A great day of news!!

Yesterday was a day full of news!!!

The day started with a quick trip to the OB. I'm at the point of weekly check-ups, which are annoying, but I was actually anxious for this one since I had been awake all night with very intense cramping & contractions. Cramping in the last month or so of pregnancy is completely normal (things are "waking up"), but this was the first time they were strong enough to keep me awake & force me to really breathe through them. While there were definate peaks to the pain I wasn't really able to time them due to the pain never really going away. My OB did the GBS swab (hoping it comes back negative so I can labor at home!!) and decided to check my progress. Having "progress" in no way means ANYTHING about when you will go into labor (some women are dilated for weeks and some go from nothing to full labor in hours) but it is nice to know what is going on in there! I was really hoping to hear "fingertip dilated" or maybe even 1cm but was shocked when she said 3cm!!! WOW! Guess all those cramping/contractions are doing something! Dan's eyes got as big as saucers when she said that....I think he was ready to wheel me over to L&D right there! Haha!

While I know I can remain this way for many more weeks it is nice knowing that I only have to go from 3-10cm now instead of 0-10! My OB feels though that it will probably be sometime in the next week or two. They haven't even scheduled me for my 40wk appt because they don't feel that I will make it that far (they better not be jinxing me!!). Since we officially hit full term tomorrow I can say that I am READY!

As if that wasn't enough fun news for one day we got the call late last night that we have been waiting for since February! Dan's Air Force (AF) recruiter called to inform him that his board results are back and he was officially accepted into the United States Air Force Nursing Corps!!! Woo-hoo!!!!

We had given up hearing anything this month since the results were supposed to come out May 21st, but I guess they have just been slow getting the news to the recruiters! Dan will officially go in as an O2E with a few months credited towards his O3! He is pretty excited about being an officer in the military....much different than his enlisted days in the Navy! :) The best part was that they also had his COT (training) date set and duty station for after COTs. We had heard that it might be a few more months before we got that information. His official COT date is in March and he will head to Alabama for 4wks for officer training. We were really really hoping he could get in the October class, but are glad that he doesn't have to wait until next August like many new officers! The military has so many new recruits that they don't have enough training dates/spaces to accommodate (gotta love the crappy economy driving everyone to the military!).

Once he is done with COTs he has a little over a week to report to his duty station. This was the news I had been waiting impatiently for! We had given our list of places that we hoped to go with a mixture of overseas and stateside. Our first choice for overseas was Germany and our first choice for stateside was San Antonio. Our official duty station is: SAN ANTONIO!! :) I am kinda bummed about not going overseas but not really shocked. The military rarely lets new officers go overseas right away (we had hoped to skirt that issue since Dan is prior military and has already done overseas assignments).

Truthfully though the assignment works out to be better in the long run. My grandparent's have been having health issues and my grandfather just got some devestating health news. Everyone who knows me knows how close my grandparents are to me (no one means more to me than them except my husband and child). I am happy that this move puts me closer to them and love that they can get more quality time with their new great-grandbaby. The news we recieved on my grandfather made me realize that they may not be around much longer and I want to take advantage of every minute/day I have left. Now they will only be 5hrs away and can easily visit!!

It is also great that we will once again be back in the great state of Texas and close to our friends!! Having friends in Texas and California when you live in Illinois is annoying and hard!! Now we will be close enough for football game parties, river weekends, etc!! :) That makes me very very happy! Plus I can now focus my trips to visit friends on heading to Cali! No more splitting between the states!

We will be stationed there for 2-3 yrs (not sure yet...) and then can put in a request for Germany! Dan will have rank and AF experience by then so there shouldn't be a problem getting over there or somewhere else in Europe (they also have hospitals in Italy and England). Another positive to this is that kiddo will be getting old enough to start school. We are not happy with the TX education system (google the changes the State Board of Edu made to textbooks.....pathetic) and were not looking forward to paying for private school. Honestly we pretty much hate the way the majority of the US goes about education, but now we can hopefully put our kiddo in the Euroean school system! yay! I also love that "monkey" can learn another language easily through immersion and school!

I just have to remind myself that while my dreams of LIVING overseas have been pushed back a few years, it in no way changes our TRAVELING overseas! If anything we will be traveling more due to Dan getting more paid vacation each year (30 days a year!) and the ability to take cheap military flights (umm $12/person to go from San Antonio to Germany.....hell yeah!). Plus we have our anniversary coming up in October so I get to have some fun planning this year's trip!

I will say though that it is soooooooooo nice knowing when/where we are going!! Plans can be made now!! 9 more months to enjoy Chicago and then we are headed out! Time to figure out if we are going to rent or sell our place up here....look for a new car (we only have one for the city)....and explore the parts of the northeast we haven't hit yet! Then comes the fun part of moving! Anyone interested in visiting Chicago needs to hurry up and come! ;)