This thing called Island Time

Today our first official day of reality and boy was it an eye opener!

We got internet today,... it took 3 hours to set up. You see here they are on Island Time, which pretty much means slow and when we feel like it. They aren't rude about it at all! In fact they are really sweet and helpful while working really slowly. He was telling me all about the area, talking about where a few other beaches are, best places to shop to get deals, what to buy where.

All great info and I did make some notes while we talked but I really just wanted my TV and internet hooked up. So from a mainlanders perspective it felt like forever and lets be honest 3 hours with 3 kids running around while your focus is on something else is forever. He really was very personable, when he left I felt like we were friends now lol. I know about his kids and wife, area he lives, hobbies. All that was missing was setting up a play date.

Its not just the cable company either, every thing is at a slower pace here. Something that I admit I am struggling a little bit to get used to. No rush or hurry from the locals at all, you can spot the transplants pretty easy, they tend to look annoyed and are checking the time a lot.

Lagoons oh my!

After that adventure in the first few days with the waves my son has been a little afraid of hitting the beach. Now where we are living is about 15 minutes away from these 4 lagoons, that while public are over with resorts so they get traffic but not as much as one might expect. The parking is a bit of a challenge I admit, unless you are willing to pay for it, which we totally are, $10 for all day is totally doable for us.

The water was so beautiful, sand perfect for building and had some shells to look for and see how pretty.

We only spent about an hour this first time, because my husband was still recovering from a sun burn he got the last day at the hotel when we spent way to much time at the pool!

The lagoons made for a perfect ending to our first week in the new house. Tomorrow we start school and my husband heads back to work from leave and reality sets in that this isn't vacation and is where we live. Shall see how that reality goes.

Whirlwind in paradise!

Yesterday we pulled the trigger on a house and officially sign today!

So yesterday we went shopping, we needed air mattresses, a TV, TV stand, kitchen table, patio set we are going to use in the living room until our stuff gets here. You know the essentials haha. Really we got those too a couple of dishes, towels the more boring stuff :)

The big downside to the new house is the drive as I mentioned.

This was after a storm. shut it down!

Otherwise its beautiful, there is always a great breeze, windows open and the misty showers are glorious! I think I was made for island life. I hate the cold and this weather is perfect for me, loving the heat and sun! You really do see rainbows like daily because of those misty showers and that its almost always sunny while it rains.

Days 6 and 7 in our hawaiian paradise; Honolulu Zoo, and Aquarium

Day 6 was a Sunday, we mostly just hung out around the hotel, swimming and doing some shopping because we sign the lease on our house this week! So excited. I am ready to have a little more space for all of us. But we needed some things for the house so since it was a bit rainy in the morning we decided to spend the day shopping and making lists for things we needed to do and get.

Day 7 we were back to some fun. First we hit zoo, became members, well worth the money, and you get a military discount on it as well.

While in a pretty large city on a fairly small island the zoo is pretty nice. Animals seems pretty well cared for.

After that we headed over to the Aquarium to look around a bit, its a pretty small place, again not overly surprised seeing as its on a pretty small island but nice for a quick visit, and in a beautiful location.

All in all I would recommend checking out the zoo for sure and the aquarium if you need something to fill a little bit of time, or if you have kids like I do that love fish!
While is started out a little rainy this weekend it turned out to be a sunny warm 85 degree day with some misty like showers now and again.

Day 5 in Paradise; Disney resort and more

Today we went to the Disney resort here on Oahu for their character breakfast. AMAZING! First the resort is beautiful, and the staff of course is super friendly and helpful. I want to go back and stay a night or two to do all the fun things they have there, they have their own water park, and characters through out the grounds.

At the breakfast which is all you can eat they have Mickey outside posing for pictures, that you can purchase later but they do also take pictures with your phone or camera for you too. The photo CD is only $32 though so totally worth it. They then have Minnie and one other character inside along with Aunty.

While you are eating to your hearts desire Aunty is coming around singing and entertaining you and the children, she is amazing!

They do have a parade with the kids that minnie leads as well.

At no point during the meal do you feel rushed or pushed out for other guests to come in, you really feel like you can take your time eat and enjoy the show. Minnie and goofy were there today and came by the table several times and posed for pictures and were great about hugs kisses and dancing with the little ones, older ones too :)

Since this was for my youngest birthday we had a cake as well, a little bit pricy $27 for this 7inch cake, but the look on her face made it more than worth it. I highly recommend going if you have the chance, its an expense, but a memory that will last for you and the little ones.

