Ok, sorry for that guys, just had to get it off my chest. I hear a lot of civilians say how the military is so fabulous. And while it is in some regards, I have to wonder if they've ever met someone who hasn't had a great time of it. I think it's important to give the public a realistic view of the situation. I think that's one reason that so many of them don't have the respect for the families that we all want. I mean do you all have tons of respect for someone that seems to "have it all"? WHile that is far from the truth for us, lots of people really see the military as that way. I'm not saying it's all bad. For heaven sakes, I come from a very long line of military members. The only experience that has been bad out of them, has been mine. But, no one that I know ever "had it all", yet for some reason lots of the public think so. I think if they heard about some of the bad aspects, maybe they could appreciate what a challenging life it can be at times.

Take for instance the 911 families. They reacieved millions of dollars from the government to compensate. What about the service members families that lost someone because of the war effort? They receive nothing more than their life insurance (something those members paid for). Sure, you can say that the members signed up for the job, but most of them signed up during peace time. You can also say that the others agreed to work at a very well known landmark that has bomb threats weekly. There's just two ways of looking at things.

And like the majority of hawaiians here are seeing on tv, is the news stories of all the lovely new refurbished military homes. That's a very small percentage of the islands facilities, and most of us live in WWII homes that have exposed pipes, wires, asbestos tile and lead in the paint. We alone had 6 floods (3 sewage related) into our home in the the first 4 months we lived here. All because of a tree outside that had infected the sewage lines. This had gone on for the people who lived before us for the last 6 years!!! The Navy would do nothing for them. It took months of screaming on the phone for them to come fix the issue. That's true life, that's the stuff that never gets put on tv.


Anyhow....I sure hope everyone's weekend was great! Anything fun planned for Easter, this weekend, etc? I heard that schofield (the base next to ours) is having a big garage sale soon, so we'll probably be over there shopping for more homeschooling stuff. We had great time this weekend finding tons more books for the kiddos. I feel so lucky that my kids actually like them more than toys right now! I just have to figure out a way to keep it like that!

Well happy monday to all!!!!!