A Glimpse at Christmas 2011

 While our Christmas celebration was short one Papa in person, we had a wonderful time at our many family get-togethers.  So here are some pics of Alyssa's second Christmas at various places.  (There are many more and much of it is on video to catch what the camera didn't.  I can't run two things at once without a tripod...)

 We do love our puzzles in my family and Alyssa has begun to follow that trend.  She has MANY puzzles (in wooden with peg forms) now and a rack to store them in.  She spends quite a bit of time with the two she had before the holidays so I can only imagine how much more we will be doing with the new ones to play with!

 Grandma!!  Open!  "Peeeze..."

 Alyssa:  A bucket to carry!
Momma: YES! Crayon storage!

 This one got the ball rolling with wrapping paper destruction.  She used to rip one piece off and not move on until an adult had taken it from her to throw away....So long gone when she saw a face of a lion 'colored' onto this Magnadoodle!

 We love music and are lucky to have had Uncle Brian and family home this year (for a wedding next week of Cousin Dustin) who is a musician.  He was playing everything from classic Christmas music to little ditties and polka.  I believe there may have been Oh Canada at some point even.  No matter what though, if it was upbeat enough, Alyssa was rocking along with it!  Thanks Auntie Becky for dancing too!

 I had to beg for this shot but she deigned to smile AT the camera finally!  Of course she was quite pleased to have escaped with someone else's hat...

 Santa (*ahem*) did a GREAT job wrapping this large box I thought... ;)
Either way its been a greatly enjoyed gift already and only was able to be played shortly after getting home tonight since the holiday plans require daytime travel of course.  As the only person in the house able to handle the video camera and digital camera I opted to take video for Papa to see later so there are no (as of yet) pictures of the SHOPPING CART that is snuggled inside that box.  It is pretty exciting to put babies in the seat and out and then trade spots with another baby though apparently.  Good job Santa!

It was a long day yesterday and longer today (considering the nap length of today was considerably shorter than yesterday) so this was a pretty standard face for the afternoon and evening.  I'd say she looks pretty good for having been up until 11pm on Christmas Eve and then only an hour nap today!!

From our family to yours, we wish you a wonderful holiday season no matter how you celebrate or what you celebrate.  Many wonderful memories to create and to keep!

"Next year..." and the Holidays

Yes, yes...almost a month and half between posts....The slippery slope of blogging distractions has started.  The one thing that a holiday season acts as for most people is a busy schedule!  Our holidays are no exception to the hustle-bustle of family, travel, food, crafts, shopping, decorating, gift wrapping, gift re-wrapping, so on and so forth.  Y'all know the routine I'm sure.

Things this year are a little different for us of course.  The deployment makes everything in our lives a little less typical.  This doesn't mean that our 'big events' are put on hold or that they aren't plenty of special like the would normally be.  It just means it takes a little more planning and a lot of luck to come out the way we want them.  Today is one such event for us.

We had our home Christmas celebration today.  Every year we have multiple Christmases to attend so we planted our feet and dug in and have our small family time on Christmas Eve morning.  This year instead of the three of us tearing into gifts together in pj's and then eating whatever Papa decides to make for breakfast, Alyssa and I hunkered down in front of the computer this morning and hit "Video Call" on Skype.  Alyssa watched with a smile as Papa appeared on the computer and was ready to show him all sorts of things (c'mon, she isn't quite two yet...she hasn't figured out that we could commence the ripping open of gifts right then).  So while they chatted a bit I set up the video camera on a shelf aiming at the bottom of the tree and then hit record.  Alyssa was handed a gift and to town she went!  Papa watched her open all her gifts under the tree and then she opened a couple for him too.  She did try to give them to him so he could open them but unfortunately Skype doesn't quite work that way yet so we sat on Momma's lap to open Papa's stuff.  (This is where that 'planning' should've come in.  I should have had his gifts wrapped and mailed over so that he could open them on the other end of Skype today.  I'll remember that better for the next deployment I swear!)  Of course his gifts will be mailed out to him ASAP next week and there are a couple things that he didn't get to see today for his holiday surprises.

