And with a few signatures (or several on 35 sheets of paper)

We are now the proud owners of a new home......or we became the owners of a new home on Saturday.....

It seemed a little strange for us this time, we have always been present when we closed on our homes in the past. But this time with how things have played out, we had no choice but to fly out to our new duty station ahead of time and put in the offer and then do the closing via overnight mail. It was a bit more stressful and a little more work since this was the first time we had a Realtor doing the work for us, but it went off without much to do and once we arrive we can pick up our keys and move in. Well.....I will, my husband has to jump right in and start with his Assumption of Responsibilities, a Sergeant Audie Murphy Club Induction and then the Change of Command for his new BC. Following all this, 6 days later he will then be TDY for a week leaving me and the children to sort through boxes in an attempt to make some sense of the house.

But first we will head out from here to visit my husband's family for the annual reunion we have every time we PCS....which is normally every year, but this time we were lucky enough to have 22 months between moves. This next one promises to be three years before the Army will up and throw an assignment at us, but now we have that option to say NO and just retire.....what a great feeling that is to have!!!

I will say that it is a huge relief knowing that all we have to do upon arrival is call to have the water and gas turned on. The electric, phone, internet and cable are done.....we know everything about the children's schools since we chose this neighborhood based on where we wanted them all to attend. We met some of our neighbors while we were there and although it is not a huge military community, I think we will all love our new neighborhood......I guess its a give and take at this point.

Since we, as military spouses, rely so heavily on one another and our military community during back to back deployments, its only natural to be a little hesitant to move to an area that lacks those qualities.....but since my husband will not be deploying again (just the occasional TDY) I will take that over the military community any day (it does not mean that I wont miss it, because I will)......but hey, after 20 years, my family may have some assemblance of a normal life. I'm not quite sure what we will do with that, except maybe enjoy the hell out of it and thank God for every day we are together.

~ASW