On the last day before our flight out of Italy, Alan and I needed to get from halfway up the boot in Naples, down to the island boot tip of Sicily, to fly out of Naval Air Station Sigonella.

Our whole vacation was built around our military space available flights. To learn more about flying to Italy using military space A, if you are active duty or retired, click here.

All of the flights back to the U.S. were leaving out of Sigonella that Sunday. Meanwhile, we were still up in Naples.

Originally, we hoped to fly commercially from Naples to Sicily. Flights were not much more expensive than the train, so why not? After all, this was no speed train. It was going to take us a full eight hours to ride down the coast of Italy on a train.

But of course, as I mentioned before in my Italy Trip in a Nutshell post, there was an airline strike. The strike only lasted for the one day that we wanted to fly. You cannot make this stuff up. This is how we ended up on a train from Naples to Sigonella.

I guess other people had the same dilemma because by the time we bought our train tickets, there were no seats that were together. There were some nearby each other, just not together. We took what we could get and hoped for the best.

Important tip: If you are booking a train ticket to Sigonella, the stop you are looking for is the “Catania Centrale” stop.

Alan and I had completely different experiences on our journey down the boot to Sigonella.

My experience was pleasant enough. I had a window seat, by the air conditioner. The seat groups faced each other, with a table in the middle. All of the people in my group of four were always quiet. There were stops where the people would change out, but it was always low maintenance people with no drama.

I rested the day away, staring out my window at the Italian countryside and reading.

It was the opposite for Alan. First of all , Alan did not got to sit in his real seat until the last hour or so of the trip. An Italian mom traveling with her three children couldn’t get their seats together either, so she picked a group of seats and just asked other people to move. I don’t blame her a bit. Traveling with children is hard. Everyone was kind about it.

Every few stops, someone would board the train and find Alan sitting in their seat because of all the shuffling. Meanwhile, Alan did not have a window seat with the air conditioning like I did. He said he sweated the entire day.

Oh! And there was one Italian lady, at the beginning of the trip, who got upset about the snack bar not being open, or maybe it was the restrooms. I never knew. I do not speak Italian. Anyway, she protested loudly to the train conductor when he came around and made a bit of a scene. She, of course, was sitting across from Alan.

His day was hot, confusing, embarrassing, and interesting. I can safely say this was Alan’s most miserable day in Italy, and even it was not that bad.

I greatly preferred my quiet, uninteresting ride by the window. There were so many ancient Roman ruins to see! I’m genuinely sorry I did not take more photos.

Y’all are going to fire me as a travel blogger if I do not better remember to take good photos.

When the whole train boarded a ferry to Sicily, that was the coolest part of the day.

They take the entire train and drive it onto a boat! Then they move the train cars around how they want them, and it seemed like there was more than one floor of train cars, but I could be mistaken. It was so cool to me.

On the ferry stop, Alan and I had to switch trains! When they are finished transferring the trains onto the ferry, they open the doors. All the people pour out of the train cars and haul themselves upstairs to look around outside. You get a nice view of the Mediterranean Sea, between the island of Sicily and the mainland of Italy.

It did feel extra special to go up on deck, feel the wind in your hair, and look around at the open sea. This is something I have loved my whole life. Ever since my dad bought a ski boat when I was in middle school, I have enthusiastically been a boat person.

You also can use this time to use the restroom, buy a drink from the drink machine, stretch your legs, and find your new seats. Thankfully, on this last leg of our journey, we had seats together! Plus, these seats felt more private, as there was no table. It was more like traditional transportation. We weren’t facing anyone but the back of the seat in front of us.

This leg of the trip was rather short, and we were in Catania in no time. Before this trip, I had no idea there was a Navy base in Sicily.

Now we only had to figure out how to find our way from the train station to the base, where we booked our hotel for the night.

Alan used the Uber app to book our taxis the whole time we were in Italy, and it worked beautifully.

I have heard many stories of taxis taking advantage of tourists and price gouging. We did not have that experience at all, using the Uber app.

All of our taxi drivers were helpful. In fact, the cab drivers were a big part of what made our trip a success.

