Today I am going to tell you exactly how to fly military space available, with the most updated information.

We have been a military family for over twenty years, but we had always shied away from this method of transportation. For starters, we thought it was only for overseas travel. It turns out that is not true.

If you are like us, you may be nervous to try flying space available. “Being flexible” can be scary.

As it turns out, flying military space available was a fairly easy process.

We finally tried it out this year, to fly to Italy and back, and we are here to share with you all that we learned.

If you are active duty military or a retired service member, you are eligible for this service. Dependents can also fly with them, but non-dependent family members and friends may not use this service.

For a complete description of who can fly military space a, see this official page.

I asked Alan to help me make a video with all the basic facts and the exact process he went through to do this.

If you’d rather just read the facts, we got ya covered there too. Scroll on down for all the websites and beginner information.

This is the website you need for EVERYTHING Space-A related:

amc.af.mil

Here are the steps for how to find and enroll in your flight!

#1. Sign out on leave, and have your leave form ready. You will be using it for everything.

You cannot even register for space available flights until you are on leave.

#2. Visit this site: amc.af.mil

Everything you need both in the country and OCONUS is found on this website.

#3. Time to do some preliminary research on what flights are coming up.

I mean really you will probably do this step long before you sign out on leave.

On the amc.af.mil website, follow the links on the “catch a ride” section. That will take you here. On this page they have a list of all the different terminals with military flights.

Then you can click on the individual terminals, and it will take you to their webpages. From there, look for their 30 day or 72 hour projections, whichever you would like to see.

That will give you a list of who is currently flying out to where. It will also tell you how many seats they expect to have available and time for roll call.

#4. You will see the phrase roll call mentioned. What is this roll call?

You need to check in with the desk by roll call to submit for a seat. Roll call is when they call out the names of those on standby who are receiving a seat. For our flights, we already had our tickets before roll call.

#5. Register to fly Space-Available with all the terminals you might use here on this easy form for all of those terminals at this webpage.

That is the most important step!

Please note, you have to be officially on leave before you are allowed to register for travel. Priority is given to those who have been on leave the longest.

#6. Print out your email confirmations that you get from that sign up form.

These will have the date on them that you signed up and it serves as a receipt, so print it out.

#7. Check on the flights you are interested in as your departure date draws near.

Last minute changes do happen sometimes. Changes are sometimes posted online.

#8. The day before your flight, call the terminal for an update on that flight.

You can ask any questions you have. For example, you can ask what kind of airplane it is and what time the flight is actually scheduled to leave.

On the day you fly:

Arrive an hour before roll call with your printed email confirmation and your leave form, passport, and military ID in hand.

Expect to be waiting at the airport all day long. You will probably get checked in fairly quickly. But then it takes a few hours before the airplane actually boards. Make sure you have plenty to read and snack on.

The airports we flew in and out of did not have any restaurants and very little snacks available.

If you are flying with children, make sure you have some way to entertain them. You often even have time (once you have checked in and have your tickets) to leave the airport for food or a walk and come back.

Alan and I did a lot of walking around while waiting. We also sat and scrolled on our phones, but small children will not put up with that. Make sure you have a deck of UNO cards and something that plays movies handy.

I was so impressed that each of our overseas flights fed us three times!! They had many beverage options too!

In closing, we hope you get a chance to try out flying military space available!

Saving a few thousand dollars was extremely satisfying to us!! It made the slightly longer waiting times and the risk of being bumped worth it. Thankfully, we had no mishaps on our first two trips. We highly recommend it to all military and retired families!!

Feel free to ask any questions you have below, and we will do our best to answer.

More Travel Articles:

Why Capernaum Was Our Favorite City to Visit in Israel

Jerusalem in Pictures: Golgotha, Where Jesus was Crucified

Our Sweltering Seven Days in Italy in a Nutshell

The post How to Fly Military Space Available (& How it Went for Us in 2023) appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

You might be thinking, “I didn’t even know the US Army has a museum.”

Just a few years ago, there was not one, but now I am happy to report that the US Army does in fact have its very own museum. It is very close to Washington D.C., on an Army base named Fort Belvoir. And it is a fun one too.

Also, I will tell you, Fort Benning has a similar one that is called the National Infantry Museum, but it does not encompass the entirety of the United States Army branch. In fact, many of the branches within the Army have their own museum.