It was wonderful to share the holiday together even if it was in a way that takes a little more effort.  Alyssa loved to have Papa 'here' and to show him not only her gifts but his as well.  She holds things up when asked and thrusts it as close to the web cam as possible (typically resulting in a black screen due to lack of light).  I read a blog today that a friend had posted a link to.  It is another blog for military families and it's theme was the phrase "Next year..."  A better phrase for us I have not thought of.  I have avoided using the phrase up until this point in this post and it was HARD!  It is almost like an anthem for many families who are temporarily apart.  "Next year..." we will get to go through the holiday craziness together.  "Next year..." we will get to curl up for classic holiday movies at night.  "Next year..." we will get to remember that this year was wonderful even with a deployment overlaying it. <3

Happy Holidays to all of you.

Holiday Season Commence!

Joy

To the World

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas

Joy to the World

Oh Christmas Tree

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

HOHOHO

HOHOHO

HOHOHO

Ahh...The holiday season...  I do love the season that brings families together, has delicious and much too filling meals to be shared, and all the trimmings of our childhood Christmases like trimmed trees and music while white snow is covering the ground outside.
Oh...no snow yet...Well, I'm sure it'll show up just in the nick of time (to make driving to those meals extra difficult)!
My little family is apart this holiday season but we will have fun anyways.  We will try our best to keep it as normal as possible and as special as we can all at the same time.  I'm hoping that schedules work out to have a Skyped Christmas this year!  Our personal family xmas is usually on xmas eve morning to kick off the non-stop two day holiday.  We are super excited and I hope Alyssa cooperates for some video taping this year.  Last year was a little slow on the unwrapping (she wasn't even one, c'mon!).  This year I think the problem will be teaching her the waiting of turns process....hmmmm, wish us luck with that one....
I have done my best too keep the house clean with the tree taking up some of the little space we have which meant that most of the toys were tossed carelessly into the toddler's bedroom at the end of every day (or multiple times a day if she is home).  Of course this only extends to the living room and hallway for cleanliness.  The table is mountainous and the kitchen has a pile of dishes every day.  Bedrooms we just shut the doors on...Oh, the bathroom is pretty darn clean too since it is the place with all the water and soap that isn't powder for a machine.  Someday I'll get this housekeeping idea figured out....When I don't have kids in the house from what my parents and grandparents' examples show.
Happy Holiday Season folks!  I hope we all have wonderful times with family and friends!  Let the craziness begin!

"I'm a big kid now!"

I will start by saying "You're welcome."   You're welcome for not taking or sharing photos of this monumental event in Alyssa's life.  Alyssa has used the potty!!!  (If you are not a person interested in potty training toddlers--you probably don't want/need to finish reading this post.)

She has been pulling and dragging me into the bathroom for the last couple days simply to flush the toilet.  We had to put a stop to that after about a dozen times in an hour clearly for pure entertainment purposes.  She also would go in there with her pullup needing to be swapped.  This last time I was thinking--sure, she just wants to flush the toilet again.  She was pulling and tugging and grabbing my whole arm and I got up with her.  I figured we would go in, she would try to flush the toilet and I would carry her back out.  Nope....She grabbed her potty seat, put it on the big toilet, moved her chair/stool over and then stood there.  She started going potty in her pull up before I realized she was actually serious!  Dumb Momma!  So we stripped the pull up and finished on the potty!

Super proud moment and she was super excited to flush something besides a wipe down the potty!  Yes--I am clearly an overly excitable parent right now.  We got a rubber stamp star design and a multi color (pinks and purples) ink pad and got TWO stamps on the tops of her feet.  (She adores stamps...)  Wish us luck for the future!

Tae...Tre...Tree-Tree

AKA--The development of the words Trick or Treat for a Snow White toddler from last night.

Snow White had immense fun as soon as she realized that people were giving away CANDY every time she walked up to a door and knocked.  I look forward to the day where I can explain and be understood that this only works once a year.

We got dressed at Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Walkup's and started with one of their neighbors.  Snow White held my hand and went up to the door but when the door opened and the woman came outside, my little TrTing princess wanted to leave....well, until she saw what was in the bowl.  We began the phrase of the night.

Momma:  "Can you say trick or treat?"
Alyssa:  "No."

***

Momma:  "Can you say trick or treat?"
Alyssa:  "Tae"

***

Momma: "Can you say trick r treat?"
Alyssa:  "Tre"

***

You see now how this developed.  Over the course of only one night we got to Tree Tree.  I think we did amazingly well!  She got really good at putting her candy into her bucket and carrying it around on her arm.  She LOVED being handed candy or getting to choose it herself.  We didn't go to many houses (one cul d sac and one block elsewhere) but she got a haul.  To think...this was supposed to limit our candy intake by reducing the amount of houses...dang.

