In Limbo

My new life here up in PA leaves little time for blogging. Since my fan base is pretty much in the same house as I am living, I figured I was good though. :) If you read this blog and actually miss my posts, then let me know! I might make more of an effort. ;-}

We have had a lot of changes in our life in the last few months. They haven't all been easy, but we are doing our best to roll with the punches and do what we think is best for our family. After finishing up over three years of a very hard duty station as a Marine Drill Instructor on Parris Island, Jason was selected for OCS (a Marine Corps school). This took him away from us yet again from January until the last week in March. We have had our house on the market for sometime now since originally we were supposed to move last September. But, obviously we did not and our move was postponed and we thought we would move to VA in April, when Jason was done with OCS. Well, for some reason God has seen fit not to sell our house and it still sits on the market. Still we thought, "that is ok, we will just move early summer." We have dealt with a lot of separation in our 10 years of marriage, another month or two we could do standing on our heads. So Jason was transferred to VA the first of April and we stayed behind in SC. Each month rolled to a close and still no offers on our house. Aiden was out of school and we just knew that God must have messed up the paperwork somewhere and any MINUTE we would be moving to be together as a family. Surely God would grant that. Well, so far there is no end to this story....... Our house has not sold, we do not get to live with Jason, we don't know where we will live by the end of the summer, we don't know where we will be stationed early next year and we have no idea how many times we might move before then. We finally decided to close up the house, hire a neighbor to mow the lawn, give another neighbor the garage door opener to check on things for us, turn off the phones and "move" up to PA for the summer. Where Jason is now stationed (only until November - then we don't know where he will be asked to go), is only about a 2 hour drive to his parents house. They have a small apartment built on to the back of their house that is empty at the moment. My parents made a space for us in their already crowded house and that is how we are spending the summer. Monday through Friday my parents house. Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon at Jason's parents. Jason meet us at his parents sometime Friday night and for one whole day we get to be a family. The situation is not ideal. Living with family with 3 kids and moving back and forth every week drives me crazy more times than not. But, it is a sacrifice I am willing to make. When it comes to family and being a family, you do what you have to do. When you are in the military and you see your husband rarely as it is, you don't care where you live in order to be a family, you just make do. I no longer have the order that I thrive on, I can not keep all my stuff together no matter how hard I try, I always forget something important when I "move" on the weekends, my kids are never in bed on time, the stress that makes up our situation threatens to overwhelm me on a daily basis. But, look at the pictures below and you will see that our kids are happy and heathly. That right there is enough to be grateful for. They will probably look back at this summer as one of the best in their lives. They are surrounded by people that love them. More aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and great grandparents then they can even count (they tried to the other day). :) I probably won't look back and remember the stress that keeps me up at night, wondering when our house will sell, where we will live next, or what we will do at the end of the summer. But, the kids will look back and remember days swinging on the tire swing for hours, exploring the same woods their daddy did and building forts, fishing in the same creek their daddy did with great grandpa and daddy, baseball with granddad and uncles, Popsicles everyday, puzzles and tiddly winks with grand mom, swimming, catching lightning bugs, and hundreds of more great memories. Maybe I should be thankful that our house has not sold and that we were given this summer to be with family. If we can't be with Jason, then there is no other place we would rather be......

I have not taken one photo since we got here. These are from my parents camera. I hope to settle down in to more of a routine, but I am not sure if that is possible! :) I think I need to concede to the fact that I have no routine.