My dad worked for the US Forest Service, so we moved around a lot as he moved up the Forest Service ladder. Some of the houses we lived in were Forest Service Compound houses (like military base housing). I lived in 8 different houses growing up. The first was a FS Compound house in Northern California on the Mendocino National Forest. Next was a rental house near the Angeles National Forest in Southern California; then my mom found a cute little cottage with a huge yard for sale in the next town over. My parents bought it and fixed it up. My mom was reallly good at decorating and gardening, so our houses, no matter what the size, were always beautiful. Then my dad got transferred again, and we lived in another FS Compound house on the Shasta Trinity National Forest in Northern California where my dad was the Ranger while my parents built their own larger house adjacent to the Compound. It was a mail order house from Cap Homes. It was a pretty neat ranch style house, and we were all super proud of it because every single one of us kids helped build it (even if we just painted or handed my dad shingles and nails). Then he got transferred again back to the Angeles National Forest. They bought a 1950s Brady Bunch like house that had pink stucco, an orangish rock roof and a totally pink kitchen (tile and appliances). By this time it was the early 80s, and I was in middle school/high school. They reroofed the house and painted it right away. It was much better after that. The yard and layout were really nice, and all the interior finishes the previous owners put in were really high end. After a few years, we moved again - this time back East to the Washington DC office. We built my family’s largest and all time favorite house in Virginia. It was a colonial, so different from the California style houses we were used to. We all loved the hard wood floors, the staircase and the huge deck my dad built. We were there for 3 years. Then my dad was transferred back to Southern California to the Cleveland National Forest as Forest Supervisor where they built the Spanish style house in San Diego where they still Iive today. He did get transferred one last time back to the Angeles as the Forest Supervisor, but he stayed at my grandmother’s house during the week and went home to San Diego on the weekends. He was 5 years away from retirement, and my parents wanted to retire in San Diego, so they kept their SD house.