Home.

I ordered the raspberry prosecco of dubious quality. My date had water with lemon. He sat way too close to me, couldn't take his eyes off ESPN, talked while I was talking, and once- when I glanced down to read a text from my husband- definitely slipped something in my drink.

Because he's two, and my threshold for disgustingness has been lowered accordingly, I fished out the french fry covered in avocado ranch and finished the glass anyway. And then got another in a plastic cup to go since I knew Ford would demand "one more (time around the) block!" on the golf cart.

We have officially been here long enough to pull off kid date night. 

Seth had taken Finley on her first movie theater date- her fondest dream- and stubborn Ford wanted nothing more than his second trip of the day to the pool, and "fanch fies" at the club. He ditched me for a seven year old in a two piece, eschewed vegetables as per usual, and lost his mind over who was going to drive home from dinner.

Our evening ended with this idyllic scene (plus late night ice cream courtesy of Seth's soft spot for Sonic), though, so no complaints from me. 

This is, yes, the view from the new porch. Land of the pines, indeed.

I should mention that we eventually escaped New Jersey. And made it to DC in time to grab a flight to Minneapolis for the kids' first solo trip to Grandma and Grandpa's.

They had a great time in North Dakota, hanging out with the new puppy,

"camping" at the lake with lots of second cousins and a fair number of cupcakes,

and generally enjoying farm life.

Seth and I had exactly 4.5 kid-free days to get the house ready for business.

Somehow, we thought this sounded like tons of time and had planned for date nights and hanging out by the pool. Instead, the movers had dumped everything in the center of each room in tangled piles, filled the garage from floor to ceiling, and left 16 animal heads in Knox-solid wooden crates in the kids' playroom.

It was North Carolina hot, and we worked all day and all night unpacking and making hauls to the dump and putting things away and going to Target 15 times and trying to get the f^#%$! TV working.

But somehow, we pulled it off. (Minus the couple pictures I threw up with velcro tape that were too heavy for it and come crashing down occasionally.) But 45 Anderson Lake Drive is officially a home, and it's a gorgeous one. It's a stunning craftsman-style with- be still my heart!- high ceilings, smart appliances, walk-in storage, and a lot surrounded by trees. We really lucked out, and couldn't be more thrilled. We're at Anderson Creek Club, a gated golf community in the middle of nowhere, about a half hour from my work (an hour from Seth's, but-let's be honest- it was kind of his turn for a crummy commute.)

Seth left for lunch the first day and came home with a golf cart. We're offically "those people," apparently. I was furious (naturally, he obtained the nicest golf cart one could buy, including the very best in offroad tires), but it really has come in handy. We're a couple minutes away- by cart- from the clubhouse, complete with bar and grill; and the beautiful swimming pool, complete with splash pad.

Plus the kids insist on riding to school (Anderson Creek has a daycare, which is clutch) in their chariot, which definitely eased the transition to a whole new morning dropoff.

Jayne and Tony brought the kids back and stayed for a week to help us get really settled in, for which we are eternally grateful.

(J&T did lots of the crummy moving chores I had been saving, exhibited endless patience with Seth's unwieldy taxidermy and Ford's stubborn determination to do the driving, and let F+F ease into their new school with half days.)

And Seth and I got to squeeze in a hilariously romantic day date to the bar where we first met...

and we finally made it to the Aloha Zoo. Which is (obviously) awesome.

After a couple days of very nostalgic inprocessing, during which I was reminded at every turn that both 1) Bragg has grown and changed, but 2) it is still the home of my Army childhood, and some of my best memories; I'm at work. Drinking from a firehose, as they say, and a little stunned at how fast our minuscule "summer vacation" flew. Still, we're grateful to be back and are loving life in NC. Even if it is core-of-the-sun hot. Feels, more so than even I expected, like home.

It is finished.

You never get to leave like you wanted to, no matter how well you planned. West Point has been an unbelievably special two years for us, and I had big plans to say goodbye. I didn't do one last run up to our favorite Catskills swimming hole, or a final jog across the Bear Mountain Bridge. I never did take the kids to Coney Island, or even the Statue of Liberty. We skipped the Hudson Valley Taco Fest in favor of a Target run for packing tape, and our last trip to Grasshopper Grove got rained out.

The movers came as scheduled.

Somewhere in there Seth got promoted to Associate Professor,

and our beloved Superintendent, in one of his last acts before retiring, made time to pin LTC rank on me--in what was accidentally the most funny, lovely ceremony on this very beautiful day. (Seth's insistence on Loughran's catering did not go unnoticed, either, and the party afterward was nothing short of terrific.)

The kids had a great time roaming Trophy Point, oblivious to the million dollar views. This last picture I took of Finley and Tommy Ryan will always be one of my favorites.

Having survived a pressure cooker of a couple days, we fled to Bull Pond. It was a happy accident of fate that we had won (literally) the lottery and reserved an entire lake, a boathouse with boats, and two cabins for a mini-vacation while movers carted all our belongings away.

Mom & Dad were a godsend,

Finley and Ford had a blast,

absurd amounts of s'mores and hot dogs were charred and consumed,

zero fish were caught,

and a good time was had by all, as we started our rounds of farewells in earnest.

(This picture cracks me up, since it appears to just be kids jumping off a dock, but if you look closely it's also Mom on the paddleboat with the beer resupply FTW.)

And then it was pretty much over. There was a flurry of work and evals and replacements and last BBQs every night for a week

(punctuated by a move to the Fort Montgomery Holiday Inn, which would have been super nuts if the kids hadn't cared about one thing and one thing only: the pool),

and Saturday morning I drove north with the kids for a quick jaunt to Rhode Island, and Seth drove south with a uhaul full of guns and liquor (no kidding.)

And, unceremonious as it was, shoving kids in PJs in the car at 6am, West Point really was in our rearview mirror.  I've been a little nostalgic about it, which goes against the grain of an Army kid, as the dust has gradually settled.

Luckily, Rhode Island and New England sunsets and catchup time with Bex was chicken soup for the soul.

The kids slept all the way to the NJ state line this morning, apparently summered out already.

Naturally, five minutes after I took this we had a tire blowout and spent an hour on the side of I-78 in PA before limping- via Uber- ruefully back into NJ to await the intervention of a Monday mechanic.

Road trips with toddlers are not for the faint of heart. Luckily, we found a hotel with a pool and kids are resilient.

But we may never escape what Finley calls "stinky New Jersey."