You know who else was wonderful? The gelato people at the train station. We had trouble finding the taxi stop, and there was a truck selling gelato right outside the train station. We bought gelato and asked them for directions, but they did not speak English and couldn’t understand us.

They did understand we were asking for directions to somewhere though, so they did the best thing they could think of to do. They handed us free bus tickets, trying to help us out! Can you believe that? I’d say the Sicilian hospitality was unbeatable.

We gave their tickets back, thanking them profusely. And we did figure out where to meet the taxi. It was nearby.

I will say our reliance upon American naval bases for lodging was both a blessing and a curse.

It was a blessing because we had a place to land where everyone spoke English and they changed dollars to Euros at a low rate. The downside was the we had to take way more buses and taxis to get to these out-of-the-way hotels.

Next time we go, because we are going to go again one day for sure, I think we will stay closer to the heart of things. It would be nice to spend less money on taxis and less time in bus lines and hot, sweaty buses.

One thing you may not know is there are two different naval base locations for Sigonella.

We had to catch a taxi to take us from the base with the lodging to the base with the airport. At that time of day, first thing in the morning on a Sunday, there was no bus.

We ordered our taxi and set out on foot to the gates of the base. We’d gotten used to hiking to post gates to find a ride to town. It felt like we did a lot of that in Naples.

Thankfully, the Navy Lodge did have hot coffee available. Actually, almost every single place we stayed also had cappuccino. I also learned that Italians strongly believe you can only drink cappuccino in the morning. I mean, with the effects of caffeine, they are not wrong.

Our ride across town to the Sigonella Air Station was pleasant and uneventful.

Our driver told us all about the crops we saw and the volcano, Mt. Etna. Because Mt. Etna does let off steam, it is considered safe. Scientists are not worried about a Pompeii incident occurring from this volcano. This was the very first active volcano I have ever seen in my life, so that was exciting.

Getting seats on the plane back to the U.S. was easy.

There were many seats available. Just know that if you ever fly space available with the military, you do have to spend hours longer than really seems necessary, waiting in the airport. It was worth it for the $80 plane ticket though!!

All in all, our Italy experience was one like no other I have ever had.

I still cannot even believe we got to do this. It was incredible.

Yes, I was anxious most of the time, mostly because we overbooked our summer. Plus, it made me uncomfortable not knowing the language. I hope next time we go overseas I take more time to study the language.

Italy is a beautiful country, rich with so much history. I’m going to leave you with a few resources below, in case you are planning an Italy trip too.

Resources:

Trainline is Europe’s biggest train and coach app. You can use it to book train and bus tickets.

Video on How to fly military space available to Italy and back

Form to sign up for Space A Travel

Touring Vatican City Museum (with Sistine Chapel)

Touring Pompeii Archaeological Site (with photos)

Things to do in Sigonella

The post Traveling by Train from Naples to Sigonella Navy Base (in Sicily) appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

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.

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”.

The post Once in August We Said “I Do” appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

This retreat was 100% necessary.

It is hard for me to even sit here and describe how desperate I was to get away two weeks ago because I returned fully restored, better than before. I am on the other side of that mental wall of misery now. Life is good and happy again, and I fully mean that.

When I packed my bags and left Alan with the boys, I did not even fully grasp why I need this so badly. I just knew that Alan works at home now, so he could handle the boys for the weekend just fine.

I did not realize how bad off my mental/emotional state truly was until I sat down on the airplane, buckled my seatbelt, was looking out the window, and heard a child cry. This was probably a preschool aged child. How many times have I flown with a child and had to quiet down a baby or a toddler on an airplane?

When I hear that sound, my heart always goes out to the parents. I have been that parent so many times. This time though the sound of the crying hit something deeper in my brain, down in my spirit, something I have pushed to the corners that comes overflowing out when I least expect it.

Tears.

No! No! I am not going to sit here and silently cry on this airplane. It is hard to explain why tears were so close to the surface, but I am going to try to explain myself anyway. All those memories of handling babies and toddlers on airplanes, they are all tied up in difficult memories I have of the hard work that I put in through all these years of being an Army wife.

