My husband, Matt and I have two daughters. I am a teacher by trade but recently have
been a stay at home mom and Beachbody coach.
My husband is a career military man…that is right…he served our country
for 20 years and recently retired from the United States Navy in a very
memorable ceremony on board the USS Wisconsin.
Our girls are almost 4 and almost 6.
During his Navy career, we were stationed overseas in Italy and had an incredible
experience. While we were ready to come
home at the end of the three years, we quickly learned that we missed being in
Europe. At least monthly, my oldest
would ask “when are we moving back??”
Matt and I started to think the same thing and while he was
looking for jobs, but there was nothing that appealed enough to pull us away
from family. So we decided to stay in
Virginia Beach. He had a job within a
week and a half of his retirement ceremony (while still having over 1 and a
half months of vacation time.) We were
happy with this decision. The girls had
a great preschool where I was hoping to land a coveted position. Our assigned elementary school was great and
the oldest was excited to ride the bus to school. We had finally made friends and figured out
the city (Military friends, you understand this!) We were driving distance from most of our
family. As June 1st
approached, Matt prepared for his first job without a dress code and
uniform. He went SHOPPING for slacks and
shirts. Everything was ready to go.
Then the week before he was to start his job, THE job offer
came in. The one he didn’t even apply
for. The job that really wanted
him. And wanted us to move to Germany in
three weeks (insert hyperventilating) And offered lots and lots of perks. We shared the news of this opportunity with
our family even though we had no idea what we would do. Then one Sunday
morning, we left my girls with my parents and went to Starbucks. We did a massive pro and con list. There were
so many pros for both places. The
biggest con for moving was being away from our family. But after discussing every single angle, pro,
con, excuse, reason, the alphabet, EVERYTHING, we made a decision.
While there was no way we would be there in the desired
three weeks, especially since our oldest child needed a new passport, we still packed up our lives, sold our house, sold
a car, sent Matt and Lucy to Germany, and lived out of suitcases for 4 weeks. Matt started his new job, found a place to
live, found a car, and all the other prep work while the girls and I went
swimming all over the East coast. We
were able to visit most of our family and seem some friends. We ended our journey in Rhode lsland
celebrating the end of a friend’s Naval career and the beginning of our new
adventure!
*I have been writing this post over and over again in my head. I am not completely happy with this post but needed to get over my block and get started!!
