Accomplished Much? (aka A Year in Review)

One of the themes of deployments seems to be staying busy.  Actually, when one talks to other military spouses to learns ways of coping with deployments, one of the frequent recommendations is to stay busy.  With that in mind, when I knew that Jason was going to be deploying for a year's time, we moved to a new house, I registered for grad school, and threw the kids into as many activities as was humanly possible to get them into.

Okay, not really.  We DID move, and I DID register for grad school...but the throwing kids into activities?  They did that all on their own.

So, since this deployment is winding down, I wanted to list (for myself, mostly) what we DID accomplish while Jason was gone...starting (somewhat) chronologically.

In August, we moved into our new home.

In September, I started Grad school, and the kids all started back to school...in new schools for 5 of them.

In October, Jason and I went out to celebrate our 18th anniversary the night before he left to go to South Carolina for training.  We also had our family pictures done by a dear friend (see the header above).  I went to visit Jason for the last weekend before he left the country.

 I got a call from the insurance company that our insurance would be cancelled if we didn't install railings on the front porch and back steps, so we got that done.

In November, Jason arrived in his deployment locale...

For Thanksgiving, we had a friend from grad school over for Thanksgiving dinner.

We celebrated Heather's 13th birthday by spending the evening of her party in the emergency room, getting her broken wrist x-rayed, and then getting a cast put on it almost a week later.

In December, we traveled to South Carolina for Christmas, visiting with Jason's family and my family, and friends.  Jason celebrated with friends from the Chapel on base.  We also celebrated the birthdays of Frances (17) and Katherine (7).





We also got to celebrate with Jason's mom and a whole lot of friends for her 60th birthday.


In January, I started my Practicum, hired a girl to help out during that time, worked, and went to school....and kept the kids busy in their schools and other activities. We celebrated Justin's 11th birthday.  I also applied for my Passport...

In February, I got my Passport in the mail(!), organized, studied, worked at my Practicum site, celebrated my birthday (ha! like I'd tell you which one!!) and prepared a schedule of weekly/daily events for my mother-in-law...and then got on an airplane....

...oh, and we added another ball of fur to the house.

I started March visiting with my husband in the "vacation locale" where he is currently deployed...then flew back, took over the kids again, fought jet lag, and went back to classes and finished the semester.  We also celebrated Leah's 9th birthday.

In April, we celebrated Jason's birthday via Skype (and watched him open his box!), and Jon's 15th birthday.

May saw school performances, winding down for the school year...

...and a freak storm that took out a substantial branches in both the back and front yards.

In June, we had a farewell for some dear friends from church who were moving away, and I painted, and painted, and painted....the rails took me entirely too long (I'm a perfectionist!)

Isn't he good looking?!?

Jason came home at the end of June for his R&R...

...and during the time he was home, we had visits from his parents, two other friends from out of town, and Jason and the two littlest girls were in a wedding.  Jason and I also were able to get away for a couple of days before he had to head back.

August meant Operation Purple Camp for 4 kids, and Band Camp for the other two...and I headed back to school.  It was Ramadan in the "Vacation Locale"...which meant that Jason didn't do an awful lot for that month.

September meant school again for everyone....a total (for the family) of 1 elementary school, 2 middle schools, 2 high schools, and 2 grad schools.

And LOTS of school supplies!!

October ended up being one long band competition.  Or not.  But it seemed like it.  Oh, and I went and visited Jason for our 19th anniversary.  And did school.  And taxied children. And organized the world...or not.  Things are starting to get blurry at this point, since it's all winding to a close and I am just...soooo...tired....

So, We don't have much time left - less than two weeks now.  And my thing I am most proud of from this year of accomplishments?  I grew.  I did all of this.  I am doing grad school, and doing it well.  We had tough times.  Things (and people) broke, but we didn't fall apart (I had a LOT of help in *that* particular department!!).  The biggest thing has been how much I have grown Spiritually.  God has done tremendous things in my life over this year, which made all of the hardships worth it, in the long-run.

Yes, we accomplished a lot this year...but there is no way we could have come out of this so well without the prayers of friends, and the loving hand of our Lord on our lives the whole way.