I hear that crying, and instantly I am twenty-five years old, flying alone with my six-month-old to begin a new life in Texas. Alan will follow me in two weeks, but for now it is just me and the baby.

At the same time, I am twenty-eight years old, flying with a toddler and four-year-old alone because I wanted to visit Alabama longer than Alan had off from work. That day the flight was delayed two hours, and after hours of keeping the boys entertained in the airport, I was already on edge when I got on the airplane where I had to make sure Joshua did not come in contact with any peanuts, which seemed to be everywhere in those days.

The sound of the crying starts, and suddenly I was thirty-two, flying home with one-year-old John David to visit my parents who I do not get to see very often because we have lived in the D.C. area for five years. I remember that day there was a super kind lady on the plane who walked down the aisle and gave me a new and different toy for J.D. to play with so he would stop crying.

I am thirty-three years old, flying with all four of our boys to California. Mom flew with me because Alan is already in school.

There were so many moves, and there were so many airplane rides with small children and me. Somehow Alan usually was not there, and I cannot even remember all of them or why I took all of them. I just remember standing in the aisle, softly singing to my baby so he would not cry on the airplane.

I remember landing at BWI airport, with a baby, I don’t even remember which one, in tow, and completely unable to find my car in the parking garage at eleven p.m.

So all of this starts to flash through my head, and water is beginning to leak out of my eyes, while my nose fills up with the overflow of salty tears. I stiffen myself. NO! This is not the place. Every flight attendant on this airplane knows who I am because I am flying with Jennings. (I was alone in a three-person seat though, thanks to the rona.)

Instead, I focused my brain as hard as I could on praying that child to stop crying. He or she was asleep in like one minute. Thank you, Jesus!

Thankfully, I recovered, and Jennings soon joined me to talk all the way to Atlanta.

I had NO idea my brain was going to go in that direction from a simple airplane ride.

But the thing was that my head was already in that fragile place, from all the recent weeks of feeling trapped and homesick, so the airplane ride just kind of nudged me closer to the edge.

The first time this ever happened was the day I listened to a speech about the Combat Reboot program at my church. It just sort of lanced an emotional boil that had been festering for a while. Ew. Gross imagery. Sorry, guys.

Let me explain about that. Our church here in Maryland, back in the days when we all got to go to normal church, has a Combat Recovery program. One day the organizer for the Combat Recovery program spoke at a church business meeting. She was promoting the program and looking for new people to join and/or lead it. Alan has even been asked to lead the group, as it has to be lead by a combat veteran, but this is not Alan’s calling. I totally get that, as I feel that way about many things. Being a combat veteran does not automatically make you a good leader for veterans with PTSD.

I, of course, am not at all a combat veteran. Nor do I have combat PTSD. I have never seen war, lived with the daily threat of enemy fire, or had to watch friends die or be mutilated. Those are certainly not my issues.

However, as she stood up there talking about military veterans and their spouses and the challenges that they face and how this group can help them, I became a complete and total WRECK. I sat there and silently bawled my eyes out for what felt like twenty minutes. It was so humiliating and unexpected.

“Why??” I kept wondering. Why am I crying so much, and why can’t I stop??? And I could. not. stop. crying. It was terrible.

It was like every time she said the word “military” my heart just poured out more grief. This is so hard to explain, but again, I will try. I literally was left wondering if military wife PTSD could possibly be a thing. Maybe this is because this could be our last duty station? Or because we are nearing our twenty year mark? I don’t know, but suddenly, here it is.

When I was at this meeting, we had only moved in three or four months past. I was fresh off two years of moving in a row, five moves in four years, and eleven moves in eighteen years. Then there were those year long, fifteen-month, and six-month long deployments where I juggled the kids.

So many nights of being new in town, and it is like all the emotions of all those hard things that we dealt with in the midst of all these years as a military family just piled on top of each other in a very untidy fashion. You know how you stack things that are not equal sizes, and if you stack big things on top of little things and crooked on top of straight, and after a while it all just starts to slide?

