Author: Robin Chartier

One of my favorite stories from this summer happened when we all went to visit the Navy recruiter so Carter could register to enlist. I never imagined that as Josh and I were exiting military life, one of ours would be entering. And that it would be Carter? No way. #leastlikely

I thought Caleb might go the military route, with his love of physical challenges and Survivor spirit. But my work smarter, not harder child has decided that it’s smarter to get paid to do a job and learn a skill than to pay someone else to go to more school. And that sounds pretty brilliant.

He’s probably right. I think alternative education/non-traditional college is the smart choice these days. Our plan for our kids is to spend educational dollars wisely to get them marketable job skills and experience so they can be productive adults. There is no dream college that will magically set someone up for success. Too many kids graduate with a degree that requires more money and more school to do anything (Political Science? English? What job does that get you?**) and have dug themselves a student loan hole that leaves them a decade behind when it comes to saving/investing/becoming financially independent.

** those are our degrees. Bless us. I should have gone into nursing or accounting or something practical. Just because it worked out for us doesn’t mean we would make the same choices again.

I thought this summer would be a time for Carter to meet with the recruiter, get a feel for what the process would be to enlist after he graduates . . . just a feeling out period. Nope, he found out from the recruiter that he could get an assigned job and boot camp date NOW, and then he’d be all set to go after graduation. So we jumped into a mess of paperwork, trying to remember all of our old addresses, personal contacts from each place we’ve lived, countries visited, and medical history. Just what I wanted to do in the last 2 weeks of summer.

The big event for us was taking him to the recruiter office, signing permission for him to enlist (since he’s under 18), and spending several hours helping him fill out his medical history and other paperwork.

While we were there his recruiter gave him a 3 page medical questionnaire and instructed him: “don’t mark anything yes without checking with me first.” Basically a yes is a red flag for a medical issue that could possibly disqualify someone from service and because it’s government paperwork, any mistake means you have to start over and fill the entire thing out again.

Since Carter is virtually an adult, I’ve been letting him drive this entire process, so he starts working while I kick back. At the very first question he hesitates and reads aloud, “Do you have double vision? . . . that’s a ‘yes,’ right?”

Horrified, I blurt back, “NO!” He’s all, “Isn’t it asking if I can see out of both eyes?” Ahhhh, no baby. I guess I can understand your confusion . . .

The recruiter, Josh, and I all laugh and laugh and laugh some more and maybe Carter wasn’t laughing because he had 3 more pages of double column medical questions and at this rate he was never going to get out of there and to In N Out for lunch.

So I did the mom thing and leaned over his shoulder and prompted, “No, no, definitely No (are you pregnant?), and more noes until he got the hang of it.

A week later he left with the recruiter for San Jose where he spent the night with other recruits-to-be and went through MEPS (military in processing) where they do all the vision, hearing, drug testing and medical screening and he made it 99.8% of the way through. He was one step away from meeting with the career counselor, choosing a military rate (job) and a boot camp date when the doctor looked at his knee and saw this:

Yep, a few warty looking bumps can derail/postpone your military career. The doc said before he could be cleared Carter has to see a dermatologist and have them sign off on his skin condition. (Basically he needs to get rid of them.) Currently he’s burning them off with compound W and when our residence visas get approved he’ll take care of that.

Hopefully.

I guess I skipped the entire month of August. Oops. No worries. It can be summed up in a few words:

storage shipment

jet lag

school/work/sleep

The month began with my 9 year old storage shipment of 7 huge crates plus oversized items, weighing in at 8,000 lbs, being dropped off while Josh and the boys were all scuba diving. Of course our final military move would suffer the same kind of scheduling issues that occurred during every other PCS over our 21 years. But we had paid for 2 large storage units to house it all and the movers were fantastic. As tetris experts, they pieced it all together and left me with a puzzle to figure out over the next 7 days. How to get rid of all of this stuff?!

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Thankfully I had a great helper — we worked while the guys were getting their scuba certification each morning and then they’d come home and we’d all work some more. With the help of my mom and dad, 362 trips to Goodwill, and kids who were willing to let things go, we got through the entire load in 1 week.

