Finally Here!!

The time has finally come. Today is Andy's last day of work. He will be on leave for the rest of the month!!!!!

I understand that there was work to be done, but it is really hard to have a spouse come back from a deployment only to go straight back to work every day. It will be so nice to finally have him all to ourselves for a while.

The weather has held up and there is no snow on the ground. It's actually raining today and it reminds me of home. Growing up in Washington, I always kind of miss the rain wherever we go.

We're hoping that maybe we can get out of town for a day or two. I haven't left this 20 mile radius in over a year. I sometimes feel like I'm trapped on a very small island. I wouldn't mind so much if we were surrounded by beaches and water! :)

Don't Leave!!

Poor Nick had a hard time this afternoon.

Andy had to go into work for a quick accountability formation. Nick saw him drive away in his uniform and was sure that he was going back to Iraq. He was pretty upset.

Thankfully, he was reassured when Daddy came back an hour or two later. I think that he now realizes that Andy can be out of his sight for a while and still be "here" with us in Alaska. :)

Sweet Reunion

Yes, Andy finally made it home this morning!! We were supposed to pick him up at 11 a.m. I was woken up by a phone call at 7:30, letting me know that he'd be in at 9 instead!! I woke up the kids and we scrambled to get out the door in time. I have to admit that it was much nicer than us anxiously waiting around all morning.

Unfortunately, he missed our 11 year anniversary by one day. That's okay though - we will celebrate every day for a long while now that he is back. :)

The buses pulled in and everyone got excited.


Hugs and kisses all around.


All 7 of us in one picture - that doesn't happen often enough!

A Little Disappointed

I had really been hoping that Andy would be home by now. Over 3,500 of the 4,000 soldiers have already returned. I'm starting to think that he will be the last soldier to get off of the last plane back.

I actually haven't even received the phone call letting me know when he'll arrive. That call is supposed to come 72 hrs before he gets here. That means he won't be here by Saturday. :(

I'm trying not to be too disappointed, but I admit that I am a little sad.

It's our 11th Anniversary, and it also happens to be a respite care day (meaning that the kids are in child care from 9-5 for free). If Andy were here, then we could actually spend our anniversary together.

It looks like I'll be spending the day alone though. I suppose I could use the day to prepare for his homecoming. Maybe some house cleaning and shopping without kids around.

I'm trying to be patient, but it's hard!!

Still Waiting

The gates to post are absolutely covered in "Welcome Home" signs.

About half of the soldiers are back from Iraq. I was in town the other day and could easily pick out the happily reunited couples, walking hand in hand, pushing strollers as they went shopping.

I'm still waiting for that to be me. For us to be that happy family, walking around town in the happy glow of reunion.

Andy is going to be among the last to come back. I'm okay with that. After a year, what is another week or two, right?

We are starting to get excited though. We're down to a number of days that the kids can actually understand. They are already talking about how much fun they are going to have when he gets here.

Kate is looking forward to having a chess partner again. I DO NOT play chess. Too much thinking ahead and strategy for me. :)

Nick wants Daddy to take him to the hardware store to look at tools. And to play trains and Legos with him. He really needs some guy time. Being the only boy in a house full of girls for a year has been rough.

Poor Tori really doesn't know Andy. That makes me so sad. She was only a few months old when he left. They have a lot of catching up to do!!

We all have a lot of catching up to do. He will have a bunch of time off in October, and we'll be able to just hang out and make up for lost time. Doesn't that sound wonderful?? Now if only the weather will cooperate with us a bit and stave off the snow - then maybe we could do a bit of traveling too!

The Waiting

You would think that after over 11 months, a few measly weeks wouldn't matter much.

But they do.

Goodness, I just want Andy home RIGHT NOW. The waiting is awful.

It is compounded by the fact that he no longer has internet in his CHU and so I can't IM with him. I hate not being able to chat with him every day.

I really feel for military wives who had to go through deployments before the internet age. It must have been so hard waiting for that letter in the mail. Not able to get the instant gratification of an email message back with an answer to your question. I do feel thankful.

We'll make it through these last few weeks, I know. I'm just being impatient and running out of steam...

SOON!!!!

