March 2017 Part 1- Moving Off Base

This month seems more like 6 than one.  I still am in disbelief that so much has happened in such a short amount of time.  We moved from on base to off, I took over a managerial position at work, 2 ER visits and one stay in mother infant care over night, a beautiful anniversary, and believe it or not a few fun, special days with my family.  

We finally were able to move off base!  Let me start off by saying that I love it so so much.  My heart is beyond filled with gratitude.  This whole experience has humbled me in so many ways and strengthened my testimony of prayer and the Lord's timing.  I've been embarrassed by this and I think that it's why it took us so long to move off base, I'm embarrassed by the fact that I  had grown to hate living on base.  Absolutely hate it.  I struggled with this for quite some time.  I felt like I was an ungrateful person.  Just last year we visited the Philippines where people live in huts, sleep on the ground, and are the happiest people.  Surely I could find gratitude and joy and living in our on base house, and at times I did.  We had wonderful neighbors, a huge backyard, a playground in our backyard for our daughter to play on.  I went through huge amounts of guilt when I thought of taking that away from her so I continually came back to these perks.  I thought I would be ok with it until we found out I was pregnant again. I felt like I was failing my children by making them share a room, amongst all the other issues I had with living on base.  There was a factory behind our house that burned plastic, we lived next to a few junk yards and just a mile or two away there were several landfills so it just smelled funky on occasion.   I had a hard time with the fact that every time I wanted to go home, I had to go through a gate and show someone my ID.  One night Sean left his wallet in my car and I was at work so he had to sit for 2 hours at the gate with Ely until I was off work.  To me that wasn't home.  I felt like a rat in a maze every time I went for a run.  It felt like Sean never left work, almost the epitome of living in a dorm on your college campus, doable but just not ever really home.  It was also a pride thing, I don't like being told what I can and can't do, and you do not have a choice living out here to move off base unless housing is full.  Choices are important and I didn't like that it felt like I had one taken away from us.  I was so bitter about the fact the military took all of our BAH and that I knew, absolutely knew,  we could do better given the chance.  So one night I prayed and told Heavenly Father that I needed just one thing to be easy, just one, and that I was going to the housing office the next day and that I needed housing to be full.   The next day came, and to my shame things became so hectic and crazy I never made it over there.   I accepted that I didn't do my part.  About a week later, I stopped by the housing office and walked in and expressed my desire to move off base and asked the lady at the desk to explain the percentages chart to me.  She said that our housing wasn't full for our family size and Sean's rank, but she would see if they would let us move off anyways.   I was kind of surprised by that statement.  She came up front with a letter and said that it was good for 60 days and that we were approved to move off base.  I was kind of in shock and couldn't believe it.  I called several times but never tried going in physically, and on my first attempt we were granted the opportunity to move off.  On my way home I prayed continually saying thank you, repenting of my arrogance and lack of faith.  I felt Heavenly Father speak to my heart and say "I love you."   This was question I have had several times the past few months, if he knew me personally and was aware of my struggles. This was a huge testimony strengthening experience.  It felt like that was one of the few easy things about the whole experience.  None of the housing agencies were responsive to my emails so I had to go into each one personally, (which is super fun with a 2 year old!) Many houses had long waiting lists for homes in the areas we wanted.  It was a discouraging process.  We prayed to be led to the best home for our family. When I saw our home I knew it was the one. Moving was a nightmare, but when is it not?  It took it's toll on our family but we had some special people from church help us then. Some watched Ely, helped Sean carry furniture up stairs, some helped us get out of our old house.  We survived and we made it! 

The location is beyond perfect for our family.  Less than 5 minutes away from our church, about 15 minutes from both of our jobs with traffic, centrally located.  I love that we live 2 minutes away from a Family Mart and a veggie stand.  I have bedrooms for both of my babies,  2 bathrooms and one of my favorites is our walk in closet in our master.  I hope to share more pictures in the future, we haven't completely unpacked our bedrooms but here are a few pictures of our living room, dining room, main bathroom and view from our balcony.  I love that when I look out my window, I see Japan!