The one in D.C. is unique because it is for the whole Army. Its official name is the National Museum of the United States Army.

This museum takes you through the history of the U.S. Army and shows a little of what the Army is doing today as well. It tells the story of the brave men and women who have fought for our freedom through displays, real artifacts, and a lot of interactive fun stuff too.

Actually, there is way more here than you would expect, so I am going to tell ya all about what to expect when you visit.

When to go:

This museum is open every single day of the year, except for Christmas day. You can’t beat that.

Their hours are 9am-5pm.

We went on September, 11th, a Monday, and it was not crowded at all. In fact, it was ghost town in there, and I was just hoping they won’t go out of business because it was an excellent museum, especially if you are traveling with wiggly kids like we were.

Tickets:

Tickets are for specific times, but they are free. You can reserve them online. It was not crowded though, so you could probably get tickets at the door just fine.

Go here to reserve your time slot and date.

They do have a donation box near the door.

Is the U.S. Army Museum kid friendly?

Yes, very. There is a whole wing of hands on activities for kids, and even the normal museum exhibits have some hands-on activities, like this Army puzzle.

There are a lot of neat things to look at too. I should write a post about taking kids to museums though, because it is different than browsing on your own. We have dragged our kids (usually against their will) to museums all across America, and we have had mostly positive experiences.

However, we also do our best to keep low expectations and move quickly. This is always a little harder on the parent who is more interested in that particular museum. In the art museums in D.C., I was the one too engrossed in the paintings to realize our children were not popular with the security guards. Ha! My husband was mortified and ready to run, and I was like, “What? They’re being so good, and this place is amazing.”

At the Army Museum, Navy Museum, basically any war-related museum, Alan is the one reading everything, and I am the one asking to go to the cafe with the kids after a while.

It’s a balance. It does save the day for the quicker parent to escort the kids through a quick browse of the museum. Then when their attention span is getting stretched past their capabilities and melt downs are beginning to happen, the quick parent needs to escort the kids to a snack, play, or gift shop area.

In full disclosure, I get annoyed with adults who go through museums too slowly too. I feel like all you need to do is see the highlights, read a few plaques, get the general idea, take some fun photos, and leave. All of that takes me a couple of hours tops.

D.C. art museums aside, I am always the one with the kids on the bench at the end, waiting for the rest of the family to join us. What can possibly take them that long? I’ll never understand.

In fact, I have some good photos of me and the boys waiting on the benches for Alan or relatives, but they will not let me post them on the internet, which is fair.

We found something for everyone at this museum, even our loudest whiner. Our little whiner enjoyed the virtual reality and the cafe and the Army puzzle.

Our Army officer enjoyed everything and was probably wishing he had come without us (ha!).

Military Kid Experience

Nowhere else will you get this, and I thought it was just fantastic. They had a military kid experience quiz on a large touchscreen t.v. at the front of the interactive wing of the museum.

All four of our kids enjoyed answering the questions. It was so extremely relatable to our nomadic lifestyle. At the end of each question in the quiz, it would give what percentage of participants had chosen each answer.

The Experimental Learning Center

The interactive area is to the right of the front doors when you first walk into the museum. It is called the Experimental Learning Center, and it is unlike anything I have ever seen in a museum. This was high tech learning and lots of it. I learned science concepts in there I knew nothing about.

They have all these training modules you can participate in, and you can select the easier or the harder versions. We worked on engineering, vision wavelengths, virus studies, and all sorts of scientific concepts. I learned a lot about night vision and infrared light at one of the modules. This was all impressive.

If you have older kids, or people who enjoy this type of thing in your group, you could easily spend an hour just in this area. We did. We are definitely hands-on-learning people.

If you have younger children, you will need to let them set your pace. It can be hard sometimes to let the younger ones set the pace for your tour, but the fact is that if you don’t, you will end up with an over-tired, frustrated, crying toddler on the floor, while you are questioning all of your life choices..

Meanwhile, I had such a good time trying everything out in the Experimental Learning Center, I either forgot to take photos or they were not allowed. So don’t skip the learning center!

Extras at this Museum:

Two activities here are extra, paid add-ons. They had a flight simulator and a virtual reality Army experience next to the main exhibits of the museum. I did the flight simulator with two of our boys, and Alan did the virtual reality with the other two.

