Military spouses blog hop

Hi!!  My name is Michelle and I'm originally from WNY, y'know lots of snow and the superbowl losers for four years in a row.  But, we do have great chicken wings, bison chip dip, and beef on weck.

I moved to VA in 1993 and  met my hubby, who was stationed there in 1995.  We married in 1996.  Since then, we've had five kids and moved five times.  Our first move wasn't until 2002.  We went to Japan for 10  months, moved to Lemoore, CA for 2 years, back to Japan for three years, over to Whidbey Island, WA for 2.5 years and now we're back in Lemoore.

My hubby is Navy and going on 24 years of service this year.  He is a surface rate.  He actually is the Maintanence Master Chief of one of the fighter squadrons here.  He does deploy to air craft carriers.  We've done nine deployments together.  Some lasted only three months, most were six, a few were almost eight.  I can't even count the number of workups he's done.  Workups are "getting ready for deployment"  and they generally last one week to six. 

Today is Military Spouses Appreciation Day.  I have to say, without my fellow sisters/spouses, these absences from my husband would have been very difficult.  For the most part, we've never been around family; we're usually overseas or on the other side of the continent.  To all my wonderful friends, and all the other military spouses, have a wonderful day!!!

We have five kiddos.  I can't download any current photos (I just realized the ones on the sidebar are almost two years old now) because my laptop doesn't seem to want to start up.  TL is the only boy and the oldest.  He turns 14 soon.  Princess is 11, Bug-a-bug will be 9 soon, Little Miss Trouble is 4, and the Monkey is 2. 

We do homeschool our kids.  When we got orders back here to Lemoore, I'll be honest I wasn't thrilled.  Its way too hot here for this northern chick.  We have been on the west coast or overseas for years and because of it, I haven't been home much.  Our deal was to upgrade our travel trailer to our fifth wheel and live in it. You can see our home here.http://www.eagleeyeacademy.blogspot.com/2011/05/heritage-history.html The kids and I will travel during the summer.  This year, we leave in  July to head back up to WA to visit some friends.  I think we're going to head back through MT, WY, and CO since I've never been there.  Next summer we're leaving in May and traveling across the country and seeing everything we can along the way.

I am currently finishing my bachelor's degree.  I will be done in December!!  Yeah!  I love to read, quilt, and do genealogy research.  I have a quilting and genealogy blog but I rarely have time to update them.  I also like to scrapbook, although can't do that here, so I'm switching to digital scrapbooking. 

Thanks for stopping by to visit. Please leave a message so I know who you are and where you're from.

Do you schedule your day?

I used to but I got away from it.  I'm not sure why.  Perhaps the move, perhaps my laziness.

All I know is that the last few weeks have been hectic.  It seems that everyone does their independent work at the same time and then they all clamor for my attention to work with them. 

This weekend, I made a schedule.  Although the times don't always mesh out (we're usually done before the time alloted), things are going much much smoother.  I don't feel as crazy as I did the last few weeks, which is good.  Its been in the 90s here already and its miserable.  The kids spend most of their day inside because whoever decided to design this rv park really messed up.  Usually your "hookups" are on one side....electric, water, cable, and waste.  The other side of your camper is where the door is.  Our door, and everyone else who lives here, opens up into the sun ALL DAY LONG.  It is so hot.  There's no shade to speak of and you can't even go outside later and sit when it cools down because you're still sitting in the sun. 

Oh, well.  We leave July 20th for two months.  Hopefully, the heat will not be bad until then, but we had a really  mild winter so they are predicting an extremely hot summer.  Oh, and they don't open the pool until Labor Day.

Changes for next year already......

What a busy week this has been and will continue to be.  Monday night is gymnastics, karate, and boy scouts.  Tonight is a makeup gymnastics class.  Wednesday night is gymnastics again with TL going to karate.  We're also hooking up that night and driving to Bakersfield to get the fifth wheel looked at.  They are taking care of some things that are covered under warranty.  I hope that they are able to fix the fridge.  Its been over a month of not having one and I'm quite over it.  They are also going to look at the front A/C again.  Its making nasty noises when you turn it on again.  They fixed it once already so I hope that they will be able to take care of it correctly this time.  I don't really like the drive back.

So, the girls have told me that the don't want to do Teaching Textbooks next year.  They want to go back to Saxon.  And I'm still trying to decide what to do for science with them.  I may switch them to Switched on Schoolhouse to take some of the teaching pressure and planning off of me.  With Miss Trouble staring kindergarten next year, I need to make sure I make time for her, which means the big girls need to be a little more independent.

Have a wonderful and blessed week!