This is my family

Brendan brought this home the other day. You might want to click on it to zoom in. This was his explanation for the picture (right to left):

Mommy, Daddy, Charlie the fish in his aquarium on top of the bookcase, Darby on the floor, Eva in trouble because she broke Brendan's robot, the broken robot, and Brendan building with pieces in his hand.

What a funny family portrait. He cracks me up.

5 years ago

We had one child, a delightful boy who was just over a year old. Brendan had just begun walking with confidence and sucked his thumb. Jason's senior year had just begun and he was studying for the Dental Admission Test and applying to schools. He was the ROTC Cadet Commander. I had been out of teaching for a year but volunteered occasionally at my old school. I was in the Relief Society presidency of a ward that was so small it would be dissolved by the year's end. We were living in an on-campus apartment at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix. It was going to be a year of BIG changes for us.

Its fun to look back and see how far we have come and recount the path that brought us here.

Continuing the trend

I was right for once! With every pregnancy I have had a "feeling" whether it was a boy or girl. And I have been wrong every time. Brendan wanted a brother and I can tell Jason had leanings towards a boy too, though he would be very happy with either. This time I felt like we were having a girl but figured it was a boy because I am always wrong. But, at my ultrasound today we found out that the baby is another girl. Yay! And I already have all the little girly things so I feel pretty prepared. Now to shop for Darby's big girl bed. :)

Brendan's brain

Brendan surprises me everyday with the things he notices and what he says. He sees a spider and he tells me that he needs to count its legs to make sure it is not an insect (he tells me insects have 6 legs). He asks me why "knife" starts with a "k" and why "one" doesn't start with a "w". He informs me that circles are round and have no sides. He tells our Primary President all about sharks, using words like predator, prey, nocturnal and carnivore. He tells me that my dinner smells "marvelous". He says that Jesus is "already in his heart" when I show him the picture of Jesus knocking on the door with no doorknob. He is like a little man but still so very boy. Its a great age and I love watching him learn and explore.

But my favorite Brendan stories of late came this past week. We have been watching old episodes of the show Wipeout since Jason loves it but was unable to watch it while deployed. For those who have never seen it, it is a game show where contestants run through a series of crazy physical obstacles to see who can do it the fastest. These obstacles are things like huge balls that you bounce across and try to avoid falling in the water below and foam covered rotating arms that you have to jump over to stay on your platform. There are these two cheesy commentators as well.

Well, Brendan loves to watch this with his dad. The other night, he decided to set up his own Wipeout course in the house with furniture, pillows, the toy chest and various balls. He even came up with three separate fake contestant names and narrated what he was doing as he was doing it. It was so funny. I wish I had video of it. Bonus - he was exhausted at the end and slept well.

Yesterday I purchase a stuffed pig that come from the iPhone app Angry Birds. We already had the red bird and I wanted to add to the collection. I figured the kids would have fun using the red bird and the pig as a sort of bowling game. Well Brendan took it a step further. I looked over and he had built this.

He had a great time then throwing the bird at the "castle" to try to dislodge the pig. He's just so creative. What a kid.

Coming Home

Jason here. So I have been at home for the last few weeks and am finally getting around to writing about it. The flight back was great, I slept through most of it. Flying from Afghanistan was a two stage affair: to Germany and then home to Fort Bragg. Both flights were uneventful because I laid out on the ground, put in earplugs, took some sleep drugs and conked out for the entirety of the 9 or 10 hour flights.

We ended up staying in Germany for 48 hours which was OK because Germany is beautiful. First thing I did when we got to Germany after unpacking in our hotel was to grab my running shoes and head out into the fresh clean air for a jog. Oh, it was glorious! It had just rained and the air was a cool 70 degrees and sunny. I passed the time there chatting with Christine, reading, and taking walks.




When we arrived at Fort Bragg, we landed and sat there for a half hour. Then everyone got off the plane and headed to Green Ramp to meet our families. Brendan and Eva came running up and gave me big hugs and didn't let go for about twenty minutes. Christine came up Darbs who was a bit hesitant to see me. It was among the most pleasant experiences of my life to see them there. It just felt so right being there with them. By the way, I think Christine deserves a medal for what she did on the home front.

I had to wait for a bit to get some stuff and then we went home (Christine wrote about this earlier). I know they say that adjusting to homelife takes some getting used to. That hasn't really been the case for me - it feels like I never left (Christine feels differently, but she can explain later). I do the chores I can, play with the kids tons and just enjoy life at home. I realize when I see the little ones running around having a good time that life just doesn't get any better and that I need to savor it. Being gone from the kids and Christine so long has made me realize just how much I enjoy being a rough and tumble dad and how much I love hugs and kisses from the kiddos (Christine too).

