Saturday, January 16, 2010

FINALLY!!!!

OK so to explain from the beginning... As I've told you some how I got here without my area clearance, we found this out at the housing office on Camp Courtney. The woman we saw really lacked in customer service skills, and was in my opinion condescending and very disgruntled. We were told that our names couldn't even be put on the housing list because we didn't have my area clearance. So we fought to get that, got it on the 16Th of December and Jason called to get a second meeting with housing. He called every base that was relatively close and at each and every one he was told that because of the holidays they couldn't get him a appointment until after New Years. Jason also forgot to go to the office at the hotel to extend our reservation until Christmas Eve and was told that we couldn't extend it past the 1st of January. So he ended us getting us a new room in the second building that also couldn't keep us past the 13Th. We went to the second housing meeting and while this woman was much nicer and tried to be helpful after we explained how long we've been on the island and in temporary lodging, she still tried saying that there was no fault in the "housing" because they don't issue the area clearances. In the end she told us that there were no two bedroom homes available in any of the bases that were in a 45 minute driving radius, and that it might be a 30 day wait or longer.
Jason ended up having to get a room in the "overflow barracks" because in all the hotels closest to the base that he works at all the rooms were rented out for one reason or another. After he talked to a few Gunny's, I was encouraged by many people to call the unit's Family Readiness Officer (aka FRO) so she could alert the commanding officers. Apparently the XO-Major got involved and called housing and in Jason's words "lit them up" after the FRO and a few Gunny's also. Then when my husband was requesting to extend his temporary living allowance, Housing sent the Chief Warrant Officer 4 (really high enlisted officer) the wrong paper work, saying that we declined a two bedroom place and requested a three bedroom. Jason explained our story, and in the end the CWO4 called housing back and had a nice little chat. The next day we were offered a three bedroom tower house on Foster.
Obviously we have to take it, so we were told to go to a office that has really weird hours on Foster and get the key so we could look at a room on the second floor. And that this was the only room available. Jason found it funny that the housing office on Foster had 7 packages for open homes, AND the home on the second floor that we were "offered" had someone living in it since 2008. The people at foster called the people at Courtney and set them straight, and then offered us a empty home on the sixth floor in the same building that we were originally looking at. The home is beautiful, and I'm excited to move into it. And like I stated in the title: FINALLY!!!!!
Its going to be a bit of a drive for Jason, but we've already decided that he will take the FunCargo and leave me the Liberty to save on Gas. And we will have to budget $100 from every paycheck so that five days a week he can ride the express way home from work to avoid rush-hour traffic.
Today we went to Naha to the Toys R Us shopping center.. (ps there was a babies r us connected to it too) and then went to the Sea wall by Camp Kinser and checked out the China sea with Becky, Charlie and Aubrey Stanley. I took a TON of cool pics, and technically my first family portrait. Because everything went crazy right when I wanted to upload pictures on to Jason's laptop I still haven't done it. But I do promise soon you will be bombarded with LOTS of pictures!!

Thursday, January 7, 2010

No Changes....

Sorry I haven't updated anything in a while. I really haven't had anything to post about. I finally have my area clearance but we are still in a hotel. Because military housing is run by the airforce they don't have very good inter-branch customer service. Because we don't have any kids we only rate a two bedroom home. Unfortunately there are NO two bedroom places available on any of the northern bases. Jason is stationed (works) at Hansen which is one of the most northern bases. So we are on a "waiting" list and are being told that even thou we've been on the island since November that it could still be another month before we get into housing. If I explain anymore about our situation it would just be a lot of complaining about how this "situation" is. And well no one wants to read that.
I finally got in to see a Dr, and have been given the OK to go off my birthcontrol. And we both were able to finally pick up two cars that we are financing until the car back in the states is sold. Jason got a Nissan Liberty, and I got a Toyota FunCargo. They are both really nice cars, and I'm relieved to finally have them. NO MORE CRAZY TAXI TRIPS!!!! I'm waiting to post pictures until after I'm able to get pictures of both of the cars, which won't be until this weekend.. sooo until tata for now!!