We Are Moving (Again)!

I’ve been pretty terrible about updating the good ol’ blog, but there has been a lot going on in our lives. I’ve gotten a few messages asking me about why we are moving after I’ve mentioned it on Twitter and my Instagram stories so I thought I’d finally put it all on the blog.

But yes, barely a year after moving to Germany, we are headed back to the States!

The Why

Back in February, we headed to Landstuhl Germany, to see a specialist for Joey. Long story short, Joey was diagnosed as being on the Autism Spectrum.

I’ve gone back and forth about writing a long, detailed post about his diagnosis and such but I’ve chosen not to. As the boys get older, I’ve gotten pretty guarded about how much of their information and life details I put online.

Anyways, when we received the diagnosis, we also learned that the Army doesn’t have the help and services Joey needs available here in Germany. So we had two choices – do nothing except what we were already doing (sending Joey to a special pre-school program at the elementary school on-post where he was seeing a speech therapist and an occupational therapist) or petition to move back to the States.

The How

Given I’m writing this post, you can probably guess what we chose to do. As much progress as we’ve seen in Joey after he joined the preschool program and as much as we’ve enjoyed living in Germany, we want the absolute best for our kiddos. So, we chose to do a compassionate reassignment.

It was all pretty up in the air for about 4-6 weeks, but eventually, we learned it was approved. Then we had to wait to hear where and when we were going, but we finally heard in late May.

The Where

We got our top choice, and we are going back to Washington State! Lance will once again be stationed in Fort Lewis, and we are so excited to be going back there. Washington is Lance’s home state, and whenever I think of where I want our forever home to be, Western Washington is my top answer.

The When

This is the crazy part about compassionate reassignments. If approved, they happen fast. Really stinking fast. We got orders at the end of the second to last week of May, movers were here the first week of June, and we fly back to the States this week.

Literally three weeks from orders to flying back. Just 1.5 weeks from orders to movers.

It’s all a whirlwind and crazy. One day we had two moving crews in our house – one for our household goods, and one for our UBA/express shipment and it was madness! Let’s just say I really need a vacation haha.

It’s a bittersweet moment for sure. I’m extremely sad to be leaving Germany and Europe so soon. We had so much we wanted to do that we won’t be able to now. BUT we know this is the best for Joey and our whole family, and we are going back to Washington! I can’t wait to spend time in Seattle and the surrounding area again!