New to TRICARE? Here’s a quick cheat sheet on how to get the care you need. Choose Your Plan All active duty and their families - by default - will be under TRICARE Prime. See this post to learn more about the different options. Tricare Open Season TRICARE Open season is the annual period when [...]
One of the huge benefits of the military is the hotels and campgrounds located on bases around the world. These can make for great places to stay during a PCS, vacation, or staycation. We recently took a staycation weekend to a beach cottage located on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, about an hour north of [...]
San Diego is home to numerous military bases, but chances are if you are a submariner in San Diego you will be working out of Naval Base Point Loma (NBPL). There are occasional shore duty billets on North Island and elsewhere, but this post will be mostly focused on Point Loma! There are countless of [...]
Whether you recently PCS'd to San Diego or you've lived here for years, here are five great activities for critter-loving kids: San Diego Zoo The world-famous San Diego Zoo is a must for visitors and residents of San Diego. I highly recommend a membership if you’re stationed here as the zoo never gets old for [...]
Preparing for a move can be daunting, whether it’s down the street, a few states away, across the country, or out of the country! Besides the practical part of actually moving your stuff and getting life set up in a new town, did you know that PCS (permanent change of station) entitles you to certain [...]
For dual working parents or single parents, searching for childcare at a new duty station can be overwhelming to say the least! Below is a guide to some of the military childcare benefits available to service members and their families. Child Development Centers The military offers subsidized childcare at Child Development Centers (CDCs) on bases [...]
When we first moved to San Diego in summer 2019, news outlets and social media were all abuzz about the recent “superbloom” of poppies in the Anza-Borrego desert. We missed it by a few months, but found there are other flowers that bloom every year to visit in San Diego. Last spring we visited The [...]
While Seattle has long dominated the coffee culture scene and held onto its "Coffee Capital of the U.S." title (more on that, here), San Diego is an emerging coffee city moving up in the ranks. If you find yourself stationed in San Diego, do yourself a favor and try one of more than a dozen [...]
At our last couple duty stations I have been introduced to the local Military Family Life Counselor (MFLC) but never really looked into what they do or took advantage of anything they had to offer. This past year, however, the combination of COVID and deployments has been rough on the little ones. We decided to [...]