Wow, Andy has been gone for 48 weeks. That is a really long time.

He has missed so much this past year - and he's been so missed.

He wasn't here to put the Christmas tree up or to help me fill the stockings.

Or to ring in the New Year.

Or to celebrate the birthdays of our 5 children.

Or to take me out on Valentine's Day.

Or to take the girls to the Father-Daughter Ball.

Or to see our oldest off to camp.

Or to cook breakfast on Saturday mornings.

Or to collapse into bed with after a long day.

Or to hold my hand while we drive around town.

Or to do all of those husbandly honey-do handyman things around the house.

Or to see our baby learn to crawl and then walk.

Or to hibernate with when the weather got down to negative 40.

Or to watch Ellie in her play.

Or to help potty train our only son.

Or to read bedtime stories and tuck the kids in.

He's not going to believe how much the kids have changed since he was home for R&R in early January. He's seen pictures, but it's still going to blow him away.

The time is drawing nearer for him to come home. The fences outside of post are filling up with "Welcome Home" signs in preparation and I can tell that everyone is starting to get excited. It seems real now and I JUST CAN'T WAIT!!!!! :)

Trip to the ER

I was hoping that we were going to make it through this entire deployment without a trip to the ER. It almost happened.

Nick was playing in his room today and jumped off of the huge play castle that is in there. Apparently he thinks that he's a superhero of some sort. He landed on his shoulder and immediately started screaming.

Have you ever seen a kid cry so hard that he turns blue and almost passes out?

Nick is my only child that does that - on a regular basis too. If he gets hurt or get mad (like someone grabbing something from him), he often takes in air as he starts to cry and just seems to forget to breathe. I am always running to hold him and make sure that he doesn't pass out and bump his head on something.

I'm actually quite used to it now, as it happens a few times a week. I wonder when he'll outgrow it.

When he was younger, it was absolutely frightening. I was terrified each time it happened. Imagine your 1 yr old turning blue and limp. SCARY.

The girls are even comfortable with it now. They just rush to him, blow in his face and tell him to breathe. :)

Anyway, I brought him upstairs and he just sat there, watching some TV and fell asleep a bit later. He seemed okay - a little sore, but okay.

It was only after he woke up and started moving around that I realized that he couldn't lift his right arm up. He accidentally did it and started screaming again.

So, I packed a bag full of ipods and munchies and we headed to the ER.

Four hours later, we made it home. I knew it would take a while - especially on a Friday night.

The kids were pretty good until the batteries to the ipods died. Then they got overtired and a bit loopy. By the time we made it to the examining room, I felt like I was at a slumber party. Everyone was being goofy and loud - including Nick. I guess it's better than the alternative - cranky and fighting. :)

They x-rayed him and we found out that he fractured his clavicle. He has a little Snoopy sling that I will try to keep on him for the next couple of days. Some Tylenol and Motrin and some rest and he should be fine. The doctor said that he should heal up really quickly and be back to normal within a couple of weeks.

Now, if only I can convince him to sit still long enough for it to heal...

Honey Do, Where are you??

I can tell that we're nearing the end of the deployment, because the honey-do list is getting extremely long.

I love owning our own house. It's nice to have a big yard and more privacy than the townhouses on post, but owning a house without my handyman around has been hard. When things go wrong, I'm the one that has to fix them (or leave them for Andy to fix!)

I don't want to bombard him with it at soon as he gets back, but there is a lot of stuff that needs to be done!

1. I have trees growing in my gutters. Seriously. I'm guessing that this means that they need to be cleaned (the gutters, not the trees). I have a two story house though and I'm not getting on a ladder. I guess I should be glad that we haven't had much rain...
(and yes, those are Christmas lights still hanging in July - we do live in North Pole after all!)

2. The garbage disposal is dead. One of the kids got some little rocks stuck down in it and it isn't working. At all. I tried to clean them out the best I could (Yes, I unplugged it first!) but I think we need a new one. I am NOT going to disconnect any pipes under my sink for fear of never getting them back together. If only my brother (who is a plumber) lived somewhere nearby...

3. Doors are coming off left and right. The screen door is off track, one of the closet doors is off track, and one the hinges of Kate's door have come off (yes, she was hanging on the knob - the world is Kate's gym). I can fix her door (but need to go buy the right screws). The other two I'm leaving for Andy.