After we finished up breakfast we headed over to look at another house. This house... WOW! It was just amazing, everything about it is perfect! All of us are in love. (The master bath is out of this world) A bit of a drive for him to go to work but that seems like it will be the case with any house off post that allows cats. I am excited we may not be in a hotel for long.

Day 4 in Paradise; house hunting

Originally we were going to hit the aquarium and zoo today but he ended up needing to go do some paper work, and then we went and saw 2 houses. The houses were the best part of the day!

House number one. Beautiful kitchen and I really liked the lay out of the 2 upper floors but the main front window would have been the oldest bedroom window and thats just really awkward and unpleasant to me. No back yard at all, but the rent is good...

House number two. LOVED pretty much everything about this house. The back yard is great, tons of area to be able to plant and garden which I love, and the kitchen while smaller is nice, bedrooms are all a decent size. Everyone seems pretty happy with this one. Rent is great and includes EVERYTHING! Need to sleep on it and see how we feel in the morning I suppose. 

Tomorrow we are heading to the Disney Resort here on the island for the youngest birthday breakfast party! I am really looking forward to that. 

Don't worry I won't be doing every single day for the whole 3 years we will be living here, just until he heads back to work then it be be at least once a week maybe more depending on how exciting life is.

Day 3 in Paradise

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Today we had some military meetings to deal with so we spent most of the day around the hotel, so let me take a few minutes to tell you about the hotel we are staying in.

Its not one of the more fancy or nice ones because again we have a pet and need to have the room for possibly months, so compromises are made.

We are staying at the airport inn. Its older, like a lot older and our view... well its nothing to brag about, but the staff is super friendly and helpful. We do have 2 adjoining rooms which is nice because 5 people in one room for months might drive ya mad.

They do meal vouchers everyday for one meal for all of us, either breakfast or dinner and the portions are surprisingly huge and the food is great! I wish I had a camera last night to show you my salad! The whole family could have spilt one and the husband and I both got one.

We hung out at the pool a bit, its beautiful and goes from 3-8ft. Incredibly well maintained and clean, we have watched them cleaning it every morning during breakfast. All in all its not a bad hotel for what we need it for and really we are in Hawaii!

So far we have had a couple rain showers which lasted maybe 5 min and the sun was out the whole time, the breeze has been pretty much a constant and its been beautiful!

Tomorrow I believe we are going to try to hit the zoo and maybe the aquarium

Day 2 of our Hawaiian adventure!

We woke up at 2 am, all of us today, because thats a totally reasonable time back in Tennessee, not so much here. Phone calls aplenty this morning. The good news in that is that it sounds like we have a few people interested in our house there! Bad news they called me at 3am to tell me :) So today we are a little out of it. We have running around to do for things we need that we couldn't bring with us, housing appointment, and we wanted to do something fun with the kids, something hawaiian because so far they have seen parking lots mostly.

Housing appointment went as expected, which isn't a great thing, but we knew it was going to be a challenge to get on post housing here. So let the off post house hunting begin!

We ended up doing a little sight seeing around North Shore, the kids loved the waves, and running into and away from them.

That is until the wave knocked them off their feet. Was a great day though and a good into to parts of Hawaii.

A step away, and Day 1 of our new adventure

So I had to take a step away because things got real fast for us. When we got orders to move UCONOS and needing to list our house and him deployed, I just never had time to share all that was going on with you! However we have arrived in our new home and I keep seeing posts complaining about being here and the way things are here so I have decided I need to commit and make time to share what we are doing because their is way to much negative out there!

So we arrived here in beautiful Hawaii. We spent a week in a hotel before flying out, it wasn't much fun. I remember vacations being a blast, but as an adult its a lot less entertaining. New respect for my parents. The flight leaving Tennessee was delayed to the point that when we landed in Houston we had to run to the tram and run from it to our gate getting there after boarding had started. But we made the flight, sadly because we left so early in the morning we had few snacks on us and ended up having to spend a ton on the plane snacks for 5 people but after an 8 hour flight we made it! The kids did awesome!

After we landed we spent a good deal of time running around, getting to the hotel, getting our rental, going and picking up our cat. As a side note if you have a pet, don't move here! Its a huge pain to get your pet into this state. If you have to start early because its a long process to keep your animal out of quarantine and after seeing that place you want to keep your animal out of there! Most depressing place on earth! Anyway, after being up for 24 hours we all went to bed, but sadly struggled to get on local time that first night.

