Traveling as Three Adventures (Throw Back Thursday!)

So. . apparently there is a social media "thing" called Throw Back Thursday where one posts an old "throw back" picture of themselves.  Well. . I am quickly becoming an outdated fuddy duddy in the world of social networking ( I don't understand the point of Twitter?!?!) BUT I thought embracing this trend would be a good excuse to post a blog I started months ago  and never posted.  (BB is about 2-3 months at the time)   So. . . here you are. :)

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As you probably know if you read this blog very much, Hubs and I really like to travel.  However it turns out that (at least for the time being) Baby Boy is not a big fan of riding in the car.  Pretty much 40 minutes is his limit.  Unfortunately for us the shortest distance to most things off base is around an hour and 15 minutes.  Usually the last half of those trips aren't very pleasant.

Needless to say we were very concerned how this would translate into future travels.  Turns out that Baby Boy does great with most other modes of transportation however.  We are thinking it is just the car seat/not being held that is the problem which does give us some hope for the future.

We also have had to come to terms with all the STUFF we have to take along for this tiny little person.  So much for the carry on only days I guess!  After eight plus years of traveling together we have developed pretty good systems for things (packing, carrying bags, who does what, etc).  We are finding those have to be adjusted as well.  The new standard operating procedure is:

 I carry Baby Boy and a bag with his immediate need stuff,

and Hubs carries. . .well everything else.

" Hmmm cabin services huh?  This is the way to travel . ."

"Box" Adventures

So. . . about those New Year Resolutions. . . .errrrmm. . . don't say I didn't warn you!! :)

Anyway, as we are nearing the two year mark here in California I wanted to explain a little bit more about what Hubs has been doing here.  He works as a trainer for military units rotating through one month at a time.  Since we are in such a remote and desert area it is a great location to simulate the Middle East and/or to just have lot of wide open space for tanks to battle.

Back five or so years ago when I was till in the Army, Hubs and I both went through here doing training prep for one of our deployments.  We both remember it as one of the top 5 worse months of our Army career!! I came to the conclusion that the real purpose behind the training is to put units and individuals under such ridiculous amount of stress that they bond and become a more effective team.  Sounds crazy but it is actually really works!

Everyone "affectionately" refers to the huge training area as "the box" (kind of like the big sand box/sweat box).  The phrases "I don't know if my husband will be out of the box for dinner or not" and "My daddy is in the box this week" are very commonly heard around post every training rotation.  I have heard a few people express the confusion this causes for their toddlers as they don't understand why Daddy or Mommy keeps getting put in a box and why they just cant get out, haha!!

Here are a few pictures from "the box" that he has taken over the past few years.

He does have an office here on post that he works from occasionally but during rotations he spends almost every day out "in the box".  Sometimes he flies a helicopter around shadowing the training unit's helicopters and sometimes he drives around in a HUMVEE.

It can get COLD out in the desert!

Portable cookout in the back of his HUMVEE.

I spy a bird...

I spy a soldier. . .

He comes across all sorts all sort of desert critters on a regular basis.  The donkeys and coyotes are harder to get pictures of but this "little" guy was more than happy to pose for a picture.

Sometimes when I ask him what he did at work today he responds "I watched a really big battle" or "I watched a big recovery operation".  Kind of sounds like every little boy's dream job, huh?

Springtime in the desert!