I got put on a four day pass but that complicated by some urgent work business that has been spoken of already. All I can say is that is it really good to be home. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and after months and months of being gone I appreciate Christine and the kids in a way that is hard to describe. I know Christine sometimes gets frustrated with this because I let the kids step all over me (especially at bedtime) but... I can't help it, its just so nice to be home!

Family Bowling Time

This is Jason's last free Saturday for the rest of the month so we decided to go bowling on post. Its cheap and fun and the kids LOVE it! For the first little bit we let Darby roam around but when she thwarted finger smashing between balls once too often and would take off trying to run down the lane, then we put her in one of the child seats meant for dining. That was the best idea we had all night.

I didn't bowl very well. Jason hit a few strikes. Too bad they were accidentally on Brendan's turn (there was a mechanical malfunction and he went on Brendan's second turn). The funny thing is, because of that, Brendan's score was the best of all. We got the bumpers for the kids. Somehow Brendan manage to get his ball on the outside of the bumpers instead of in the lane. Jason had to go rescue it.

On the last frame Eva took down 9 pins initially, with a good ol' between-the-legs-give-it-all-a-three-year-old-can push. Then, with one pin remaining, she managed to get a spare with a soft push of the ball. It was funny how the ball just seemed to migrate over to the last pin, at a speed of less than 1 mile per hour. Lucky girl.

Jason had fun getting these pictures with a new app on his iphone called Hipstamatic (which I want now). Bowling was a ton of fun. I dare say we will be back soon.

Alarm clock

This morning Jason and I were awakened by Eva in our room. She got on our bed and said, "Time to wake up, my friends!" I told her that it was Sunday and church didn't start until after lunch so we could sleep in. She said, "We don't sleep in today. We sleep out." Then she proceeded to get her little plastic animal figurines to entice us to get up. The she said she had a tummy ache because she was so hungry. I gave up and got out of bed. Its a good thing she's so cute.

Labor Day plans

It was Jason's first weekend home and lucky us, it was a three day one. We decided that we needed to get out of town and to make good on a birthday promise to Brendan, that we would go to the aquarium. So we left on Saturday morning to go the the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher, about 2.5 hours away and on the coast. Living in the Bay Area, we have been to many aquariums. This one was smallish but nice. The kids enjoyed it. Being pregnant, the fishy smell was getting to me so I was glad when we were done. The best part was the big coral reef tank in the middle. Inside were sting rays and sharks and other fish. It was huge and the kids stayed in that area watching the fish for quite a while.

After the aquarium we went to one of the beaches in Kure Beach. It was kind of crowded but there was still space for us to set up our shade and eat some snacks. The kids wanted to get right into the water, even Darby. In fact, she was surprisingly fearless and kept trying to run away from me and get deeper in the waves. When we finally did have to go she put up the biggest fit. Jason brought our boogie board and Eva and Brendan had a great time riding the waves into shore.

After about 45 minutes, the lifeguard blew his whistle and hustled everyone out of the water. There had been a shark sighting at a nearby beach. And so we stayed and played in the sand and shallows for a bit longer and then headed to the hotel.

Everyone needed a good rinse. I swear between the 5 of us we must have brought bucketfuls of of sand with us. Jason's shorts pockets were so jammed full of it that when we got home and I was able to empty them (I had to make a hole in the inside pocket portion) it was at least 4 cups worth. After cleaning up and settling in, we drove to downtown Wilmington to walk to riverfront. The steamboats were cool and I wished we had more time to ride them and the horse drawn carriages or the trolley. We ate dinner at a local burger place (it was just okay - I bet they have great seafood there, I just don't like seafood) and then we walked back to an old fashioned chocolate and ice cream shop for treats. Yummy!! The kids were so messy but they loved their ice cream cones.

It was a rough night however. We failed to get a hotel room with 2 separate rooms and Darby wouldn't settle down since we, the parents, were right next to her. She cried and cried to get out of the crib. The other two wouldn't settle in either. After fighting kid mayhem for over an hour and after several threats, removals and time outs, they fell asleep. Jason and I did shortly after. We had wanted to stay up and watch a movie but they had exhausted us. The next day we went to church in Wilmington and then headed home. It is a pretty drive and nice to have some talking time with Jason. At home, we unpacked and all kind of crashed (being short on sleep) until dinner. It was a nice weekend, with its own speed bumps but also a lot of good family time.