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I spent the days unpacking, sorting, and transporting the big items and the evenings sorting through photos. I kept a few, but often just snapped a photo of ones that I liked and tossed the hard copy. I was under a time crunch because the storage units cost $800/month and I wasn’t going to shoulder that expense all year!

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The day before we left, I had it pared down to a few storage bins and our bikes. Then my hero Joe came to take the rest away. (Bless Yelp and all his good reviews for helping me find him!)

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Toss it all and hop on a plane! Josh stayed behind in the US to work for another week, but I had to get back to start work myself. Basically the past two weeks has been work, come home, eat dinner and crash. Wake up at the crack of dawn and repeat. As soon as we got ourselves sorted, Josh came home and had to struggle through the body clock wars.

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Now on to tackle September!

I haven’t spent any time writing this summer. And the longer the gap, the harder it is to figure out where to start. I could write about waking up one morning to an email announcing that our storage shipment was being delivered that day, to the wrong address, and the subsequent scrambling to reschedule it and find a storage unit big enough to fit everything temporarily.

Or I could tell you all about Carter’s meetings with the Army and Navy recruiters and more scrambling to find his birth certificate, social security card and high school transcripts. (Thankfully Josh brought them from UAE because he needed them as part of starting his new job). He was just going to meet with them, but now thinks he wants to sign with a guaranteed job so it’s all set for next summer.

And Josh’s new job is another thing that could be a post of its own. First he was planning on flying to Texas to start work, with stops in Washington DC and Southern California. Wait, let’s change that to a week in Southern California with a future trip to Texas/DC. That change meant we had to fly back to Abu Dhabi early, so Josh could come back to the US at the end of August . . . wait, let’s stay here, Josh work remotely, we head back to Abu Dhabi as originally planned so I can start work and then he joins us when he’s finished his time with his new team. I don’t have plane tickets yet, but I’m pretty sure the kids and I are flying home in two weeks. Maybe.

But the new job on-boarding process has been as smooth and and as painless as we could have ever hoped for. A huge contrast to Josh’s experience last summer. It’s organized, well communicated, and there is a team in place for overseas elements . . . instead of Toby and his “we don’t do that,” it’s “Hi, I’m the person who takes care of XYZ. Oh you have a school tuition bill that needs to be paid for the upcoming year? Send it to me and I will work on getting that processed right away.” It’s a miracle.

In the middle of all of the new things happening, it’s been a summer of family. Time with Calvin (yay! I really missed him last summer), cousins, grandparents, and aunts and uncles from all sides of the family. It’s been a perfect time of reconnecting and resetting relationships that need to be recharged. Lots of games, corn hole, imessaging, and running around together. It’s no wonder they wish we lived in California, because that’s where all the fun happens.

Time is flying. It always does in the summer. Next week the boys (including Josh) are going down to Monterey for 4 days to get their PADI (scuba diving) certification. Meanwhile Camille and I will be receiving the storage shipment of my nightmares. When we called to reschedule that was the soonest they could do it. Of course. We will survive. I just hope it all fits in my TWO storage units. When we went to rent the units I almost asked the administrator what would happen if I abandoned them (AKA Storage Wars), but I thought that might be poor form . . .

And may end up sideways because that always seems to happen when I publish from my phone.

I have been practically off grid for the last week. I say practically because if I walk down to the edge of the lake, I might get a 4G signal and send a few texts/photos to family. Or if I camp outside the Plumas Pines Resort store for an hour I might be able to download a few episodes of Parks and Rec or The Office that I can watch on my phone while I’m embroidering quilt squares in the evenings.

I could live in the woods off grid with minimal comforts and would be happy to pee in the woods, but no WiFi/internet would be a deal breaker. My hierarchy of needs might be a bit backwards from most. I think because I love reading and researching and having the world’s largest database a click away is too wonderful to give up.

But lake life has been wonderful and relaxing. Days spent on the (cold) water’s edge, watching the kids try and fish. Some jet skiing, lots of games with the grandparents (that’s when I craft), and good food.

I’m going to post this as is and then have a separate post with photos, because I have very little faith in the WiFi. Calvin comes tomorrow and the fun continues for another week.