From Ft Riley Kansas to Schofield Barracks Hawaii

     A lot of people have asked me what is different from Kansas to Hawaii.  There is the obvious answers like the weather is not as bi-polar here, and the trees and scenery are different.  Clearly there is an ocean here as well.  Housing is somewhat similar for us from our house there to our house here.  The major things that are different are:

                 1:  The schooling systems.  There are 2 schools on post but neither of them are DOD schools.  I find it a bit weird.  It is also weird that they get out at different times of the day.  The blue school (Hale Kula) gets out about 20-30 minutes after the purple school(Solomon)  Yet they are both Elementary schools.  I would prefer that Dallas was in a DOD school, as they seem to be more geared to the military families and some even have programs which allow the kids express themselves a bit while they deal with the life of being a military child.  The middle school here is on Wheeler, which is literally across the street.  If you work on Schofield, you may end up living on Wheeler Airforce Base, or the other way around.  We were lucky enough to live and work and go to school all on Schofield. If you attend the blue school, they have a bus system.  If you are at the purple, like Dallas, you have no busing.  Lucky for us, it is not a far walk for us.  With rainy season almost over, it should be fine to walk on most day.   Aside from all of that, there is a huge difference in the ways the schools are layed out.  There are no gyms, just the great outdoors.  There is not any hallways, its all outside.  When you step out of the classroom doors, you are instantly outside, sheltered if you are not in a portal.  Dallas is in a portal, and so to use the bathroom he has to go outside.  They always have the windows and doors open, so it's like he is always outside!  I personally think that it is pretty cool.  So does Dallas. Much different atmosphere. They also also have a fruit and veggie program and I think it's once a week they get a delivery of a fresh fruit or veggie that the kids get to try out!  They are encouraged to try them all, but sometimes I know the looks of them can be pretty intimidating for a kids in Kindergarten. I was told when we moved here that I needed to watch out for the school system here.  I was really concerned that they were way behind in this school compared to the mainland.  It's not as bad as I thought, and since there is homework every night, at least for Dallas, we can keep up and teach him on our own at home. AKA hotel.  Kansas has a great school system academic wise.  They never had homework there and so it was hard for me to know what he should know and what is not important at this time for him to  know.  This system is helpful and we are able to work with him at home as well.  I really think that some parents think all their kids learning should be taught by teacher, when in reality there is a lot that we as parents can do at home to help them be better students, kids, and individuals.  Learning style are way different now than when we were in school.  You may actually learn something along the way.  If you help your child at home, and stay in close contact with the teacher, I don't see why your child would be behind when you go back to the mainland.

2.  Training is a little different here not just for the soldiers, but for the spouses.  In Kansas, they had something called Custer Hill.  This is where all the soldiers pretty much worked, trained and did PT.  To say the least, you would see soldiers throughout the day at the store, on their way home and things of that nature.  I have never in the 4 years I was a spouse in Kansas saw a TON of soldiers doing PT, ruck marches, or battalion runs.  They don't have that kind of space here.  So you see soldiers doing PT all over the post, Ruck marching in front for the housing places and running all over the place. They close half of the major road through housing to have the soldiers run in the morning.   I did see some soldiers in Kansas at the park or the riverwalk doing PT tests and such, but it was never an everyday thing. It sure is weird, and sometimes a little inconvenient to have the road blocked off, or to see people running out in front of your car, but it's a small post.  Something that takes  a little getting used to, kinda like seeing men in uniform and combat boots driving motorcycles.  :)  took a little time to get used to!!!!

3.  Driving here is a whole lot different than Kansas.  Learn to relax and go with the flow.  The speed limits here on the highway, are like all 55-60 and you are lucky when you get to even do that without getting caught in traffic somewhere.  On post there are only a few ways that will get you where you want to go, so it is often hard to avoid traffic.  Most all the housing is in one main area on this post.  Not like riley where some way across trooper, some on main post, some on the hill ETC.  There were a lot of places that you couldn't walk to in Kansas that you can here.  I have 2 friends here that were my friends in Kansas.  We didn't really live as close as we will now.  We are all in one area yet in 3 different neighborhoods.  Something to get used to.  Parking is always an issue.  There isn't a lot of it, and some is for motorcycles, and a huge majority is for compact cars!  Good luck with that when you are driving a huge truck or something.  We traded in a trailblazer for a ford fusion.  Best decision we have ever made!  I would never be able to fit the trailblazer anywhere close in these spots. 


