The Verdict's In

Well, we finally have received a 99% sure confirmation of where we are going--we should have orders on Friday. It has been such a difficult ride the last month. Brian and I did something really stupid and actually got our hopes up to get something on our list, specifically Colorado for Brian, and Italy for me. We should have known--you never get anything you actually want with the Army. So last week we received an email from the Major in charge of detailing assignments and she said that we were most likely going to Fairbanks, AK with Brian going immediately to Iraq, but that there was a small chance of going somewhere else. I cried for three days. I have some very dear friends that I love who are still in Fairbanks, but the winters are so long and miserable and it is so far away from family. I felt like I would fall apart if I had to take seven kids back to Alaska. But today, miracles happened, we are going to Fort Campbell, Kentucky instead--but not for eighteen months. Brian still is going straight to Iraq after he finishes Flight Surgeon school and some other emergency life saving school. That should be sometime in November. I am moving home to Utah with all of the children in August until December of 2009. I am so sad for Brian to leave us, but we expected it and it worked out very nicely to move home to be near family during his deployment. I probably wouldn't have been super excited for Kentucky if we had originally gotten orders there without having the terror of Fairbanks in our minds. Now I am ecstatic! I guess it's all relative, isn't it!

We move out of here the middle of July and we are going with Brian wherever he has to go for his dermatology rotation. We are hoping to go to Vegas or Kentucky. That will be one month and then, I am headed home with the kids to get them into school and find a place to live by mid-August. The adventures of the Simons family continues!