We’ve been feeling all the nostalgia recently. Scott’s graduation thirteen years ago from the Digital Arts and Visual Effects program at Universal showed up in our Facebook memories recently. At that point, I had just finished my second masters at the University of Virginia and was moving up to New York to join the Department of Systems Engineering faculty at the United States Military Academy, and that spring we’d gone from “let’s try this long distance” to “f-it, I’m moving to New York with you.”
A year later, we were back down here in Florida with an awesome number of friends and family, promising to continue our adventures together. And now we’re celebrating our twelfth anniversary together!
A lot has happened in twelve years!
We just went out to Vail for my niece, standing up front in her pretty blue and white dress, to get married herself.
Scott’s beloved godmother Alvina passed not too long ago, but we’re very grateful we got to share time with her.
We’re blessed to still have strong ties with our families – and between our families. Even though we’re scattered all over the country, we all get along and love getting together when we’re all together. Can’t ask for more there!
A year after our wedding, Scott and I moved from New York to Hawaii – by way of a summer world tour that took us to Barcelona, Paris, Denver, Monterey, Sacramento, Juneau, Skagway, and eventually to our home in Oahu.
That was a challenge and a half, because I thought I’d be in a staff job and we’d be able to spend time together, fixing up our townhouse and getting it ready to sell – but I was gone all the time, all over the Pacific, leaving my grouchy husband with a house to fix and not much of a support network. But we barreled our way through it and decided that was enough separation, that we’d make our way to DC and settle in with friends and with solid jobs.
Our little man came along less than two years after we moved, and we were overjoyed to welcome Marcus to the world. And less than two years after he was born, COVID happened, our daycare shut down, and I was “essential” enough that I had to be in the Pentagon all the time but not so essential that we qualified for daycare. Scott quit his job to be a full-time dad to our then 20-month old.
And we decided that when the Army gave us the option to try piloting remote work in exchange for me pulling my retirement paperwork (because we wanted to be closer to family and better cost of living), over Memorial Day in 2021, we packed up the whole family and moved to Orlando.
I still travel a ton, but I’m trying to scale that back. However, this time, my family has help in the form of family and friends, and there’s a satisfaction and security in knowing that we won’t have to move again if we don’t want to – if there comes a point where the Army doesn’t like my remote(ish) work agreement, we’ll part ways.
It’s been an adventure, and it’s been fun to share that with our now almost six-year-old. Who right now can’t get over the idea that his parents actually got married at his favorite place in the world – Disney.
We’re grateful to be back here in Florida with family, and we’re filled with excitement for the adventures that lie ahead of us. The kiddo’s growing up fast, and I’m grateful to be home enough to see it, to spend time with him, to watch him learn, and to look forward to many more milestones as a family.
