Bye, Bye Disney World

Today was our last day in the main parks. We are going to hit up one of the water parks tomorrow before we leave, but that's it. We've had a ton of fun, were able to do nearly everything we wanted to do here, and discovered our boys are ride junkies.

My favorite memory was made on the Teacups in the Magic Kingdom. We all went together in one cup. I had Oscar on my lap, so Oliver did the spinning. And spin he did. I had foolishly left my sunglasses on my head and they were quickly sent flying away. I wasn't sure how the boys would like it, but they were laughing so hard. Oscar was laughing this full-on belly laugh of pure babyness that I hope I never forget. He was pretty upset when it was over.

Wyatt was tall enough to do a lot of the bigger rides. Even some I refused to go on. Oliver took him on the Tower of Terror in Disney's MGM Studios. Look that one up. My little four year old walked off that ride exclaiming, "That was awesome!", and talked about it off and on for the rest of the day. He said he didn't want to do it again, however.

So, tomorrow we head to West Palm Beach, then hop a plane to Andros. It's not going to really feel like home until our stuff catches up with us (everyone pray it doesn't actually take until November 14th to get there), but home it will be. I'm ready for a little stability, despite the fun times we've had.

I'm also a tad nervous, though. This is a big change, but the bigger issue for us is what we are going to do with the next three years. I was actually leaning toward staying Navy if Oliver could find his groove, but I recently ran into a news article that made it appear they are very seriously moving toward beginning the move toward putting women on submarines. I'll find a link and write a more indepth post about this when we are in Andros, but I've been disturbed by this ever since I read it. Add that to all the other reasons we don't love the military life, plus that fact that we really, truly, love being together and dread the whole deployment cycle, and staying in is becoming unpalatable. But that leaves us with this huge, scary transition ahead.

I know we are lucky than many others who face this. We have time on our hands, and a good shore duty that should allow Oliver to take a good chunk of classes. Still, though, there are so many unknowns. Staying in the Navy is the easy way out in some ways. It's all we've known our married lives. Oliver makes good money and has shown constant movement in rank. In only thirteen more years, we'd have a retirement check for the rest of our lives'. But, at what cost?

So, lots of things to think about. I hope we make good on our time in the Bahamas. I hope Oliver doesn't end up reenlisting just because we didn't. I hope leaving the Navy doesn't mean moving into a staid, predictable life that keeps us in one place forever. I hope when the time comes, we really, truly feel like we've made the right decision.