Tristan stops by & vacation begins

Micah, Shannon, Zach, Tristan, and Nathan in Turkey

During our first year here at Eglin, we became good friends with one of the third year residents. Tristan and his wife Shannon (and their three boys: Zach, Micah, and Nathan). After our first year, they were stationed in Turkey. This was my first glimpse of how fleeting relationships are in the military. People move so much! I am really starting to feel that now with another big moving season upon us (Becky, Bobby, and Brittany are at the top of the move list . . . but that's another blog in itself.)

Anyways, Tristan and his family are in the states for a few weeks, and Tristan popped over to Eglin to attend the residency retreat while Shannon and the boys remained in Savannah with family. All of the docs met in San Destin (about an hour from here) all day yesterday and half the day today to talk about their program and evaluate things. Tristan stayed with us. I picked him up from the airport yesterday morning and then last night we had the opportunity to sit and talk about Turkey, the Lord, family, our journey to parenthood, their handful of boys, everything. It was great!

JB and I are really thinking we would like to try to go overseas next summer when it is time to leave Eglin. Many people have asked me how this works. Each resident gets a 20 location "dream list." You rank the places you would like to go in the order you would like to go there. We plan to rank a lot of overseas locations very high in hopes we get the opportunity to go overseas. However, ultimately, we know that where we go is totally in the Lord's hands, and I am completely at peace with wherever that might be -- even if I end up back in the Polar North somewhere! (There's a base in North Dakota -- egads!) Sometime around July of 2010, we will be moving. We won't know where that is until March of next year. Either way, it was very enlightening to talk to Tristan and get some ideas about what the future holds next summer when we are sent to another location for 2-4 years.

Many of the residents went out for dinner with fellow residents and their families yesterday. Tristan went out with a bunch of guys as well. JB opted to come home. It's been an exhausting week for both of us with Isaac being sick, JB working long hours, and all the feeding changes with Elijah so we ultimately decided to just spend some family together here.

Also, in honor of the kick off of JB's vacation, we have a free weekend to use at a hotel in Destin that we earned by attending some timeshare mumbo jumbo about a year ago. (Sidenote: I do not recommend ever attending one of these mumbo jumbos no matter what they offer you. They are incredibly painful. If they tell you it is not a "hard sell" they are lying. It always is. And you have to say no like 5,000 times before you get out of there with your free prize.) Anyways, we have a hotel booked in Destin for the weekend -- Sunday night and Monday night. So if you don't see any blogs, that's why. We aren't sure what we are going to do exactly -- but relax and be a family on the beach are our top priorities. We are dropping Scrubs off tomorrow at this great play-day-kennel I found in Santa Rosa Beach. I know he'll have a great time and won't care at all that we are gone for the weekend.

As for today, all the families are meeting at the beach around lunchtime so I'll be connecting with JB sometime in the afternoon. I am doing a really good job getting out of the house with both boys. I really have it down to a science and even ventured to the grocery store by myself the other day. It was a little difficult to fit any groceries in my cart around Elijah's carseat, but I was still proud to say that I had done it.

Have a sunny weekend everyone!