After deployment

First of all, let me apologize for this grumpy post. Go ahead and skip it if you want. But I needed to vent a bit. This past week has been interesting. Not quite how I envisioned things. The kids and I are adjusting well though I still find my mind thinking "when he leaves again, I will . . . " every so often. What has made that more difficult is that he HAS been gone a lot this week. Let me explain. Jason had been wanting to go to Jumpmaster School (the guy who supervises the parachute jumps) for while and so he put his name in to be selected. He never heard anything so he figured he wasn't picked. When he got home he was supposed to have 4 days off and then have only half days until block leave in October, and every Friday off. However, when he went in the day after he got home (to pick up something small that he'd forgotten) he was told he had gotten the school slot and then they gave him a laundry list of things to do before school started in 10 days. This list included a few jumps, physicals, paperwork, and a test on over 300 items that he was given that day to study (and was to be tested on 6 days later). He also has to write, prepare and give an hour long class about non trauma dental work as part of a totally different responsibility not related to Jumpmaster School. The thing is, someone had to have known that he got the school slot. Someone SHOULD have let him know so he could have pushed to come home earlier and spend time with us. But someone dropped that ball. So half of the 4 days off was spent at work, part of Labor Day weekend was spent studying, and this week he will be on post ALL day EVERY day until Jumpmaster School starts on Friday. Sigh. And so, post deployment is ending up being a bit like deployment, with him being gone. The good thing is, the school is here at Fort Bragg so that he comes home at night and he is safe. Jumpmaster School is a great opportunity that he wants, it is just REALLY bad timing. I'll be grateful for block leave. We already have some fun things planned. Oh well, life is what it is. If there is one thing the Army has taught me, it is to be very flexible with my expectations.

Home again, home again

Jason is finally home. Actually, some husbands are gone for 15 months so my 7 months doesn't hold a candle to that. However, I am still so very grateful that he is home safely.

It was kind of a fiasco to start with. The return date changed over 10 times in the course of the course of the month. Finally the day to fly out came. He arrived in Germany where they were supposed to gas up, do some maintenance and go, but along came Hurricane Irene and they had to postpone the trip to the States. Jason sent me a message that he'd be in Germany until Monday instead of Sunday. Sigh. Then I received a message from the commander's wife (bless her soul) letting me know what time the flight would be in. She did tell me that her husband had gotten word of two different return times and that she'd text me when we got the final say. That night I got a text saying 1:30pm. Brendan went to school in the morning and I told him I'd pick him up after lunch. I took Eva to speech at 9 and got another message saying that they were coming in at 10:30. We live half an hour from post. So after speech we raced home, I tried to change clothes and look more presentable and ran to get Brendan.

I was so excited but I was also nervous. Things had changed so many times that I felt that I couldn't believe it was all real until I was hugging him. We got to green ramp (the troop mobilization and deployment hangar and airfield) and waited anxiously for the plane to land.

When it roared overhead, everyone got really quiet. They opened the hangar doors so we could see the plane but the men took over half an hour to actually get off the plane. The energy in that hangar was high as we all waited. The kids were super excited and running around. It was all very electric and anxious.

Then the men started to walk into the hangar. I saw Jason and waved and then sent the two older kids to go hug Daddy. They met him on the walkway and he dropped his stuff and swooped them up in a hug. I cried. I picked up Darby and walked to meet him. Hugs and kisses were exchanged. I felt like I could finally breathe.

We couldn't go home right away since the soldiers had to turn "sensitive items" in and wait for them to be counted and accounted for. This is typical and quite normal for all you non-military types. We got to hang out int he hangar and meet all Jason's deployment buddies. After that we drove to the depot to pick up his luggage (two huge Tuffboxes and a bag that barely fit in the Mazda) and then we were able to leave. I couldn't really wrap my brain around the fact that he was actually home. The back of my mind was convinced that he was here only temporarily. It took me a good two days to not feel that way anymore.

It has been so nice to have him home. I am so much more relaxed now that my "back up" is here. I do have to try hard though to not take over everything. I have just been so used to "my way" that I have to remind myself to chill out quite often. The kids seem to be reintegrating very well. They have begun the "testing" phase for Daddy - "what can I get away with?" kind of stuff - but that is to be expected.

All in all, our lives have quickly slipped back to normal. I am so grateful for the blessings we have been given as a family. I cannot tell you how full my heart is.