The beginning...

Ok, so this technically isn't the beginning, but it's the beginning of the blog, so...well...we'll call it the beginning. Henceforth, this blog will chronicle the adventures of a sailor and his wife as the Navy bounces us all over the world. Since I'm starting this blog a little late in the game (almost 9 years into his career and nearly 6 years into our marriage), what follows is a somewhat brief summary of the last few years:

My name is Lori, and I am a Navy wife. 3rd Generation Navy wife, to be specific (What can I say? The women in my family are slow learners). The vast majority of my family is military, actually...3 of my grandparents were in WWII, most of my cousins have been in some branch or another, my brother spent 4 years in the Marine Corps, etc. We're so military, we bleed camouflage. When I was in high school and looked into the Peace Corps, my grandmother thought it was an act of rebellion. Yeah, you could say the military is a pretty strong tradition in my family.

Eddie and I have been together since 2002, and married since December of the same year. I've long been accused of procrastinating, so I decided to stop putting things off, and just get married RIGHTNOW. Why wait, right? We had a crazy wedding that, to this day, causes friends and families to chuckle, shake their heads, and say "only those two..." I don't really know why people think it was so weird. I mean, I can't be the ONLY bride to walk down the aisle to "The Imperial Death March" from Star Wars, and surely we're not the first couple to get married in an industrial screen printing shop. Honestly.

Anyway, the original plan was for him to finish up his enlistment, which ended in Dec '03, and kiss the military life goodbye. Didn't quite work out that way, though. We lived in the Seattle area, and the cost of living was obscene. We had really become accustomed to our housing allowance, having our medical insurance covered, and commissary access. Those perks really are hard to give up. My job pretty much blew, had no real perks, and I had a shitty commute. We couldn't afford to move closer to where I worked, and the job market was iffy as far as Eddie finding a decent job.

So, at pretty much the last possible second, Eddie re-enlisted. With orders to Norfolk, VA, we watched while nice movers came in and packed every last crumb of our belongings, and headed out across the country in our car with everything we needed to live until the nice movers arrived with the rest. We spent a week and a half or so liesurely traveling across the States, visiting Vegas, Nashville, and some various obscure tourist traps such as Meteor Crater and New Mexico. We very nearly had to unload our tightly packed car while crossing the Hoover Dam. Fortunately, the nice officer noticed the stickers on our car and asked to see our PCS orders. Satisifed that we were not a threat to national security or Dam tourism, he sent us on our merry way.

Once we arrived in Norfolk, we found a badass little townhouse to rent. (We would later discover that our landlady was a manipulative psychotic harpy who needed to have an intimate encounter with a posthole digger, but the townhouse was pretty damn nice) Our place wasn't ready for 3 weeks, so we rented a room from a crazy lady out in Virginia Beach. That experience was...interesting. I think she was bipolar or something. Anyway. That was 3 very long weeks.

Now, our previous landlord would not allow us to have pets. As a lifelong critter fanatic, this was akin to sticking bamboo chutes under my toenails and forcing me to watch 1970's sitcoms. I need kitties like Kate Moss needs a meal. So, off we went to the cat shelter where we found the first of our menagerie of kitties: Annie and Midget. They had to stay in foster care until our apartment was ready, but at least we were FINALLY going to have some cats. YAY!

At long last, our badass little townhouse was ready, and our soon-to-be-revealed-as-a-psycho-harpy landlady cheerfully invited us to move in. The nice movers showed up and unloaded all of our stuff. After about the 30th box of books (to be taken to the second floor, of course), they were grumbling a bit, but they got over it. We unpacked, settled in, picked up the kitties from the shelter, and life in Norfolk began. I eventually found a job, we made some friends, etc.

Now, we've lived here for 4 years. As you can imagine, much has transpired during that time. For the sake of not boring you to tears, here are just a few highlights of our time in Virginia:

- Made some awesome friends
- Went skydiving
- Visited D.C., Colonial Williamsburg, Chincoteague Island, the Outer Banks, and made road trips Pennsylvania, Florida, West Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio, etc.
- Discovered acupuncture and have become a total acupuncture junkie
- Acquired 2 more tattoos (one for him, one for me)
- Went through a deployment
- Got 3 more cats
- Bought our first house
- Went through 4 hellish years of infertility, then decided that we actually DON'T want kids
- Generally wreaked havoc on the mid-Atlantic

So...here we are at the present, which is June 29, 2008. Earlier this week, Eddie received orders to report to Okinawa in October. WOOHOO!!!

For the next 4 months, you can probably expect sporadic updates about the headache and horrors of preparing for an overseas move. Things like selling the house, telling my boss, and explaining to the cats why they have to sit in cages for lengthy periods of time. We probably won't tell them about the 12+ hour flight from Seattle to Japan, at least not until they've recovered from the trauma of spending a week driving across the country.

From October and beyond, I will chronicle our wild and crazy adventures in Japan and wherever else we travel. In 3 years or so, we'll see where the Navy sends us!