A Trip Back in Time...Life Changes.

The kids and I are here at Fort Rucker, Alabama right now and have been here since Saturday night. I must admit, though it's great to be able to spend time with Phillip for our Spring Break, it's really weird being here.

The last time we were here, it was back in 2001; right after September 11th. We'd only been married for two years, and had found out that we were expecting a baby the Friday before the day that changed America. We were young, and like all new marriages, we were struggling to keep our heads above water. We didn't know quite what to expect in this new military way of life, and we were a bit scared. At least, I was. But we had faith, and we were following a dream. And everything always works out in the end.

It's been AWESOME so far, and besides deployments, I wouldn't change a thing. But I don't deal easily with change, and the time that we spent here was all about that. So much was packed into the two years that we spent at Fort Rucker.

It seems like forever ago that we lived here. We are on a much different level in our lives now. And so much has happened since we left this area; both with US and the area in general.

So far this week, I've recognized some of the old and taken in some of the new. We've explored Sandestin, Florida and joke that we've found the place that we'll spend the rest of our lives (Baytowne Wharf). On Monday, we found ourselves in nearby Dothan, looking through travel trailer after travel trailer, dreaming of buying one to take with us on the trip up to Alaska. Yesterday, we went up to Montgomery to tour the Rosa Parks museum and had a fantastic Italian meal at a place called Saza (the entire day was planned by Gabe, we paid for it). Phillip just got off of school for the day, and so I'm not quite sure what today will hold for us, but I'm sure we'll have fun doing it.

We've come a long way from what we were to what we are now. We have so much more experience under our belts when it comes to living as an Active Duty family. For example, I'm not longer afraid of deployments; I just dread them, because I now know what to expect. I feel like an Old Timer being here; I see the young couples just starting out, and the young flight students and I think "WOW, that was us not very long ago!".

And, Ha Ha, we now have the monetary means to go and explore much of what we didn't back then.

See ya later....

Janet