Home Is Where The Military Sends You

I purchased this custom made house online.  I only started looking for it online after seeing a similar concept at a friends house.  This house says "Home Is Where The Air Force Sends You".  It has our last name on the door, and then below it has the locations of all the places that my husband has been stationed in his Air Force career.  Even though he went to most of these places without me or our children, I still feel as if I did go to those places with him.  The third bar down says "Whiteman AFB, MO".  That is where we met.  He was the "boyfriend that never went away".  When we were 19, he wanted to get married and settle down.  But I already had an agenda for my life, and getting married at 19 wasn't one of them.  He kept in touch for the 12 years between Whiteman AFB and Yokota AB in Japan when he finally decided to come home so we could finally start our lives together.  Our family life together started while stationed at F.E. Warren AFB in Wyoming, as the bars reflect down below.

 

   

People say that "Home is Where the Heart Is" and "As long as we are together, we are home".  However, I think home is where your stuff is at!  Because, it doesn't really feel like home until your stuff is there.  Being together is important, but it's the specific things in life that make you FEEL like it's a home.. like, your own mattress and sheets that you've missed so much, and now you don't want to get out of bed.  Or, eating off your own dishes with your own forks.  It may seem silly to most people (and yes, materialistic), but since we packed our things over three months ago.. having our things back makes being here that much easier.  Even our daughter, Lilly couldn't get to sleep last night, because she has been so bored with "nothing to do" for so long (but really, she was bored with what there was available to do), a room full of toys she hasn't seen in forever, she was bouncing off the walls!  And really, some of them she really hadn't seen forever.  Over a year ago, she got in so much trouble, we cleaned her room out and hid a lot of her toys in the basement.  And, then most of them stayed down there.. as there wasn't room for it all in her room.  But now we don't have a basement.  And so, the only place for it all to go is her room.  But, we are going to have to plan a day of sorting through all of our stuff.  Because, now that we have lived without our things for so long.. there are some things I'm finding as I go through boxes that I'm not sure I care about it enough to take up space in what little space we have.  We have a big house, but with very little storage to tuck the things away that we don't really need.. but have had trouble parting with in the past.

For those that have never moved overseas, here is a bit of the process that we went through in pictures.

I wish I had taken a picture of the movers, packing the truck in the snow.  Since they had already packed the snow shovel, they were using a dolly to shovel the driveway so they wouldn't slip.

Leaving Cheyenne.  January 11, 2013.  Most of the day was a snow storm, but we had our last Cheyenne sunset as we left.

Saying goodbye to our dog Sophie, January 12, 2013 when we dropped her off at the airport to be flown to friends in Illinois.  Can't wait to get her back this summer!

Our stuff finally arrived!  April 14, 2013.  Both the fast and slow shipment arrived the same day in 14 crates.  It is 90 degrees.  

The crates are empty.  And there are now a lot of flies in my house with the door hanging open all day.

The packers in Cheyenne have interesting spelling skills.

Yes, I do think the same person packed this box as the pantry box.  But I'm glad he warned me.  

So, it took three months to move.  However, our car still hasn't arrived.  And it will take a while to unpack, because I am not a master unpacker like some people.  And who knew that so much of my furniture could come apart?  It will take some time to find all the parts to put things back together.  But so far, the only thing we have discovered damage is the scanner plate on our printer. But, the good news is our house doesn't echo as much with all this stuff in the house!  It's a good day in Djibouti!

90 degrees in Djibouti City, Djibouti