4. The sides of the yard have turned into a jungle. I mow, but I don't weedeat and it's getting ugly out there.

5. The kids can't watch movies. We have gone weeks now without being able to watch anything. There is sound when they play on the Wii. There is sound for the actual TV (which we never watch). If you put a DVD in though, it is silent. I have searched through the menus on the DVD player to no avail. I'm sure that it's something really simple and I'm just missing it. I have given up though. I'm sure that he will come home, push one silly button and it will be all up and running again. I am fully aware of that.

6. Floors. The carpets and the tiles in the laundry room are going to need to be replaced before we sell the house. I suppose we'll wait for that until after our stuff is out of the house though...

7. There are many more little things that need to be done around the house, but I will spare you the boring details. :) After talking with Andy this week, I think I'm going to spare him the gutter cleaning and call someone on Monday. It can't be that expensive to have your gutters cleaned, can it??

A Day of Peace

Saturday was wonderful.

I didn't do anything very special. Nothing too exciting.

But I did it alone. Completely alone.

That was a very strange feeling. I have been alone so little in the past 10 months since Andy left for Iraq. The kids are always with me - constantly.

The Army offers free respite care to spouses whose husbands' are deployed. One Saturday a month, you can drop your kids off from 9-5 for free (and also one Thurs./Tues. evening a month). Amazing, huh? And much needed.

I have used respite care in the past, but throughout this past year, the girls had art class right smack in the middle of the day, which only allowed me to use it for an hour or two. Also, I didn't like to leave Tori when she was little. I'm just silly like that.

This past Saturday, I dropped them all off at 9 and didn't pick them up until 4. It was soooooooo nice.

I went to the store and browsed the bra section. I can't even pass that part of the store without snickers and giggles from the kids...

I got a coffee and perused the book store.

I went to the library and I ventured past the children's section. I wasn't rushed and I was able to leave with an armload of books - for me and only me.

I went to Old Navy and actually tried some things on in the dressing rooms. I never do that. I usually just buy things and then return them if I don't like them. I mean really, who wants to be crammed into a dressing room with 5 kids laughing at you trying to squeeze into a pair of pants? Not me.

I still had a lot of time left after all of that, because I wasn't slowed down by unloading kids and loading strollers, strapping everyone into their car seats, making lots of bathroom trips, keeping kids from touching everything we pass, etc. You get the picture.

I hadn't remembered how easy a morning of shopping could be.

Anyway, I decided to head to the movies. Yes, I was alone, and yes I had already gone and seen Harry Potter earlier in the week. Two movies in one week must be a record for me. I usually only go once or twice a year.

I ended up seeing "The Proposal" with Sandra Bullock. It's a chick flick and I knew that I had better get them all out of my system before Andy gets back. :)

I enjoyed it. I was good and didn't spend tons of money on popcorn and a drink again. This time I opted for a monster box of Hot Tamales. I no longer have any taste buds.

The best thing of all is that the kids did wonderful at respite care and I now know that I can easily use it again! Maybe next time I will actually plan something fun and exciting. White water rafting? Sky Diving? Ok, so maybe not that exciting...

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my favorite dads - my dad, my father-in-law, and my husband of course :)
It would have been nice to have spent the day with any one of them.

Instead, we headed to the Midnight Sun Festival in downtown Fairbanks to celebrate the Solstice and the coming of summer.

It was hot and crowded. Taking 5 kids to a busy street festival by yourself is a bit stressful. I was so worried that I was going to lose someone. The lines for food and fun were seriously long. We walked around for a while, ate some cotton candy, and then ended up driving to Carl's Jr. for dinner instead. It was cheaper and easier.

Andy called this morning and I was able to wish him a happy Father's Day. It was good to hear his voice.

It's definitely time for him to come home though. I hate that the kids are getting used to him not being here. They still ask when he's going to be back, but it's been so long now that they don't know what to believe.

