The Welcome Home and Goodbye Daddy Trip

proudarmywife

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jan 15, 2007
Messages
20
**DISCLAIMER** This is going to be long but please bare with me, after it is finished I am going to send it to my husband on his next deployment...its a surprise.

OK i give in...

I have been lurking on this board for months now, reading reports asking a few minor questions here and there, debating whether or not I should just tip toe in this pool of insanity or dive in head first. Im not diving i am doing a massive back flip double twist hoping I dont belly flop the landing.....

Hello everyone!!! My name is Jamie I am a very very proud army wife and mommy to two precious angels. Gabriel who is 5 and little miss Brooklyn who just turned one. This is our story...

My dh and I met during an Earthquake in 2001. We worked at a little company called Boeing but in seperate areas. February 28th 2001 became a fateful day for us. Work started out normal untill around 9:30 am. The ground started vibrating, then we were rolling and then violently shaking. I managed to crawl under my desk praying and willing for this to PLEASE PLEASE STOP. 28 seconds later after making many promises to God to change everything about my life if he let me live, it stopped. I crawled out from under my desk and took a look around......airplane parts everywhere. I followed the heard of crying masses out the door into a bright sunny uncommen Seattle day and there he was...this man staring at me. I gave him that look like "what are you looking at? Yes I know I have mascara running down my face and snot dripping out what do you expect I thought I was a gonner!" All he said was "you look like you need a hug." And the rest is history. We went to dinner the next night and havnt looked back since.Things moved fairly quickly for us, i became pregnant after 6 weeks of dating:scared1: and I was sure he was going to lace up his sneakers and hit the ground running, after all we were only 23! But no, he stayed with me. Heres the real kicker you all know how challenging it can be to really get to know someone during the first year of a relationship.....try being the man and doing this while your significant other is pregnant!!! Holy cow i am still amazed he stayed, if I was him having to deal with me during that time I would have commited myself. I was not pleasant to be around. Nor did he get to enjoy that body we all wish we still had in our early 20's. Nope I just grew and grew.....went from 135 to 220 in 9 little months(difficult pregnancy). In August of that year he joined our local volunteer fire dept. I secretly think it was because he needed some time away from my growing mass and raging mood swings. Poor man. On Sept. 11 we all remember what happened, we sat in front of our tv for weeks on end watching everything unfold. He came home from work one night and said I want to join the Army, I looked at him like he was NUTS, and asked him to wait untill after our son was born to make any decisions. At 7pm on Dec 14th we had a massive wind storm and low and behold no power. Candles lit sitting on the couch with my mom I started singing I have cramps yes I do I have cramps how about you(yes I was a little nuts those final days). my mom just smiled at me knowing what was comming, i was oblivious to it. Lets just say 30 minutes later she was chasing me around the house with my underwear I couldnt sit still I thought I was dying LOL. And I got this idea that stripping down naked would somehow help this pain...yeah right. Shes yelling at me YOU NEED TO GET DRESSED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL. So I did, and off we went.....down the freeway with my future dh's emergency lights flashing(thank you fire department) through all the pain I still wanted to kill him for doing that. 22 hours later 9lb 7 oz Gabriel was born.
I managed to thwart the Army idea for the next year, I was to scared to let him do it. He was relentless so I gave in and on May 7 2003 he joined and off he went. We were married in August on 2003 after boot camp. We got our first duty station........Germany!! I was excited and scared at the same time. Lets just say we have been here for over three years, and I CANT WAIT TO COME HOME. Its like a bad vacation that just wont end. My husband is so proud of being in the army but we have been apart more than we have been together in the past 4 years. So fast forward to January 2006 we just had our precious baby girl (word of warning DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT IF YOU CAN POSSIBLY AVOID IT HAVE A CHILD OVERSEAS..more on that later) and were in countdown mode to move back to the states.......then the dreaded words that all army wifes hate to hear DEPLOYMENT. I cried and screamed and threw a fit but eventually came to terms with it....So on Oct. 23 2006 he shipped out. Did I happen to mention it was my birthday. So these last 4 months we have been "dealing with life apart". We got some great news on New Years ever though, the year deployment was cut to 6 months and we can finally go back to the states. Well that good news was followed by bad news, his next unit in the states is deploying again in Sept. Heart break, here we go again. ok ok ok sooooooo this is where Disney comes in. Have I lost any readers yet? DH got this fabulous idea lets go to Disney World when we get home.......ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!! wooo hooo. I was so excited I didnt care that he was gone at this point I had something to plan to take my mind off of everything. Lets just say I have become this obsessive compulsive person that even I dont recognize. i have to say I am loving every minute of it. So now you see where the tiltle Welcome home..Goodbye Daddy comes from. I will let you all be for now, you can decide if you would like to keep up with this pre trip report, I would love to have you all along for the ride.....

