Our surprise trip to Sea World

So Tim and I decided on a whim that we would take our girls to Sea World today. Neither of us had been in years and we thought it'd be a nice surprise for the girls so we woke up and jumped in the car. We had a blast and the girls LOVED it!

Our admittance was free thanks to Sea World and Anheuser Busch's "Heres to the Heroes" program. 

( http://www.herosalute.com/ ) 

"We are proud to salute the men and women of our armed forces and their families. Throughout 2010, members of the military and as many as three direct dependents may enter SeaWorld, Busch Gardens or Sesame Place parks with a single-day complimentary admission. For your service and sacrifice, we thank you."

I offered to take a photo for a family and the father offered to take a photo of us, he must of missed our stroller.. haha

The girls checking our the dolphins at the feeding pool.

Big fake whales!

At the shark tank

Checking out the seals!

Penguins!

At the 'Believe' show

Then we saw some alligators..

(More photos are on facebook)

We had a great day!!

Sometimes I just want to punch someone.

One of those times would be now.

This is the way the military works. If you are married and live off post, you receive a thing called BAH. It stands for 'Basic Allowance for Housing', it is based on geographic duty location, pay grade and dependency status.

If you live on post, you don't receive BAH because everything is paid for (too a certain extent). Our rent, water and trash are paid for and our electricity as long as we don't go over a certain amount. 

Well, we were receiving BAH while Tim was in training. I was using it to bring down a lot of the debt that was acquired last year from Madison's hospital bills and the debt we had to put on credit cards when Tim's work slowed down last spring. I was using the BAH to lower our bills enough that we would be able to live comfortably off the military pay and my plan has been working wonderfully until Tim got to his duty station.

Tim in processed which changed our duty location and dropped our BAH down $200. Then we were put on a housing list and received a house faster than we expected and then we had car issues and had to drop $100+ into a new battery for our car. So basically we were thrown for a loop financially.

Not only that but Tim has been driving the hour plus drive to and from post every day, which takes a quarter tank of gas a day, which is adding up quickly. Last week when we signed our contract for our house on post, they charged us a prorated amount for our house since we had already received BAH for the month of July. That took another huge chunk of change that we hadn't expected for the month of July.

So we have this house that the Army won't allow us to move into yet, because they didn't arrange my husband's moving brief til tomorrow morning. So Tim is still driving back and forth but now we aren't receiving the BAH to pay for his gas.

I could just scream with how dumb the military can be at times. Why would you set up a house for a soldier to move into, charge him for it and then not allow him to move into the house which he is paying for?!

As of tomorrow our storage lease is up and we have to have everything moved out or they will charge us another months rent(which we can't afford because the storage bill was also coming out of his BAH). But the Army not approving our move *yet* and not willing to pay for a moving truck til it's approved is putting quite the damper on my mood and on our budget. 

Someone please send up a prayer for me that this is taken care of and quickly. I knew it was too good too be true. :(

Paint!

So we've painted the living room and the girls rooms to make it more 'homey'

Here is the living room. We painted it a color with the words 'mocha' in it. Whatever, I like it!

Here are photos of Mackenzie's room. We did a single dark pink accent wall and the other walls were painted a light pink shade. Mackenzie was able to help paint it and she LOVES it.

This is taken with my cell phone, so the colors don't look their true shades.

Here are the actual colors.

We painted Madison's room two shades of purple with a dark purple being the accent wall and a lighter shade on the rest of the walls. **The paint looks uneven due to the fact that it was still wet and drying.**

Now all that remains to be painted is our bedroom and the downstairs bathroom. Everything else will keep the ugly eggshell color.

Photos of our home.

So we signed our contract and received the keys to our house!
Here are a few photos..

This is the front of the house. We plan on doing some landscaping around the front so it doesn't look so boring!

Here is the living room front just inside the back door.

Here is the living room from the other corner.

Here is the kitchen from the living room

Another view, from the entrance by the front door

Here is mine and Tim's room. I forgot to take photos of our bathroom and HUGE closet.

Mackenzie's room.

Madison's room

Here is a shot of our backyard from the patio

Here is from the other direction

We're getting a house!

So to all my stalkers..that is our new house! Housing told Tim this morning that we will be able to move in by July 28th or possibly sooner. It's crazy how we went from a 5 month wait, to a one month wait to a week or less!

We are very excited about this. On his lunch break Tim drove down our new street, but they hadn't given him a house number so he just snapped a photo of this house real quick. Since it's military housing, all the houses are the same but they are new, as you can tell from the photo.

After living with my family since April 2009, we're very excited to finally be out on our own again. It wasn't bad living with my mom but it'll be nice to be a family of four again.

I'm very thankful to be as blessed as we are, especially with Tim's upcoming deployment, it's nice to have a few perks!

Deployment is in our future..

So, Tim found out his deployment dates.

I can't give specific details because of OPSEC, but..it stinks.

Let's just say that when the time comes that my husband will have been in for 2 years and 8 months..he will have been home with us for only FOUR of those months.

Trust me, my math isn't off..the schedule just sucks THAT badly.

I need a drink, something strong.

He's home..

After a long 14 hour drive on Wednesday that was followed by an hour ceremony Thursday morning with the 14 hour drive right afterwards...we are finally home.

I just want to say that life is good, nearly perfect. Tim graduated from Ft Huachuca and is now considered an intelligence analyst for the United States Army.

The girls and I have been enjoying every second with him and are loving it. He had planned on taking 7 days worth of leave but plans on reporting early on Monday morning instead. He is ready to in-process and learn his unit and their deployment schedule. Since he isn't using the leave, hopefully his new unit will grant him a permissive TDY leave of 10 days.

We are currently trying to decide whether or not to move to Hood now. We could find an apartment for 6 months or wait the 3-4 months til a house on post opens up, it just really depends on how it goes for Tim to drive there every day. We drove there this morning and in good weather with no traffic it took him a little over an hour. During the week he will be dealing with traffic and all that goes with trying to get on post. Fort Hood is the largest military post in the United States, population wise. So Tim will be battling traffic along with all the other soldiers. Hopefully his first week goes well.

I am so thankful he is home and that we can finally be a family of four together again.