AECF Wives Club for our ET and FC wives

[Mary, Proud Mom of Nick]

There seems to be so many of you lately!!! It is wonderful that you will have each other's support while going thru the process together.

Thought I would start this thread so you can at least connect and share stories together. Seems like there is a fair amount of you in Great Lakes and just as many more trying to decide if you can more to Great Lakes.

[priscilla; FC wife]

housing office: 847-688-3440. they'll tell you what you need to do. 

ya. i got rid of my cars & only have one now, but i don't work lol. just gotta stay home all day with my baby until the hubs gets home. :P

[alishachristine]

Priscilla, thank you so much for the number. I wanted to double check because our recruiters have been saying we couldn't get housing and he wouldn't be able to live with me and such...They haven't really bothered at all to learn any information about AECF to help us have a better understanding of what we're getting into. None of them were married when they enlisted so they never went through the process we are. Needless to say we are a little frustrated =/

 

[priscilla; FC wife]

My pleasure.

Ya. I know what you mean about it getting frustrating. I know a wife on here (different group tho) said Navy wouldn't move me, but she was wrong haha. It gets easier as time goes by. Before you know it, you'll be in GL!

[Div157shorty]

how is being a stay at home mom with one car? my hubby is graduating boot in 2 weeks and i've had my moms glorious help all this time so im a little nervous about the move

 

[txnavywife320]

my husband just finished boot camp this past weekend and moved over to the base where a school is. he's an FC, they said his school is 26 weeks and if anyone whos married school is over 20 weeks the navy will move them! My husband is supposed to go to the housing office today and get the packet to live "a shore".

from what i've read, the base housing is for hiring ranking sailors. but i could be wrong! i will keep in touch with you about what i find out over the next few weeks.

[priscilla; FC wife]

you're able to get base housing so long as you get on the list.

[April(Don's girl)]

Just wondering if there are any FC wives that are stationed in Dahlgren. My husband is there now, but I'm planning to join him by the end of May. Any info on neighborhoods etc. would be great!

[Anne(Steves wifey)]

I lived in Dahlgren for a little over 6 months.We lived on base though.There really isn't much there by the base.So neighborhood wise if you want to be close the best place to be would be on the base.

[April(Don's girl)]

We're trying to get base housing only problem is that we're coming later so "technically" we're there less than 6 months so they might not let us get base housing. He's going to clarify that with housing, but I want to keep my options open too....even if it means a little further from the base. Plus, he won't have a problem with traffic even if he commutes a little because his C school is at night. How is the base housing there? Trying to get some idea because leaving it all up to my husband makes me a little nervous =)

[Anne(Steves wifey)]

I really liked the housing.We had a house cause we have 3 kids.But we had friends with no children and they all had 2 bedroom townhouses.The people at the housing office were always really pleasant.It is right over the border from MD so that might be an option for you to look into some areas there as well.Fredericksburg is the largest area for shopping and such and it is about 40 minutes away.Don't get me wrong there are places to live outside the base,it's just the area is pretty small.

[April(Don's girl)]

Thanks for the info....from how my husband has described to me Dahlgren seems pretty far from everywhere. We were considering MD, but to have him take the bridge and pay toll everyday is the biggest reason we aren't considering MD. We have two kids and both are school age so I'm really hoping we get base housing because it would be REALLY nice to have the kids go to school on base. Were any of your kids school age and if so, what did you think of the elementary school? Thanks for all the info, its really comforting to get info from other wives versus trying to rely on internet resources!

[Anne(Steves wifey)]

Hey no problem.You would probably get one of the houses then.We had a 3 bedroom house with a driveway and garage.It wasn't super spacious but we liked it.My son went to the school on base.He didn't like it too much but I think it was good.Very short walk to the school.My daughter also had speech therapy at the school and her therapist was awesome.My son saw a school counselor once a week and her really liked her.There is a decent pool on the base although you do have to pay it is pretty cheap.The commissary was tiny so we mostly shopped at the grocery store up the street or Wal Mart.The toll  is only one way and I would think you might be able to pay for a card or something so it would be cheaper,not positive though.Yeah I hear ya about the internet research,I hate having to rely on that.I wanted to take a trip there before our move to scope it out but it wasn't feasible for us.Then we moved from there out here to SD so there was NO WAY we could have made that trip to scope lol.Let me know if you have any more questions :)