Orders to Oklahoma

Ha! Could anything else major happen in our family right now?! We are still without a kitchen due to major water damage from a refrigerator leak FOUR weeks ago (more on this later), finding out that Hudson has moderate hearing loss, and on Thursday....Jesse got official orders to move to Altus, Oklahoma by January 31st.

Not sure what all to say about this. It's not a surprise, we found out the week after Hudson was born that orders were pending. I feel almost nothing about this move, just....nothing. We have been jacked around about our future for over a year now. Last September, we got orders to New Jersey. Then the program was supposed to move out to McChord, so we were told we would be here for four more years. And then the program was staying and our orders were cancelled. So now, we are going to Oklahoma. I have known change was on the horizon for a while. Jesse has been stationed at McChord for almost eight years, so I kind of feel like we were on borrowed time anyways.

So... Altus, Oklahoma... I will miss my family and friends, but there are some great parts of this news. Jesse will be instructing new loadmasters. That means that he will be home with us for the next four years!! No more deployments, no more oversea missions. We will also have base preference when we leave, so we can mostly come back to McChord after our time in Altus. Yay!! The weather, while very cold in the winter, is very warm much more of the year than we are used to. I'm not going to lie, very excited to have more sunshine in my life.

Altus is a very small town and is really not very close to anything. When Jesse first started talking about the possibility of moving there, I was not thrilled to live in the middle of nowhere. I have to admit, it's starting to grow on me. Life has been pretty overwhelming the last couple months and the idea of things slowing down is pretty appealing. With two kids, shopping and eating out are not on my priority list. I could really care less, actually.

I've spent a little time looking into how far Altus is away from some of my favorite places.

Starbucks - 49 miles
Target- 89 miles
Costco - 172 miles
Nordstrom - 222 miles

Hmmmm. Pretty sad, but I suppose we will survive. Right?

I haven't watched the movie Oklahoma in years, but I think it might be on the agenda this weekend to get me in the mood. Ha!