It never fails.

Alyssa and Allison each have their own beds, but at the moment, they share a bedroom.

 

Without fail, this is how we find them 9 out of 10 nights.

 

Speaking of them having their own bedrooms, I wanted to share a little bit of our story.

 

Johnathon and I, due to our growing family, recently tried to apply for larger housing. We currently live in military housing which is privatized and ran by Lincoln Military Housing. When we originally went to them with our situation, we were told to put D on Johnathon's Page 2 and we could easily apply for larger housing.

 

WRONG.

 

The military will not allow us to put D on Johnathon's Page 2 because we are neither his parents OR his legal guardians. Their reasoning for this is clear, they do not want D to receive benefits that do not belong to him, such as medical, etc. This I completely agree and understand. My issue is, WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE.

 

For those of you who do not know, when you originally apply for housing (at least here in San Diego), you first apply with Navy Housing. They see what branch of the military you are, your rank and your number of dependents. Then they let Lincoln Military housing know what size of home you qualify for. You will sign a lease with BOTH Navy Housing and Lincoln Military Housing.

 

This is how we handled our situation.

 

We filled out an Exceptions To Policy Form explaining why we wish to have our foster child acknowledged as a member of our family and that we do indeed need larger housing. We also had Johnathon's command write up an endorsement for us on command letter head. We then submitted that with our foster parent certification to Navy Housing.

 

It took two weeks to hear back, but we have officially been cleared for larger housing and D is officially being recognized as a member of our family (NOT on Johnathon's Page 2, but in everyway that matters to us!).

 

There is a HUGE wait list and we are managing just fine in our current home, but for me, this battle is simply about getting our foster children to be recognized. So many people wanted to brush us off in the beginning and treat us like he shouldn't matter because "foster care is temporary".

 

I could have smacked them all.

 

Instead, I persisted and annoyed anyone who would listen until I got the right answer.

 

My point for explaining all of this is that I am sure I am not the only person who has encountered this issue and I want to be an example for anyone who may need help in the future.

 

In the end, it wasn't even about getting an extra bedroom. I was on a mission to be the voice for any child in foster care. In the foster system or not, these children need to be recognized and loved. They deserve at least that.



Where oh where...

It's no new information when I say that we are a military family {US Navy to be exact} and we live in sunny San Diego, California. That's not a big deal to most of you, but when you come from a small town in central Illinois...it IS! For obvious reasons, most of our family has never been out to visit us in the 4 years that we have lived here {5 for Johnathon}.

I thought it would be fun to show them a little of where we live.

So....here ya go.

Clearly we live in military housing. It's a very nice subdivision and we are very lucky. However, all of the houses look exactly alike {which is why the twins are always trying to open someone else's front door} and even though we each have our own 2 car garage, the houses are set up in a townhouse style. We were lucky enough to get an end unit and have extra windows!! :)

Here is our view from our front 'yard'.
I say 'yard' because it is literally a few square feet!

The building to the right is our district office and the buildings to the left are historical houses...also military housing.This is would be our mailbox! It's set up a little like an apartment complex would be. Most everyone's mailbox is within walking distance from their house...except ours! It is at least a block away. For those of you will children, you will understand what I mean when I say that it is too far to walk without your children and it is too close to be worth loading them all up in the stroller.
*sigh*

Oh, and Joey, this would be why we are ALWAYS losing our mail key...so inconvenient

This is just a shot of our street. You can't actually see our house from this view, but you get the idea.

We are within walking distance to a small lake {it's literally in our back yard...but fenced in, of course}.

It has a neat little trail around it, a few jungle gym areas for the kids and thousands of squirrels. THOUSANDS!

*It reminds me of Weldon Springs...but a lot smaller!

I wasn't comfortable putting a photo of my actual house on here, so I was a little sneaky.

Do you see the small window that he arrow is pointing to?

Yep! We live back there!

There are literally speed bumps every few yards. It is a relief to know that people have to drive slow, but I tell you what!! Those speed bumps were NOT fun when I was pregnant with the twins! Even if I didn't have to go pee, my bladder was shot after a few of those puppies!

And just for fun I had to throw in a picture of a palm tree. This is one from in front of our district office. I know I am short, but this baby is TALL!

It wasn't anything too crazy, but I hope you all enjoyed this small glimpse into my life.

{Joey, this was mainly for you!}

. . .

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