I think they were $10 extra a piece, per person. That adds up quick, so that is why three of us did one of them and the other three of us did the other.

I did enjoy the flight simulator though. It reminded me of a Universal Studios simulator I got to go on back in high school, and I thought it was fun.

The Exhibits

The exhibits are authentic and fun to look at. I thoroughly enjoyed the tour through all of America’s wars and seeing the uniform of each different generation.

We actually ran out of time to see it all. If you do not want that to happen to you, schedule your ticket earlier in the day. My husband is in the Army, and he and one of my sons took f-o-r-e-v-e-r going through this. My teenage sons, my nine-year-old, and I ended up hanging out at the cafe eating chips and drinking sodas for a while. The nine-year-old ran out of patience to finish the whole museum, and we were all hungry.

In conclusion, touring this museum is a great way to spend an afternoon with your family.

When you go places and engage in the world together as a family you cannot help but have fun. And yes, it felt like delicious bonding time with our sons.

We watched movies, tried out all the interactive stuff, did puzzles, laughed together, and complained to each other. What more could you want in a day trip? I got some delightful family shots of us at the end. They don’t let me share those.

So we went in with some unwilling participants for sure. Some of our group wanted to stay home and play x-box. But we went anyway, and we had a great time.

I highly recommend this museum to anyone. You will learn so much and have fun doing it. Plus, it instills a nice sense of patriotism that you don’t get many places.

I firmly believe we learn more from these immersive experiences than we do from school history books.

And for the full story of when we took all the kids and some of their friends to a D.C. art museum, go here.

For more fun things to do in D.C., see this article.

The post See the U.S. Army Museum in 20 Patriotic Pictures appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I did promise that once the podcast that I participated in was live, I would let you all know. It went live last week, and I announced that on Facebook. It occurred to me I still needed to post about it here on my blog.

So here’s the link that will take you straight there:

Choosing Your Reflection

This podcast is all about wedding gowns and what goes into the decision of what you will wear for the big day. Before coming across this podcast channel, I had never given much thought as to WHY wedding dresses are so special or why I chose what I chose specifically. Yes, I love a beautiful wedding gown, but I had never thought about all the psychology behind that.

“Choosing Your Reflection” turned out to be a fun topic that crossed right over into my present day life.

The title of my episode was, quite fittingly, “White Gown, Blue Suit.” I think going into the show, you probably assume that I wore the white gown, and Alan wore the blue suit. But y’all, that is not the case. It’s more than that.

You see, on my wedding day, I wore both a white gown and a blue suit, and we decided the blue suit was more fitting to the life that I was preparing for as a military spouse. You can go here to hear the whole story.

Now here we are 19 years later.

….and ever so much older and wiser…also more wrinkly and several sizes larger on my part…Alan is amazingly enough still the same size.

But I feel like the blue suit ties back in to my current moment in time, and I find myself wishing I had a new one to wear. The thing is that at twenty years of Army service, you must make a decision. Either you will exit the Army in the form of retirement, or you stay in. We knew this was coming. I have felt the weight of it for the past year.

If you have followed this blog, you probably noticed my home sickness and longing to return to our homeland of Alabama. Maybe we could get a house with some land, some little wooden rocking chairs, and truly settle down. There is nothing settled down about moving every one to three years, as we have done for the past nineteen years. Really, that is our whole adult life.

But perhaps the year of corona gave me the restful quiet that I needed in order to face the future.

It really wasn’t all that restful, but with everything cancelled, we did get to be at home A LOT.

Alan’s career is going very well. Why would he jump ship just now? And this year has shown us like no other that virtual school is actually a thing that can be done for a high schooler, rather than making them go to multiple high schools.

No, I cannot home school small children. The stress of that is still agony to me. Square pegs do not fit in round holes, and I am very much a square peg when it comes to the round hole of home schooling children. The negative stress of it is still the reason I take heart pills everyday.

However, teenagers are easier for me. They know how to sit down, be quiet, and mostly do their work unassisted. I can manage that.

Also, this is the second summer in a row that we have not had to move, and what a relief that has been!

So anyway, I talked in the podcast about donning the blue suit for the serious work ahead. Well, this is me today, all over again. The world is gradually returning to normal. We have at least a year before we have to move again. Currently, there are no plans to retire from the Army.