Well, that day we had a full on avalanche of pent up feelings. When you are tense and fighting through a move or a family separation or a war deployment or being new year after year after year after year, it catches up with you.

This had never happened to me before, crying over I was not even sure what! I think it is the eighteen years of it just catching up with me. We could retire in two years, and I am so extremely ready to do just that. Retire and buy a house in Alabama, land of my forefathers. Maybe the Army thing possibly being almost over is a whole other part of it. I don’t know.

All the feelings started to come out my eyes and my nose:

-hurt -disappointment -uncertainty -inadequacy -failure

-abandoned– So many times I felt abandoned to deal with raising the boys alone. It was not Alan’s fault. He was doing his job, and that meant he had to go overseas sometimes. I knew that with my head, but sometimes it felt an awful lot like plain old alone. Maybe it was wrong, but it was a feeling I had to deal with.

-exhaustion -confusion -worry -frustration -anger

Well, obviously, I could go on and on. That was when I realized that no, Alan was right, combat recovery was not a good program for us. He did not feel like he needed it, and I needed recovery too much to go. That would have been a whole lot more of facing all those emotions that busted out all suddenly on me, and I could not handle it. I really couldn’t.

That incident was late last fall, and I had not had another moment of raw emotion like that one at the church business meeting until this flight to Florida.

But I am happy to tell you that I held it together for another twenty-four hours.

Then I spilled it all out onto Jennings, and somehow I feel like I ACTUALLY worked through it, to the point that I am not even the same and I am able to sit here and type about it without coming apart at the seams. I cried it all out in Florida. Poor Jennings! She got an earful!

Do you know why it helped?

Maybe crying it out, facing your problems, and talking about it always helps. I am not sure, but there was an extra layer present at Jennings’ beach bungalow. That added factor was the way that she pointed me back to what matters, to Jesus. She kept pulling up her Church at the Highlands telecasts and Christian music playlists, and it was exactly what I needed.

With God on your side, you are not relying on your own inner strength alone to get you through hard things. With God there is a bigger comforter and help that goes further than you could get on your own.

Jennings and I talked about our current problems, and we laughingly discussed and debated our old foes too. Together, we even combed Facebook and successfully found one of our friends from college days who we thought we would never be able to find. It was so good just to see her smiling face, looking exactly the same.

Every morning we ate our eggs and walked on the beach. Ugh, I would rather have cereal or a pop tart like in my younger days. Why won’t my pant size cooperate with that??

Then every evening we would take one or two walks. Two different nights we went out around midnight to search the beach for sea turtles laying eggs in the dark. There were none to be found though.

We got sun burned, ate lunch on the beach under our umbrella, and even went souvenir shopping. You might be happy to know that even down in Florida, they took our temperatures at the store, and everyone was required to wear a mask.

I got the cutest souvenirs ever, and I bought every single one of my boys (even Alan) a new Melbourne Beach t-shirt.

With every ounce of seriousness inside of me, I am telling you that this trip was a gift from God. He knew I needed it, and I am so thankful I got to go. The Lord saw my exasperation with lockdown isolation and homesickness, and he blessed me with a ticket to get me through until we visit our family in August.

If you are feeling miserable, pray!! Pray for help. You never know what that help may look like or what form it may come in, but don’t turn it down when it arrives!! You never know what God may have in store for you.

Seize the day! And pray!

We cannot wait to see all of our dear family in August! You will be getting the most desperate-for-people and visiting version of us ever. Ha! I hope you are ready!

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Today, no that is not true, this whole year honestly, I have felt SO incredibly homesick. This is not a small pang that comes and goes. It is a longing much deeper than that.

I have always said that home can be anywhere, that it is where my people are. That is mostly true, but the thing is that a pandemic year is the worst year ever to be newly moved in. Plus, there is the whole problem of my not even trying to make a place home any longer. I have hardly tried at all.

Maryland is lovely. You could not ask for a better city, better neighborhood, or even better neighbors. Things are perfect here. We even follow pandemic guidelines better than the South, so we are all honestly much safer here. Our COVID numbers are down while at home they are up.