Poor Lexie. I told her that Daddy called while she was sleeping this morning and that he sent her lots of hugs and kisses. She looked up at me and said "Is Daddy still alive?" It about broke my heart. "Iraq" is such an abstract idea in her head. She doesn't know where or what it is. She only knows that Daddy isn't here and that he's been gone for 9 long months :(

And Tori. I hate to think of the time that he has missed with Tori. She is 13 months old and he's been gone for 10 of it. Oh, I wish this deployment would end...

The Loneliness

A lone ponderosa pine tree under a cloud-filled sky

I think the hardest part of this deployment has been the loneliness.

Not that I'm ever alone! I can't even get a thought in sometimes without being interrupted by someone needing something. It's lonely all the same though.

My best friend is gone. He has always worked long hours, but I'm so used to having him to reconnect with in the evening, to hang out with on the weekends, to make road trips with and talk to throughout his work day.

We email each other and IM, but it's not the same. We used skype for a while, but it was more frustrating than anything. One of us was always having a problem with the signal or our microphone. We weren't communicating very well on it :)

Lots of wives hang out together during deployments and keep each other busy. They go do things and travel and visit family. I can't do that though. I don't have a babysitter and honestly, I don't really want to leave my kids anywhere.

We don't live on post, so I'm not surrounded by other lonely wives.

When it comes down to it though, I don't really want to hang out with a bunch of lonely wives anyway. I want to hang out with my husband. That's why I married him :)

The days are going by quickly. Redeployment plans are being made and that makes it feel more real. I know that 3 months is still a while, but I've made it through 9 already!! We're in the home stretch.

Better Attitude

I woke up today with a better attitude. Maybe it's because I actually got 7 hours of sleep - in a row?? It's amazing what a little rest can do. :) Thanks guys for your words of support. I know I can do this. It's all down hill from here!!

I got good news from Andy this morning. His extension got approved, which means that we won't be getting orders when he gets back like most everyone else. The thought of trying to move out of here in January just made me shudder. I know how cold and dark it is. Last January it was down to negative 40. I can't imagine trying to move and travel at that time of year. I feel sorry for everyone that has to do it - although they might have a different outlook on it. They probably want to get the heck out of here instead of riding the winter out another year.

We should be here through next May, which is great news in my opinion. We'll be done with school, so I won't have any worries there. Also, we can live out one of our dreams - driving the Al-Can back down to the lower 48. We took the ferry from Washington on the way up, so we were really hoping to take a different route on the way back. I don't think I could bribe the kids back onto the ferry. :) It was gorgeous, but they all got sea sick and it wasn't pleasant. I'm just glad we had our own cabin and bathroom...

So, we will be roughing it through one more winter. It won't be as bad though, because I won't have to worry every time I leave the house - what will I do if I break down? Who can I call? Now I know that I will have a husband around this winter and I can always call him and he'll rescue me. That's a good feeling!

Single Parenting Stinks

I can't wait for Andy to get back. This single parenting gig is for the birds!!

I dearly love my children, but I am physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted.

I'm just tired of never having a minute to myself.
Never having Andy to defer to in decision-making. Having to be the only disciplinarian.
Not being able to go to bed early or sleep in or take a nap when I need it.
Not being able to run errands without 5 little ones tagging along.
Having to deal with all of the homeowner stuff. Fixing pipes and garbage disposals and bike chains and doing yard work. Not my thing.

It's funny, because we're on a break, yet I feel like I have even less time and I'm even more tired than I was during the school year.

Maybe it's just the past 9 months crashing down on me all at once. I'm sleep-deprived and grumpy. Tori has started constantly making a noise that could shatter glass. :)

I'm hoping that camp and Vacation Bible School this week give me a nice little break (from a few of the kids at least).

I have to remind myself that we're almost at the end of this deployment. I made it through the freezing cold winter alone. He'll be home soon (relatively speaking) and then "normal life" can resume.

I just need to be very careful not to dump everything on him when he gets back, especially since he's probably even more tired than I am (if that's possible!)

And now I'm going to try to get them all to bed...

Presents from Iraq

The kids were so happy to get a package from Daddy yesterday.

He sent us some goodies from Iraq.

