What a tough weekend!

Dang. These past 48 hours have been TOUGH! Father's Day without DH was a tough thing to get through. All weekend I was on a hair trigger for EVERYTHING. Saturday night DH was able to skype and I cried "on his shoulder" for a while telling him what was going on here and how I was feeling. He did a bit of crying too, I know he is hurting as much as I am. When I was going through the list of everything that was bothering me he thought he was anticipating my next comment when he mentioned "yeah, and then so-and-so's death had to be hard on you". The problem? I had not seen on facebook that "so-and-so", a dear friend of mine from Texas had died. She died of complications of cancer and leaves behind an Air Force husband and three small boys. My heart was ripped out of my chest when I realized this. I haven't been the same since. I haven't lost a friend to death since high school. The saying is that God won't give you more than you can handle, but the timing of finding out about my friend's death really pushed me to what felt like a breaking point. I had a minor anxiety attack and heart palpitations.

Sunday I didn't do much better. I didn't make it to church because of how frail I felt. Last Sunday I was no where near this frail and one friend asking me how I was doing led to my crying my make up off. If I had gone to church on Father's Day in my frame of mind it would not have been pretty. The kids and I hung out and watched movies while I took a break from "real life". We all needed the break. The kids were showing signs of feeling my stress and I just had to pull the "emergency brake" so to speak and rest. I'm not superwoman and I refuse to stress myself sick.

Today was a bit easier. I did cry about a mixup at the commissary, but I didn't have sobbing fits or feel like curling up in a ball, so I think I did pretty good. lol I'm sure the people at the gas station where I was fueling the van were wondering why the girl with the minivan had tears streaming down her face, but oh well...

Tonight a roach was crawling on the wall in the dining room (in Hawaii, it doesn't matter how clean you keep your house, you are going to have bugs... and geckos). I grabbed a flight boot and a flip flop and started my stalking. lol I actually tasted the adrenaline rush and noticed the sharpening effect it had on my vision and muscle tension. That was kinda cool. I did manage to kill the darn thing without it ending up flying into my hair (a common occurance) so I counted that as a "win". As I came down off the adrenaline high I remembered that I had forgotten to eat anything but a 6 inch Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sub today, so I finally grabbed dinner at 9pm. It is easy to get so busy taking care of kids that I forget to eat!

Tomorrow I get to meet a friend's new baby at the hospital and then hit spin class! I've noticed that my heart palpitation from stress go away when I've been working out hard core, so I need to throw myself back into the fray. So far I have lost 13lbs since February, so I'm thrilled! 20 more to go!

This is how we roll...

Every time I take the kids to the commissary someone always says "your hands are full". They find it amazing that I can shop with three kids by myself. Well today I took a picture to show "how we roll". ;-)

Thank you commissar for these awesome "space ship" carts!

Three months

This is what three months looks like...

 

We aren't at the half-way point yet unfortunately. Hopefully this will be the longest deployment DH will ever do, although with the current state of the world who knows what his ship tour will look like.

This 3 month block has been very tough, much tougher than DH's last deployment, which was 6 months. Miss Tornado misses DH this time like crazy. Every night she asks to talk to DH, but we only get to talk to him once or twice a week. She brings it up with other people too, poor thing. She knows that Daddy is on a trip and she says that he visits in the computer.

Soon we will be starting our birthday blitz that the summer has become. Man-Puppy is next month, Miss Tornado is August and Baby Bird is in September and then DH's birthday is two days after Baby Bird's birthday. I think planning the kids' parties will keep time moving quickly.

Next month is going to be difficult. Miss Tornado has her child group study at the Army hospital here. We aren't quite sure what will happen as a result. She will be evaluated by a Speech Therapist, an Occupational Therapist and a few other people while she plays with other children. It means being at the hospital at 8am once a week for a month. Joy joy!

I've started working out more seriously. I've started spin classes twice a week and I do weight training two-three times a week. This week I've dropped 3lbs! If I can keep this up I will lose the weight in no time! I only have 19lbs to go!

Man-Puppy is doing great. He loves to run around and imitate his big sister. He has started trying to match wills with me, but he doesn't give me nearly the problems Miss Tornado gave me. Just two very different little people!

Baby Bird is starting to do baby pushups. She gets on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth. Crawling isn't too far away, a full 2 months ahead of her older siblings!!! She also pushs up onto her hands and toes in a full pushup position! What a strong Baby Bird!

DH is doing well. He misses us so much, but he has a good Bible study out there for some fellowship and we do get to Skype once or twice a week. He  has bought some awesome gifts for us and will buy a couple more soon. He says that the people at the bazaar on base sell old British guns from the days of colonialism, he wants to get one to hang on the wall. He bought me a blouse and Zion a traditional Afghan outfit. I can't wait to get it! I'm going to see if he can get me some fabric as well. He says the people who come onto the base to sell things are really friendly and one guy keeps trying to get him to buy a tailored suit. I keep telling him to go ahead and let the guy make it for him, who knows when a nice suit will come in handy? :-)

It has been such a long 3 months, but I am thankful that God is bringing us through the way only He can. 

Happy Father's Day!

Father's Day is coming up and I came up with the perfect gift for DH! It is on it's way to him and since I"m pretty sure he doesn't read the blog I thought I would post it here. :-) I printed these as 5x7s and framed them so he can hang them on the wall or put them on his desk at work. I know he is going to LOVE them!

Graduation!

Well, last Tuesday I got up at 4am to watch my brother in law's graduation from the Naval Academy! He finally made it and now he gets to go to the real Navy!

Watching him graduate made me think of DH's graduation from there. I wasn't there, we hadn't even met yet, but I really wish I could have been there. DH went through so much to graduate from that school and I know that was a super proud day in his life. We didn't meet until the next August and were married a year and a half after he graduated.

When DH got word that he was deploying this year, our second thought (after "OH CRAP") was "we are going to miss BIL's graduation". :-( We had planned on touring the Academy so DH could show me his old haunts and touring Annapolis. He was going to take me to a couple of restaurants that he liked and we were possibly going to go on a date. Maybe one day... I know it was tough on DH to miss his brother's graduation. 

Here is a picture of DH graduating from USNA. I know that look on his face and that is pure pride right there... :-)

 Here is DH almost exactly 6 years later in Afghanistan.