Counting Down....

While we don't have any specific dates (as if!), we DO know that a very important part of our family will be home sometime in the next month.

So, what does that mean, exactly?

Cleaning.  Seriously.  You would never know that I have spent practically the whole time he's been gone cleaning this stupid house.  Maybe because there are a bjillion children through this house on a regular basis?

Cooking.  Have you seen what it takes to feed a bjillion teenagers and pre-teens?!?

Projects.  You know those things that we plan to do while the Significant Other Person is gone, so we can distract ourselves from missing them?  Yeah.









Instead we went to South Carolina for July 4th, shopped for school supplies, endured band camps, enjoyed fun visits with the eldest child and friends, prepared for school, started school, graduated from my Masters Program, sent a child to Florida for Prom with a friend, and then to West Virginia for a week, sent kids on two different Venturing camp-outs, dealt with a parking ticket, an impounded car, a lost cell phone, a visit to the ER for a bloody nose, an abscessed tooth, broken glasses, countless Skype calls, and planning for remodeling and selling the house.  We got to go to the beach, have spent time with our AMAZING military ministry group at church, seen friends from out of town, gone to two weddings, and had friends to the house for cook-outs twice.

While he was gone, Jason was able to visit Japan, and also went to Seoul, South Korea, to see the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).  He has had the opportunity to be involved with a GREAT little church in Korea, and was able to preach four times so far, as well as help the church move to their new quarters, and has repeatedly cooked for the church's Sunday morning breakfasts.  He was also able to lead a Bible study for a while, before the command interfered and changed his schedule, making that difficult.  He got to play softball on base, and helped with several community events the command took part in.

But now the countdown is ON, and it's time for the motivation to kick in...any time now.  As soon as I can get these teenagers to go to bed....

Week (and month) in Review

Bullet-points, or I'll not get it all in...
This last week has been BUSY...

• Thanksgiving, November 24
• Heather's birthday November 25
• Drive back to VA from SC on Saturday, November 26
• Church on Sunday
• Put the "not-boyfriend", 2 little girls, 1 neighbor girl, and the 14-year-old to work raking leaves...4 bags out to the street.
• Kids back to school on Monday
• Jason and Laura raked 10 more bags of leaves out of the back yard.
• Laura finishing final projects on Monday
• Monday also included kids to venturing, one kid to PT, and Jason to a birthday party.
• Laura back to school Tuesday (ALL day)
• Tuesday the dogs got out and wandered the neighborhood for 4 hours...lots of worry and tears...
• Wednesday was a work-day, and shopping at the exchange.
• One kid to PT on Wednesday.
• Thursday was a work-day, and a relatively quiet evening at home.

November also included:

• Jason completed his year in Bahrain and arrived home on November 5th.
• Frances got her class ring stuck on her finger, and had to have it cut off. 
• I had to get two tires replaced on our 2008 van.
• We traded in our 2008 van for a 2012 van...2 weeks after the tire change.
• We all survived another month of school.
• We got the new Christmas tree set up...but no decorations on it...still need to find the box of ornaments.  

I know it's not November any more...we're going to a Christmas party tonight!!  And two kids are going to a Leadership seminary.  And Jason is running a 10-mile race tomorrow.  Whatever happened to calm and quiet weekends?!?

Welcome Home, LS1 Paxton!!!

I am SO VERY excited!  I just got our pictures back from Kiyomi Photography (Via Operation Love ReUnited) of Jason's homecoming, and I have to share!!  She did an excellent job....

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.

You'd never guess...

...that my husband spend his WHOLE year deployed READING.

This is the 50 pounds of books I brought home for him, because that would be cheaper than shipping them!!

Now I just need to find another set of bookshelves for his books....mine are already overflowing all over the place!

Thoughts...at 38,000 feet...

I’m sitting on a very dark Boeing 777, somewhere over Turkey.  (Note:  I wrote this sometime on Tuesday...)

I spent the last week visiting my husband in his little neck of the woods….it was lovely.  I THOROUGHLY enjoyed visiting with him, and seeing friends made on my last visit there….and helping him start getting stuff ready to come HOME!!!  As of this moment, he has 2 days until he moves into a hotel, out of the flat he has called home for the last year.  He has to pack all of his stuff up, and mail it off to the house, and will be home during the first week of November.  I can’t wait!!

Meanwhile, the pilot has illuminated the “fasten seatbelts” sign, which means I can’t get up to go to the bathroom….so I type some more. 

I have had a restful week…no kids, no housework (well, maybe just a little), no pets, no classes…I SLEPT.  It was amazing.  I did not catch up on sleep...after all, I spent 21 hours on planes going to see him, and the time difference is 7 hours. No definitely did not catch up on sleep.  But it was restful…I told our Chaplain friend and his wife today that my visits there have both seemed like a spiritual retreat…a chance for me to be fed, and to rejuvenate…and to recognize some more areas that need work. 

I DID actually do some homework….I still have some projects that need to be typed up…but two big ones are mostly done.  I studied for my Ethics exam.  I made a lot of progress.  I need to make a LOT more.  Plus house cleaning, kid hauling/wrangling, and generally preparing to have my husband home.  Sigh. 

I’m ready.  He is, too.  The kids are ready.  The people at church are ready.  Now, we just have to wait out the last two weeks….

Operation Purple Camp

Because my husband is deployed this year, my children had the opportunity to attend a camp for military children, put on by the National Military Family Association. In Virginia, this occurred at the beautiful, if a bit far-removed-from-us, Camp Horizons, located in Harrisonburg, VA.  Four of our children were there for this past week, and THOROUGHLY enjoyed themselves!  Without further ado, here are pictures from camp, brought to you by Heather, our 13-year-old. 

Heather with the girls from her cabin.

The JMU ROTC brought weapons for the kids to see.

Heather and Leah.  SO glad they were able to be there together!

Justin.

Katherine with a counselor and a friend.

Justin with one of his counselors.

Katherine with one of the counselors from her cabin.

Scenes from hiking.

Katherine trying her hand at archery.

Katherine on the service project, picking squash.

There was dancing on the basketball court. 

I think all four of my kids who were able to go had a blast.  They made new friends, and experienced new things, and learned more about how strong they were. 

I am very grateful that they had the opportunity to attend Operation Purple Camp this year!!