The October Surprise

Somehow the month of October zoomed by. Soldier spent most of the month at work and I spent it hunkered down at home. Our household goods arrived on the 17th, right when they were expected.  Except for one thing, this could have been the Best Move Ever.  We had nothing broken or lost but our wood furniture wasn't wrapped properly so most of our wood items have serious rubs on the edges.  It looks like someone sat around with sandpaper and tried to give all my furniture a "Shabby Chic" makeover.   I was miffed initially, but I know it can all be repaired or replaced.  Plus, I've had all the furniture long enough that the newness has worn off and I wasn't entirely disappointed that I might have to replace it!

The kids were thrilled to see their stuff.  Forget Santa Claus, our movers were BETTER than Christmas!   The two bigger kids spent the day playing at the CDC, so they were totally dazzled by the transformation when they arrived home.  Soldier and I spent the evening tag-teaming kids and boxes.  I managed to unpack both of the girls' rooms that evening and do a little bit of work in Monster Boy's room.  They were so happy to re-discover all of their toys!  The upstairs was a trainwreck but we did manage to get everything put away in time for bed.  Since Soldier was in one of his "Busy Times" at work, I was basically on my own after that.  He was able to take delivery day off, but spent the next three weeks at work, except for a couple of nights where he came home to catch up on sleep.

With the election coming up, the talking heads have been mentioned the October Surprise and what it might be.  I don't know about the politicians, but for the Herbek Family, we got our October Surprise the same day our household goods arrived.  Soldier was notified that his OCONUS Tour was being shortened and that we were PCSing in the summer!  He has to be at Ft. Leavenworth by July to attend a 9 month course. So, we figure this means all the stuff we were unpacking will need to be re-packed sometime in May, or about 7 months from now.   We're laughing about it, because sometimes laughter is the only acceptable response but we definitely have some mixed feelings about it.  We're disappointed that our three year European Adventure and smorgasbord of travel has been reduced.  On the other had, we recognize how competitive it was to get a slot in the course and are very, very thankful he gets the opportunity.  We're also excited to go to Leavenworth since my Grandparents and some other relatives still live in the area. I was born there but moved away when I was three or four years old.  In the mean time, we're going to try re-vamping our travel plans and shoot for a "European Sampler."  Time and budget will be seriously limiting factors, since we had hoped to do our big travels in a year, after DeeDee was a little older and we'd saved up a little from our last PCS adventure.  I'm sort of cringing at all the things we sold before we left because we didn't think it made sense to store them for three years: our washer and dryer, the deep freeze, Soldiers Truck, and more!