I'm going to leave you with one more picture of Snow White and I hope you had a Happy Halloween!

Choosing your messes...

Kids unerringly find the biggest mud puddles, the tallest pile of leaves, the wettest pile of sand, and the grossest mess left in the corner by a sick pet....So why then, when encouraged by a momma, does a child squirm away from a mess prime for the playing in?

The other night we finally carved our pumpkin...and the only time Alyssa wanted to touch the ickiness was trying to put it back into the pumpkin!  I think she was trying to clean up the mess Momma was making....Awfully nice of her to help clean up the one time I'm NOT asking her to do so.

She also demanded the use of the sharp tools.  Momma didn't go for that one though.  Alyssa was given the pokey (serrated) spoon and the pumpkin top.  This is where you say, a toddler with a pokey scraping spoon?  Are you nuts?  Apparently I am because after being chased away from the sharper tools, Alyssa in a fit ran away with the spoon.  Yes the dish is upset over the kidnapping.

The Nuk typically stays in bed....

Momma gave the Nuk to avoid "spoon" fed raw pumpkin guts.

She did lose the spoon privileges after jumping onto the couch with no regards to Momma's command for her to be careful and bring the spoon back.

Yes...Momma's carving skills are sadly lacking....

A Military Family

Some days are amazing.  Some days make you realize that your family is much bigger than what you think it is.  Yesterday was one of those days.

These amazing people are a larger part of our family.  This is part of Chris' unit and our local FRG leaders.  They showed up at my house on Sunday around 2:30pm on drill weekend and put some of our lives back together.

They cleaned up the remaining pine tree debris from last week's adventure.

The guy on the right is using a jack to pull a branch out of the ground.  It was buried at least 2' deep!

Some of them started in on the fence right away.

H. even mowed my backyard to try and get more needles up using the bagger.

 There was so much going on that I don't have pictures of everything.  A couple people unhooked my outdoor water hoses to avoid winter issues.  They also fixed my yard's front gate so that it would swing close easily and not require my shoulder's weight into the fence!

All of this was an immense list of things I had to figure out how to get fixed and done.  It took them less than one hour...The teamwork was incredible and I was overwhelmed by everything being done for us.  It took less than an hour to have my yard back, my fence back, the gate working, water being winterized, and a mowed backyard!  None of this was expected and what was suggested by the FRG was the pine debris removed and the fence fixed.  These little extras were amazing and thoughtful and everything was wonderful.

I was able to post pictures to FB and Chris was moved to (he admits to only one in his eye) tears over the outpouring of support for our family from his military family.

So thank you, to our military and FRG family.  Thank you for something that may have seemed easy to you but means the world to me.

When God is mad at your yard....

If nature is full of acts of God...then God really did not like my neighbor's trees and clearly disliked my yard as well.

We have had two occasions this year where a pine tree ended up being thrown into our backyard, through our fence.  This second time happened last evening as I was gone picking up my daughter from daycare.  I happened to get a Facebook notice on my phone saying

Dean

sooooo tree number 2 is down in your yard and it may have ripped off your power to your house

Yup...Can you guess what I said?  Thankfully I was alone in the car.  No censorship necessary when no one can hear you!

We get home and we had power still, we had cable still, and we had a 40 foot pine tree spanning the width of our backyard.  Here are some lovely views from my kitchen window...

Why yes! Those are my power and cable lines!

This tree spanned all but 5-6 feet of my yard.  Thankfully it didn't quite reach the fence on the other side.

Electrical mast (pipe) hanging at a 90* angle from the electrical box...bringing with it the gutters, shingles, and splintered pieces of fascia and roofing.

My neighbor had called our energy company and they made sure to tell him if he sees any smoke before they get out there, that he should call the fire department.  (Aren't those dispatchers so helpful?)