Now I know you are thinking big that sure sounds like a lot of negative but that was just the lead up and the first half day :) And really with 12 checked bags and 6 carry ons I think we rocked it :)

Let the holiday inspired shaming begin!

So its been a bit and I have a bunch of black logged posts to do and I will get to them but I have been busy, you know living life. Today though I am annoyed and needing a place to vent. See once again its the holiday season so a ton of blog posts are being shared about how terrible mothers who make crafty stuff are and how they only do it to one up others. My thing here is the epic butt hurt some women have. You don't want to do it or don't have time, cool don't. While you are at it stop blaming your guilt on not doing it on others cause thats the snakes in your own head not theirs. Those posts of cute things they made aren't meant to make you feel bad they are proud of what they did, should they have to hide who they are because your fragile ego can't take it? My oldest is the most unathletic kid on the planet. I will never post pictures of her dancing in a recital, or playing a sport but I can the crafty things we do together so let me have that and shut the fuck up already.

On to point of contention two, please stop saying that people posting holiday decorations, or celebration photos are doing it to make you feel bad you couldn't afford to do as much. I didn't grow up with a lot, don't get me wrong we had enough and I never needed for anything, but oh the wants! I tell my kids no so much through the year that at birthdays and christmas I do spoil them a bit. We don't take a lot of family vacations, big or small ones. I save and shop through out the year to make the holidays I choose to celebrate bigger. That has nothing to do with you, thats my choice, I don't bitch when you post how you are going to Disney for the 3rd time this year when I have been once in 35 years and it was only to Epcot when I was a senior in high school. To each their own people.


If you truly believe that the mothers posting crafty stuff they made, or the people posting about holiday celebrations are doing it to upset you, to attack your abilities, well then maybe you should seek some professional help because you have some serious issues that go way deeper than a lack of time.

JSS

So my walking dead heads will totally get this already but it hit me, hard. If you watch talking dead you will see Kevin Smith and I will soon have the same tattoo.

I have never broken it down like this but I love it. JSS just survive somehow. It's perfect for military families cause really that's what it's about right?

My husband is gone and I am just going day by day... surviving. Some days you get lucky and it's easy and you feel like you are safe behind the walls and other days some asshole beeches the walls and starts stabbing people, laying on a horn bringing thousands of walkers to your door. 

Even if you don't watch I think you can get my meaning here. You just have to do whatever to survive. Some days are going to be easier than others. I am here for ya though... If you need me, I'm a message away. 

That wife ~ A follow up

So I have been spending the last week or so dealing with somethings. Life has been a little stressful birthdays, work, and I lost a 'friend' she didn't leave this earth for the there after but we will no longer be talking.

She was the inspiration for the that wife post (which can be read here That Military Wife) and even though I said in that post that how incredible frustrating they can be, its hard to decide that you have to let them go. That try as you might you can't keep holding them up because you are allowing your self to suffer by doing it.

I didn't just drop the ball, I drop kicked the bitch. I think all people have breaking points and I reached mine. The passive aggressive social media posts, the outright lies on it, the hypocrisy I just couldn't take it any more. She caught me on a bad day with her pointless drama, and it was just enough. When I told my husband about it, he laughed and said thank god! He was a bit tired of my frustration, the snide comments about us, but he knows me and he knows I have a hard time watching people flounder. I kept thinking it would get better, but you really have to get that you treating people like second class citizens, and looking down your nose at others is a problem. It may not seem like it but it really does take a lot for me to get to the point of saying fuck you to someone. In this case a little over 2 years.

In this follow up post, I just want to say, yes it sucks to drop the ball, or drop kick it :) Sometimes you have to cut the weight pulling you down. You can not be the golden nugget of support for people who only seem happy taking shots at you, and never return the support. It has to be a give and take or its not really a friendship.

