A Little Story, Some Big News

How about a story?

Once upon a time, way back in 2009, in an office in Sunny Florida, there was a girl (me) whose job at the time revolved around the internet.  She also loved anything photography related, so when she heard there was a new search engine being launched (bing.com) AND that it was having a photography contest, it was only natural that she go check it out.  The picture of the day at bing.com was similar to this one:

Source: publicdomainpictures.net via Heather on Pinterest

Too amazing not to share, right?  So after some ohhs and ahhs by her and her office friends, things went back to normal, with everyone in agreement that the pretty pools in the picture were beautiful and would be a wonderful place to visit someday.

Three years pass...

In all that time, I haven't thought about those pretty pools (or bing.com for that matter, ha)...

Until now...

It turns out the next big adventure the Air Force will be sending us on is about a 10 hour drive from those pools.  Any guesses where that will be?

How about some more pictures to help?

Source: Uploaded by user via Heather on Pinterest

Source: Uploaded by user via Heather on Pinterest

I already foresee us spending a lot of time checking out places like these.

Source: Uploaded by user via Heather on Pinterest

And seeing these guys. (And maybe even going for a ride!)

Source: 123rf.com via Heather on Pinterest

I can't wait to be able to buy some of these.

Source: foodista.com via Heather on Pinterest

And eat some yumminess like this.

Source: piccsy.com via Heather on Pinterest

Come for a visit and we'll all take a weekend trip here!

Source: Uploaded by user via Heather on Pinterest

Or if you'd rather, we'll go climb around in here.


Any guesses yet?


Here's one more.

Source: globecities.net via Heather on Pinterest

We'll be living near this, the Sabancı Merkez Camii; the largest mosque in the country.


How about now, have you figured it out?

OK, OK, for those of you who haven't got it yet, our next assignment will be...
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Incirlik, Turkey!

Wow, huh?!

We've had a few days since finding out to research and learn about Turkey, and I have to say it's a little unreal.  It is amazing how much there will be for us to do and see!  The list is huge, and we're already thinking the 2 years we'll be there won't be enough time to take it all in.

On the flip side, it is going to be a HUGE change from what we are used to now. No Chick-fil-a or Super Target down the street, that's for sure! (From what I've read, there are McDonald's and Burger Kings and even a Krispy Kreme in some areas, though.) I've already got some cultural and travel books on order from Amazon, and I plan on learning as much Turkish as I can before we get there.

Thankfully, we won't be moving until closer to the end of the year. We've found it's pretty hard even in the early stages of planning a move when you are 7754 miles apart. Jason can't really do anything or find out too much information until he gets back here.  So in the meantime, we are just trying to learn as much as we can.

So how about you?  Anybody traveled to Turkey or been stationed at Incirlik?  I'd love to hear from you.

We're Getting There

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We celebrated ours at the new house.  Besides being in a house with nothing on the walls, hanging out on a couch with a missing pillow, and seeing bags and laundry baskets of home decor sitting around, it was very nice.  We moved all of the kitchen stuff first, so aside from our turkey platter which was still packed up, we had everything we needed.



We almost have everything moved over from the old house.  All that's left is part of the garage and then, of course, a little bit of cleaning to final out.  Unfortunately, the new garage is the same small size, so Jason wants to build some shelves so everything fits better.  We will have it all finished up this weekend and then our final inspection is on Tuesday.  (Thank goodness!!)

At our new place it has been interesting and a little stressful trying to put together our home and get Christmas decorations up at the same time.  It's getting better now, but there were a few days there that both Jason and I had the "bah humbugs."



Brennan on the other hand has just rolled with all the changes.  He had a little trouble on the first night falling asleep in his new room, but from then it's been great.  He's already showed he can make just as much of a crafty mess in this house as he did in the last one. : )



So I'm off to go find places for more of our stuff.  Have a great day!

Checking In

We have big news around our casa!  Big as in we are moving to a bigger casa!  We will be gaining 300 square feet, an extra bedroom, and a dining room.  Yay!  The backyard is also much nicer, larger and in a square shape instead of an "L."  The landscaping isn't great, but then neither was the landscaping at this house, but we quickly remedied that.  Remember our Yard of the Month award? : )

We don't get the keys until the 21st, and we have big goals of getting all moved in before Thanksgiving.  Not impossible, but we'll have to see how many helpers with trucks we can round up.

Of course, there will be some things we miss about this house.  We really like the neighbors that moved in next door, and their little miniature schnauzer too.  He and Chloe are good buddies.

And then there are the amazing sunsets we can see from the backyard.



On the bright, or should I say less sunny side, our new house is oriented so that the patio will be shaded in the afternoon and evening.  It will be nice to hang out back there without feeling like we are sitting on the face of the sun.

Did I mention we will have an actual dining room?  Yep, I am excited about that.  It will be so nice to not have carpet under our dining room table!  It will be great to have a living room that's not trying to be a living room/dining room/office/playroom!