Like anything else that you do in the military life, you have to be open to change!  Be willing to learn new things, and do things that you are used to doing a different way.  All in all, we are in paradise, with my family and some close friends.  There is no reason to be angry at any time!!!!  PLUS TOBY KEITH is playing here next weekend!!!!

sneek peek of pictures

PCS Debates

   There is a site here that is for the wives of the soldiers here on this post.  Many of them are on there way here in a few months, and are really unsure how all this works.  So, I will sum up how it works NOW rather than when you arrive to the island like in 2008, when there was not so many budget cuts and such!!
   You really can not do much until you have your orders.  Then all the fun begins!  You can schedule your transportation, hotels, dates and get you a hotel here on the island.  You also can go ahead and get your plane tickets and animals taken care of.  I would not advise putting all this money into the animal before you have orders.  Many people have had their orders pulled and you don't get that money back.
    The first thing you should do is to the Island Palm Communities website and get your name on the housing list if you plan to live on post.  KEEP IN MIND that they do not count your time till you have left your last duty station, no matter how early you get on the list.
   They come and pack your things and you take your leave and BLAH BLAH BLAH.  HAVE ALL YOUR IMPORTANT PAPERS ON YOU.  They do you no good when they can not be delivered to you for months.  You need things like all:
 Birth certs
Social Sec. Cards
Marriage license
Medical records
Dental records
Vet records
Car title
Registraration
AND YOUR ORDERS!

When you get your orders, it is a good idea to call the Inn at Schofield Barracks and book your room.  They are full all year long and it is right on post.  It is not the best hotel ever, and if you are traveling with pets, they will have to be boarded.  However this is the place you have to check first before you can book anywhere else.  Its best to just have the reservation and hope for the best.  It is better than having to drive 1.5 hours in the morning for your husband to get to work.  The benefit to staying off post, is the view is probably better, some places are ocean front, and your husband doesn't have to do PT this way.  Also, you may have heard that you don't have to pay until your TLA kicks in, which is true for some places off post, but you have to pay up front with the Inn.  It does sort of suck, but when your husband has to work, and since you have to turn in your TLA papers every 10 days at housing and finance, its convenient.   You also have the Commissary and the PX right behind you and within walking distance.  This helps offset the island price of things, as the Commissary on post is about the same as the ones on the mainland.

   After you get here, get your life established.  It is not Easy!  As i said before we will have spent 52 days in this hotel by the time we finally leave next week.  MAKE SURE YOUR HUSBAND SIGNS IN AT THE AIRPORT. That is a really important step.  Have a ride to wherever you are going.  Have yourself as together as possible, and don't forget how many bags you have to pick up when you get there.
 People say that life is really relaxed here, and to be honest it is.  The speed limits are slower.  I think the fastest one is 60.  Traffic can get really bad depending on what time of day you are traveling and where you are going to.  All in all the first few months are great.  enjoy them, make friends, see things, and be ready for your house, that is the most excited I have been was knowing when I was finally going to be able to move in LOL!!!!  Quick tip, keep and umbrella in your car all the time!  It rains when you least think it will.!!!!!

The end is in sight!!

   So as you all know, we have been living the hotel life.  When I say Hotel, I mean a crappy little room, with limited space for 4 of us, no pool and Housekeeping only on the weekdays.  There is also no room service.  On the plus side, we are able to be on post.  So we can sign our lease on the 29th and move in the morning of the 30th!!!! That means we will have spent 52 days in this little hotel, and we are all feeling the effects!
   Let me tell you how excited I am to be able to be out of here.  I have picked out my front and back lawn furniture, a trampoline, a grill, and have already purchased things to redo the boys bathroom, which will be monkeys.  We have also bought all the things to redo the kitchen which will be a coffee/cafe theme.  The boys have new bedding for their PIRATE room and dave and I have new bedding. I am on the wait list for a bedroom set that I want and we are waiting for it to be in stock.  I am ready.  Our bathroom is next!!!
    The last major thing that we have to do, is get our puppies back into our home, as they are currently being spoiled by grandma and maybe a little by papa also.  I miss them all the time!!   As anything with the army, Hawaii has a lot of speculations before you can bring your little furry friends into the state.  We have done some of it, but as far as a flight and the last few check ups, we have to finish that.  I am hoping that we can have them here in the next month!
   So as I mentioned, the boys decided on their own that they want to share a room and they want a pirate room!  We bought the bedding and dave and I are going to start building them pirate beds! I am super excited for this.We are also going to make them a pirate ship lamp, and a treasure chest toybox! 

   All in all this trip has been a crazy rollercoaster.  We are in paradise and locked in this little room, slowly watching our sanity slip out the crack at the bottom of this hotel room door! A rough estimate as to the cost of this whole thing?  We get some of it back, like the hotel and the food money back! 

149.00*52 nights at The Inn at Schofield Barracks = $7748.00  (you pay upfront and than you get it back little by little in the paychecks.

$1600.00 1 month car rental.

Roughly $1500.00 to send 2 dogs with all the vet bills

Roughly 35.00 a night eating out *52 $1820.00

Grand total is 12668.00!!!  OUCH!!!!!

Anyways we have a short time left and I could not be happier, the next time that I blog, I am sure that I will be in the new place!

