Smokey Joe Wouldn't Go!

Our experience of living on a military base has become short lived. We moved over the Thanksgiving holiday to a house off base and I can't tell you how happy I am. This could turn into a very long drawn out story so I'll try to keep it short.

We had some serious issues when we first moved into the house on base (mold under the entire kitchen sink and cupboards, a thirty year old fridge that had broken shelves and a non-working dishwasher) but I was trying to be optimistic. I should have known better when we had to sign the lead and asbestos waivers with our lease. I kept telling myself leading up to the move that I could live anywhere for a year... well I'm a liar.

The straw that broke the camels back was the fact that our neighbors smoked inside their house, we live in a duplex. Shortly after moving in Ben went from a pre-asthmatic stage to having full blown asthma with all the factors listed above. I tried to ignore the fact that at certain hours of the day my house started to smell like an ash tray (I have spent way too much money on air fresheners in the last couple of months). It got really bad when the weather started to get cold, we had to move Olivia to a different room and run the A/C when it was 60 degrees outside.

So when it came down to it the housing office had asked our neighbors if they would stop smoking inside (mind you they have a one year old) and they, our neighbors, informed housing that they had no intentions of stopping. By law they can't evict them since it's not in the lease so our options were to stick it out or move. I chose to move.

I dreaded moving after having just done so four months earlier(and the fact that we're moving again in nine months is agonizing) but it had to be done. It was the best decision we've made since being here in so many ways. I won't get into it but we are happy and healthy and that is all that matters. And my desire to physically harm my neighbors has subsided.

On to our Thanksgiving...
This was Kev's only chance to move so our Thanksgiving was nonexistent. We were planning on it being low key anyways but we just scrapped it altogether. This was really hard for me because this holiday is my favorite by far. Some very nice ward members called Thanksgiving morning and insisted on us joining them. We had a great time but it made me miss family even more. The only thing we missed out on from our feast was the pies (they ate them in the evening and we had way to much packing left).

I've always loved getting a pumpkin pie instead of a cake for my birthday so last night I fixed two. We really never got around to the whole song and candle thing but I got my pie, I won't tell you how much I've had today but I'm glad to report that there is at least one whole pie left! If anyone needs the address just shoot me an email. My email address is by my profile. Cheers!