Wow! How did that happen?
An entire year has flown by since I made a post!
Deployment absolutely flew by! Not while we were in the thick of it, but definitely while looking back. Kyle got to stop in so many different countries, and I am slightly jealous of all of the places that he saw! I do not envy the work he had to put in to get there though, and I certainly do not enjoy the reason either.
One of the benefits of deployment, however, was that I got to visit him in Australia!!!! It was fantastic and beautiful! I took far too many pictures, and enjoyed every second of the week I got to have with him. Thankfully it landed right in the middle of deployment, so it was a great way to split the separation in half. I could not have gone if it weren’t for Meg Ryan though. She is the most amazing lady, and she watched over the gremlins and the pets for me while I was gone. Being on an entirely different continent than the kiddos was so difficult, but she made it possible and as stress free as I could have imagined! I love her so much, and she is absolutely irreplaceable! All of the details of Australia will have to be in a whole separate post.
Since Kyle was set to PCS in November, he got to fly home from deployment about a week earlier than expected. The details of waiting for the orders, planning, organizing, and actually completing our PCS is also a whole separate discussion, but we did it! Kyle received orders to be stationed at the Nuclear Weapons Station in Goose Creek, South Carolina, and we packed up our life in Hawaii, shed SO many tears, and flew out to the East Coast in November.
Rather than staying in a hotel room with two dogs, one cat, one rabbit, and two children for an undetermined amount of time, we did a thing. A BIG thing!!! We bought a house!!!! Sight unseen, except for pictures and FB messenger videos. While Kyle was still deployed and relying on intermittent internet to get the pictures and details and paperwork! It was such a process, but we found an awesome realtor, Tina Hartford, who worked with us and for us to get what we were looking for. We now have a cute 3 bedroom (4 including our FROG), 2 bathrooms, 2 car garage with a fenced in back yard and 1/3 of an acre of land. We were able to land in the Charleston International Airport and drive straight home. It was such an incredible relief to have one less worry throughout our PCS journey. This house needs some love and updates, but it is so great knowing that we aren’t lining the pockets of someone else every month with rent. Our housing projects will have their own updates as we go along! We have quickly learned that we need to have a house further away from people with much more land in the future. Hawaii living was crowded with no yard as a necessity, but when we can have a choice, we will absolutely choose more land and privacy! Also, South Carolina seems nice so far, but with the pollen, heat/humidity, and lack of amazing scuba opportunities, I think we might cross this state off our list of permanent locations.
In terms of our professional lives, I was able to finish my course as a Divemaster before we left Hawaii! This allowed me to get an internship at the South Carolina Aquarium in their Dive Operations department. I got to manage the Great Oceans Tank with 11 different sharks (4 different species)! It was amazing! Then I found a position in a nearby county as the GIS Coordinator, which is a great follow up to my position with USACE as a GIS Specialist. Speaking of USACE, I miss my work family there so much! The work environment was so amazing, and I definitely shed tears leaving them. Kyle started taking college classes at the local community college, Trident Technical College. He started taking classes in December and has already completed 26 credit hours with a 3.846 GPA! After a couple more classes this summer and maybe in the fall, he is transferring to Thomas Edison State University to finish his BA in History. With his transfer credits and the elective credits he will get based on his military training, he should be able to finish his degree by spring 2022 if he takes it slow on his classes. We won’t PCS again until November 2022, so this will give him plenty of time to finish his degree before his next Navy adventure: Officer Candidate School! All the prayers and good luck wishes are most appreciated!
Braedyn and Sophia started at their new school after our move, Eugene Sires Elementary School. It really is such a great school! Home of the Sires Stingrays! Unfortunately the school was closed down in mid March due to the coronavirus pandemic. Thankfully we have all been fortunate enough to stay healthy. Virtual schooling has been a nightmare, although the teachers have been doing their best with the situation they were dealt.
We got a new puppy at the start of the new year as well. Her name is Luna, and she is just the sweetest thing. She is a Shiba Inu, and is FULL of personality! She has integrated herself into the household so well, and has claimed alpha status over our poor old Maui boy. Raising a Shiba Inu is so interesting, as the breed is quite different than other dogs, but still such a joy!
We also have another adventure coming up as well! Shortly after our move to South Carolina, we found out that we are expecting a BABY!!! We told our families around Christmas time and announced it to the Facebook world not too long after. We originally wanted to wait until delivery to find out the gender, but we got too excited! We will be welcoming a baby BOY into the Snyder household in early August 2020!! We cannot wait! Since the ocean is a big part of our life, we decided to do an underwater theme for him. We are also going to be using cloth diapers and wipes, and the Montessori Method for our parenting strategy. We are also planning for a water birth with a midwife at a local birthing center! We are quite excited for all the new changes coming! More details to come on what this all means for us and our newest little guy.
Serenity's Embrace 