The energy company guys came, they unhooked our power (at supper time...with a hungry toddler and all electric appliances) and told me I'd need an electrician so they could continue with the work of getting my power back up and running.  Where in the world am I going to find an electrician at 6pm on a Friday?!?!?  This is where I develop some mushy hero worship of the older gentleman on the energy company crew.  He not only called the electrician he uses for his house, but while we waited for them to come over (and yes, it was only about 20 minutes!) he took those shingles you see attached to the mast and put them back on my roof for me!  Not that it fixes my overall issue but it sure does help keep some of the rain from going inside instead of on the ground...He did this all after asking if I knew any handy people.  Sure I do!  My main one is overseas, my dad is an hour away, and I have a couple in the Twin Cities (4hrs) and one more in the general area of us whose number I do not have....Does that help?  Not a bit...  (I don't mind pity when it comes in the form of pounding a couple nails into shingles on my roof!)

Under that tree is the sandbox in which I was planning on playing in with Alyssa after coming home that day.  Glad we weren't half hour early! O_O

The electrical being fixed and back up in the air, we had a massive tree in the yard, a cable line still down (but power obviously was a little more important to me still so cable would wait) and no idea as to how much of an issue my exposed attic would pose over the weekend.

My parents finally chose to come up and take a look at my roof.  I was relieved because at first my dad didn't seem inclined to drive the hour up and back over this...I was mentally wracking my brain for people I knew in the area who would know how to look at it, determine how long it'd be okay, and if there was anything that needed to be done ASAP--that they'd be able to do it.  Yeah...like I said, I had one name in my head and no numbers to call (oh, and no power or internet to FB).  So yes, I was greatly relieved that my dad was on his way.

All in all, we ordered a pizza for Alyssa and I to eat, got power back up and running, the roof will make it as is until at least Monday when I can find a contractor that works with insurance agencies and also talk to my insurance company to find out what kind of claims process needs to be started.  Thank goodness no one was hurt.

Mission Changes and Guru-ness

My husband over the last 24 hours has been moved.  His mission has changed (though his job has not).  Overall, this isn't the worst thing out there.  He is now (temporarily) up in Iraq in support of a draw down.  While some would freak out over this, I think I had only about 30 seconds or so of apprehension over this.  At this point, Iraq is generally a safe place to be again for our troops (as the bases they are restricted to are quite secure).  As I sit here thinking about it, really, the biggest inconvenience as I see it is that the mail is suspended due to the draw down of this base.  All letters and packages will be held at his original post until his return.  What a shitty thing to not be able to get physical letters and packages!  We just sent his first box off last week and he didn't get it before the move so he likely won't get it for over a month now--those poor lonely Oreo's!

There goes our wonderful thoughts of a cake walk deployment.  Well, my mind is a little complex because I have a hierarchical mind and without snail-mail it only really goes from cake walk downgraded to easy...  As a techy army man, this deployment his job requires internet...which means he should almost always HAVE internet.  We will have Facebook; we will have e-mail; likely during at least some of the time, we will have Skype.  This is so much more than many families get over a deployment that I am blessed with the expectations of it even.

On the plus side (if one wants to look at it this way...) he was specifically chosen for this mission because he is 'well-rounded' in the equipment of not only his job, but the sister jobs as well.  His newest designation (posted at his new place) is the S6 Guru.  So Congrats Hon!  Your over-achieving, productiveness has been noticed...next time aim for a promotion instead of a deployment.  ;-)

Birthdays and Philosophical Theories

So I *think* I was first to say Happy Birthday (via FB anyways) to my husband....But this brings a small debate into the FB sphere.  Is his birthday only valid during his time zone or does one ahead of him get to start his birthday early?  LOL, someone beat me to it by an hr but it would have been an hr early based on Chris' time just not the poster's time.  Here where I am his birthday doesn't start for 8 hours but he is 27 where he is.

Ah the questions bring us into deep thought.  Is he still 26 here?  Is he older in China than where he is now?  It is so crazy that his birthday came on Oct. 2nd for us this year when last year (and most years before) it was always Oct. 3rd.  Granted to him it is Oct. 3rd....Well, if one didn't believe in parallel dimensions, this should be easy...otherwise you may end up with a headache!  Just some fun food for thought.

Happy Birthday SPC Chris Lee!!  We love you, miss you and wish you as good of a birthday as the weather over there can! ;-)

Internal Clocks vs Day to Day Life...

October....Wait, when did we switch months??  Oh good, it was just today.  Yeah, my internal calendar, clock and overall brain is on strike.  I don't know up from down, January from October or even awake from asleep at this point.  Alright, that last one happens pretty much from 2pm-5pm every day but still!