September 11, 2001 the day my world changed

I was no where near New York. I was in Michigan, I was broke and didn't have cable TV, or a car. I walked to work about a 15 minute walk, I thought it was strange on my way that town seemed kind of empty, but it made my walk faster and I was running late so I didn't give it a lot of thought. I owned a clothing store, it was a specialty store and across a foyer area from my brothers business that my dad was running for him while he was in Chicago.
When I walked down the stairs I noticed it was really quiet, normally music and videos and noise was what greeted me. I went in to let me dad know I had made it. I found him sitting on the couch watching TV. He had the strangest look on his face, he was kind of distant and pained. When I started to talk he held up his hand and pointed at the TV. I finally turned my full attention to it and watched in complete confusion as the world trade center was falling. I didn't fully understand even listening to it and reading the bottom scroll, I couldn't grasp what was happening. For hours I sat there with him watching, he was worried and trying to hide it, worried about what was happening, and worried about a plane they kept saying they thought was missing... they kept talking about where they thought it was heading and Chicago kept getting thrown out there. I watched as he tried to hide the fear from me and I wrestled with my own.
Even after all the planes were accounted for and I knew my family was safe, I wrestled with the guilt over feeling happy that my loved ones were okay as stories came out of people on one flight calling loved ones to say goodbye, while we watched the toll climb the fear wouldn't go away. Was more coming, was anyone really safe, who had done this, what was going to happen now? Hours, flew by but it felt as if time stood still. I watched the same thing over and over trying to understand it. My dad and I talked and tried to make sense of it, I got a new appreciation for my father, he put it into a perspective I would have never gotten on my own.
I have always been proud of who I am, where I come from, never more so than in the weeks following this attack. I watched as the country put differences aside and came together mostly. I watched people find their pride in our country again. 14 years later I am sitting here reflecting on it I can still feel the fear, the panic, the horror I felt that day. As a military family, both growing up and now I think I see it differently than some. Tomorrow I will turn off the TV, I will keep my laptop closed and and I will mourn and reflect in my way and in silence. I will never forget what happened that day, how I felt and how it changed my world.

Everything you need to know about the FRG, and why most spouses cringe when they hear those 3 letters

I don't hate the FRG as a whole but like all things there is a certain amount of suck to be had.

FRG (Family Readiness Group, for those non Army people) The idea behind the FRG is this; a group of spouses and families left behind in times of deployment that can turn to each other for support in moments of silence, sorrow, and joy. A beautiful concept. They are also the group that does fundraisers for the unit, brings baked goods, helps organize things being sent over seas to make sure everyone is getting support. What it actually tends to be is a group of angry spouses bitching about how much they hate the command team, the Army and the other clicks, basically high school. How did such a wonderful idea spiral into madness?! Well Thats where I blame the Army, in part. (I am sure its the same in all branches in fact worse in the Navy) See they have this rule where the Officers and the Enlisted can't be too friendly. The reason behind this rule is sound, you don't want the appearance of favoritism. The problem is the execution, see instead of it being you need to do team building as a unit it becomes enlisted over here and officers over there. The bitterness of you don't know what its like to be me sets in and they go home, and tell their spouses. Not that they need too because we aren't even allowed to live in the same housing communities, nope those are divided up by rank too, so even if you don't know your husbands rank as soon as you say of we live on post in X you just gave it away to those rank watching bitches.

Now as I have mentioned before there is always that group that wears their spouses rank like a fucking badge of honor, they are second on my list of useless spouses, the ones on the top are the ones that are wearing it, talk about it all the time, but act like they aren't one of those, usually because they think they are better than them, they truly are the worst! Back to how this plays in the FRG, see you now have a bunch of spouses who feel like their husband is being treated poorly by your husband and we all are supposed to hold hands and sing kumbaya? Aaahhahahhahaha riiiight. Typically the worst of the worst are you senior enlisted NCO wives and of course officers wives, junior enlisted wives are usually so beat down by the others that they are just trying to survive the ordeal, the problem is they will become the bad later because they feel they paid their dues and earned it.... fun right?!

There is hope, you see that small, I mean SMALL group of women sitting off to the side, not even really talking to each other just near each other, because the words don't need to be said amongst them they just feel it and gravitate towards each other. They are the spouses who are only here because they felt they had to come to at least one of these, they hoped for the best but as soon as they walked in and saw eagle spelled wrong on the screaming eagles cake they knew the stories were true! They are the ones that are a mix of former soldiers them selves, working wives, military brats, and the bless her soul happily clueless, they have no idea what their own husbands rank is let alone yours or why they should care. Approach them cautiously, if you move to quickly they will think you want to convert them and flee, but if you can bond with this amazing group of women you are home free, you will survive not only this unit/deployment, but the Army life as well because even as you all start to move away you will stay in touch and you will know you can vent, you can be excited about your spouses accomplishments and you can be disappointed in things judgment free because they know.

All that said you will once in a blue moon find that rare FRG where it works like it should, I didn't mention male spouses because frankly somehow they are the lucky ones that miss out on this drama, they should lead a class!