But it is not home, at least not yet.

I have not felt this homesick since the year we moved to California. Alabama is home. Virginia is a second home, so that was extremely comforting last year, but Maryland is still new, and it is just not home. It is not.

Last week Alan’s cousin Alyson, who is our age, was in the hospital for twelve days, fighting for her life after open heart surgery. All week our thoughts and prayers were in Birmingham. I am relieved to tell you she is at home now. Praise the Lord!

This week, as I was cleaning, I came across an old journal from my senior year of high school. One journal led to another, and now I have just read my way through my entire college experience. It was so entertaining because I always had at least one or two little melodramas going on, but it was also so sad because I miss those people, all of them.

I miss running to my parents’ house when I wanted to escape my problems for a weekend. What I would not give to go shopping with Mom, or Katie, or Leigh. How I would love to sneak in a beach trip with Jennings. I want to pick up the phone and call Heather, Nikki, and Ginny right over for a drama analysis of what I should do about this problem or that only to all end up laughing hysterically about who knows what.

I want to run down to Chrisynda’s room to watch movies with the group and eat her Little Debbie cakes. Then I want to jog around the campus of the University of Alabama without my back or feet hurting. I used to think those were the good ol’ days, but after reading these journals, I was reminded that those days were full of worries!

I want to go walking at Westgate Park, see an Alabama football game, and have Dad walk in the door at home to surprise us all with Goldfingers or donuts.

Usually by July fourteenth, we have all gone down to Alabama, visited all the family, and also squeezed in a beach weekend. This year I booked it all for August even before we knew about the ‘rona, but I know it is better this way. It is hard to wait though.

The past is a place best left undisturbed. Obviously, I cannot go back to my college days, but I would love to see my friends. And I do not want Alabama to be my past anymore. I want back in. With school out and all church happening at a distance, I am missing the ties that are needed to make this place feel like home. The boys are in that same boat with me. For Alan, it may not be as bad since he has his job.

The Army thing is a whole other part of it. We are eighteen years in to this Army gig. An escape to civilian life back down South near family and friends could be so close it feels reachable. It teases me constantly. I dream about what kind of house we will have and all the land I would like to live on.

But I don’t know that we are close to that Army retirement.

Alan is currently still on track to stay in. I do not see anything stopping him from getting promoted again. You have to have twenty-two years in to make colonel. Alan is currently a lieutenant colonel. A thousand times I have said it, and I still feel this way, but I cannot be the person who stops him from achieving that, if that is his goal.

My permanent return to Alabama could still be years away, but I try not to think about that. Even returning to the D.C. area would at least be a little closer to home.

Today none of that matters though. At this moment, I am just homesick. I want to go home and see the people I love and miss so much. Being away is suffocating me now, especially seeing that my children are not settled in here either. They think they are happy, and they play their video games with their friends everyday. That is why I let them play video games so much. Minecraft time is friend time in our current environment.

Now I know we will be okay.

I will. The boys will. Eventually, we will all be out and about again. God is still in heaven. The sun still rises every morning. Sky appears to be fully in place, not falling down around us.

In three weeks, I am going home. I do not care what tries to stop me.

Pestilence, disease, tropical storms, whatever. I do not care. We are going home for two weeks. Alan’s leave has been approved, and I cannot wait.

I am even trying to lose a few pounds so I will look more like the April you know and love. The last four years, ever since I began taking beta blockers, I do realize I have steadily been packing on the weight. So far I have lost four whole pounds, but that just means I am about back down to last summer’s weight. I still have a ways to go, but I am working on it.

The boys have quizzed me ever since school finished on when we are going to Alabama and why we have not left yet. We are all very ready to see you all.

Allen and Emily, I will let you know when have our schedule figured out because we want to see you so much. Amy and Greg, you too. Alyson, we will be happy to bubble wrap ourselves before we come see you so we don’t give you any germs. We are just so happy you are back home.

Nonna and Mom, y’all cook or don’t cook whatever you want, we just want to see everyone! We’ll eat or sleep anywhere. I only wish it could be going home to stay, but I will take the two weeks we are given.

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