Starting to Say Goodbye

Today Jesse and I said goodbye to our house on JBLM.

Didn't it seem like just yesterday we were moving in?  Or I guess I should say, I (with a little help from some family and friends), since Jesse was overseas at the time.

This of course marks the very first of goodbyes that we have to say to our new friends, our family, the places we love to go.  It's strange because I'm not sure if it gets much easier, I don't know how I will be feeling when we get in the car one final time and leave Washington State.  I do know that we will be back, that military families never really consider friends "friends," they are considered more like family.  I am realizing it more now than ever now that this is our third move through the military.  It reminds me of something I read on Facebook:

An old military tradition is that true friends who have not seen each other for long periods of time never question their friendship. These friendships resume at the same place they left off regardless of distance and time between them. We call these friends 

"Family."

I hope everyone has a great week!  The weather here in Washington has been phenomenal, I definitely hope to get some outdoor time before we head southward:)

♥

Goodbye September!

Sorry it has been a couple of days since my last update.


Sunday Jesse and I got professional pictures done in Tacoma (by downtown Tacoma & by Point Defiance).  We did half of our pictures with him in his ACUs, and half of them in his civilian clothing.  The photographer is awesome, if you are in the Puyallup/Tacoma/Seattle area I highly recommend her.  You can see some of her work here:


http://www.juliewattsphoto.com/


I will post more about the photos, she's going to be putting them online after she's done editing them (which should be on Sunday).  If you're on my Christmas card list you'll probably get familiar with those pictures!! :)


Monday Jesse worked most all day, and while he was working he ran into like four NCOs (non-commissioned officers) that he had served with previously with third brigade.  He had a great time catching up with them, and was psyched when he called me after work to tell me all about it.


Yesterday Jesse and I went to the Newcomers Orientation on North Fort Lewis (which was mandatory for him), and something I did go to when we got to Ft. Benning.  Nonetheless, Jesse and I learned lots of information (like Ft. Lewis has about 35,000 soldiers and over 23,000 of them are currently deployed).  We also learned a lot of new information of what is available to us through the police and through recycling (I thought it was interesting at least! I don't know about Jesse...).  They also had lots of booths which had information services that are available to military families and the surrounding area (which, for the most part, we know already).  It still was very helpful, and I have to say that I recommend going if you are coming out to Ft. Lewis!  They had a LOT of information on childcare and information on what is offered for them.  None of which I knew, because of course, we don't have any children!


We have decided also that we are going to be moving on post very soon.  We get our keys on the 19th.  I will e-mail out our address to everyone when we start our moving process.  I do have the address now, but will let you all know closer to the date.  If you happen to send mail to my parents address, that is okay, we can still get the mail of course.


I finished my day yesterday with working, when I got home my very sweet adorable husband decided that he would surprise me with a new jacket (before I left I was saying I didn't have a jacket with a hood to wear to work) and a couple of movies to watch this weekend.  It was very sweet of him!


Also, this weekend Jesse and I will be going out to the wine country (Rattlesnake Hills, Yakima Valley area) on friday.  We will be staying there for the weekend, to spend some much needed time together before deployment.  Sunday we're going to meet up with a couple people we met at Ft. Benning and that  are currently stationed at Ft. Lewis.  Jesse was in IBOLC (Infantry Basic Officer Leaders Course) with him at Ft. Benning, and his wife was in the FRG.  They also have a dog, which is a white german shepherd, so we often ran into them at the Ft. Benning dog park (I visited that park religiously).  They are very nice people who bought a house in the Olympia/Lacey area, and I know Jesse is looking forward to showing him the ropes.


In other news, there was a tsunami warning on the west coast (for those who are non-west coasters that may not have known) which was very interesting to hear about last night!  The earthquake in American Samoa had caused most of the west coast to have this warning.  I feel like since we've been back I've noticed more of these tsunami warning signs than I had before (they're posted EVERYWHERE around here it seems... We do have a lot of water!).  Also, fall has officially come as of yesterday.  It has definitely cooled off!  I officially feel cold all the time.  I guess that's to be expected from a desert baby!


I'll probably post more tomorrow, I did get my hair cut and am going to post pictures soon.  The weekend is probably going to be pretty busy, but I will post pictures of Eastern Washington when I can! I do work more next week, nearly full-time hours, but after that I'm working next to nothing since Jesse's going to be leaving soon.  Please keep Jesse in your thoughts and prayers as he prepares for deployment!

New Address!

I don't remember mentioning it before, but we do have a new address!! If you would like it please e-mail me at marissa.mcadam@gmail.com. I know I didn't mention my e-mail address before, so if you would like to be on my e-mail list regarding Jesse and his adventures to the 'Stan, please let me know via e-mail.

Thanks!

Back in the GREAT Pacific Northwest

It has been a while!!

I had planned on updating this blog plenty while Jesse was at Ranger school, and as most of you already know, Ranger school didn't work out quite to our expectations. Jesse got medically dropped out of Ranger school, proving the Georgia heat can be overwhelming. He is doing fine, but he did almost pass out a couple of times during the first day. He and a few others did get dropped, only to return in winter months.

Jesse came home slightly defeated, but more than ready to move on. We decided that it would be best for us to stay stateside instead of going to Italy, for multiple reasons. Jesse called Branch (the go to people to change duty stations) and tried to get in an airborne or light infantry unit. There were no spots open at Ft. Bragg, Ft. Campbell, Ft. Drum, or Ft. Carson. But there was an opening at Ft. Lewis, which he took without hesitation. Not his first pick, but it would do.

So here we are in Washington, all we know as of now is that he is going to be 5/2 (5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division). He is currently in processing until about mid next week. We are approximating he has about 45 days (give or take) until he deploys for Afghanistan, where the unit is currently deployed.

I will post more updates as I go, I'm going to get in the habit of updating this blog!! As of now we are living with my parents, where we will stay until Jesse gets back from deployment. We're hoping in the spring we will be moving on post.

Please e-mail me via gmail or Facebook if you would like our current address :)