Military

5 Tips for Surviving Deployment During the Holidays

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

…Unless your husband is deployed.

When you’re facing the holidays alone, all the festivities feel, at best, somewhat hollow…

How to Help Others Help You During TDY and Deployment

And in just a few months, we’ll be doing another prolonged separation (this time without the benefit of having family nearby), so I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about what things were the most helpful to us while we were separated from Dad, and how friends and family (both near and far) can help support their…

10 Tips to Help Kids Cope With Military Separation

Deployments, TDYs, and field training exercises are a reality of military life. Young kids can really struggle to wrap their head around these separations. Why are they necessary? How long will they last? What will their mom/dad be doing while they’re gone? Here are a few of the methods I’ve used to help my little ones stay…

Must-Have Travel Items for Road Trips With Kids

We travel a lot. Just in the last year, I’ve done three road trips alone with three kids under 6-years-old, the most recent being a three-day drive from Idaho to Kansas (AKA the longest three days of my life). Traveling with kids is tricky. Knowing what to bring and what to skip can be really overwhelming…

5 Lessons Learned From 5 Years in the Army – Part 5

2020 – Developing flexibility It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one that 2020 messed with a lot of our plans. It messed with everyone’s plans! But while a pandemic definitely added an unexpected twist to things last year, the back and forth, on-again/off-again of 2020 was nothing new for us. It’s a staple…

5 Lessons Learned From 5 Years in the Army – Part 4

2019 – Achieving your goals 2019 was an interesting year for our family. While Michael continued to attend schools and trainings and get lots of tasks completed at work, the two main goals we were working for in his career seemed to constantly be moving farther and farther away. With every one step forward we would make, the goal post would…