So here am I. I’m putting on my new blue suit. Literally, I am totally going to order one. And I’m rolling up my proverbial sleeves and taking on the years ahead. We can do this; we are suited up and ready to go.

It will look different than the first nineteen years. The kids are older. My eye crinkles and laugh lines are deeper. That vision of a house of dreams in Alabama is now residing there in my brain. That desire to see the whole country and live in new and exciting places, well, it is pretty much gone. My heart yearns for familiar paths these days.

But that’s okay. We are all in. Come what may, God will take care of us.

The post A Little Blue Suit for the Serious Work Ahead appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

And yet, Alan and Daniel are the only two still standing. It starts as a scratchy throat, then it is sore. Snot kicks in, and for Caleb and me there is a cough. You can see why we worried it was covid or strep, but it is not.

I have been up half the night coughing for four days now, and it feels like I keep getting worse. I think I am currently fighting off bronchitis.

So yeah, we have been better. I have spent a great deal of 2021 sickly.

I know you did not come here to read about our medical problems, though, and we are waaaaaaaay overdue for an update-on-life post, so let’s just do that.

Quite a few things have happened since last we talked.

1.) I got to be on my first podcast. FUN!!!!!

My podcast episode is already recorded, but it is not published yet. Or wait, if it is a podcast, do they say published, or more like released? Anyway, you can rest assured I will be letting you know on here and all my social medias when it is available.

What in the world was I on a podcast for, you ask? Raising boys? Army life? Moving expert?

Haha! No!!! Wedding dresses!!!!

I once wrote this article about my fascination with wedding dresses. The funny thing is that when I looked back through this blog I discovered that I have actually blogged about wedding dresses several times. It is the ultimate pretty dress, okay?

So there is this podcast channel that is devoted to all things wedding gowns! It is called Choosing Your Reflection.

In the show, I got to talk about exactly what you’d expect, my wedding dress, what it meant to me, and the tragedy that eventually befell the dress. Granted, this channel may be a little girly for some of my readers (*cough* Dad), but I thought it was a fun thing to be a part of. Check out their channel here, and keep an eye out for when my interview is released!

#2. Glorious surprise that’s also kind of funny:

Now in our defense, there are TWO trashcans in the photo, even though you only see one well. You see? If it were put up properly, it would not stick out like a sore thumb.

The boys usually handle trash duty, but two days ago I had a bag I actually took out to the can myself, and I was delightfully surprised by this row of hot pink azaleas lining the trash can spot on the side of our house.

I love how beauty can thrill the soul, and pick you up when you are suffering from not-the-COVID. But then there is also a hilarious out of place trashcan to say….there’s always real life stuff to deal with, like trash.

#3. On days when I did not feel like I was resting on death’s doorstep from not-the-COVID, I have been ORGANIZING.

OUR HALL TREE BEFORE:

AND AFTER:

I literally just now noticed the blue post-it note on the mirror. Ha! I don’t even know if I did that or John David.

Yes, it would look better without the masks and Alan’s running gear, but you see those are daily use items. Empty hooks may be prettier, but we are in a phase of life where we actually NEED to use the hooks.

P.S. The storage bin part of it is now minus about ten hats and three purses. Plus, I even cleaned out the purses.

Organizing is my happy place.

Just imagine how organized my house would be if I did not have people to take care of. When I was a kid, I used to regularly re-alphabetize and group my book collection over and over again. There is something about having this one small space that you can feel hyper-in-control of.

You know why? I think it is because most of life is completely out of our control. One never knows when one will get sick with COVID or not-the-Covid. Fires, moves, sick family members, job changes, rain, consequences of decisions….You never know what will show up on your doorstep on any given day. Sure, you hope it’s just your Amazon package, but some days it’s more like a pesky sales person who talks you into buying something you did not even want!

We are trying our best though.

Some exciting things were accomplished in April. I got myself a Good Housekeeping magazine subscription, completely cleaned out two kitchen drawers and four cabinets, and re-organized the entire living room. Next time maybe I will post some more before and after photos of all that!!

I had this giant box all ready to collect donations for Goodwill, but instead I ended up filling up like three bags of trash. Most of what we were keeping was completely useless.

Hmmm…trash just keeps coming up today.

In fact, if you come over and catch this not-the-Covid from me, you too can feel like trash.

I’m super happy about how much decluttering was accomplished though, and there are about ten Target bags full of donation items in the garage now.

