From Second City to the Second State

Our son has been getting increasingly into rap music from the 90s and early 2000s. His love of MLB walk-up songs initiated this discovery and I’m sure the Super Bowl LVI Half-Time Show didn’t hurt either. Because of this, Dr. Dre, Eminem, and Snoop Dogg are making more appearances into the rotation of music we listen to when together as a family. Which is why the lyrics of ‘Without Me’ are currently on loop in my head – Guess who’s back, guess who’s back?

Since my last post, we’ve went on a transformative multi-day rafting trip down the Salmon River in Idaho that I look forward to writing about, witnessed our small town grieve their way through the 4th of July parade massacre that occurred down the road from our neighborhood, enjoyed coastal vibes in Maine, and officially PCS’ed from Chicagoland to Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania for Clay to attend the US Army War College. I’ve been able to continue working remotely for my fantastic team, so writing in this space continuously fell further down the to-do list this summer as the fun and not-so-fun tasks associated with moving began to pile up. Isn’t adulting fun?

But we emerged victorious from the stacks of cardboard boxes and mountains of packing paper. It took us about 7 days to get the house completely set up (took us 21 more days to get the garage in working order) – nonetheless we’ve been calling the second state for a little over a month now and you know what? The four of us feel more at home here than we did our previous two years stationed in Illinois.

I’m currently writing this post on the back porch of our on-post housing. The view is significantly better than our the one from our on-post housing in Illinois – unless you’re into looking at land deemed too-toxic to build on encapsulated by a chain link fence. Pieces of trash picked up by the famed lake-effect wind would often get trapped in the barbed wire, which really added to the ambience.

Our time here will be brief but we plan to make most of our time in the home of the legendary (and non-existent?) Molly Pitcher. While I don’t plan to man the cannon on Indian Field anytime soon, I do plan to use this infamous year to my advantage. While Clay’s year will be spent discussing, researching, and analyzing complex issues, I plan to pursue some personal and professional goals of my own. We’ve been having fun with all the social obligations and meeting new people. And I’m finally learning how to play pickle ball. It is very possible that this will turn into a pickle ball blog as I acquire more phrases like, “Stay out of the kitchen!” and “Dink shot!” I will not apologize.

We also adopted a kitten! Meet Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt. We call him Archie.

He made himself right at home and Teddy Girl couldn’t be more thrilled to have a companion again. They’re best buds and her sweet demeanor toward him is just yet another reminder of why Labrador retrievers are the best dogs.

We had quite the summer transitioning from Second City to the Second State. It wasn’t always easy and in many ways, this has felt like the hardest move yet (so.many.boxes) but we persevered and made the best of it – like we always do. We’re looking forward to our year here and can’t wait to see what Pennsylvania has in store for us.