I am pretty certain that kids use naps as their 'down-time' but what about us parents?  Supposedly we are cleaning, cooking or maybe taking 5 minutes of the day to breathe finally and then nap time is over!  I almost wish that my daughter and I were on opposite sleeping schedules just to have a quiet house for longer than the span of an afternoon nap.  Does this make logical sense?  No.  Mostly because she is too little and too devious to be trusted on her own while I sleep in the other room (or violent enough to hit me on the face with something if I sleep on the couch).  Do those reasons stop me from thinking how blissful it might be?  Not a chance!

On the plus side, my child likes to take a 2+hr afternoon nap...I get those couple brief hours to regain my composure, store up a few reserve deep breaths and enter into round two swinging (mostly swinging her up into the air but you get the idea...).

This morning was exciting though, we got to skype with Papa!  Amid a few well placed squeals and many grins, we did get her to SAY "Papa"--once--but hey, we take what we get!  She also showed Papa a few things she has learned recently.  She identified her nose, eyes, ears, mouth, head, toes, fingers and belly button for him.  I'd say she had a very proud Papa at that moment.

Now that I have entered a mostly nonsensical post jumping from thought to thought, I will let you get on with your day which is probably more structured and actually follows a wall clock instead of the inner workings of a frayed Momma and an energizer child.  Good luck to us all!

How I Feel...

I don't think I have ever heard a song that describes the utterly strange feeling that settles over me during deployment.  People have tried to describe it to me/for me as sad, angry, depressed, lonely, stressed, tough, etc.  Yes, at times these all pass through my life while my soldier is away....But really, those go through everyone's lives on any given day...it just isn't an adequate description of the overwhelming and ever persistent presence of this feeling.  Thank you to Simple Plan and Natasha Bedingfield for your song "Jet Lag" and a new way to tell people what this feeling is.

"You say good morning
When it's midnight
Going out of my head
Alone in this bed
I wake up to your sunset
And it's driving me mad
I miss you so bad
And my heart, heart, heart is so jet lagged
Heart, heart, heart is so jet lagged
Heart, heart, heart is so jet lagged."

~Link to the rest of the lyrics~

I am simply Jet Lagged.  Our lives right now are so very far apart that we have settled into different routines to get ourselves through each day but never forget that the other is likely sleeping or awake at a different time as us and they aren't here.  This knowledge, this life is tiring and hard to adjust to, no matter how many times you do it.  My mom sent me a Facebook link to this song and obviously I cried.  But I felt a sense of calm from it too.  Someone gets it!  Someone out there knew how to put this feeling into words...They may not even have been referring to a military relationship but it fits so perfectly and I simply had to share this new-found description with everyone.

So for all you couples whose hearts are so "jet lagged", let's all look forward to homecoming whether it is five days away or a year.

Lifestyles of the Rich or Deployed...

Well, I have a few pictures from Chris of his new living situation.  They don't match what I had in my head based on description but that's because in my head there was one less wall!  LOL!  So here is a glimpse into this particular deployment.

Based on the bathroom travel bag, the last picture is Chris' locker.  I *believe* his bunk is the bottom bunk in the second picture but I'm not positive on that one.

Well, this is a preliminary glimpse into the living space he and his buddies have put together.  (In case you didn't know, this is a bay that holds 60 people.  They worked it up into a private area for 4 within this bay.  Pretty smart huh?)

Settling In

He is settling in and we are excited to say that we have an address to start sending some homey things to him.  His first box will have a couple birthday items in it, some snacks, and by his request--two wall clocks.  Doesn't the base have clocks around?  Well sure they do, but what they can't have is clocks set to local time AND the time zone your family is in next to each other.  Why not?  Well this is such a simple answer that so many of us forget about it...America covers more than one time zone...And then we throw in DST which not everywhere observes.  Yup, so he and his roomies are getting two clocks to hang above the projector screen in their "room" to show local vs home times.

Projector??  Oh, did I forget to mention I'm married to a nerd and he is part of the nerd squad too.  Commonly called Signal...They sure do like their tech-y toys!  Hopefully I can get some pictures up of his "room"  (a makeshift privacy attempt in a bay built for 60 people).  Of course I have to double check OPSEC and then get him to send me some...but barring issues with both of those things, I'm aiming for a week turn-around on this particular item.