Hotel life SUCKS

So, we arrived here in Hawaii March 8th 2013.  We have been in a hotel ever since.  We are on post at the Inn at Schofield Barracks, which means that we have access to everything that we need, and are close enough to my husbands work, and my oldest sons school.  It was a lot of work when we first got here to get eveything established.  I remember seeing people who are not married to the military say that it must be SOOO rough to have to move when they do everything for you.  Truth is, there is a lot more than meets the eye when you have to move from place to place. We went 30 days without our car.When you think about it, it's not that bad since we are on post, and Dave can walk to work.  We have to have a car obviously, so the options were rent one or take on a second car payment.  So onto of the 410.00 a month that we pay on a car loan, we also payed 1600.00 for a rental for the month!  Ya, it sucked, here is a few other tips that I have found in the last month that we have been here.

1. When you finally get that call that your car has arrived and you rush there because you are so excited, take your time looking it over.  When I picked mine up, I looked at the basics of it. Who would have thought to check the tires and the tread. When I got it back to the base, and looked at the tires the tread was like shredded on it. Just on the front 2.  No idea what would cause that, but it happened.  There was also a nice lump in the side wall of the back tire. I know that this was not my fault as this car is not even 3 years old and the tires were new. So i brought it back after the weekend, and the man there said this is not the first time that he has seen this.  No one knows how this happened, but since the damage was a little under a grand, we were able to settle it in the office, and they were able to cut me a check immediately.  I had to go and get an estimate and bring it back, and they cut me a check for 877.00

2.  When you pick the car up, they give you 30 days to get your vehicle registered with the state of Hawaii.  Easy right??  In the state of Hawaii, you have to have a safety check done. This process sucks.  You take your temp registration from the car port, the title to your car, and watermarked insurance card.  That's a little harder to get if you have USAA because as you know they do not have watermarked ones. You have to call USAA and they will have one sent to you from Honolulu.   You take all this somewhere where they will do a Safety inspection. I found a little mechanic place in Wahiawa, that had great customer reviews, and they were awesome.  You will FAIL the safety inspection because you don't have registration in Hawaii.  You take the failed slip and all the other papers to the DMV in Wahiawa and be prepared to stand in line for a long time. They will get you registered and than give you the plates.  You take the plates back to the place you had your inspection and they will than pass you and give you the safety stickers.  This was not all that easy for me and it took about all day! 

3.  The hotel here no longer does the promissory notes.  If you are unsure what that is, it is something that you sign when you arrive at the hotel, that says when you get your hotel money from the army, you will pay them. Check with your hotel, but i KNOW this one no longer does them.  You have to pay up front out of pocket for this. The hotel here is 1400.00 every 10 days.  It took about a month for the army to start giving us our money.  As an E5 with 3 dependents we get about 6000.00 a paycheck now with the TLA and food allowance.  We were offered a home about a week after getting here, but can't move in till the end of this month.  Pack accordingly.

4. Try to find as many meals that you can that you will want to eat in the hotel, and only need a microwave with.  We bought a toaster and they told us we couldn't have it in here.  The only things that we can have is what they have provided.  A frige,a sink, and a microwave.  You are getting paid to go out and eat everyday, and there are some wonderful places to eat here.  We started just going out for dinner, and that got old fast.  So now we try and get like a rotisserie chicken at the commi and eat at the park or in the hotel.  We have all gained weight LOL.

5.  It is hard to remember that you are in Paradise when you are stuck in this little hotel room.  We spend a lot of time window shopping, and going to the parks and ocean.

6.  If you have a license that is about to expire take care if before you come or right when you get here.  If you get to the point that it expires while you are here, you have to take both a written and a behind the wheel test.  (One of my friends is going through this now)

7.  I learned real fast 2 important things to always have with you in the car, or near you.  An umbrella, because you never know when you will get that 5minute super rain storm.  Most likely when you out and about taking care of something important.  Also sunscreen.  The sun is different here and you will probably burn.

Hang in there,one you get your home and start "living" and getting back into a routine, things will seem more like Paradise, at least that's what I like to think anyways.  It is hard to stay in touch with people because we are 5 hours behind our last duty station and home.  We wake up and they are thinking about dinner.  Make your calls in the morning.  There is so much cool stuff here that its hard to not buy everything when you have all this TLA money.  Keep in mind that you have to pay for the hotel, the rental, and you are going to be here for 3 years.  This island is small you don't want to be bored for the next 2.5 years that you are here.  Most things here are for compact cars and smaller ones, if you can downsize I suggest you do.  The gas is only about 1.00 more but the parking spaces are not that big.  We traded out trailblazer for a Fusion before we got here and I am glad that we did.  You spend a lot of time in traffic and traveling!

Thats it for now, and I hope that you are all enjoying your day!!!  I will write more now that I found a way to get this site to work on this hotels wifi!


MAHALO!!!!