Military Wife

Lots of moving...

Moving...

Moving...

Moving far from home...

Moving two cars, three kids and one dog...all riding with HER of course.

Moving sofas to basements because they won't go in THIS house;

Moving curtains that won't fit;

Moving jobs and certifications and professional development hours.

Moving away from friends;

Moving toward new friends;

Moving her most important luggage: her trunk full of memories.

Often waiting...

Waiting...

Waiting...

Waiting for housing.

Waiting for orders.

Waiting for deployments.

Waiting for phone calls.

Waiting for reunions.

Waiting for the new curtains to arrive.

Waiting for him to come home,

For dinner...AGAIN!

They call her 'Military Dependent', but she knows better:

She is fiercely In-Dependent.

She can balance a check book;

Handle the yard work;

Fix a noisy toilet;

Bury the family pet...

She is intimately familiar with drywall anchors and toggle bolts.

She can file the taxes;

Sell a house;

Buy a car;

Or set up a move...

.....all with ONE Power of Attorney.

She welcomes neighbors that don't welcome her.

She reinvents her career with every PCS;

Locates a house in the desert, The Arctic, Or the deep south.

And learns to call them all 'home'.

She MAKES them all home.

Military Wives are somewhat hasty...

They leap into:

Decorating,

Leadership,

Volunteering,

Career alternatives,

Churches,

And friendships.

They don't have 15 years to get to know people.

Their roots are short but flexible.

They plant annuals for themselves and perennials for those who come

after them.

Military Wives quickly learn to value each other:

They connect over coffee,

Rely on the spouse network,

Accept offers of friendship and favors.

Record addresses in pencil...

Military Wives have a common bond:

The Military Wife has a husband unlike other husbands; his commitment is

unique.

He doesn't have a 'JOB'

He has a 'MISSION' that he can't just decide to quit...

He's on-call for his country 24/7.

But for her, he's the most unreliable guy in town!

His language is foreign

TDY

PCS

EPR

SOS

ACC

BDU

ACU

BAR

CIB

TAD

ABU

And so, a Military Wife is a translator for her family and his.

She is the long- distance link to keep them informed;

The glue that holds them together.

A Military Wife has her moments:

She wants to wring his neck;

Dye his uniform pink;

Refuse to move to Siberia;

But she pulls herself together.

Give her a few days,

A travel brochure,

A long hot bath,

A pledge to the flag,

A wedding picture,

And she goes.

She packs.

She moves.

She follows.

Why?

What for?

How come?

You may think it is because she has lost her mind.

But actually it is because she has lost her heart.

It was stolen from her by a man,

Who puts duty first,

Who longs to deploy,

Who salutes the flag,

And whose boots in the doorway remind her that as long as he is her

Military Husband,

She will remain his Military Wife.

And would have it no other way.

--Author Unknown

Renaissance Fair

This weekend we headed north to the Renaissance Fair...and we had so much fun!  The weather was perfect and we all got dressed up, a little bit.

They were officially crowned princesses by the King and Queen

This was our knight for the jousting tournament we attended.  Great fun and ours was the 'villain'  and often was disqualified for cheating.

 A wonderful day of fun, and lots of walking, the kids did great and are talking about next year, what to wear and what to do.

Too busy

Sadly, spring break is over, but it did end with a bang!  Eric's parents came out and we had a great time with them.  Grandma always had hugs and cuddles to share.

 Since Grandma and Grandpa were in town, we arranged to have an air show for them

The weather was great, and lots of outside play time was had by all

Along with wrestling with Grandpa

Sending out big hugs to all the grandparents!

Sweetness starts school

She wasn't scared a bit...she was very excited!

Today, with the end of our marvelous spring break, she began preschool.

 Big sister always there to guide her if need be

Showing off her fun frog backpack from her birthday

And here is her classroom!

The have frogs

And sing lots of songs

Best of all, she wants to go back!  I know that she's been more than ready and it will be really good for her to play with other three year olds.  CJ was disappointed that they didn't have outside playtime together, and complained that they didn't get to be in the same class together.  They really are best of friends and play very well together.

To be five

It is fun to watch a five year old in action.  As they really become little people and yet, how their logic works is fiercely simple yet accurate most of the time.  Our five year old recently got a hold of the camera and did some self portraits.

Last night, that wiggly tooth finally let loose

 She is determined to be a big helper and to not just be 5.  The other day at a check out she informed the cashier that she'll be 6 in January.  Recently her family jobs included taking the trash out (which she has relished all aspects of) and emptying the dishwasher.  One day after emptying the dishwasher, she was so excited that dad was filling it back up.  Smiling she told me, "I'll move my happy face after I empty it again."  A heart full of service!  To prove this point, she removed the name tag next to the job chart and proclaimed that she was now responsible for all the jobs.  Her younger sister is a smart cookie, and did not complain about no longer having any jobs.  I also realize that this will not last forever.  She already has her moments of disappointment with work before play, but over all, I admire her altruistic soul

Spring Break

We get a glorious two week Spring Break --and I'm loving it! It is flying by too quickly and it hasn't been all fun and games.

We (and when I say we, I mean the kids were helping in one way or another) started off the break by making apple pastry bars --like an apple pie, in bar form, yum.  Then we made 4 dozen chocolate zucchini muffins and iced the ones we didn't freeze.