Overseas Begins

Long ago a flight took off with my husband on board.  Well, it was about an hour ago actually.**  We will now be in significantly different time zones and have to do math to know when the other is awake or not on shift or when Alyssa is home to connect with.

And that sucks.  I really hate doing math...

He will be overseas for his, Alyssa's, and my birthdays, for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentines Day.  He will miss our anniversary in November, my sister's graduation from both college and high school, and a friend's wedding in early June.

However, this isn't all bad and its not as depressing as it may sound.  While we will be sad on these events that he isn't home with us, we will take lots of pictures to share and lots of phone calls, e-mails, video chats and snail-mail!  He won't miss much (if any) of next summer, gymnastics will continue and Alyssa might even roll by the time he comes home, and development of a toddler never stops going so there will be all sorts of new things for Papa and Alyssa to explore together....

We are looking forward to these things and even though there will be some sad moments until then, knowing those moments will pass helps.

--------------------------

**Times are from the time posts are written, NOT the time posted as this would be against OPSEC recommendations.

Unscheduled Play Times....

By NO stretch of my (or most others') imagination is 4:20am a good time to play with Fisher Price toys.  Not only is this one of the last things I would choose to do at this time, it is most definitely in my bottom choices to do for then next 1 hour and 45 minutes from that time.

Long weeks get nearly immeasurably longer on a day following this unscheduled play time.  In combination with my sleep deprived state, I spent the day calling credit card companies, insurance agencies and health care billing facilities trying to straighten out all of the situations that magically appear when a family member deploys.  To follow the blame game, reasoning, and downright excuses given to me without either blowing up or breaking down under the pressure is an amazing feat to my mind in this state.  I think I only screamed once and it was after hanging up.  Are you proud of me--I am...!  On top of the phone calls being very time consuming and rather painful to explain everything EVERY time...Yes!  Technology rears its horribly taunting head at me again!  I am quite certain based on past experience with anything using a cord or battery that ALL technology has a distinct distaste for working near, for, or even apart from me.  To further justify this conviction, Tricare (a system which operates throughout 21 (that's TWENTY-ONE) states in the midwest, was down yesterday and this morning as I tried to contact them repeatedly.  A credit card company I had to call tonight, merely checking on an APR request process, had a single computer unable to look up not only one of our accounts but two.  No phone number, no SSN, no nothing!  Thankfully this issue was just a single computer that I caused to crash ;-)  Truly, technology hates me.  I am simply lucky that my computer generally gets along with me as I protect it from the massive amounts of drool and dropping that a toddler may unleash at any given moment.  So...here is for a better tonight leading to a good tomorrow!

Every little bit of help....helps.

For someone who *hates* yard work, I should have thought through the whole large backyard thing....I am not cut out to be a house wife based on the current status of my table top.  Dishes are endless, laundry piles into mountains no matter if I do a full load a day--and there are only two of us!!--and on top of this the grass outside keeps growing.  What can one do to alleviate these tasks?  Wish on the magic dishwasher?  Pray to the lawn gods?  Maybe the laundry elves will take pity and help out in a way other than stealing socks from the dryer...  You don't believe in those?  Yeah, you're probably right.

I think we should find a way to automate the lawn care at least.  Why can't we have a Roomba for the grass cutting?  I suppose there could be an argument made against an automated rotary blade on the loose in a yard.  Thankfully there is always help when you need it most.  My cousin loves yard work when it isn't required.  My lawn and border planters finally have someone who likes to take care of them (and actually will).  I think I can handle the dishes and laundry decently and the table top will just have to pile up until I get a cleaning itch.

Now who out there likes to push snow blowers??

The Things that break us....

Somedays it takes only the slightest irritation to drive you up the wall and subsequently allow you to crash into tears.  Today, it was smaller than slight....it was a crooked TV.  Yes, I was so overcome by the most paltry of things as watching a show with a couple translated lines and having to read them at an angle that I cried.  Brief though the tears were, it was enough for me to jump on Facebook and tag my cousin in a posted plea for help.

I couldn't do a thing to fix the slant no matter the wriggling that I was attempting.  I swear the thing wasn't crooked when Chris was home but it was when he left and I didn't think it would bug me until that darn translated line popped up on my screen.

