Beat to the Punch....

my dear cousin posted our good news!!!

Which is fine, I shouldn't have been slacking (sorry Haley :) )!! hehe.

Anyways, if you haven't read her post....Sev and I have good news!!!!


WE WILL BE BACK IN SC JANUARY 26 2008!!!!!!!!!! Yipeeeeeeeeee!!!

We are both soooo very excited!! We have really enjoyed our time in Hawaii it has been such a great experience for us...for so many reasons!! We both agree that we could NEVER live here forever, but how many people get the chance to live here on the governments dime for the years we did?? So I consider us pretty lucky :) ... well besides the fact that we paid for it with 2 longggg deployments.

I don't know where to start....hmmmmm....okay, first I will tell you about our move back home. Severyns mothers side of the family is from Montana. His grandfather (whom sev is named after) still lives on an over 800 acre ranch there. His sister Angie and our nephew Eddie also live there...not on the ranch but in the town of Billings. Sev's uncles also live there...anddd I believe a handful of cousins. Severyn hasn't been to the ranch in over 6 years...possibly alot longer, he can't remember. Anyways, Sev's grandpa fell very ill this past summer. They actually didn't expect him to live. Sev's mom flew out to MT to be with him and we actually told Severyn (while in Iraq) that his grandfather would probably be passing away very soon and to give him a call if at all possible. We were thrilled when his grandfather started to take a turn for the better!! I had never had the chance to meet his grandfather and we had discussed taking at trip out to MT...so when his grandpa started getting better we promised that while on our way home from Hawaii we would stop in MT, whatever the cost, to spend time with his grandpa.
So...last week severyn finally got his ETS orders and that cleared the way for us to begin getting everything else finished, ie. turning in gear, getting travel dates, packing, shipping household goods and our car, turning in our notice to the landlord, SHARING OUR EXCITING NEWS :) etc. etc. etc.
We left the ETS office and made our way to transportation...now if you know anything about the military you know that EVERYTHING is backwards and nothing EVER makes a lick of sense!! The joke in the Army is "If it makes sense the Army WONT do it!!" Anyways, we were fully prepared to hit a few road blocks during our preparations to exit the Army. We were aware when we entered the transportation office that we were only there to schedule an apt. for an actual time to come BACK and make an apt. for our HHG and Car to be picked up and shipped out. Along with making another apt. with travel to come back LATER and get our travel dates. (if you're lost don't worry, I'm still confused and this is my life!!...but to clarify there is a "transportation" office and a "travel" office both you have to wait forever to be seen at :) ).
Well....I guess lady luck was with us because they allowed us to be seen, SAME DAY!! (this nevveerrrrr happens in the Army it is ALWAYS "hurry up and Wait"). We came back to the office 1430 and scheduled dates for our HHG to be picked up. We have a storage unit from before Sev deployed...mainly filled with stuff we obviously don't need...because we've lived without it for over a year...but you know, as Americans we "need" our stuff. Anyways.........they actually allowed us to leave our stuff in storage and schedule the last day in December for them to pick that up and ship it home. That way we don't have to pay another months storage rent. Then they allowed us to schedule whatever time we wanted for our actual apartment stuff to be picked up.....so we scheduled the 17, that way we won't live without our stuff at all and we wont have to worry about finding a place to stay before we fly. Then they allowed us to pick a day for our car...seeing as how we have 2 vehicles back in SC we aren't in a hurry for this car to get there, so we are able to keep my escape here until the day we leave...therefore no rental car!! Then they allowed us to go to the travel office for our tickets home!!!!! This is were I knew our luck would run out...b/c we wanted to go home...butttt with a minor layover in MT. So the lady starts plucking away at her keyboard, "GSP is your final destination correct." ......"well uhmmmmm...technically yes, but uhm...can we have a layover??".........

and without even looking up she said "Sure as long as its in route, where would you like to layover?"
Well....MT isn't in route, but Salt Lake is....so long story short (okay not so short) but anyways:

Sev and I are now leaving Hawaii January 18. We will fly into Salt Lake where we will rent a car (with military discount and because we're on orders) for reasonably cheap. From there we will drive to Yellowstone and spend a night there. We will continue on to MT the following morning where we are so very fortunate enough to visit with sev's family until January 26th. We will then return to Salt Lake and the government will fly us on to SC. How exciting!! ....not to mention it gives me a GREAT excuse to go clothes shopping!! Hey you don't expect me to wear slippa's and tanks in MT do ya?? ;)


I realize this post is rather lengthy so I'll end it....but, I do have plans to post about my experience here in Hawaii before I end this Chapter in my life....so:

To be Continued.
lol