#4. How did I get on this whole donating/tossing things kick?

One day, back before I got sick again, I was feeling bummed. That’s a feeling I’ve gone back and forth with for a while now. The year of rona was not helpful for mental health.

Anyway, I was in the laundry room, feeling especially uninspired by my daily tasks. I cracked open my computer, which I rarely even use lately. Then I went to YouTube because they make a video for everything these days.

In the You Tube search bar, I typed in “How to better manage your time as a mom and house keeper.” (or something like that)

This came up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWstD4NB4CY

She is called the Minimal Mom. Decluttering and getting rid of tons of stuff is something all Army families do over and over and over again, but it has piled up on me, and I needed to do this again. I find her very relatable. She also has four children, so I knew her advice would make sense to me!

I loved her “decide on one most important goal for each day” rule.

#5. One last funny!

Alan took Daniel and JD camping, and this is a little snapshot of the inside of John David’s suitcase. This isn’t even all of it, but it’s just so funny what a seven-year-old boy thinks is important to pack.

Also, y’all, there’s a Bible in there because this boy is a man with a plan. His current plan is that he is going to go to seminary after high school, be a pastor, and live down the street from me in Alabama, where I will also go to his church. That really gets you in the feels, doesn’t it? I mean I’m not too sure his future wife will love the idea of living down the street from us, but I plan to be on my best behavior so as not to prevent this dream from coming true!! Love it!!!

So life in 2021 has its ups and downs as usual.

What year doesn’t? The boys are sort of enjoying being back in school. One of them stayed home, but he will go back in the fall.

If we can just all get well, I feel like things are about to get good. I have fun things planned for the summer.

Don’t forget to catch me on the podcast at Choosing Your Reflection! I will let you know when it becomes available! Y’all, stay healthy! After a year at home, I don’t think our immune systems are as awesome as they were before.

The post Life in 2021: The Podcast, The Decorated Trashcan, & They Say it’s Not the Covid. appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

One thing I appreciate about Maryland is the sheer number of state parks.

Our state boasts fifty-three state and eight national parks, not bad for such a small state. There are also islands to visit in the Chesapeake Bay. Maryland also borders D.C., Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, and Delaware, so it feels like an excellent spot for an adventurer.

Not long after we moved in, I heard someone mention the King and Queen Seats at Rocks State Park, in Jarrettsville, Maryland. I figured that meant rock formations in the shape of two thrones, and I added this to my mental list of “must sees.”

We went to Rocks State Park and explored a little several times during the pandemic.

At times, it was actually swarming with people, and it was hard to find a parking space. With all the malls, theaters, and cities basically closed, the people were driven out into the outdoor areas. That was probably one of the better things that came out of the 2020 corona hysteria.

our favorite swimming area at Rocks State park

On our first several visits to Rocks State, we found an excellent swimming hole and lazy river type spot.

We walked the dog, swam, skipped rocks, and played frisbee.

What we did NOT find was the king and queen seats. Granted, we did not go out and hike up the hills looking for it too hard. We just parked at the first picnic area and headed over to the swimming hole.

Now that it is November, we decided it was time to hunt this locally famous rock formation down.

We have been inside far too much since school started. Saturday was the perfect day. The sun was out in force, and the humidity was gone, leaving the air a lovely, inviting 70 degrees.

Glorious!

Oh, and yes! Dogs are allowed on the trails. Rosie saw many of her kind!

(part of the Red Trail, not near the King and Queen Seats)

If you follow the brown road signs within the park, they will lead you to the parking lot uphill that is literally right beside the entrance pathway to the king and queen’s seats.

Of course, if you have never been, you might park your car and then take off walking half a mile in the opposite direction from your destination on the “red trail.” Ha! That is what we did anyway. We took a nice stroll through the fall foliage for a while before we asked someone where the King and Queen seats were and were pointed back to where we had started from..

So we turned back around, hiked right past our car in the parking lot and on that same trail mere yards from our car, and found all these rocks.

Giant rocks everywhere.

There was also a sign which explained why it is called the King and Queen Seats. It turned out to be from a legend. The story was that our local Susquehannock tribes would meet up there and their king and queen would take their place on these rocks in ceremony. The expert sign at the park explained that there is no evidence to back up this claim, but that it is probably a myth. Ah, well.