So, I have lots to organize and purge in the next week.  I'm sure our garbage can will be full and I will have a couple loads to take to the thrift store.  I'll take pictures as soon as I can.

Have a great day!

Utah - Our New Beginnings

Well, it' time to knock the dust off of the Bal Family blog. We've been unpacking, arranging and settling now for a couple of weeks. The house is finally looking like civilized people live in it. It was bad, I was getting scared for awhile. We moved from a large three bedroom house, to a much smaller two bedroom house. Needless to say, we are having a yard sale, Goodwill will be getting a truckload, and I will have things to sell on eBay through the Spring. At least the car can fit in the garage now. For awhile I had serious doubts!

As for how we're enjoying Utah so far? So far so good, though we haven't had the chance to get off base much since we've been here. There has been a lot going on around here, so we haven't had the chance to do much touring around.

The first week, Jason was still on leave when he got recalled for a bomb drop. Here's a link to the story on that: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091023/ap_on_re_us/us_air_force_base_explosion
Nothing like a warm welcoming explosion to start your new job.

The next weekend was spent clearing our the garage, and running back and forth to Lowe's to get shelving and totes to organize all the stuff we are keeping. Thankfully, Lowe's, SUPER Target, and Wal-Mart are all right down the street from us.

Oh, and of course, we had to go trick-or-treating. Brennan was a cowboy. I'll definitely round-up the pictures of that to share.

This week started a 7 day base excercise, which means we haven't seen much of Jason in days. He leaves for work when it's dark, and comes home when it's dark. We're hoping for some normalcy next week, if there is such a thing.

So to wrap up this post, I do have a couple of pictures to share.

Here's the Wasatch Mountain Range looking out our front door.


And here are more mountains and the Salt Lake looking out our back door.


Not bad, huh?

Hugs,
Heather

Where in the world will the Bal's be living?

Looks like now it's Salt Lake City!!



For those of you have been in on this saga, you can just ignore this post. It will just be a very short abbreviation of the long drawn out story that it really was.

Here's how the most recent installment played out.



Location: Bal Residence

I arrive home from work. Jason is already there.

Jason: "I have something to tell you."

Me: "Ok, what is it?"

Jason: "I don't know how to tell you this."

Me: "What is it, your pregnant?"

Jason: "No, that would be much easier to tell you. My orders got deferred again."

Me: *jaw drop and glaring stare* "What!!?? To where?"

Jason: "Hill AFB in Utah."

Me: "Your joking, right? They didn't really change your orders AGAIN. Utah!! What's in Utah!!"

Alrighty, you got the basics of it. Jason has assured me several times since then, that no one is joking. Yep, it looks like now we are moving to UTAH.

Well, this week anyway. I'm not holding my breathe at this point.

First, (back in May) it was South Dakota. We were all hyped up about moving to South Dakota. We were going to do lots of exploring, see Crazy Horse and Mt. Rushmore, and go to the Badlands. I had already checked out the photographers in the area, and did a Google streat view of downtown just to check things out. There was a mountain nearby called Brennan Hill, we were going to go to the rodeo, and the state fair is huge! We bought Brennan some cowboy boots. I was going to buy some boots of my own! We were ready to be out west and become South Dakotans. Yeah!!!

Then, while Jason was in the hospital back in June he got a phone call. "Your orders to SD have been rescinded, and now you're going to Cape Cod."

What!! No way!! Cape Cod??? Home of the Kennedy's and land of Democrats!!! At first I was pretty darn upset. We already had big plans and were ready to transition into our new western lifestyle, now we're going to New England??? What a huge difference! Blah!

After a few days, I adapted to this new idea, and again started my research of the area. Aside from the cost of living, the area looked pretty awesome. We were going to go see the Red Sox and the Celtics play, we were going to Plymouth for Thanksgiving, going to check out the cranberry bogs, and get fresh produce from the Farmer's Market. There was tons to do within a short driving distance, and we were ready for lots of weekend trips. Jason had talked to someone from his new squadron, and was confident that he would like his new job. We were still going to be close to the ocean!

Then...a month later we had the above conversation. And no, still not kidding. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's nothing wrong with Utah, it's just never a place I'd visualized us living.



*sigh* I'm sure it will be fine.



And no, for the inquiring minds wanting to know, Brennan will not be growing up to be a Mormon, and Jason will not be getting any more wives.



I am resisting looking up too much information about the area. I don't want to get too attached. Though, we will be close enough to visit the Redwoods, and I've never been to the Pacific Ocean. I think I might have to learn how to ski! And remember that show from a few years ago, Everwood? It was filmed in Ogden, the town right outside of the base. (OK, I said I wasn't going to look up too much information, not that I wasn't going to look at all.) It is also a 30 hour drive to Mom and Dad's. I don't think anyone will be driving that distance. Anybody got any frequent flyer miles they can spare?



It could be much worse. Of course, I'm not going to name the places that could be worse, because I don't want to insult anyone's town. So I'll just leave it at that. I'm optimistic about the whole deal (today). So is the life of a military family.