The Exodus

So as many of you know we have moved to Mississippi. Matt went through Officer Training School (OTS) and is now a 2LT in the Air Force. As I have mentioned before, I am very proud of what he is doing and I am excited for the adventures military life has in store for us.
Matt was supposed to report to his duty station in Meridian, MS on April 24th. I thought that I would be able to stay home with some of our belongings and let the girls finish out the school year and their dance programs. Well what we didn't know was that the military will only pay for you to move once. For some reason, they don't like moving the military member and some of our stuff and then moving the family and the rest of our stuff at a later time. This makes sense to me now but our plan was never to pull the girls out of school and dance and have them miss out on that.
So we had to decide in 1 day to either go with Matt now and drive out to Mississippi or pay for plane tickets later and for some of our stuff to be moved ourselves. That wasn't possible for us. So instead we quickly packed what we needed for the trip and left the rest for the Military to move for us. We didn't have time for goodbyes to all of our family and friends and the girls would now have to be pulled out of school early and miss out on their dance recitals. I was very sad about this but after being away from my husband and their daddy for 4 months, we liked the idea of staying together. It was an unbearable thought to part for another 6 weeks so we were happy to go together. However, this caused much heartache for our family and friends as we were not able to spend much time together and we didn't even get to say goodbye to some. I hope in the long run it was the right decision to keep our family together and have the girls miss those few weeks of activities.
We already had a family party with the Francom's scheduled since they hadn't seen Matt for 4 months so we decided to also turn it into a Birthday Party for Elleigh. Her Birthday would have taken place right after Matt left again and I was glad we didn't have to deal with that seperation. It meant that she wouldn't have a party with her friends however. But that is a different post.
So here are all the pictures from when we left and her party.

The Exodus

Us with Mindy and Brandon on our last night in Utah.

Saying good bye to Matt's mom Dee Ann.

Almost all of the grandkids on Matt's side of the family.

Elleigh getting her birthday scooter.

Lots of fun presents!

Her favorite show High School Musical!

Yay presents!

Look at that cake!

Happy Birthday 6 year old!

Ooh pretty!

Most of the Francom Clan!

Playing with the pet farrots and cousin Zoe.

Cousin Bailey has the coolest dress up clothes!