was born, I went to stay with my parents in Texas. I didn't want to be alone during the holidays with a newborn, wallowing in my loneliness. So, thankfully, during my son's two months of colic, I was able to cry on my parents' shoulders when I couldn't get my son to stop screaming.

About a month after he was born, I received an email from my husband, telling me to get our son if he wasn't with me because what he was about to tell me involved our whole family. He then prefaced his big news with this, "Don't freak out...". Well, guess what I did? Actually, I didn't quite 'freak out', but I did hold my breath as I read our fate.

My husband was up for a shore duty, and we had been waiting for the official news as to where we would be stationed. For those of you not familiar with the difference between 'shore' duty and 'sea' duty: Navy personnel rotate between sea duty (being stationed on a ship/sub) and shore duty (being stationed at a job where you are not attached to a ship/sub, and do not go out to sea).
We had been given two choices: We could go to New York, or South Carolina. The same job would be waiting for him either way, all we had to do was choose a location. Well, we decided on New York, and had been pretty much guaranteed that spot. We were so sure of this that we even registered for cold weather gear for our son. Lucky us, we didn't get any of it.

Most people might not know something about the military that all of us active duty and dependents know (and also seem to forget all too easily)...things change. A lot. All the time, in fact. And yet, somehow I managed to let this important fact completely leave my mind. They needed people really badly in New York. Why would they send us anywhere else? What we didn't know was that a lot of people cycled out of their sea duty rotation at the same time in this little place called Guam. It just so happened that my husband fit the bill. He, and 8 other sailors were shocked to find out that plans had changed.

So, there I was, holding our crying one-month-old son, franticly clicking on my Google search box, typing (one-handed) 'Guam', and praying that the pictures would look okay. I started to feel a little better when I saw quotes like, "Reminded me of Hawaii, just smaller", and, "Some of the best scuba diving on the planet!". After catching my breath, I jumped back over to the email, read it over two more times, and then went to announce to my dad that we might be moving to Guam. I think I told him right away because I needed a life-line to the real world. I was an exhausted new mother, and I needed to make sure that I hadn't just had an overwhelmingly real day-dream.

Now, to back-track...in that first email, my husband was really unsure of all the details. He had received the orders, but that was it. No explanation. There were rumors that the Navy wouldn't move our son and I over there with him because the ship he was going to was due to come back to the states. All we could do was pray for those first couple of days. Well, as you've probably guessed, we are all going. And, we are scheduled to leave the states, for the next two years, on July 11th.

I decided, about a month ago, that I wanted to chronicle our adventures leaving overseas. So, as much as I aspire to being a diligent journal keeper, I think this blog will be easier to keep up with. I will be sharing pictures and stories and sometimes just day-to-day life.

I currently am sitting in our hotel room, on-base, in Portsmouth, VA. My husband had to go to a specialty school before we could leave, and he is just about finished up. My son and I are flying home to Dallas on Tuesday (!!!) and Wade will be following in our truck. We are splitting the time we have left before we leave between my family in Dallas, and his family in Houston. I started the blog early because these last couple of weeks in the states are just as much a part of our journey. Unfortunately, we cannot be teleported with all of our belongings to our little island home. Ahhh, how nice that would have been.

So, I hope that you enjoy our story. I know that I will.