Need Your Vote!

I received this message in my inbox  couple of days ago from Steve Thompson;

Hello,

I am writing you concerning a wonderful project that supports our military families by supplying them with dog tags to send home to their children at no charge and we need your help. I'm pleased to say that with everyone's help and support, we have now sent over 500,000 tags to our men and women fighting in harm's way. That makes for over 1 million smiles, and is a great way to thank our troops for the job they are sent to do overseas.

Many have graciously stepped up to the plate and donated to make this program the success that it has been, and now I have another favor to ask. We have the opportunity to win $5000 if we can gather the most votes for the person that has unselfishly dedicated herself to making this project a huge success, Rose Sliepka. She has been entered in a contest for heroes, and we could use your help. Simply go to http://www.care2.com/hero-next-door/531/?refer=15861.02.1263996798.374501 to vote for Rose Sliepka from Lancaster,Ca. They only require a name, email and date of birth but you can remain anonymous and opt out of any mailings. The entire process takes less than a minute.

For those who are not familiar with our program, you can visit our web site at www.dogtagsforkids.com. For those in a position to do so, donations are gratefully accepted, but more importantly please help us spread the word and get Rose the votes she truly deserves. It's a great way to help and support our troops without spending a dime. Anything you can do to help us raise awareness would be wonderful. I thank everyone for their time and trouble and in helping us support our military!

Kind regards,
Steve 

If you find yourself with an extra few minutes today go check out the amazing site, Dog Tags for Kids, it is a wonderful program helping our soldiers keep connected with their children back home, and please go vote for Rose Sliepka, so they can help keep this wonderful program up and running. Rose currently has 808 votes, lets keep those numbers going up!  Thank You ~ Charity

Words of Wisdom Wednesday

Head on over to Me and My SoldierMan to participate in this weeks Words of Wisdom Wednesday. 

"What makes pain intolerable to women is fear. What takes the fear away is knowledge, relaxation and focus. Yes, when these things are incorporated, there will still be pain but it will not be intolerable. Remember, you are hearing this from a certified wimp."
— Gloria Lemay

What takes you back?

What takes you back, back to the carefree days with the one you love? For me its the music by Creed, specifically the Human Clay album. When KS and I were dating he had a system in each car/truck he owned and this CD was one that he played frequently. Whenever I hear the music from it it just takes me back; like I have fallen into a time warp. I can smell his car and even feel the same inside as I did then. I can close my eyes and see us there driving, his hand on the shifter or holding mine. I can see his face and even remember the way it felt to hear him driving down the road to my house. My sisters would always run into my room saying KS is coming, Ks is coming! They have always loved him so much. We could always hear his system, or exhaust, drive past our house and then turn into our driveway. I know that if I am ever missing him or feeling the distance between us I can always turn on one of those songs and I will be with him again. Its amazing how music, a smell, anything that uses your senses can just take you back in time. It can remind you of something you might not have thought of for years, but because of that one emotional trigger its like you were just there, the memory fresh and vibrant. What is your trigger, what is it that takes you back to the place in time you always loved to be?

Words of Wisdom Wednesday

So Perpetual Newlyweds decide to throw in a bit of humor into this weeks edition of Words of Wisdom Wednesday so I figured I would follow suit and do the same. So here goes. If you don't like my humor I'm sorry, I think its funny.

"To reduce breastfeeding to milk is like reducing sex to semen." author unknown

Motivation, or lack there of...

One thing I have discovered though this new and improved life of ours is that I have serious motivational issues. I am the type of person who loves to please people. My joy in life comes from making others around me happy and I have decided that this is a problem. How can this be a problem? Easy. When KS was home I would clean the house, make sure the laundry and dishes were done, almost everyday, and without fail come 4:00 or 4:30 you would find me running throughout the house cleaning and tidying up. I wanted it to look perfect when he got home from work around 5:15. Now I have no one to clean for. Yes, I have 3 kids to clean for but in all actuality they could care less whether the house is clean or if they have to get there socks from the dryer instead of the drawer. They don't even care if the house is a disaster and I have had clothes piled on the couch that need to be hung up and put away for the past week. Which I have... As long as they have their toys and each other they are happy and content. I need to find the motivation to just get things done, but I am finding that a difficult task to accomplish. Even when he was home on leave my house was spotless and clean, but as soon as he left it all went to shambles again. I managed to get it clean this weekend b/c I knew my sister would want it clean since she had helped me clean it earlier in the week. So I cleaned up before she got there and I was thrilled for her to see it clean. Hopefully I can find some motivation this week, I really am tired of everything being in disarray. The kids rooms are spotless, its my stuff that is currently messy and I hate it. I am just having a hard time finding a reason to clean it, although keeping my sanity is starting to move up the ladder of reasons to clean. 

