My dad is in the military so we lived several places while I was growing up. One of the places we lived was Valdosta, Georgia. Being the south, it was super hot and extremely humid; during hurricane season, we were at risk because we were in that area that could have had problems. The worst that we experienced was really strong, gusty winds and amazing and scary thunder and rain storms. There were some tornadoes but they weren't near our house. That's where my family and I were living in 2011. It was the year that I would graduate and leave for college. It was also the year that my dad was considering retiring from the Air Force. If I remember correctly, in February (or so) my dad was asked to stay in longer and also to go on a TDY to Afghanistan starting in March. He brought the topic home to the rest of us to discuss and decide what to do. If he left, he would miss my graduation and wouldn't be there when I started college or had my 18th birthday, he would also miss out on a lot of other things. We talked and talked about it for the next few days. My parents decided that they felt like he should go and so my dad told his boss about the decision.
Before my dad left my parents started to discuss what my mom and sister should do while he was gone. I think it was after he left it was decided they would follow me out to Utah to stay with my grandparents. So my dad was in Afghanistan and we were in Georgia and then Utah during the summer. My dad had bought an iPad to take with him and left us with an iPod so that we could use Apple's program called Facetime, which is like Skype but only for Apple products, to video chat with each other. Something else my dad did with his iPad while he was away was take pictures of some of the crazy creatures that are in Afghanistan and post them on Facebook so we could all see them. There were pictures of a kangaroo mouse, which is pretty cute if you ask me (below), a seemingly large dung beetle, I've never thought to ask if it smelled bad but now I'm wondering about it (on the right), and a camel spider, which looks absolutely terrifying (on the left). Also, he showed us his room and where the break room area is, that's where he usually was when talking to us because it had the best wifi. During his time there, he got to go to another place (I can't remember where it was) so we got to see that place too.
At the end of the summer, my parents learned that once my dad returned, they would be going to Virginia. My mom decided that she and my sister would get a head start on things so they went out to Virginia and found a house and started settling there. So for a time, my dad was in the hot deserts of Afghanistan, my mom and sister were in Virginia near beaches and lots of green and mountains, and I was in dry, brown, mountainous Utah. Then my dad came back and that took Afghanistan off the list and left it as just Utah and Virginia. We kept up with each other using Facetime and then in 2012 my sister moved out here to Utah for college. She and I would see each other and we would both video chat with our parents, usually not at the same time.
This year, 2013, my mom decided that, with my dad planning retirement (again), she would try to get a job on the west side of the country, in Utah, so that when my dad retired they wouldn't be stuck without a job for too long. She ended up getting a job and she moved out here. My sister is going to be going to Idaho (from what I've heard it's always cold there) for school in the fall, my mom and I will be in Utah (different parts), and my dad will still be in Virginia. As we all have devices that allow us to call and video chat with each other, we can still keep up with what's going on and see each other's faces even when none of us are living in the same house or neighborhood. I am exceedingly grateful for technology that lets and helps us "be together" even when we are far away.
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| From left: my husband, myself, my sister, my mom, my dad. At Mount Vernon in 2012. |
Jamie wrote a blog post similar to this one about a
family in Bosnia and how media helps their family.
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