Where to Next?

(written January 13th)

We got our initial list last week from Signal Corps with 137 options for our next post.  This time they did something I have never heard of before- they asked us to give them our top 50 places.  Yep- 50!  Usually you submit just a top 3.  There were some stipulations that went along with this list. 

1) If you haven't been OCONUS in the last 4 years, twenty of your top thirty needed to be OCONUS. 

2) You had to list 50 places.

3) If you didn't follow these rules, they would consider your assignment per "needs of the Army"

Also, If your dwell time was great than 2 years, there's a good chance you'll get either a deployment or Korea

Steve also had to choose KD jobs for his career advancement, and some of the assignments were marked as "priority"and therefore will be filled first. Tricky thing about this-  There were less than 20 KD jobs that were OCONUS.  So we just added some others in order to fulfill their requirement.  

So... we listed places such as Germany, Belgium, Japan, Hawaii, Alaska and Korea for OCONUS.  And for CONUS places like CA, CO, WA, AZ and TX.  It will be very interesting to see what we end up with!  I am hoping that we will have some news within the next month.  Nothing like the Army to keep you waiting.  

Ryan is looking forward to his 5th birthday in February and he kept asking to have all our cadets from last year attend.  I think we'll at least get Jake and Kyle to Skype in that day.  Ryan has requested just about every transformer auto-bot available as well as some punching gloves.  Maybe get some MMA started in our house?

Things keep busy here.  Anna is talking a ton, but still we can't understand what she says.  She doesn't even say mom or dad, but she babbles all day long in her own language.  She has a few signs, like "more" and "please" and her ear-splitting screams still manage to get her point across :) She is getting better at playing with the boys and loves to run around and play chase.  She also knows how to fold her arms for prayers and Steve has taught her the "fist bump".  She knows we like it and always laughs afterwards or starts clapping.  She really is an adorable little girl.