Up next... Trip decisions and What do you mean you have the WRONG NAME on her birth certificate and passport!!!!!!!!!!!:mad: :mad:
 
WOW, you are a brave amazing woman. I hope you have an amazing trip and I will keep your DH and you and your family in my prayers.

Subscribing ;)
 
Good luck with your planning, you deserve a really special family holiday. I think most people using these boards find that planning a holiday at WDW helps out when things are less than perfect. Enjoy it!:cheer2:
 
OK so my first entry was a little long winded. But I have found that reading through alot of these trip reports a lot of detail was given on the people taking the trips and I felt like I knew these people and were riding right along with them during thier adventures, so I wanted to let you all in on our lives so you could ride along with us.

So here we go. The mddle of December we started talking about this trip and I started obsessing. Where would we stay and for how long. Dining plan or no dining plan. All the choices were seriously giving me a migrane! I tried to talk to my Dh about it all but he just kept telling me whatever you want babe. :love: The only thing he tells me still to this day is please stop talking about the food, it makes me want to cry:laughing: Poor guy. Me always trying to save a buck couldnt decide on the hotel. For us Deluxe is just plain out of the question, would love to do it but thats not happening anytime soon. So pretty much it was SOG or one of the All stars. Well SOG looked nice but two things held me from it. 1. I get sick of being all army all the time and 2. I felt it would take away from the Disney experience. So I decided on ASM. I went to the Disney site tried to book online..ugh what a nightmare it took for ever to even load a page, so I got pretty irritated and went searching for a travel agent. We found a great one! MEI travels couldnt rave enough about them. Our agent Michelle's first question was when and how long. We are leaving Germany May 7th bound for Ft. Hood Texas, we thought it would be neat to just fly straight to Orlando so that was our plan. I thought 7 days would be great but DH said lets do it right and go for 10! Are you kidding me 10 days what are we going to do for 10 days, obviously I have never been to WDW. DH just laughed and said trust me on this. So me the ever trusting wife said ok lets do it! So here we are planning away and I got to thinking, my 5 year old boy is going to be so excited not only flying but flying to WDW then it hit me, he knows we are moving but this trip is a surprise, he's already confused about going to a new home.....HOLY CRAP he's going to think we are moving to Disney world! I could just picture it Mom this is where we are going to live!!!! Well that quickly had my mind racing..not a good idea. Can you imagine having to explain yes we are on an airplane yes we are moving, yes we are in WDW but no were not staying.:eek: So I figured we better show him our new house first then go on our trip. I changed the dates to May 16th-26th. Much better plan. So i called and rescheduled and I was so excited we were able to get into POP! Whoo hooo 10 days POP and the Dining plan, things were looking up. Now all we had to do was get my daughters Birth certificate and Passport and be on our way. Heres where the warning of having children over seas comes on. Wayyyyyy back 8 months ago, like responsible parents we filed for both of these documents, they came back with the last name spelled wrong. It was a pain in the butt but we had time to get it fixed, well we turned everything back in and 4 weeks later got a call saying that the paper work had to be submitted again because of an update on the forms. I was staring to get a little irritated at this point, 4 more months wasted, but again we had enough time. We got a call Dec. 15th saying that it was ready to be picked up. With it being Christmas and my mom visiting untill Jan I didnt really want to drive the 2 hours to go pick it up. So I went 2 weeks ago and got it, took one look at it AND HER NAME WAS WRONG!!!!!!!!!! Instead of it being Brooklyn Elizabeth it is Elizabeth Brooklyn. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. But once again i regained my composure and said ok re do it. The passport man looked at me and said I cant. WHAT? what do you mean you cant. Well since it is a full name dispute not a spelling correction it had to be disputed in writing which takes 6-8 months. I dont have 6-8 months I am leaving in 4 months. He really didnt seem to care. So here I was looking at this birth certificate and passport thinking well this sucks, and the man WHO ENTERED HER NAME WRONG IN THE COMPUTER tells me well when you get back to the states you can file for a legal name change but it will cost you 185.00!!! So i wisely picked up my documents turned around and walked out the door before I jumped across his desk and really told him how i felt. I drove home thinking what else could go wrong?!?!? Well thats what I get for thinking!

