3.5 Years

Tomorrow will be 3.5 years since Sgt D and I moved to WA.  When we first got here I thought I was going to spend the rest of our stay here wearing 15 layers of clothes at all times.  I was constantly wrapped up in a blanket wearing at least two shirts and a sweatshirt at all times!  I was COLD!

It is amazing how things have changed. I still have to wear a house coat to keep warm, but when we go out now I usually just wear a t-shirt and a light polar fleece zip up.  In fact, on the days that it is 50 degrees out and the sun is shinning, I actually run the Air Conditioning!  When I lived in CA I didn't run the AC unless it was over 85 outside.

I only thought about this because we got new neighbors last weekend, and I asked our new neighbor how she liked it up here and she said point blank that she hated it. I asked if it was the weather and she said it was. She is from Arizona and used to a much warmer and DRYER climate.  I could completely understand where she is coming from. At least she arrived in Spring when the weather is just starting to get nice as opposed to the middle of Fall when you have 8 months left to wait before the rain even considers letting up.  She said that she and her husband would do their time here and request a transfer as soon as they were allowed one.  I told her that we originally felt the same way, but now 3.5 years later we are buying a house here and getting ready to call WA home for as long as the army will let us.  She thinks I'm crazy now, but that's ok because I really have come to love it here.

Now that things have changed with Toddler D's health situation, Sgt D and I are going to fight even harder now with the army to make sure that we can stay here. We want to make sure that she receives consistent health care from trained specialists in the pediatric kidney field. We both have realized just how precious her health care is and we certainly do not want to chance ending up stationed somewhere that does not have a local specialist. We can't take any risks anymore.

Toddler D is a trooper and she loved celebrating Easter yesterday. It is her smile and joy that makes everything we and she are going through worth the struggle.

After all, how can you deny her anything!