Our New Assignment!

We recently found out that we will be moving to Shaw AFB, South Carolina (just outside of the small town of Sumter) in May! As you can see on the map above, Sumter is about an hour east of Columbia. We are excited about our next assignment, which is a little surprising since it was originally pretty far down on our wish list. Obviously, it would have been fun to live in Europe or be closer to family in the West. But there are many great things about Shaw as well.

First of all, we're looking forward to returning to U.S. after living overseas for five years. There are many things that we've loved about Asia, but it will be so nice to have some American conveniences again, like a garbage disposal and a second vehicle and a garage and a back yard and nicer grocery stores, etc. etc. etc. We may not have much immediate family in the south, but we'll get to see my brother Nate quite a bit since his band frequently tours in that area. It will also be easier to visit my grandparents in Kentucky and James' grandparents in Maine (whom I've never met!) Plus, Sumter is much closer to our parents than South Korea was so I'm sure Kaden will get to see his grandparents a lot more. Really, that's the main reason we're excited to return Stateside. We want Kaden to know his family.

I would have really enjoyed traveling around Europe if we'd been given an assignment to Germany or Italy. But I am pumped about travel opportunities on the East coast as well. I really haven't spent much time in that part of the country at all. I've never been to New England, and there are several bucket list destinations we look forward to visiting, including New York City and Disney World!

We have some friends stationed at Shaw right now who have told us a lot about the local area and what it's like to live there. It's a small town in the south so there are some undesirable aspects. But it's very close to Columbia, and several other awesome cities in that region, so we can easily hop in the car and explore on the weekends. We've been looking at houses there and it looks like we'll be able to get a pretty nice place for an affordable price. We'll also be back in the Bible Belt so there are many great church options - which will be a HUGE blessing after settling for a military chapel for 5 years. Chapel programs are great, but the worship services leave something to be desired.

We will have to adjust a bit to James' new, faster-paced work tempo there. One of the reasons Shaw was so far down on our list is because we know that the squadrons there are gone ALL-THE-TIME. They deploy and leave on short TDYs very frequently. They also sit alert there which means that, even when James is home, he may have to go into work for a full 24 hour shift so we wouldn't see him for a day or two. However, they fly the same Block 50 mission at Shaw that they did in Misawa and I know James is excited to switch back to that. He really excelled at the Block 50 mission and so we hope he'll feel a bit more at ease and able to do well career-wise there.

Oh, and I haven't mentioned the best part: The Cienskis are going with us, and the Hofmanns actually just arrived at Shaw. So we'll be there with close friends and Kaden, Jack and Riley can continue growing up together! No matter what this next assignment holds for us in the way of deployments or challenges with work or the community, at least we know that we'll have some great people to lean on.