up next.......this is turning into a nightmare!
 

I would have jumped over the counter and taken someone out. But then again I would have be carted off in cuffs. LOL.
 
First, welcome home to the states!!!

Second, I am completely hooked on your story! Tell us more!!!
 
My DD is married to an "Army" man. He is a recruiter here in our home town right now but they are scheduled to move in October. (not sure where) He has done two tours, one in Iraq and one in Afganistan (sp?) but that was before they were married. I am hooked on your story and waiting for the next installment. You and your family will be in our prayers and please tell your husband "thank you" for all he and you do for us!!!:grouphug:
 
Thanks everyone for your well wishes and kind words!!!:hug: I will post more tonight, Brooklyn or is it Elizabeth:sad2: has been feeling poopy for a few days so i have had my hands full. Hugs to you all!!!
jamie
 
Oh no! I really hope you get everything worked out. I'm on the edge of my seat now. I need an update...lol!
 
Loving your pre-trip report!

My mom knows exactly what you went through with the Army in Germany and having a baby (and now we live in Texas! LOL). I was born there and my middle name was spelled wrong and still is.. well it isn't spelled wrong- just not the way my mom wanted it to be! :headache: She never got it "fixed"! LOL!
 
ok so where was I? Oh yeah deiving home thinking nothing else could go wrong....hahahaha. So I get home and I go to the Human resource department to get ELIZABETH added to our orders, they tell me they cant do it because her army insurence says Brooklyn. So they say I have to fix the birth certificate. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME........at this point my anger boils over and i had a few choice words for these people what do they do THEY CALL THE MP'S! Thats military police. I tell them to go right ahead, after they "escort" me into the hallway I explained my situation for the bazillionth time and I start crying saying all I want to do is go to Disney....they looked at me like I was nuts! They tell me I should go to JAg so I did.......again explaining my situation....they said well I dont know what to tell you, at this point I am laughing hysterically more out of pure frusteration, and I say so your telling me an insurence card had more pull over a BIRTH CERTIFICATE and passport????? I just walked out and decided I would make some phone calls and see where I could get. So after 5 days of "talking" to people they said oh it shouldnt be a problem. MMMHmmm. Soooooooo I go back to Human resources(the place where they tried to throw me in jail LOL) and the look on the faces of those women were priceless. It was an Uh Oh here we go again. I had all the paperwork and kindly told them that this was going to be taking care of today no matter what. Looks like this magical vacation just might happen.............

Next..."im sorry Mrs. ****** but we may not have it approved in time for your departure date from Germany...your husband can leave with your son, but you and your daughter will have to stay untill its approved:mad: :scared1:
 
Oh, I can't wait to hear how this comes out.