Here is a "puzzle box":

You slide the front piece to the left:

Then pull out the little piece and find the hidden key:

Slide the whole thing forward, and a small piece of wood drops out, revealing the keyhole:

And voila! Open up your secret box :)

And here are some more boxes he sent. The man he bought them from said that he gets them from various places (Iraq, Turkey, Syria), so I'm not sure exactly where they were made. They are neat though!

Burn out

Burn out has hit and it's not pretty. No one feels like doing schoolwork - most of all me. :(

Maybe it's because we're on the home stretch and just ready for a break.

Or perhaps it's the snow that hasn't started melting yet. That's depressing.

Maybe I'm sick of driving somewhere every day of the week.

Or maybe it's just because we're halfway through the deployment and I'm really tired of being a single parent. I want a moment to myself every once in a while and I would like some decent sleep for goodness sakes!

Actually, it's probably all of these things put together.

We're still trudging along, slow but steady. We should hopefully be done by the end of April if we can keep up a decent pace. Don't get me wrong, we're okay :) But the lack of enthusiasm from all of us is apparent.

We're sick of being cooped up in the house. Of having our days filled with "stuff" we have to do. We're dreaming of the green grassy yard and days of riding bikes and eating popsicles. It just seems too far off to be real at the moment. The weather is starting to warm up. I think it's about 30 out today. Pretty soon, we'll hear the steady drip of the snow melting and my spirits will soar. I'm sure we'll all get a second wind then and we'll be rushing to finish so that we can get outside and enjoy the warmer weather!

Deployment Milestone

Today is not only Nick's birthday, it is also marks 6 months since Andy left for Iraq.

He already had his R&R leave, so we don't have that to look forward to anymore.

But, it is a good feeling to know that it's all down hill from here.

I have almost made it through the entire cold, dark winter alone. Well, I guess technically I have, but it sure doesn't feel like spring quite yet.

I finally feel like we have the right amount of sunlight. It's funny living here. It goes from one extreme to another. From short winter days with only a few hours of daylight to summer with the midnight sun. It is truly amazing, but I find that it's hard for my body to adjust back and forth.

The kids are doing well. They miss daddy like crazy of course (as do I). Every night, they go to sleep with their "daddy dolls" tucked under their arms. Those have been the best thing that I've ever bought them. It's so nice for them to have a piece of him here. They lay down and push the button and can hear his voice. It's very comforting for them. I will have to post a new picture of them soon. They are getting very loved - I'm glad that they are washable!

Before we know it, he'll be home and we'll be together as a family again. We'll spend next Christmas with each other. We'll celebrate next years birthdays together. I will have an adult to talk to every day - which will do wonders for my sanity!

I feel good knowing that it's halfway over - and that I already made it through the "cold, dark" half. I have summer to look forward to and then he will be back :)

Respite Report

Tonight was respite care. The night where spouses of deployed soldiers can drop their kids off for a few hours of free babysitting. What a much needed break!

I only left the middle three kids. Tori is still nursing and I hate to leave her anywhere for very long. Ellie was desperate for some one-on-one time with me, so I decided to treat her tonight.

It was wonderful. We had a drink at Starbucks (which I never go to). Ellie felt so grown up.

We went shopping at Barnes and Noble, Fred Meyer, Petsmart and Old Navy. It was nice to be able to peruse the stores without having to keep Nick from grabbing everything we passed!!

We bought Andy an ipod. Yes we're becoming iNerds :) I am going to fill it with music so that he can ditch the CDs and have tunes with him in his office in Iraq.

We picked out beautiful matching summer dresses for the girls and a shirt for me. I thought that we could take a family picture this summer in the yard - minus Andy of course. :( I just hope that it gets warm enough to actually wear them. It has warmed up to the 20s, but it felt a bit weird to be shopping for warm weather clothing already.

Ellie talked me into walking around Petsmart. She decided that she might like a lizard of some sort. I don't know that I could handle that. I told her that she would have to do some research and write me a paper on what would be required to feed and care for them before I made any decision. I committed to nothing!! She does have her own room now though and so she could conceivably keep a pet in there and care for it on her own. She would not receive any help from me with a lizard though, I can tell you that! Maybe a kitten?

