T-Minus 1 Month

The countdown has begun to when Justin and I will drive cross-country to Monterey... he'll be staying there and I will be flying home :( As with anything in the military, the PEB is moving at it's own pace and taking much longer than either of us would have desired. The main body of the report (MEBR- Med Evaluation Board Report) was finally dictated the 1st of May... which started the 30 day timer. The Navy now has 30 days to get the complete MEBR (completed meaning all specialty clinic addendum and other required attachments) in the hands of the PEB. After that, the adjudication should come within 2 weeks. We're praying that the package goes up next week... especially since we really need the results to come back before we begin our cross country drive. Please pray that the board will find for my medical retirement so that I can join Justin in California shortly.

On to other news... we just returned from a 5 day trip to California which turned into 6 days due to air travel adventure (some might call it a nightmare but at least it makes for an entertaining story). Why is it that when we book airline tickets ambition always overshadows logic? I booked our flight out for 0630 thinking that way we would land in Cali by noon and still have half the day. What I didn't take into account is that we would have to get up so early that by 5pm we would be ready for bed! Anyway, we flew to San Francisco and after waiting for 45 minutes for a shuttle van to pick us up from the car rental terminal at the airport and take us to the car rental office... we called rental company and fired them. A great start to the trip right? It turned out to be a huge blessing. We got a rental car very quickly (complete w/ a sunroof... woo hoo!) After a quick stop in In N' Out (where else) we were on our way down to Monterey. We've been told what an experience living in base housing can be... surrounded by people going through similar experiences and challenges so we were really interested in trying base housing. We found the housing office and were able to get a tour of the base housing at La Mesa... which we were told looked much nicer on the inside than on the outside. WAY WRONG!!! Horrible would be an understatement. I actually gasped at one point and told them that the housing reminded me of a barracks I was in the process of gutting in Norfolk. We're talking an early '60s home that had never been renovated complete with base board heating, tin doors, the original counter and kitchen flooring that was probably 20 years old. I'm told many of the women cry when they initially see the housing, I just told Justin there was no way I was living there.

After regrouping that night we went back to the housing office and found out that there's some new construction base housing about 7 miles from NPS (Navy Post-Grad School). We drove out to Fort Ord (where the new housing was) and talked with them. Basically, it's on a first come first serve basis... so if you walk in and they have a new construction home available... first person to sign on the line gets it. The schools operate on quarters so housing turns over quarterly... so we're going to be trying to find a bedroom in an apartment that Justin can rent until I get out there and in the meantime he'll be calling the housing office daily to find out if any new construction homes are available. Turns out having the PEB taking longer than anticipates works to our advantage... since we have about 2 months where we can wait for the right home to become available... another prayer request.

Wednesday morning we departed Monterey and after a quick stop in Walnut Creek to have lunch with my late grandfather's wife, we drove up to Sacramento for a very short visit. Friday morning we left and drove back to San Francisco to catch our flight out... and that's where the real adventure began. I'll save the details for tomorrow as it's getting late here and I need to get some sleep so that I can continue to kick my contractors (or in this case it's contractor) into submission. Stand by... the story is about to begin :)