I would have seriously injured someone by this point. MP????!!!! OMG!!!!! Not to make light of your situation, but..... If it's any consulation, a "jury of your peers" would be made up of fellow army wives & fellow DISser's, so I'm fairly certain you wouldn't do any "hard time". :lmao:

Hang in there, Sweetie. :hug: Can't wait for more. Good luck!
Barb
P.S. Where in Germany are you? My DH & DSIL were both there in the Army in the early 1980's. (This was before we were married. I was still in high school, actually.) One of them, I think it was DH, was in Katterbach. (I doubt if I spelled that right.) Don't remember where the other one was. I will ask DH. He also went from Germany to Fort Hood. Just curious. B
 
Yes people this is really happening to us!!!!!!!! And I have come to the conclusion that it is all my DH's fault! I dont know how or why but it is!:lmao:

So I am sitting in this womans office and i am listening to her tell me that she cant guarantee that our paperwork will be approved in time, she goes on to say that Dh and my son can leave, and we would have to wait and stay here untill it is approved, now that is not to say that we couldnt leave on our own but we would have to pay for it ourselves out of pocket, instead of waiting for the Army to send us home. Again I am on the verge of tears and I go home and start to look at plane tickets, :sad1: just for me and my daughter it is almost $3,000!!! We cant afford that no way no how. Besides our Disney trip, we still have to get a house in Texas, the Army gives you a dislocation allowence when you move but that doesnt even begin to cover the cost. I go back to the office and tell them that is not an option, I wasnt getting anywhere and I had had enough. So I got up and went to the base Commanders office and asked for his help. I told him that all we want is to go home and go to Disney and try to make some good memories before they ship him off again. I think those words pulled on some heart strings of this man, because he picked up the phone and made some calls and said that we should be able to get the paprework expedited. I dont know how many of you are familiar with the Military, but to say that they work at a snails pace is giving them a compliment. Their motto is hurry up and wait. So thats where we are at right now. Hurry up and wait. I was told to expect an answer in a month. WE SHALL SEE. I am making my Disney trip come hell or high water!!!!

Up next........Adr's and other fun stuff!
 
proudarmywife;16896222My dh and I met during an Earthquake in 2001. We worked at a little company called Boeing but in seperate areas. February 28th 2001 became a fateful day for us. Work started out normal untill around 9:30 am. The ground started vibrating said:
I remember this earthquake. We had just moved back to washington (I was born here, my dad was military so I didn't get to grow up here) and it was the first year DS had a birthday since we moved back. He thought the earthquake was to celebrate his birthday :confused3 (he was turning 5 ). That was a :scared1: day. I still don't understand why everyone up here thinks you are supposed to go outside when there is an earthquake happening. I grew up in Southern Ca and we always stood in the doorway.

I hope everything with you daughter's passport gets fixed before it's time to leave.

I'm sending you some pixie dust pixiedust:
 
:goodvibes Oh hunny, I know what you mean about the Army moving at a snails pace!!! Dh was in the National Guard for 10 years. After my DH was injured in Iraq, he spent two months at Ft Bragg in North Carolina after being treated at Womack Army Medical Center for a month. It was exasperating! He had already been gone to Iraq for almost a year; then in the hospital very far from home for another month(we live in Illinois) then he had to stay at Fort Bragg for another 2 months after he was released from the hospital! Why??? I still don't know! LOL!! It was all "paperwork" He did absolutely nothing while he was stuck down there, they put him in an onsite hotel with about 40 other guys who were going through the same processing. Luckily he was able to get a five day pass during each of those months and came home, but it was still awful! Don't get me wrong I have much love for our Armed Forces, but the paper pushing.... :furious: I hope everything works out!!!! :goodvibes
 
We are all waiting to see how your problem was resolved...as I am sure it has been! I just wanted you to know we have not forgotten about you and your family.:flower3:
 












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