Our Fate is in the USMC's Hands!

So as you all know, I am back home on the east coast being super busy with pre-wedding fun and catching up with people I haven't seen in such a long time (as well as preparing Petrie for his big move to the west coast!). Along with all the fun stuff going on, an important piece of information has been passed along to me by my future Mr....the assignments have finally been released (to those who don't know, that basically means the list of available jobs is finally out and now is the time for Marines to pick, in order, where they would like to be placed next).  Marine life has us moving potentially every three years. Yes, I signed up for it, but it doesn't mean I can't say that it's a little stressful being handed a list and being told "here...pick where you want to live out of these places, in the order you want to go"....then the guy in charge of placing the men (and women) will have our destiny in his hands. Mr. Devil Dog's tour is up here in Sacramento between April and June...we find out around December where we are supposed to be moving next. That means I cannot apply for jobs, grad school, start looking for places to live until we are given "the word". Frustrating, right?!  (But I have to admit...it's also very exciting. See, there is a silver lining to everything!)
So I was given a list and was told to put in order of where I want to live. It goes as this:
SD, CA                                                                               Fort Worth, TX
Beafurt, SC                                                                       29 Palms, CA
Yuma, AZ                                                                           Ft. Mead, MD
Quantico, VA                                                                    Arlington, VA
Hawaii                                                                                New Orleans, LA
Camp Lejeune, NC                                                          Guam
Okinawa, JP
 The choice is harder than you may think! At a glance I would say "HAWAII...DUH!"...but then I have to think about where I want to be in 3 years. Do I want to start a family by then? Heck yes. Do I want to move so far away from my family? (moving to Cali was hard enough!)   THEN we have to think about what would be beneficial to his career down the road (he is a Captain right now...we want to make the right choices for him to get promoted to Major..fingers crossed! He's hard-working..he deserves it).  And it pains me every time I go over our options because I have to keep telling him "you told me you wanted to deploy again..and I'd rather it sooner b4 a family starts than later...so maybe we should be smart and pick deployable units (am I really SUGGESTING this? Who am I?!)  Of course I don't want him to deploy. But it is going to happen regardless..if not in the next 3 years then DEFINITELY sometime after that. I just want what's best for our future.

So anyway, I know this all sounds like I'm negative and stressed about this whole situation, but in fact I'm really excited that I now get to see our choices! I am always up for a new adventure. I know that wherever I am, as long as I am with him, I will be okay. We can make anything work.  So in case you are interested, my top three picks (and my mom may hate me for not choosing the ones closest to home..) are San Diego (it's the easiest move and its beautiful there), Hawaii (how can we pass up Hawaii as an option? We are young and as of now, child free), and 3rd is North Carolina, Camp L. We originally were putting Fort Worth/Dallas ahead of Camp L but since it's a non deployable unit, I think that's an option we can look at down the road (though I would love to live in Tejas!).   So there we have it. Top 3...now it's up to the good ol' Marines to pick and choose where we go. Fingers crossed it is somewhere great :)  This is turning out to look like one crazy, event-packed year. I love it! :D
ps. San Diego and Hawaii are places I KNOW friends would love to come visit, right? hint hint hint!!