Honestly, none of it really looked like a throne to me either, so that was not exactly what I expected.

The climbing experience does not disappoint though.

You can truly feel on top of the world up there. Some of it even looks like a giant bridge. The rocks juts out over this cliff. With small children and dog in tow, I honestly did not climb it to its full potential. I find myself playing it extremely safe these days. Rocks State Park is one of those spots where someone is occasionally in the news for having fallen to their death from up there. Of course, I told this to all of our boys to make sure everyone was cautious, and they were.

Alan and the older boys explored the rocks more fully than I did. Rosie climbed to surprising heights too. She was so funny, whining about wanting to go visit all the other dogs.

I mostly hovered over John David and Daniel, making sure no one made any missteps that would lead to them plunging to their deaths. Out of all of us, I was the only who ever actually tripped, which I did a few times. Thankfully, I tripped on the trails though, not the rocky climbing area.

Of course, I also took tons of pictures. Every group has to have that one person. For now, I am that person. Caleb is the one for our next generation. He is very good about remembering to make photo and video documentation.

I think it actually looks scarier in pictures than it did in person. We did not actually engage in any risky behavior, really.

All of our family enjoys a light rock climbing excursion. This reminded me of places we have climbed in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, or Great Falls, Virginia, or Yosemite National Park in California.

Alan and Daniel in Harpers Ferry, WV, 2012.

Isn’t it silly how people ask if you are a mountain person or a beach person, as if you cannot be both?

Both, guys, both! We get to like both!!

But yeah, if I were to build a house anywhere I wanted, it would be on the shore. Mountains and cliffs and rocks like this are gorgeous and inspiring too though, and that is why God gave us both.

The post In Search of the King and Queen Seats appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

We make this trip down south to see our family every single year. Alan had to switch jobs back in June, so this year we pushed the pilgrimage back to August. I kept thinking by August “things” would be better. But alas, August is here, and things still look like a bowl of mush.

Alan had to get special permission to even take leave and travel so far during all this mess. With permission secured, we packed our bags and hit the highway.

We left town in a downpour comparable to what I would imagine was seen in the days of Noah and his ark.

Cars were pulled over on I-95 to both the left and right sides of the road, as the water was almost impossible to even see through. Giant diesel trucks were everywhere. It was rough, but we trudged forth.

Our faithful canine companion was tucked safely on her little chewed-up dog bed in the van floor between the middle seats. She is a champ of a traveler, though she did take some fascination with a random truck driver at a red light in the D.C. area who she barked at a bit. No idea what her problem with him was. He seemed to get the message and inched forward. Ha!

By the time we got through Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the weather cleared up. Hurray!

We only drove five hours the first day and knocked out the remaining eight on day two. This trip went more quickly than past ones, as we did take fewer stops.

Thankfully, at this point in the pandemic, August 7th, we did not have any trouble finding places to take a bathroom break or get food.

Have you ever suffered an electric shock from a car charger?

Our minivan has a charger in the back row, which the boys like to fight over. They use it to charge their modern day Gameboys. We were in the middle of settling a dispute over who had the right to charge their Nintendo in that space, when Daniel suddenly let out a dramatic “Yow!” He was in deep distress, and all attention turned to his giant blue eyes and upset face.

Apparently, there was a small pencil in the charger, and he reached down to grab it out. He touched the lead and the metal all at once, which gave him a solid shock. He was shook up.

Then all the boys, including Dad, started to tell their shock stories.

One was especially hilarious. Our son was sitting in his sixth grade class, ironically enough, listening to a lesson on electric current and graphite. He thought to himself that his pencil tip was like graphite, so he PURPOSEFULLY stuck his pencil in an electrical outlet! My son let out a yelp and was forced to explain himself to both teacher and class. The way he told it was pretty funny.

This was news to me.

I had never heard this story. Plus, I had no idea that so many of us have suffered shocks! Caleb and I are the only ones in our family who have never been shocked. This is also quite ironic, considering Caleb was the toddler who got caught by all three kinds of mouse traps.

We all had a good laugh over the electrical shock stories. I love how we all feel so close during family vacations. Vacations are an essential part of family life. That opportunity for everyone to step away for their ordinary engagements and have fun together for a while is refreshing. This time builds bonds and heals hurts.

One of the boys has Siri on his device set to “Indian accent,” and we got to listen to him ask it silly questions.

