Clearing Fort Lewis was a pain in the butt. For my fellow Army spouses, I'm sure you know the hell that is CIF. For you non-military folks, CIF is the place that issues gear to soldiers. Mike has hundreds of pounds of gear that he's collected throughout his 9 year career in the Army. When we left Fort Drum he was required to scrub oil stains from his Gortex suit, even though it was the old desert print which was no longer used and would never be issued to another soldier. I thought THAT was bad but this time was much worse. Mike had a couple old brown flight suits that he wore his first tour in Iraq in 2005-2006. They were disgusting when he got back and Fort Drum's CIF didn't ask for them when he cleared so he got rid of them. Guess what JBLM wanted when he cleared? Those damn flight suits. Seriously?! Luckily he found some at a surplus store for $100 (that we had to pay for) so he could get signed off on that. Then there was his sleeping bag that "didn't smell clean" even though he had just washed it. The CIF lady told him that it couldn't be clean because it didn't smell like anything. He explained to her that we didn't use scented laundry soap or fabric softener in our house and he said she looked at him, "Like I had a dick growing out of my forehead." Ha! My husband. He brought that sleeping bag home and doused it with some Febreeze he had found in the glove box. When he took it back to CIF the next day it was a different person and they didn't even try to smell it. ::head desk::
The movers came and packed up our stuff and all along we had planned to have a cleaning team come in so that we didn't have to clean ourselves--I was only five weeks post partum and caring for a newborn and let's face it, men just don't clean as well. For those not familiar with the process of clearing military housing, it's pretty tedious. Window tracks, refrigerator seals, baseboards, you name it. It's a LOT of work. Weeeelll, we met the cleaning lady, she looked at our house, gave us a quote and told us she'd see us on moving day. Guess who didn't show up until late in the afternoon on the day before we were supposed to clear? Guess who DID spend all afternoon, evening and the next morning cleaning for our inspection at noon? Guess who passed with flying colors thanks to some elbow grease and team work? We were FINALLY on our way, thrilled to be done with JBLM and sad to be leaving the Pacific Northwest and my brother's family behind us.
We stopped in Eugene, OR for a couple days so that Mike's grandma could meet Hazel before we moved across the country. It was about a five hour drive so it was a good test run of how the longer days would go with Hazel and the pets. We went to the Farmer's Market (which is huge and amazingly awesome!) ate some Voodoo Doughnuts, watched football and just hung out with family.
The first day we made it from Eugene to the UT/ID border.
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| Somewhere in Utah... |
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| My dog is a freak... |
It was a beautiful time of year to drive across America.
Each day got progressively worse for my poor baby. She was so tired of being in the car so we were so glad when stopped off for a week in Missouri to see my parents and to stretch our legs for more than a few hours at a time. While we were there my dad showed Mike how to shoot a bow, took him fishing and turkey hunting. I was beginning to wonder what happened to my city boy!
It was in Missouri that we saw Hazel smile on purpose for the first time. <3
Zero was so happy to have freedom!
From Missouri we went to Tennessee, to my sister's house, where Hazel got to meet more cousins!
My oldest niece, Gabrielle, is the same age I was when she was born.
From Tennessee we drove to Alabama where we started a new chapter in our lives, which had a very rocky start unfortunately. When Mike got orders to Fort Rucker we decided that we wanted to live on post, especially since the waiting list was so short. About a month before Mike's report date we got an e-mail saying that we had been pre-assigned a house and it would be waiting for us when we arrived. As you can imagine, we were relieved! We would be able to move in right away and would have a yard for our dogs.
On the day that we were to sign for the house I stayed at the hotel with the fur-kids and Hazel while Mike went with the housing lady to look at the house and sign for it. Later that evening Mike took me to the house so we could look at it together. The first thing I noticed when he opened the door was a strange smell but I just chalked it up to being shut up for weeks. Surely the smell would go away once we aired out the house, right? The house was supposed to be renovated but the only updates I saw were silver doorknobs and new linoleum floors. The counter tops in the kitchen were blue, the appliances were old, the rooms were insanely small (our furniture wouldn't even fit in the master bedroom) the bathrooms were floor to ceiling powder blue tiles, the laundry room was outside and not air conditioned (in 110 degree summers? No thanks...) and that smell that my nose caught as soon as I walked in? Pet urine. I couldn't believe that after almost nine years of serving his country it was all he qualified for here.
Mike and I love a good challenge so we decided to make the best out of the situation. I covered the ugly blue counter tops in contact paper and we bought a steam cleaner for the carpets. Unfortunately the steam cleaning made the smell even worse and we decided to complain to the housing office when they opened back up on Monday. Throughout the weekend we discovered several other issues with the house. Years of humidity had caused the windows to become foggy between the double panes--so foggy we couldn't even see through them to see the beautiful blue skies and sunshine. The toilet in the second bathroom broke after the first time we used it--it was held together with electrical tape. The ice machine in the freezer didn't work. The master bathroom was so small that I had to squish my legs together while on the toilet if I wanted to get to the toilet paper. The tiles in the bathroom were absolutely filthy. And the smell? It was absolutely disgusting. I sprayed with vinegar and essential oils, I steamed cleaned, I kept the windows open despite the extreme heat and humidity. We hadn't had our household goods delivered yet and I wasn't about to lay Hazel on the floor, even with a blanket. It was hell.
On Monday, maintenance came by to measure for new floors and told me it would be at least three weeks before they could replace them. Mike came home, I handed him a screaming baby and I just started to cry. The stress of the move, the disappointment in the house and living in filthy, smelly surroundings had finally gotten to me. We'd lived in old housing before, that wasn't the problem. The problem was the filth, especially now that we have a baby. After I calmed down Mike went up to the housing office and told them how unacceptable the house was, how it just kept getting worse and worse the longer we were in it. He explained that the house should have never been shown, let alone lived in, in the state that it was in and requested a new house. We were offered another house in the same neighborhood but I didn't even want to look at it--I was afraid it would be just as bad or worse. They told us that because we only had one child we didn't qualify for new housing so they gave us the option of breaking our lease and moving off post, which we took gladly. The only problem was that we had two days to find a new place and get out of the old one so I stayed up late trying to find places to look at online. Thank GOD that Mike's unit was understanding throughout all of this and gave him the time off work to get it all situated.
We ended up finding a nice town home, about five minutes outside the gate, with a huge back yard for the girls and in a community of primarily military families. It's got a small community center with a workout room, tennis courts and a pool. The pool will get a lot of use next summer by Hazel and I, I'm sure! We've spent the past two weeks trying to get unpacked and for the most part we are settled. I had Hazel's cloth diapers unpacked that first night! :) We've already had visitors too--my mom and dad and Mike's brother and his girlfriend. The house is finally starting to feel like home! Now if only Alabama would start to feel like home, too. Can you say culture shock? Seriously. The closest Costco is 75 miles away and Target is 25 miles! Thank God for Amazon Prime! I hope we're not miserable here for the next two years...
