gearing up for change

As it turns out, Mike and I will not be gracing the greater Washington, DC area with our presence anytime soon. Bummer. Mike found out that the school he was hoping to attend requires you to apply a year in advance. oops. Apparently it wasn't always this way, which is why the older Marines who told him he should go there didn't know to tell him about the whole applying a year in advance thing. oh well.

goodbye free place to live!
so long close proximity to family!

sigh.

It looks like we will be heading East afterall, though. Southeast. South Carolina, y'all.

Mike will have to report by Sept. 30, so atleast I get my wish of enjoying one last summer with my pool.

It looks like we're going to have to keep the house and join the ranks of all those landlords out there. When we bought this house almost 5 years ago, we thought it was foolproof (OR, Mike and his parents thought it was foolproof. I was scared to death, but nobody ever listens to the paranoid girl now do they?). Soon thereafter the market collapsed and we are so upside down in this house it's best not to even think about it because it's just much too depressing. Funny thing is, the military has this program called HAP that helps people who are in bad situations because of the real estate CRISIS -- they will either buy your house from you or pay the difference if you can't sell the house for what you owe. BUT - in reading the fine lines, you had to have bought your house by July 2006 in order to be elligible. Doncha knowit? We bought our house in Sept. 2006. A measly 2 months.

welcome to my life.

In any case, if we can just manage to hold onto this house long enough it will certainly be a moneymaker for us in the long run. It'll be a huge thorn in our side until then, though. A huge, spiky, pain inducing thorn.

South Carolina seems nice, though. The location is just a short distance from Hilton Head and Savannah, so we'll have some fun places to explore and visit while we're there. Also, it is a non-deploying job for Mike which is why we're choosing it (yep, the Marine Corps actually gives you a couple of choices). It will be nice to have him home for the 2 full years that we will be stationed there. (I currently feel the need to knock vigorously on wood because Mike has received INCORRECT intel so many times throughout his career with the USMC that I probably would not fall over from shock if we arrived in SC and he found out he would indeed be deploying.... no, I'm not a pessimist. It's called REALISM.)

In any case,
It's hard to believe that by the time we move, my little 2 month old munchkin will be almost 10 months old!

2011 is sure to be an interesting year.