Big News on the Stroud front!!!

and no, I'm NOT pregnant! ;)

Well, long story, but Ryan and I are really not happy here at Ft Hood especially with how his unit treats him and the fact that he is already slotted to re-deploy in December. We understand that deployments are par for the course in the Army, but I think it is just ridiculous to expect familes to hold it together when your husbands are gone for 15 months at a time! On top of the fact that we've already spent 2.5 years apart! So, we went to talk to the Career Counselor about Ryan's possible options. He considered switching jobs, but then we would have no choice over where he would be stationed after training and he may end up in a situation just as bad or worse then Ft. Hood. So, we then talked about re-upping to obtain a transfer out of his unit and Ft. Hood. There were a few absurd options, but we landed on a position in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. I had never even heard of this base, but apparantly it is mainly a training and research post, so there is very little chance of him deploying, which is great news... There is an AIT there (a schoolhouse where they train soldiers) and Ryan will be assigned there to take pictures and write stories about the students. The housing looks really nice and the post is mostly civilian, so we're hoping it will be a little more laid back than the typical Army Base. He has to add 2 more years onto his contract, but this means that we will have 4 years of Medical Insurance to decide if we want another baby, and this will also give Ryan enough time in to qualify for the Troops to Teachers program that he is interested in once he gets out. There was also talk that he would report to Alabama in June. He put his name in for the position on Thursday of last week, and by Monday they had an answer back that he had gotten the position! He then had to officially re-enlist on Tuesday and the new unit needs him as soon as possible, so we are now supposed to report at the beginning of April, not June! That means we'll have only been in Texas for a little over 4 months when we leave! Yay! (Sorry to all the Texas lovers out there, but it REALLY stinks around here!) We thought there might be a few issues with our lease since we are already paid up till the end of May, and I was the only one on the contract. Well, we went in on Tuesday and added Ryan on the lease, so now the military clause is in effect and all we have to do is go in once we have his orders and they will release us from the lease and we will get a refund of our deposit and the money for the extra months. I'm really hoping all that will go smoothly and we should have his orders by next Tuesday! (We still wouldn't leave until end of March - beginning of April, but once we have his orders we can start planning everything) Ryan is very excited since he has been at Ft Hood since July of 05... He is more than ready to leave and hopefully be in a lot better situation. We know the Army can mess with you at every turn, but if we can do our best to put close to 3 years between deployments, then we're happy to take that risk.I can't believe we'll be in Alabama in less than 2 months! Oh, this also puts us like 3 hours from his parents and 6 hours from mine, yay! I love that I'll be able to drive up there instead of having to catch a flight! I can't believe all of this is happening so fast! Yay for green grass and trees again!!

See how happy and amazed we are... :)