That was thankfully done before everyone got sick.  I battled a day and a half of allergies. Eric took a sick day and slept most of the day away, CJ has had a very slight runny nose but otherwise healthy, Kjetil is battling an upper respiratory virus and ear infection since last Wed. he's on meds now, and of course Laurelei picked up the respiratory virus. Found that out officially today while at urgent care for 2 hours...then waited for meds for an hour.

Extra naps and extra long ones

Like run on sentences and runny noses, we weren't stopped in getting done more fun projects.  The kids' bathroom has been transformed from tropical fish to monkeys and frogs.  The girls really did help clean the bathroom up for the transformation --I love our kids!

In the kitchen I began painting and did some stenciling as well, and the girls loved helping with the painting.

I got a new toy storage bin to help in the toy room and we have been climbing the mountain of laundry and have nearly conqured it. Which turns out to be good timing as the washer began leaking this morning, at least the clothes are clean --even if not folded.  Bonus blessing, my father in law shows up tomorrow and he has skills in this area!  (I hope)

He likes to climb up and sit watching the cars go by

We have also been beautifying the outdoors, with new flowers and our container garden.

Currently we have only potatoes that have poked through...still waiting on our carrots and beans.  Not sure why blogger likes this picture sideways, I know I rotated it when I imported it, hmmmm.

The girls are very excited about Easter coming up.  They have been excited to decorate the house for Easter, so they helped make a fun garland.

When asked, Laurelei will let you know that Easter is about baby Jesus dying....I think we'll get it sorted out that Jesus wasn't a baby, but for now...she's working on it.

Tomorrow Eric's parents come for a week, in case you hadn't spoken to CJ lately to get the official sleep count down.  We will take in the air show --if the kids are feeling well--and lots of other fun activities I'm sure, along with a couple of home projects that need attention.

Time to hang him from his toe nails

Last week I did some computer upgrading....my five thousand or so...it could be a lot more than that...un-backed up, un-printed pictures, seemed to be really dragging my computer down.  So I got an external hard drive --which I learned is different from a flash drive--with a terabyte of memory.  That is one thousand Giga Bytes...my computer has 74GB....pales in comparison. The drive claims that it will hold 4 million pictures....it will take me the rest of my life to find out! I got my pictures moved over...and that freed up some 12GB of space and I was hoping that would speed things up.

I don't know that it really has sped up.  Some things are working in a much happier fashion...but while online things seem to be very slow, like when loading bejeweled blitz, not that I play it very often (hehehehe :)) but it still loads slow and freezes up on me at times.  I still need to back up my pictures as well, but everything came to a screeching halt, and the screeching was being done mostly by me.  My computer monitor died.  Makes it very hard to do anything if you cannot see what you are doing.  A neighbor had a dusty old monitor sitting in a closet, okay I don't know where it was but they didn't need it, and graciously let me try it out to verify that it was only the monitor, it was, and I will compensate them for their kindness.

To get through the weekend, I was very grateful that my husband had decided to grace us with his presence and allowed me to use his laptop to check email and play bejeweled blitz once, okay maybe twice (hehehee).   Really he likes to hang out with us, but his job didn't issue us (as in his family) and doesn't have the same feelings about the matter as we do.  He came home on Saturday from spending 2 weeks in Las Vegas playing a grown up version, in the sky, of laser tag.  He had fun.  Lots of fun.  Maybe too much fun.  He also got to see the NASCAR race, for free and catch up with a high school buddy in town for the races.  He ate great food at outrageous prices, went golfing, got a water massage and gave his money away...but here is what really got me:

Waiting at the airport, he was hungry and after two weeks of vacation. I mean training, he decided to treat himself to one of the very tempting and enormous Cinnabun rolls.  You know the kind that one must savor every delicious cinnamon speck because they are just that good and one individual roll costs more than any regular dozen of donuts might cost.

He took a bite.  He took one and only one bite.

Then realized, that's not what he was hungry for, and THREW IT AWAY!!!

He threw it away.  Claimed that it would have been too much of a hassle to bring it home on his direct flight.  So he threw away a perfectly good, nearly whole, warm, ginormous cinnamon roll.  And for that it is time to hang him from his toe nails.

He also had the camera with him, so I need to upload his pictures and take some new ones to share...next time, after I've clipped his toe nails to let him down.

music

We like music at our house.  We have a WIDE variety from silly toddler songs, learning songs, classical music, or contemporary music, take your pick we have it and we play it.  It was no surprise to me that Eric had found a song that got him through his deployment.  He shared the song that made him think of his family.  It is beautiful!  ~Josh Groban and Charlotte Church singing, The Prayer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqBv9-yz9g4

Take a moment to go watch it.  A tissue might even be in order.  They are both great classically trained singers.  Eric continued on and on about their techniques and he loved thinking about what they might be saying while singing in Latin (I think it is Latin).

However, as he shared it, it became clear once again that while we both listen to most types of music, we both gravitate to very different music.  Here at home we had our own song that we would listen to nightly, dancing in the kitchen.  Listen to the lyrics, it is also very appropriate and fun!  Michael Franti & Spearhead, Say Hey (I love you)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehu3wy4WkHs

Did you go check it out? You started be-bopping in your chair didn't you...or did you let loose and dance too?  It is our happy song that we listen to any time we need a pick me up.  We shout at each other "I LOVE YOU" not just during the song, but any time now.  Personally, the lyrics --Hey I'll be gone today, but I"ll be back around the way --seemed so fitting and to be followed with -- the one thing that I know is that I love you, I love you, I love you, Filled us with such joy we couldn't get enough of the song.

And I hope that you have enjoyed this distraction of music today.