We're Not In Kansas Anymore

Ok really, we still are in Kansas but it has been a whirlwind week.

Today is Tuesday. A week ago today I was done with my career as a preschool teacher. Graduation was done and I was frantically packing for my quick trip to Texas. I feel I should fill you in.

Fort Hood is unique. Well maybe not, but it is odd at any rate. If you wish to live on post you must apply for it. And if you must apply in person, well not just anybody, the military member must apply in person. Since I am not the military member I got my handy dandy Power of Attorney and Neilson's Big Black Book of the Army and my Sacred Baggie of Paperwork and headed off to Texas.

Diane and I headed off to Manhattan to drop Gracie off with Mama and Papa and then drove straight down to Killeen. The drive was night and really quite uneventful. We did Dallas/Ft. Worth at rush hour -- OUCH! And I made a minor wrong turn that left us at a Little Caesars Pizza asking a young interesting woman for directions that included, "Go down to that street you know and go this was and this way and stay left." Ummmm yeah.

We stayed with a girl I met on my military wives website. Wendi graciously let us invade her house for two nights. We rolled into Killeen late and promptly crashed. The next morning we were up and at them early to get to Housing. The housing ladies were very kind. Of course it might have had something to do with the fact that I looked like a lost puppy that could burst into tears at any minute and I started each introduciton with, "I am a new Army wife. I have never done this before. Please help me."

With minor running around to get two more pieces of paperwork -- the Army loves their paperwork, we were given a house that day. Yes despite what you hear about military housing and the horrendous wait lists I walked into housing in the morning and was given a house that afternoon. This is of course because we only qualify for a 2 bedroom. They give you exactly one master bedroom and one bedroom per kid. Since we are the only wackados who have one kid there are an abundance of 2 bedroom houses and we could move right in.

I'm not going to post our address here because of safety reasons but if you email me I would be happy to pass it along. I'm not actually real sure of the house number. I'll have to check my paperwork. I'm also going to attempt to post two links. One will show you the floor plan of our humble abode, the second will show you a view of the exterior or something very similar.

floor plan
https://onestop.army.mil/_hqd/BaseHousing_show.asp?base=67&planid=16&rid=1&k=0

picture of exterior
https://onestop.army.mil/_hqd/BaseHousing_show.asp?base=67&planid=16&rid=1&k=0

map of our "village"
https://onestop.army.mil/_hqd/BaseHousing_show.asp?base=67&planid=16&rid=1&k=0
If you email me for our address I can tell you which house is ours on the map!

Our house has been remodeled and we are the first occupants! :) As you can see from the floor plan we have ginormous bedrooms and more storage than even we can fill! It will be good. And probably the best thing are the two mature trees in our yard, one in front and one in back. Mature trees = shade = cooler parts of the yard = happy Heather in Texas heat.

Thursday night we were witness to the great flood. Seriously! I have never seen a whole city shut down due to rain. I think we got 5 inches or more in the course of 5 hours. I cannot express to you how hard and how long it rained. Here is a link to a picture taken in front of Wendi's house that night! Notice how high the water is up on that car.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/Sft2tch69/The%20Great%20Killeen%20Flood/Flood001.jpg

Since there was so much flooding and rain we decided to get up at 5:00 in the morning and get out of town to avoid the second round of flash floods. And it's a good thing we did. Killeen got hammered again and they even had a tornado touch down! Yikes.

Our drive back was uneventful and we were back in Kansas City by Friday night. So in the course of 72 hours I spent about 30 hours of them in the car driving. I lazed around Saturday and Sunday to recover. And then it hit me....

YIKES I HAVE TO PACK MY CRAP!! I'M MOVING IN 2 WEEKS!!!