Jacksonville FL

On the day of graduation from chaplain's school, I received a call from the chaplain detailer (the guy who decides where all the chaplains go). He gave me 3 choices since we couldn't go to Okinawa. 1) I could go to as small shipyard in portsmouth Maine and be the only chaplain on base. 2) I could be assigned to a base chapel at a marine air station in Beaufort SC. 3) Work at a hospital in Jacksonville Florida. I realize that the correct thing would have been to consult my wife first, but I felt like this was a no-brainer for what she would want. Maine was definately out of the question because Katie is cold-blooded. The marine base would have been a good choice for me, but I knew Katie would love Florida because of the warm weather and Disney World. So I told him right then that we wanted Florida.

I flew home the next day and we began frantically trying to get ready for the move. We had a week to get to Florida. We actually had to leave before the movers came. The trip was long, but the children were unbelievably good. . .thank goodness for DVD players. We drove into Jacksonville hours after hurricane/tropical storm Fay had passed. Despite the heavy rain and the fallen tree branches everywhere, Jacksonville was beautiful. I checked in the next day, then we went to the beach. Eventually we found a perfect house in a cul de sac with a million children, close to a really good school, and in a wonderful ward.

Since we only had one car, I needed to find a way for transportation to the base (about 15 miles from our house). I really didn't want to buy a new car (gas at the time was over $4), but there were no buses. So I bought a bike and started riding in every day. It is about an hour each way, but with traffic it is not really all that different from driving. It also gives me a chance to wake up in the morning, and to clear my head and leave work behind on the way home. It has helped me get into better shape too.

We love it here. We have season passes to disney world, and go as often as we can. We go to the beach quite often as well. Katie has lots of friends and we have get togethers with other families often. On New Years eve we had a neighborhood party (the temperature was in the 60's at midnight) with a million kids running around. It reminded me of the good old days in our neighborhood. We didn't square dance here, though. Maybe I'll suggest it for next year.