Biggest whiner of the trip: The dog.

Rosie was happy and quiet for most of the five hour trip, but any time Alan got out of the van to pump gas or run into a store, the dog whining began in earnest. It was as though she thought he was never returning. Alan is her master, and she is completely devoted to him.

Now that Alan works from home, Rosie spends all day everyday lying in the floor of the room where he works. Some days Alan goes into the office to work, and Rosie will still spend the day lying in the floor of his room, waiting for him to return.

We ended night one at a Hampton Inn and Suites in southern Virginia.

Hampton Inn’s Covid Changes

Most corona changes are mild: wear a mask in the hallways, smaller numbers of people in the elevator, etc. The only change that annoyed me was breakfast and coffee.

For breakfast, you had to put in an order of what you would like from a menu, by midnight the night before. We only arrived at the hotel at eleven-something, so I felt rushed on that with very little brain power, but we got it done. Plus, you had to sign up for a breakfast pick-up time. I did not like that level of committing to a wake up time after a late night, but it didn’t bother Alan. He always gets up early.

Once you go down to breakfast pick-up, you had to wait in a very long line, which always feels counterproductive to me in the age of rona.

Coffee is no longer self-serve, which makes sense. You had to got to the front desk and tell the clerk how to fix your coffee. I tried to just make coffee in my room, but it was a different system than I am used to. I did not have the patience for learning new things, so downstairs I went for the desk-clerk-served coffee.

The good news is the coffee was delicious, and there was no line for that.

How was there no line for coffee? Everyone else had the energy and functioning to figure out that tiny alien coffee maker in our rooms?

We were back on the road by 9:45 on day two. With four children, that feels like an accomplishment. Yes, I am serious. Some people, (I mean me), have trouble getting up before 7:30 these days…

More on our Bama vacation on our next post!

If you are considering taking a road trip in the age of rona, and have not decided yet, I say GO! Yes, COVID is everywhere, but you can take precautions in one state about as well as another.

Happy summer!

The post Successful Annual Road Trip to See Family During the Rona appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Once in August, we said, “I do.”

Weddings and marriages are funny. How often do you see a celebrity lavishly pour out a million dollars on a wedding, and everyone is oohing and aaahing over it, KNOWING that marriage probably won’t even last.

Our wedding was beautiful.

Well, I thought so anyway. It was no celebrity affair, but it fit me, with a touch of Alan. Everything was simple and pretty and stuffed to the brim with guests.

Before Alan proposed, I had never stopped to think about what kind of wedding I wanted– not for two seconds. I never dreamed about my wedding. It just wasn’t something I ever thought about. I DID think about the groom, that part I was day dreaming about practically from birth. “Who will I marry?” must have been one of my earliest questions.

I even dreamed about my dream house, drawing out house plan after house plan. My plans were never for one or two or even four people, either. They always included rooms for extended family, like in Full House. I always wanted a house chock full of people, which is exactly what I have.

Alan proposed to me at Callaway Gardens over spring break his senior year and my junior year of college.

We mooned over our new engagement all the way home. This was before social media was invented. We emailed all of our friends to let them know the news that week from Alan’s parents’ living room desktop computer.

The minute we got back, Nonna (Alan’s mom) was excited to start talking about wedding plans. Uhhhh…ummmm… My family had never even discussed weddings or anything of the sort because I had never brought it up. I did not know anything about weddings. The only weddings I could even remember were ones I attended as a child.

I was the flower girl in one, and I was Amber’s maid of honor just the year before. Those were two very different weddings. One was a big church wedding, and that is all I remember about it. I was eight. Then Amber’s wedding was a small one of family and closest friends.

But I was very new to Alan’s family, and I was not about to admit that I was completely ignorant of the world of tulle and centerpieces. I did my best to nod along. Sure, who cares, whatever, I am getting married to Alan! So happy!!!

Suddenly, there I was with stacks of Bride magazines and a book on wedding etiquette, on loan from Nonna’s personal library.

It was fun and exciting, but I was like a deer in the headlights. “I don’t think my parents can afford a big wedding. Maybe we can get friends to do some of these things, and just have the wedding and reception at my church. I really have no idea how my parents will want to do all of this.”

