Upside down

A few things are going to change up our lives in the next few days/weeks and hopefully we'll find the energy to get through it all. I'll blog this quick just to get some things down and then I'll come back to blog later about our trip here to Utah. It's been a fun filled week for sure and we're sad that our time is coming to a close. I have heard the girls ask if we could move back to our blue house, can Lexi move in next door to us in South Carolina and simply, can we move back. The kiddos have gotten along great and as I said it's been a fun week. It will be a tough goodbye for all of us as I have a great friend in Katey and the girls have a great friend in Lexi and well, Emily and Ty have become quite the buddies. The girls have been looking forward to this trip since I dropped the bomb and told them about it and are not going to be happy campers Saturday am. Maybe they'll be so tired at 7 am when we have to leave that they won't remember?!? Right, wishful thinking. Anyway, we'll get through this tough goodbye, again, since this will be what, the third time saying goodbye to this fun crowd? The first was pretty tough but it hasn't gotten much easier. Darn you Katey for being so much fun :)

Once we get home, we head right into the start of school on Wednesday! Monday will be orientation and open house for both Nichole at her elementary school (ok, so I admit, I'm starting to get anxious about it) and for Emily at her preschool (and ok, I'll admit that I'm ready for her to GO! ;)) "Fine, I will stomp all the way over here" is not something I enjoy dealing with from my 3 year old! Both are super excited to start school and I have a feeling the first few days will be like a dream to me, but then reality will kick in and the 3 hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday will fly by when Emily is gone. Tuesday will be filled with dentist appointments and hair appointments to be all bright and shiny on Wednesday am. We're sad Daddy won't be able to share in the day with us, but he made the "sacrifice" to miss the first day of kindergarten to be able to go TDY here to Hill in Utah so we could join him. I think Nichole will remember her trip to UT much more than her first day of kindergarten, but then again, who knows.

So we make it past the first day of school and then move on to another sad goodbye. Nichole has had a few best friends in the past few years and has had to say goodbye to 3 of them already, to include Lexi here in UT.

Lexi was the beginning of the list when we left Utah, then we moved to SC and Nichole became friends with a little boy named Caden in her class during her first year in preschool. Caden left last summer and she has missed him and whenever we pass his neighborhood she always mentions him.

Then Kaity Mac was in her class for the 4 year olds as was Scott and we are in the same squadron as Scott's family, so we always saw a lot of them. Kaity moved a few months ago and Nichole was quite upset at this lifestyle we live and wanted to know why all her friends had to move. She quickly piped up again when our neighbors moved recently.

So that leads us to now where she doesn't know yet, but Scott will be leaving in about 10 days. They wouldn't have gone to the same school anyway, but trust me, knowing them and Scott's mom and I, we'd have made plans at least three times a week to get together even with Nichole in all day kindergarten. I haven't told Nichole that Scott is moving yet b/c we just found out in the past few days and I didn't want to ruin her time here in Utah although it has laid heavy on my heart. I know she will suffer a huge loss in her friendship category considering all her best friends she has made since she was 2 are now "gone". I know she'll make new friends in school and such, but it just won't be the same for her, for me or for Emily for that matter since Scott's little sister and her are best friends.
Luckily, Emily will still have one of her best friends, Kylynn going to preschool with her, but the 3 of those girls together would always just crack us up and especially when you threw Scott and Nichole into the mix.

They are a great group of kids that have their moments, but 90% of the time play awesome together. I will lose a great friend also (only to distance, I know), but it's tough to say goodbye to certain people. Hopefully we can come up with some good distractions over the next few weeks to get us through all this.


To finish it out, we are busy putting together our list for where we'd "like" the AF to take us next. Our list is supposed to be turned in by Sept 9 and while that seems a long way away still, I'm sure it will creep up on us and then we sit and wait to see what our fate is. We have talked through many different scenarios and added to our conversations the many different factors that come into play with options we have. Please pray that we make the best decision we can for what is best for our family. Obviously, us turning in a list doesn't mean we get what's on there. It's just a "dream sheet". But with some different things happening over the next year or so, I'm just trying to keep my faith and know that God is ultimately in control, even if the AF is deciding where we go next, it's really God making that decision and he knows what is best for us.