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Soo I changed my mind..
I have always wanted ( we both wanted) my DH to get out of the USMC at the end of his enlistment in a few years.. We are planning on moving to FL, restarting over our careers and then have kids. I wanted to be close to my family when we have kids... Recently I have changed my mind which I never thought I would do. My DH loves what he does and starting over in this economy is a great gamble.. I would love love love to have kids and live close to my family in FL but Ive realized that we are strong enough to have kids wherever we live and we can do it! I see so many of you on here that do it, and you all are so strong... I know that we can do it 
For those of you who have kids and do not live near your families; Is it super hard? Are you sad that you arent living closer to them? I would welcome any and all thoughts regarding this!
Re: Soo I changed my mind..
I dont have kids, but have thought about it before. I know it will be hard, but for us, I think that the benefits will outweigh the downsides.
My neice and nephews are very close (emotionally) to us and love us so much. They talk about us all the time, and it makes my heart melt to see how excited they are when they see us. That makes me feel better about being away from them, knowing that we can still have a great relationship. Also, I remember growing up that I was pretty close to my aunts and uncles who lived far away from us (none in the military though).
I changed my name
I'm interested to hear advice on this as well.
When we leave our current station (which is just WAY too far away from our families to start our own family) we will be 28/29 years old and I would REALLY like to start having children by then. But then I get nervous that we won't be stationed back on the East coast and then what? Postpone it some more? I don't want to have children too late in my life, that's just me personally. I'd love to hear how others make it work...in my case, it's more about our parents wanting us to be closer rather than vice versa.
I changed my name
I was fortunate to have been able to live near my family (like within five miles) when my DH was deployed and I had LO. I had complications and ended up needing a lot more help than I ever anticipated. Fortunately, my parents (and my ILs) are retired, so they were able to help, a ton.
Honestly, I think it is wise to be able to see beyond your original plan, to readjust your potential plans. We make plans, then life happens. Good luck!!
It is hard. But, to me the benefits are worth the difficulty. I love that DS will live in a tons of different places. I really hope that it will lead to him having a much more open mind than DH was raised with. (ILs are pretty set in their opinions and lifestyle and don't really get out beyond that.)
If you are the kind of person who gets out and meets new people and makes good friends at each duty station I think you'll have a fine support system. I'm a little more introverted and I'm struggling with the support system thing now because I haven't really made any "friends" here. I have a bunch of acquaintances, but no one I really confide in or feel like going out with regularly.
Also, the only thing DS is missing with us not being in NY is his grandparents. He doesn't have any cousins (and won't for a long while in all probability) so I don't really feel like he's missing much since the GPs come visit frequently.
It's hard but doable for us.
I feel like H & I really depend on/trust each other and we're both equally capable of taking care of her b/c there's few people volunteering to watch her (like I imagine family might)...but it's all us, all the time which can get exhausting.
We Skype semi-frequently with the grandparents and, thankfully, we've been home or they've come to visit every few months so far. Traveling so frequently is probably not feasible as the years go by though.
I'm sure my MN FB friends can attest that I use FB a lot. It's my main avenue of keeping our families updated on C (which I'm sure gets old to my non-family FB friends, sorry!). My parents joined FB for the sole purpose of keeping up to date on C. It'd be really sad if we didn't have all this technology!
I don't really want to complain b/c my H loves what he's doing with the AF and we couldn't afford to have our DD at all if he didn't have the reliable income that the AF has provided. That's how I try to look at it-- AF means we're far from family but it also allowed us to start our own family.
ETA: Mel made a good point. We are both the eldest of our siblings so cousins are a few years down the road which means DD is only missing out on grandparents and aunts/uncles vs. missing out on cousin bonding.
It's hard, sometimes we get into funks about being far away. (H's family all lives in the same town, so we're always super out of the loop) But with skype and committing to visit regularly, it's not ideal but definitely doable.
I got involved out here more than I ever had in the states, and it makes life so much easier. We support each other and all understand what we're going through and make it as fun as possible!
I think it's harder on my mom than me. I routinely get requests for more pics or a text to tell Caroline Nana misses her. Skype is a wonderful thing!