My parents were not taken by surprise by the proposal. Alan asked Dad before he asked me. They set me a reasonable budget to stick to for the wedding, and we did our best. Looking back, I think the wedding turned out beautifully. I admittedly should have thought through the reception better. The room was a little small for 150 guests, but it was never meant to be a sit-down dinner. This was a casual reception in the fellowship hall of the church, and that was how I wanted it to be. Fussy and frilly and going all out was not my thing back then, nor did I have the money for that.

After our wedding, it seemed like the flood gates opened, and suddenly we were constantly going to weddings.

At the time I remember thinking, “If only these could have happened before mine! I could have copied so many ideas…”

But you know what? It is best that it did not happen that way. The way things actually happen is usually what is best. Our wedding was a reflection of just us, Alan and me. Well, truly, it was a reflection of me and my mom and Alan and his mom because when you get married at twenty-one and twenty-three, the mothers are heavily involved. It is a good thing too. Without our mothers’ input, you all could have been eating Guthries chicken fingers and drinking soda. Ha!!

One of my funniest memories is trimming Nonna’s guest list with Alan. We had to take a list of about three hundred down to one hundred for him and one hundred for me, or something like that, and that was pretty hilarious. It was reminiscent of that Father of the Bride movie. Alan was such a great sport about it all too. He knew I had my heart set on getting married in the church I grew up in, and he just trimmed away.

Before I knew I would be getting married that summer, I also had lined up a summer job as a camp counselor in Texas for myself, at a place called Pine Cove, or something like that. In May, I mentioned the camp to my mom, and she said I absolutely could not run off to camp and leave her to plan that whole wedding by herself, and I was like, “Ohhh… right. Okay, yes, that is fair.”

Ha! Mom had her hands full with me. I was so young and clueless, but it was never about the actual wedding day for me.

It was about the actual marriage. Alan and I agreed that when we said “forever” we meant “forever”. There was no pre-nup. We could not wait to start our life story together.

Someone once asked Ruth Graham if she ever considered divorcing Reverend Billy Graham, with how often he was gone. She had the best answer: “Divorce? No. Never. Murder, yes.”

I thought that was a squarely perfect and honest answer. Everyone wants to be that sweet old couple, but you have to cross through all the years of immaturity, growing, battles, and facing life together to get to those golden years.

We are in this for more than a beautiful wedding day. Our finish line is still too far away to even see. Even still, I enjoy day dreaming about it.

I may have day dreamed out loud one too many times because the boys are starting to ask, “When are we moving to Mom’s farm in Alabama??”

Oops…It is not a farm exactly I want, it is the peace and landscape, and yes, Alabama. Most importantly, stability is what I long for. My someday house does not pick up and move every two years to the next undisclosed location. It sits peacefully, at one with its surroundings. The people in this house always know who to list as their emergency contacts.

There is room for Alan to teach the boys to shoot and maybe even fish. It has ample outdoor space and a district zone for a few chickens and a small kitchen garden. In my imagination, I can magically not kill the plants, you see.

The church is not far away, and I can drive to my parents’ house in much less than a day. There is a school for each boy there that is just perfect for them. It is hot down there, but that is okay because we have one of those quick set pools. Alan won’t fuss about the pool killing the grass either because we are not going to need to sell the house in two years. We are there to stay for as long as we or the good Lord sees fit.

‘Til death do us part. I could not have done this adventure with anyone else.

The fun of it all was a big deal to me then, and it still is. At twenty-one, I did not want to buy my rural house in Alabama yet and settle down. What I wanted was to run away with this guy, and we did just that.

We honeymooned in Jamaica, and then I rode with him to his officer training in Oklahoma. Everything we saw was new and fun, from climbing Dunn’s River Falls to New York City. It has been one expedition after another, and I loved it.

I know I mentioned in my last post how many of the hardships really caught up with me this year. That is true. Alan went to Iraq for twelve months early on, then fifteen months a few years later, and then Afghanistan in 2011. We have moved far more than is sane, but with any journey, there are obstacles.

Life is a battle, but ours has been a thrilling one. It is true that I am so ready to be done with the moving, but I would not trade our road for any other. I love what God has blessed us with and what we have built together. It is such an honor and a joy to be a part of it.

Here’s to decades and decades more. I love you. We are greatly blessed.

“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”

James 1:17

I’m linking up with Finding Ninee today for Finish the Sentence Friday here. This week’s prompt is “Once in August”.

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