Well here I set three months after my last blog post, I swore I would never let it go that long without posting!  But lets just be honest, I havent thought once until now about updating!!  Our lives have been the definition of crazy lately and I havent found much time for any of the extras.  August brought the beginning of my nursing school and L going to a new preschool full time, so we have stayed super busy with school work!! We are both loving our schools, but I am sure looking forward to a few weeks off for Christmas!  L turned 3 in October, and we celebrated with friends at the horse stables...which we all knew L would love since he adores horses.  T is doing well, he seems to be very ready to come home for his R&R!  Today we reached the 200 days down mark of the deployment.  When we reached the 100 day mark it felt like forever before he would be home, but I must say staying busy with school has made the last 100 seem to go by much faster!!  Will get some new pictures of L up this week, and hope to make a little more time for this soon!

Hot Summer Days

Well I always say how disappointed I am in myself for not making this a priority but this month it truly has gotten away from me!!  In the last six weeks I have been officialy admitted into the fall nursing class, which means I will be going to school full time doing clinicals.  I am super excited about this next step in my life, while I know I will be super busy and it will be super hard with T gone it will be worth it in the end!! L will be going to preschool full time so that he will have somewhere to be while I am in school and will also give me a little bit of free time for studying!!  He starts school next week and we are both excited about it because he is going to be at a great school!

As June came to an end so did my summer school, YAY!!!  Since I was no longer held down by school July has brought lots of fun activities and traveling.  We spent the fourth holiday back home with family and friends and then stayed an extra week to be able to celebrate the wedding of Jamie and Joe.  It was nice to be able to have a little bit longer then normal trip!  We also got to squeeze in a trip to the zoo with Aunt B and the boys to see the new dinosaur exhibit which is L's new thing so he LOVED it!!!  The trip was great but we were glad to get back to our little house!!

We have had a record setting month of high temperatures this month!! So we have spent alot of time in the little pool in our yard and also at the pools around town.  L has truly become a fish and will be swimming before I know it!! He was still too young to do lessons without me so as soon as he hits 3 he will be starting lessons at the indoor pool!! He will for sure be swimming without any assistance by the time daddy gets home and summer comes!

Speaking of daddy, T is doing good.  He celebrated his birthday this month which we tried to pack as much fun stuff into his care package as possible to make his day special!  He is waiting patiently for promotion orders which should come any day just waiting on the points to work out!  We miss him so much but are so proud of everything he is doing!!

This weekend with some help from great friends we built L a new swingset/fort.  The one that we had was left here by the previous owners and had surely seen better days!! So for the safety of our sweet child we decided that it was time to get a new one!!  I was hesitant to try such a big project without T here but luckily I have the best friends in the world that gave up their Sunday to help out!!  The work sure was worth it when L saw it, he was already spent hours on it and its still the first day!!  I see lots of hours on it in the future, here is just hoping that we can get a little bit cooler weather so its more enjoyable!!

May

Well I must say I have completely let this blog fall to the bottom of my priority list!  While everyone says the best thing you can do to survive a deployment is to stay busy, I will agree but I feel like I am barely staying afloat right now.  With the combination of drama with house/cars/vet visits, frg commitments, and taking on a summer school class I have felt completely overwhelmed.  BUT it has made the last almost 7 weeks FLY by!!  I have barely had time to breath but I also have barely had time to sit and be lonely :)  L's school ended in the middle of may so he has been hanging out with some of our good friends on my school mornings and absolutely loving it!! I am so blessed to have amazing friends who pick up my slack where I fall short!  I have been overwhelmed with this 5 week class and while it is alot of work I am already 1 week away from being done with it!! So there are advantages and disadvantages to taking summer classes, and luckily I am almost done with this one!  T seems to be doing well.  He is getting settled and I guess getting the ropes down pat and adjusting to life away from us.  It has been so nice to be able to skype and talk on the phone, deployments are much easier when you have communication!!  I have his address if anyone would like it!

While L and I have been busy we were able to make the time to escape for a few days to head home for uncle t's graduation.  It was nice to be able to be there and celebrate this milestone with him!  L loves his uncle t so it was great for him!  We also were able to squeeze in some time with family and friends and I even got a night out with courtney to eat dinner and catch a chick flick!  So overall it was a great weekend!!  Hopefully once things calm down we will be able to fit many more fun weekends in!  This week I find out what fall semester is going to look like for me, so I am anxiously awaiting that news!  Hopefully I will be able to keep this better up to date once my final is over!