Christmas Morning

This is what our house looked like on Christmas Eve. After weeks of worrying about not getting paid in time to have presents under the tree, everything finally fell into place. Our hearts and our tree were full. Christmas this year was one we will always remember, KS was able to come home to us. I was especially thankful since I know that many other military families had to celebrate Christmas without their loved ones.

The kids woke up at their normal time, but I am sure within the next couple of years they will start waking up earlier and earlier. I know I would wake up at 4:30am some Christmas mornings... sorry Mom.

Christmas morning was magical, it was everything I was hoping for, and the best part about it. We were able to celebrate it as a family, a whole family.

One of those days

I am having one of those days... you now THOSE days.

The type of day where my boys have been "cleaning" their room for the past 4 hours and it still looks like it did 4 1/2 hours ago.

Cayleigh-Grace still has not taken a nap today. Normally she would have already had a 2 hour nap by now; at least she is in a wonderful mood and is happy as can be.

I have already put in the one tax document that we have, I am counting down the days until we can file and get our return back. I am ready to pay people back and pay off bills and not have to worry about these money issues anymore.

I think I have decided to switch Cayleigh-Grace over to cloth diapers, I am tired of her being raw for 3 weeks and clear for a week.

I finally decided which pets we will be keeping, the only problem, we can take 2... we have 3 dogs and 4 cats. Does anyone else see a problem with those numbers?

I totally screwed up paying my truck payment and applied my truck payment to our 4-wheeler... talk about a big time screw up. That is going to be fun to fix. Of course I didn't realize it until after it cleared my bank account...

I am worried about KS's knees since he has had to go to sick call and have an x-ray. He did not accept the profile but I am figuring he will have to soon.

31 days until graduation... that time cannot pass soon enough.

Well time to go fuss at the boys again since they are playing and not cleaning... again.

What type of day are you having?

Words of Wisdom Wednesday

My good friend Jaci over at Perpetual Newlyweds has started a new weekly blog hop called Words of Wisdom Wednesday. Do you have a favorite quote or saying that you would like to share with the world? If so create your own Words of Wisdom Wednesday post and head on over to Perpetual Newlyweds to link up on her Mr. Linky so we can all enjoy the wisdom.

"The knowledge of how to give birth without outside intervention lies deep within each woman. Successful childbirth depends on an acceptance of the process. "
Suzanne Arms

Annoyed

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to be annoyed with someone who is hours away and that you only get to talk to for maybe 30 on the weekends if you are lucky? For me its pretty easy. Right now KS is on my list, and its not my good list. My cell phone rang on Saturday and I couldn't' believe it. KS has never called on a Saturday before, normally their calls are only on Sundays. I was so thrilled to hear his voice and finally get to talk to him again until I heard this... "Why did you send so many letters at once, do you know how many push ups I had to do for those?" (BTW he had to do 60) So, I explained to him that I sent one letter a day and it is NOT MY FAULT that the DS, mail people, or whoever it is holds their mail until they all have a pile and then have to do push ups to receive them. All I was trying to do was be sweet and make sure he knew that we were still thinking about him. So needless to say I have not sent any mail out since Saturday, I have still written him everyday but I have yet to send any. I am figuring I will send these out Thursday or Friday and maybe by the time he gets these letters he will actually appreciate them, because right now I feel like he would rather not get any than have to do push ups for them. Granted yes I am mad, and I am annoyed but you know what try not hearing from your spouse for a week and then the first thing you hear is him fussing at you, not a I miss you or I love you, nope just fussing. Its not pleasant. Especially when it isn't even your fault to begin with. Oh well... rant over, maybe I will start feeling better now. =)

I am going to be changing a few things around here in the next few days so if you notice things missing or you come on and it looks crazy just bare with me, while I get everything figured out and situated again. Also, the Christmas posts are coming I promise.

