Wednesday, October 30, 2013

To move or not to move?

That is the question...

I thought I had made up my mind about not moving to Fort Riley in January.  Hans has to start work out there at the beginning of the year.  He will be gone the entire month of April for training and then leave for a deployment in June.  So our plan was to stay here until he returns in March of 2015.  The kids and I would move out there in May 2015 after their school year is over.  Hans would just commute on the weekends out here until he leaves for his deployment.  Here are my reasons for not moving with him in January:

-I don't want to take my kids out of a good school with good teachers in the middle of the school year.
-Hans will be working a ton so we really won't get to spend any time with him except for the weekends anyway
-I don't have a support system out there yet (although I do know two ladies in the ward out there who are good friends of mine).  When Hans leaves, it is so important to have a good group of friends who will understand what you're going through and whom you know you can call on when something happens (and something always happens when they're gone).
-I have good friends out here
-I love my house and the pool will be nice in the summer time
-I'm two hours closer to Jason/Michelle and Lance/Nancy
-No one will want to come visit me at Fort Riley because it's in the middle of absolutely NOWHERE with nothing to do.  KC is awesome with tons of stuff to do.
-Gabe is in a great gymnastics program and has been asked to move up to the competitive team when he turns 6 in Feb.  I don't know whether they have a good gymnastics place out at Riley.

So, I thought I had made up my mind.  For some reason I keep going back and forth about things.  Here are my reasons for why I should go in January with Hans:
-We would save a lot of money.  Currantly, if Hans goes by himself, we would have to fork out money for him to rent a room somewhere for the months that he'd be there alone.  We have asked around in the ward out there and no one seems to have a little room he can rent from them so we are still looking for cheap options and haven't found too many.  He could stay in bachelor quarters on post but would have to pay $500 a month since the army is already paying for our housing allowence here in KC.  Also, the gas money we would save from him having to travel back and forth every weekend.
-It's not good to be apart if you don't have to and since we have to be apart come June, we should try and spend every little amount of time we have together before he goes.
-The on post housing would make life a lot easier while he's away.  We wouldn't have to worry about things breaking down or repairs because if something breaks with onpost housing, they come and fix it for free. 
-There is a gym that has free childcare in the housing development there.  The gym is free too.
-I would be in a military community that has delt with a lot of deployments before so I'm pretty sure I would get support easily.
-While Hans is deployed, I will get 16 hours of free childcare a month plus all the kids sports on base will be free for us.  So all basketball, baseball, swimming, etc things for the kids will be free.
-The current ward that I'm in doesn't do really well with military support because they don't really deal with those things often.
-I have to travel 35 minutes just to take the kids to the doctor right now.  If I moved, we'd live on post close to the doc.

What would you do?  I know I need to pray about it.  I have been and I thought I felt pretty good about staying behind.  Now I'm just not sure.  What do you think?  Some days I feel like I need to be here, others I feel like I just need to start over out there.

Suggestions are wanted.
Lindsey

3 comments:

Jess Clark said...

Sounds like a tough challenge. My default reaction to this whole scenario a few months ago was that you shouldn't move given the circumstance, but in my situation, there's no way Jen and I could live apart like that (hey, when you're married to a woman as beautiful as she is, why would you want to live apart???).

You've got valid points for both options you have and I'm sorry to say that I don't know what you should do.

The Duke said...

Lindsey, I second what Jess says. I don't think anyone could make that decision and that this is between you, the Lord and Hans. I'm glad I don't have to make the decision.
Would you plan to stay in your house all through Hans' deployment if you don't move?
I have no idea what you should do - just what feels right for all of you, I guess.

Mike and Adrianne said...

Well, I think making this list is a good start towards finding an answer. I think you just really need to talk to Hans and see what he is feeling too and continue to pray and I think you will know. I wonder if the fact that it has been weighing on your mind and coming back to you might be an answer but I really don't know. Good luck!