When I went to pick the kids up from respite care, the report from Nick's caregiver was terrific! She said that he was so well-mannered. He was very polite and played with all of the kids. No crying. No fighting. No tantrums. When he saw me, he simply said "Oh, Mom! You're back!" and happily got his coat on and returned the toys he had been playing with. My little boy is growing up!

So, I have to say that I am very grateful for the respite care that is offered to us each month. It's nice to have a few hours here and there to spend without all of the kids. I just wish that it could have been scheduled for tomorrow night. No babysitter = No Bunco night :(

Why Don't Houses Come With Instruction Manuals?

Living on a military post is easy. If anything goes wrong in your home, you simply call the repairman and it is magically fixed. For free.

There was no on-post housing when Andy arrived in Alaska and we were anxious to get moved up here, so we ended up buying a house instead.

There are perks to being a homeowner. Tax breaks. The ability to paint your walls and make changes to the home. Not having a landlord. We have a huge yard and much more privacy than we would in a townhouse on post.

But there are definite disadvantages also. Like dealing with every tiny problem that goes wrong in the house. Having to either fix it yourself or having to find the right person to do it for you. And then there is paying to have it fixed (that's definitely a big one).

I just wish that I had a clear, concise book (it would probably be several volumes long) that included step-by-step instructions to MY PARTICULAR HOME along with labeled pictures of where everything is and how to troubleshoot. A list of phone numbers of reputable repairmen would be helpful also.

When I asked Andy why houses don't come with manuals, he insisted that they do. They are called husbands!!

Duh! So my current problem is that my manual is in Iraq!! The only way I can open my manual is to send an email and hope it responds before a complete and utter crisis occurs. This is not very efficient. And ultimately I still have to deal with it. Which I hate.

I don't think that it's necessarily that more things go wrong while he is deployed. I just think that it seems like there are more things because I am the one that actually has to deal with them.

He's not even halfway through the deployment yet. In the 5 months that he's been gone, plus the month-long NTC rotation he was on right before he left, the water softener died, the boiler had to be fixed, the pipes froze twice, the pipes under the bathroom sink came apart, and I have had to do minor carpentry work a few times. What else could I possibly have to deal with over the next 7 months until he gets back??? I shudder to think about the possibilities.

The plumber was here on Sunday thawing out our pipes. This is only Wednesday, but I have yet another home-related thing to deal with!

We have absolutely no heat to the bedrooms (which are on their own thermostat). I am normally a let-one-leg-hang-out-of-the-blankets kind of a girl. Last night I went to bed with socks and a sweatshirt and an extra blanket on. And I was still cold. I guess when it's -20 outside, your room can get pretty igloo-like with no heat coming in.

I think I may have found the problem, but it involves wires. I DO NOT touch wires of any sort. I refuse. So, I am again going to be paying someone over $100 an hour to come and fix something in my house. Oh, the joys of home ownership....

Well, I suppose I should go upstairs and check to make sure that my children haven't turned into little kidsicles during the night. On the bright side, we have heat to the rest of the house, so maybe we'll sleep in the living room tonight :)

How I spent my morning

This is not how I envisioned spending my entire morning. Slaving over a pile of boards and screws which I was supposed to magically turn into a desk.

First of all, getting the box upstairs was near impossible. It was really heavy. I had to take the pieces out of the box and make about 4 trips to get it all into Kate's room.

Does this look like any fun??? Didn't think so...

Then I realized that our electric screwdriver was broken and I needed to get a new one (which I did yesterday).

So, this morning I was out of excuses and I had to just do it. I put the movie Cars on for Nick to watch and made the girls work on their math and grammar out in the living room while I got started.

I opened the instructions and one of the first things it said was "don't use an electric screwdriver", so I didn't. The red marks on the palm of my right hand attest to that.

Have you ever seen so many little numbered pieces in your life?? Good grief!!

It took me the entire morning to get the thing put together, but it's done and I'm proud of myself. Kate now has a quiet place to do her independent work. I think that this is going to be so helpful for her, because she is very easily distracted and has a hard time sitting in the same room with her siblings who are working on different things at the same time.

The finished product (with a new lamp too!)

I have yet again proved to myself that I can do things outside my comfort zone. Thanks honey for giving me the opportunity to see that. I will gladly give you these responsibilities back when you return home though :)