The family arrived in the Tampa area without a car (the one they own was being shipped) and without housing. They rented a car and made their first stop, at a Real American burger place. Yumm!

Once the Bradens arrived in the Tampa area, the giant task ahead was to find a place to live. It didn't take long for the family to learn that the community east of Tampa, but still within the incorporated area of Hillsborough County, called Brandon, was known for its good schools, nice neighborhoods, and the availability and access to a variety of sports and recreation activities. Worth the 25 mile daily commute Jay would have to make.

The Bradens had Guest Quarters at MacDill, which was nice, but had to commute each day to the Brandon area (1) to get Sandra, Anne, and Robert in school; and (2) for house hunting. Jay and Bonnie looked and looked, using a pretty good real estate agent, and eventually found a home in a community called Buckhorn Estates, that was being built and would ultimately have about 635 homes.

The home had evidently been sold to buyers who had defaulted so it was back on the market. At this point the construction was about 85% complete. The home had a split layout with three bedrooms and a bath on one side and a master suite with bath on the other. As you entered the home, the dining room was to the left and the living room was to the right. Continuing straight into the home you would find yourself with the family room on your right and the kitchen on your left. A sliding door on the back of the house would take you out back to a small lanai. The master suite - back left of the kitchen - also had a door to the lanai.

Another selling point was that the home was on a cul-de-sac, so there was no through traffic.

Oh, yes, there was one more selling point: the Buckhorn Estates community was being built around the back nine holes of the Buckhorn Springs Golf and Country Club golf course. Our house was on the golf course and about 150 yards to the right off the 15th tee box. Yes, we got golf balls in our yard.

Jay made two changes to the design in areas not yet complete.

• First was that the wall separating the living room and the family room would be moved about 3 1/2 feet into the living room area - who needs a large living that is rarely used? The 3 1/2 feet added to the family room would become a long closet, adding “tons” of storage space.
• The second change was that one of the three bedrooms on the right side of the house had a window that looked out on the lanai. The window was changed to a door, giving that bedroom its access to the lanai.

So after about six weeks of house hunting, the Bradens purchased a home on Brianholly Drive in Buckhorn Estates in Valrico, east of Tampa. The Bradens were just about ready to fully embrace the wonderful Florida lifestile; the only thing missing was a swimming pool, and that was soon remedied. How the family got their pool is documented here. The community had an HOA with a pretty minimum membership cost each year; Jay maintained the HOA website for about 15 years. Robert took golf lessons and fished in one of the golf course ponds.

For four years Jay commuted daily into USCENTCOM (actually SOCCENT for the first nine months) and returned to the Braden Family Home where the family was active in church, school, and recreational sports activities.

During this time Jay deployed to Saudi Arabia for about nine months to serve in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm as the USCENTCOM Engineer.

In 1992 Jay was reassigned to Fort Eustis, Virginia, and - four years later - retired from the Army having served over 29+ years. The goal of the family was to return to Tampa where daughters Sandra and Karen had made their home, but the best Jay was able to do was to get hired by Florida State University so Jay and Bonnie and daughter Anne and son Robert lived in Tallahassee from 1996 through 2001. (During this time Anne graduated from high school and began to attend FSU and Robert graduated from high school and began attending Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)).

After five years at FSU Jay applied to work at Stetson University at its new campus in the town of Celebration. The Bradens said goodbye to FSU and moved back into the Brianholly Drive home that had been rented in their absence. The plan was to have Jay commure for perhaps trwo years, and then move the family into the Ornando area. That plan didn't quite work: Jay commuted 59 miles each way daily for 12 years, though for some of the time he was allowed to work from home two days a week.

At the time we thought 2609 Brianholly Drive was to be our retirement home, but we were wrong.