Deployment has begun

Well its been a while since you have heard from us but I must say it has been a crazy month!!  "D" day as I call it or deployment day has come and gone...I just spoke with T this morning and after 8 days of traveling and layovers he has finally made it to the FOB he will be at all year.  We had heard some bad things about the place but he said will all the native workers they have had coming in every day to build it up its actually exceeded his expectations...he was quite thrilled to find the plastic flushing toilets and a john deere gator he has "borrowed" for now :) we all know T well enough to know not to leave things like that unattended but I guess his coworkers havent figured that out yet!!

Saying goodbye was a very difficult thing to do, T and I have had to do it before but this is the first year long stent he will be away from L.  L is still a little young to understand why he is gone but he is adjusting ok...he does great during the days because he understands me saying dad is gone for work means he wont be here during the day but he will continually ask for him at night because work means he should be home at night.  Bath time and Bed time are the hardest because those are usually T's things he does with him but it is gradually getting better!  We enjoy watching the videos he left for L and have been able to skype with him some which L loves and thinks is so cool to see his daddy in the computer!

While this month has been busy this past week or so has been crazy.  We have had two natural disasters hit, almost 3 weeks ago we had a tornado come through town which did not physically hit our house but it did pick up our "shed", broke one of our big trees in the back, and took one of the shutters off the front of the house and smashed it into T's car so we have an adjuster coming out tomorrow to assess the damage.  We then got the "great flood of 2010" last weekend.  It has actually been pretty bad, we luckily live almost a mile from the closest point on the river, which the neighborhood beside us was evacuated but we luckily sustained no damage.  L was out of school all week and they still havent decided on next week whether they will have it or not.  Then there is my car...the day T left L and I packed up and headed home to enjoy some distraction and time with grandparents to help keep us busy the first few days he was gone.  While home my parked car was hit in front of my parents house.  The girl seemed to be a bit out of it because she side swipped a lexus before hitting my SUV head on.  Her insurance company told me it was fine to drive on home so I did but unfortunately found out when I went to get an estimate that I should not be driving it.  Her insurance had to provide a rental car (which might I add is sweet, its a 2011 and I have never been able to smell new leather in any car I have driven haha) but I was quite mad that they didnt take the time to notice she had done some serious damage underneath my car when she plowed herself under.  But luckily we made it here safe and my car is now hanging out at the body shop waiting to be fixed. 

We are trying to stay busy because it seems that the busy days are the easiest.  I start back for summer school next monday and L will be hanging out at my friend Kristin's house with her little boy while I am at school, but we are looking forward to the end of June when my class is over and we are able to enjoy the summer!!

I have T's address and will be sending out a package to him today but if anyone would like the address to be able to send him some words of encouragement email me and I will be more then happy to send it to you!!

Company BBQ

This week brought us record breaking high temperatures...which was great for a week with two work BBQ family days!  L enjoyed the bouncy houses and T and I enjoyed some time with him "off work" together!  Definitely need more days like these!!

Partay!

Last weekend we enjoyed time with some friends and family we hadnt seen in a while, mine and t's parents threw a "going away" party for T.  It was a beautiful day to spend in the backyard and it was so nice to have some time together before T leaves.  Dad grilled some great pork tenderloin sandwiches and mom and t's mom put together a great spread of food.  My great friend Marci Pelayo of The Cake Spot made a cake for T and an extra sheet cake that was absolutely delicious--chocolate cake with buttercream icing, oreos, chocolate chips, chocolate ganache and I am sure I am forgetting something else---but it was to die for!  L had fun playing with his friends that came, and T and I are so blessed to be surrounded by such amazing people who came to wish him well.

Easter

We had a wonderful trip home for easter full of visits with family.  We visited both sets of my grandparents on friday since its hard to fit everyone in on one day when they live in different states.  We then spent easter afternoon with T's family having an easter egg hunt.  L had a day of "accidents" including tumbling down the hill in the backyard but still came out with a smile on his face.  He enjoyed hunting eggs and did pretty good at it compared to last year!!  He also enjoyed playing with his cousins the big ones and the only other little one there this time Olivia.