Kimber's Navy Family

One of the things I hear about all the time is the idea of a "Navy family," not as in my blog title, Kimber's Navy Family, which refers to our nuclear family, but a temporary family comprised of military members and their families supporting each other. People post pictures about how they love their Navy family, "Don't know what I would do without these girls! Love my Navy family!" Or make comments about how their Navy family helped get them through certain times in their life. I myself talk often about our Navy family . The past couple weeks, the concept of a Navy family has materialized once again in real and practical ways in my life. While we were away from the Navy community during my husband's years at college, I almost forgot about how present a Navy family is and just how much help our Navy family offers. Our Navy family truly becomes far more than just people we meet, but family , people that step into our lives and lift us up, people that brin...

Picture taken by Liz Benroth Photography Back to life with my husband on submarines. I've been posting about our STA-21 journey for a couple years now, since I started this blog. And now we are here-- our household goods have arrived, we are settled in a new house in a new state, and we are at our new duty station. It was brought to my attention a little while ago when a civilian friend of mine-- a friend who's husband is not in the military-- that when I say we are "back on submarines," people don't have any idea what that means. (Or for that matter what STA-21 and duty stations and PCS-ing mean.) So for everyone who is curious, welcome to Kimber's Navy Family. What does it mean to be married to a submariner? Submarines are called the silent service . They run secret, classified missions and operate undetected in the waters. As such, they have stringent operations security (OPSEC) measures. The exact dates they leave and come home are cl...

For our boys' birthdays, I love baking them a cake... or ordering a cake from Coldstone. Our 4-year olds lucked out and each got a Coldstone cake this year. Our baby lucked out since we were living in the Navy Lodge during a military move (a friend actually baked him a cake though, which was super sweet). Our oldest on the other hand managed to have his birthday fall right in that rush of "so glad we are FINALLY in our OWN house with our OWN things" and there was no way in Hades I wasn't going to bake his cake. On top of that, our other 3 wanted to help (the baby did not actually say he wanted to help, but he is a new walker and in that "requires constant supervision" phase). Since our 4-year olds wanted to actually make the cake, I measured out all the ingredients beforehand. This made it much easier when actually mixing because their attention spans fall in the category of, "Oh! Look! Shiny!" We also had a lot of discussion over taking ...

I haven't ever done a blog post on the places we've lived, but I have been wanting to write one about Charleston, South Carolina. I've felt that most of the places we've lived were pretty straight forward. Charleston is a very unique city and it was an experience to get the opportunity to live there. From the get-go, we heard how lucky we were to get stationed in Charleston. Everyone told us how beautiful the city was, how much the loved it, how it is their favorite place . We were excited to move there. As people who try to make the most of wherever the Navy brings us, we felt we had a leg up moving somewhere everyone loves. And then we got there and it was nothing like I expected. I've done a lot of thinking about Charleston. I've even written a blog post about it is not my favorite duty station . I struggled for awhile when we lived there. I didn't have that "I belong here" feeling. Eventually I was able to buck up and make the most of it-- ...

My husband was picked up STA-21 . I've written several blog posts about our STA-21 journey  and going through the officer pipeline: power school and prototype in South Carolina . It is surreal to me to be writing this post about the last piece of his STA-21 journey, going to SOBC in Connecticut. It doesn't seem that long ago that we received the news that he was picked up STA-21. It was such a whirlwind leaving Hawaii to move to North Carolina for him to get his degree in mechanical engineering; all too soon he graduated college and we were off to South Carolina going through the officer pipeline.It is crazy to me that in a few short weeks we will be back to the fleet. When we left the fleet for the STA-21 program, I felt we had all the time in the world. I tried to remind myself along the way that the time would slip away from us, but it is one thing to know it and another to live it. But I digress. Right now my hubby is at SOBC (Submarine Officer's Basic Course). ...

Are we crazy? I don't know. We are in the midst of planning our cross country drive. My hubby is at SOBC in Connecticut right now and I am staying with family. In a few short weeks we will be loading up our vehicles and driving across the United States of America, east coast to west coast. With four kids, the oldest being six and the youngest being 11 months. I'm freaking out. It sounded like an adventure before, but the more I look at all the work we have to do to pack for the drive, plan the drive, and then make the drive (with 4 kids), the more my stomach turns to knots and the more I just want to bury my head in the sand. Why did I agree to this? I was going to fly... we were going to ship my van... and now we are driving both our vehicles... But here we are. My husband appealed to my sense of adventure. I agreed. We have a room full of things to pack at my parents' house. We have two vehicles to drive across country. We have a game plan and it is alm...

The other day our boys were exhausted from a busy day out. Since they no longer nap, I brought them upstairs to watch a movie and (hopefully) rest for awhile. Sitting in my arm chair with a 10-month old nursing/sleeping in my lap, 2 4-year olds spacing out on my bed to "101 Dalmatians," and a 6-year old flipping through his Highlights magazine on the floor, I did what all moms do when trapped in front of the same movie we have watched 100,000,000 times before: I grabbed my phone and started reading blogs. Well, then I switched to Facebook and started reading comments. One Humans of New York post stuck out in my mind. It showed a woman beautifully dressed for the Met Gala. She mentions how life with a one-month old is different than how she thought it would be and how she didn't let her baby near her dress. Many people commented on it saying, "Oooh! FIRST TIME MOM!" One comment has been rolling around in my mind since I read it: how snarky moms with 3, 4, and...