I also dislike (totally selfishly) that I can't utilize them for help. DH works a lot and has injured his back somehow so his help has been limited. Add in the fact that I'm exclusively breastfeeding and I could really use a break. Not really knowing anyone around here makes asking for help challenging. The joys of moving to a new place, I guess.
This is what I miss most about our OCONUS station. I feel like there I could get involved more easily and I didn't quite disappear into the crowd. We've lived here 3 months and I've yet to be contacted by a key spouse. Between being SO pregnant and now having a newborn, it's sometimes hard to get out and find out what's going on. An email about upcoming events isn't too much to ask for, is it?
And yeah, OCONUS had a "we're all in this together" (cue HSM music!) vibe that I really liked. Oh well, I'm sure I'll find my groove here eventually.
My only perspective is what I grew up with: we never had family close by and saw one set of grandparents or the other maybe once a year. The cousins and aunts and uncles less frequently than that until my teenage years. As a kid; it was just normal and it never occurred to me that my peers might've had grandparents or other extended family nearby.
I know my brother (in CO) and my sister (in AL) do wish they could live closer to my parents and we do utilize Skype as much as possible; but phone calls and FB are the more frequent modes of staying in touch.
You just have to do what is right for you and your own situation. We all have ideal set-ups in our head, then life hands us a different path and we adjust.
For me? I wish I lived a little further away, being 5 minutes down the street from my parents is driving me and DH bonkers.
What is a "key spouse"? We have been here since June 2010 and I havent been contacted by anyone military. I would love to get to know more military spouses especially since we dont live on base anymore. The ones I met on base were....on a different wavelength from me. Read: post below about the charity hooplah.
I think this exactly.. I mean my life plans are changing all the time with our military lifestyle anyways so I just need to take it one day at a time..
Bean's only two, so the phone is a little too much for her. She Skypes with my parents every Friday though and she'll stay on the line and talk to them for 30-60 minutes. It's also nice because they actually get to see her do stuff. They got to see her walking shortly after she took her first steps instead of just hearing about it. Now she'll bring her favorite toys over for them to see. When she gets gifts from them, we set up an extra Skype date and they get to watch her open them and she can go over and blow a kiss and say thanks.
It's really helped her connect to them and learn who they are. One of my sisters still lives at home, and she'll jump in on the Skype date every once in a while too. Last time we went home, Bean was almost instantly happy to hang out with her but it took days for her to warm up to my other two sisters.
Other than that, we're working on setting up a twice a year visit schedule. Ideally, they'd come to us over the summer for her birthday and then we'll go to them for Thanksgiving. If K is deployed for Christmas, I'll take her home for that instead of Thanksgiving.
We have almost no contact with K's mom. We try to visit his Aunt in DC once a year though and usually his Papaw is there visiting her at the same time so we get to see him too.
It works for us, but neither of us is really close to the majority our families. I'm close to my immediate family, but most of our extended family I could care less about seeing. K grew up hardly ever seeing his extended family on account of his mom, so he has no problem only having contact with them through e-mail.
Thanks for asking this question, which is something I've been wondering about lately. It wasn't mentioned in any of the replies, but I'm wondering if any of you who have children and a military spouses also work? I ask because, at our current post, I've seen spouses who work and don't have kids, and spouses (all wives, in this case) who have kids and stay at home. All of my coworkers with kids have family support nearby (plus a spouse with a geographically stable job).
Has anyone managed to make a job + a child + a military spouse work?
Click me, click me!
People do this all. the. time. I have a friend out here, her H is in the Military, she has two boys and works and keeps up a social life. She has a fantastic attitude and is just a generally happy person. Your outlook is everything!
I work FT, my kid is 4 mo, and my H is ADAF. Our family is an 24 hour drive away. We utilize the CDC on base and I imagine we operate similarly to non-mil families where one spouse (him) has a wonky work schedule.
Thanks! So glad (and relieved!) to hear this is possible, since it's tough to imagine it all fitting together, especially not knowing anyone else in a similar situation. Plus, right now my H's schedule is much less crazy than mine (he basically works 9-5 M-F, and my day is usually 11-12hr long, some weekends, some overnight call).