Thankfully I have a very wonderful cousin who lives in the dorms a few blocks away.  And as he lives in the dorms, you can guess that he is a student and because of such circumstances, he rushed to my aid within minutes (how much you wanna bet there was homework to be avoided?).  He fixed the slant, picked out the movie for us tonight and stayed for supper to keep us company.  See, wonderful!  So he may have used us to avoid homework, he also is such a help that I don't mind one bit!  (No worries folks, he actually really dotes on Alyssa.)    :-)

Fist Bump!

Oh yes, fist bumps are quite the thing for the up and coming little girl today.  In fact, Alyssa prefers this method over the classic "high five".  Tonight we exchanged the first fist bump over Skype and elicited giggles of glee.  There was immense joy in those grins and giggles as knuckles met from nearly 1200 miles away.  I think this deployment will go just fine if we can keep up the fist bumping and giggles.

Job Hunting Joys

The joys of job hunting...
1. A minimum of DOZENS of applications submitted resulting in a maximum of TWO phone calls back.
2. Those two phone calls resulting in interviews in which one will tell you they will call you and never does, and the other not even wasting their breath on the lie.
3. A few more dozen applications submitted with less discretion as to the job this time sent off with endless amounts of hoping that you don't have to return to the job you left over a year ago.
4. Days upon days of waiting for the application process to complete itself, followed by a few dozen phone calls checking on the application processes with no results again.
5. Filling out NACCRRA paperwork to afford daycare on deployment orders while dealing with military issues of all sorts, bills piling up, and job hunting.  (Trust me if you have never dealt with NACCRRA before, this is my first time and I'm still on page one of the application... O_O)
6. Endless trolling of every conceivable job listing site online, in the newspapers, randomly looking up businesses you know are in your area and hunting for their "Careers" tab, etc.

And lucky #7 which will be happening next week....
...Gracefully apply to the company which you left over a year ago and had hoped to never pass through their doors as anything but a customer ever again (okay, as gracefully as a tear-stained, red-from-screaming, bruised knuckled woman can).
It's a good thing their application is online!

Future Camera Toting, Bus Delaying Momma

Ahhh, the first day of school.  Kids getting on buses, backpacks bouncing down sidewalks and parents frantically trying to get in just 'one more' picture before their child is late for class.  Thank you dear lord for it not being me yet!  We have a couple more years before I will be that frantic Momma begging for one more hug and toting my camera to the bus stop only to delay the route with four posed pictures every foot closer to the bus....

We can all look ahead and say that won't be us.  We won't be THAT parent.  Oh stop kidding yourself!  We will ALL be THAT parent when Kindergarten comes.  Let's just hope we won't be the only one doing it still in JR High....

So for us Momma's and Papa's who still have ones to young for school, we get to relax a little while longer before the 'back-to-school' rush applies to us.  Let's enjoy these years whether we are all under the same roof, or all huddled in front of computers saying our "I love you's" and "good nights".  We can let that stress, pride, joy and sorrow come tomorrow; today we will hug our babies and send them off to full day daycare instead....Wait....Someone tell me what the difference is??

Deployments and Skype

I was inspired to attempt a deployment blog by a wonderful military wife and mother that I respect immensely.  Its a wonderful way to remember the deployment's day-to-day effects on our family from my perspective.  This will give our family something to look back on and see how our first family deployment goes.

Tonight was our first foray into Skyping.  Alyssa was amazed at Papa being inside the computer and Papa got to see us nearly 1,200 miles away.  It was so fun to watch Alyssa (captivated for as long as a toddler can be--5 minutes tops) investigating the computer and how to interact with Papa in this new way!  We are still waiting for vocal conversations and so this video solution allows goodnight waving and kisses (and a nightly reminder to clean my laptop screen).

As we climbed onto the couch and opened up the program we got an incoming 'call' and after much tinkering and figuring out how in the world Skype works in its most basic form (I'm married to a tech guy...I don't need to be tech-y right??), we got video up on both ends, lighting in order to see everyone, and voice so Stroh good ask what I was wearing...Yeah, there is not much privacy in the military and much joking in the barracks.

The basics having been mastered, okay, practiced...We are now ready to take on this year-long deployment.  We will continue to work on our vocal conversing in hopes that we can get "Papa" and maybe even "Good Night" and "Love You" out of Alyssa before Papa comes home but for now we are excited to be able to wave, smile and kiss at Papa in the computer.  So here we go, 3 weeks into the deployment and less than a year to go!