Reunited

Day 2 - December 16th

This day was the most amazing day I have had in years, well 16 months to be exact! We were finally reunited with KS. You would be surprised just how long a month can feel like when you have limited contact and never see the person. The morning started off great, Cayleigh-Grace and had breakfast downstairs, well Cayleigh-Grace did. I was too nervous to eat; I did have some apple juice though. We finally got to see what everything looked like since we got there so late we couldn't see anything when we arrived.

 

After breakfast we went and checked out of the hotel and met up with a fellow Army wife that I have met along this journey. To hear our stories you would swear we were twins separated at birth or something. We have been walking the same path all these years without even knowing each other. By the way "J" we are both fired, we have yet to get a picture together!

CG as we left our hotel room. 

Once we met up with "J" we had to wait for about an hour until our husbands were released. We didn't get to see our husbands march in but we did see another platoon march in. I think we both almost had heart attacks looking for our husbands in the group. They ended up standing in formation about two feet from us. Picking KS up ended up being very confusing they kept sending all of the families to different doors that all went into the same building. Even the Drill Sergeants that were running things were getting frustrated because it wasn't going as planned. Eventually we all, I am talking around 30+ people, got to the correct door filed into the correct line by platoon number and signed out our soldiers. Once we signed them out and confirmed that we had our vehicles inspected we could pick up our soldiers. That was also confusing. Some of the platoons handed out paperwork to the families and other platoons had their paper work with their soldiers. I finally got tired of waiting around being confused and just walked up to the DS at the door and asked for KS. He had to call him twice because he wasn't KS's DS so he wasn't sure if he was calling the right name. I think I had the biggest smile ever when I saw KS stand up from his chair and walk towards me, I just couldn't believe that I was finally seeing him for the first time in a month. I was on cloud 9 to say the least. They are allowed NO PDA (personal displays of affection) at all so I put my hand on him for a second and handed him CG because I knew he could at least hold her while we were on post. Cayleigh-Grace didn't recognize KS until he took his hat off, but as soon as he did she knew exactly who he was. She was so happy to see him.

CG after seeing Daddy for the first time.

After we pick KS up we met up with "J" and her husband and we all went out to lunch at Chick-Fil-A

After lunch it was finally time to head home. We went straight to pick up the boys at my parents house. I don't think I have ever seen them happier. It was so amazing to see them run out the doors of my parents house and jump into KS's arms. Colin ran straight out, but Kiale thought he had to put his shoes on until my sister Dixie told him not to worry about his shoes and to go get Daddy.

 I have never seen this boy run so fast in his entire life!

Kiale finally caught up after ditching the shoes idea.

So as you can imagine December 16th was one amazing day for my family and it was a wonderful way to kick of an amazing Christmas break! 

The Beginning

Well since I have already done a post about post exodus and a random Christmas post I figured it was time to start from the beginning before I start forgetting everything we did over these past two weeks with KS home.

December 15th - Day 1

From the time the sun came up I was a woman on a mission. I had things to do, places to go, and people to see. The first thing I had to do was drop the kids off at school with all their overnight bags and their booster seats. They were so excited going to school that day because they knew they were going to be spending the night with my parents and sisters and that I was leaving to go pick Kiale up. The rest of the day went by in a blur, I had to go home and finish the last few things I had to clean around the house. Do you have any idea how annoying it is to have to wait on a load of laundry to finish drying before you can leave the house!? Once the house was clean and the clothes and dishes were put away I met up with a friend of mine to pick up my cash; she had had a cash for gold party the night before and I had given her a bunch of broken necklaces and things to sell for me. Thankfully I made enough to pay for my hotel and for my gas up to post. As of the 15th I still had not gone and got my military ID so that was next on my list. Thankfully I live right across the street from a military establishment so it was a very quick stop. I got there and 45min later I was done. It would have been much quicker if I had not gone and got myself all turned around trying to find the right building. I had two more stops to make before I could actually leave and go get KS. I had to get gas and pick up KS's Christmas present. Then only a good 3 1/2 hours behind schedule I finally started the drive to where KS is doing his training.

I had just told her we were going to pick Daddy up, she was very excited.

I had hoped to get there before dark, but that didn't happen. I ended up getting there after driving two hours in the dark, but thankfully Cayleigh-Grace and I made it there safe and sound. We were able to check into our hotel on post and go get some dinner. Did you know that fast food places close early on post? I found that out the hard way. I walked up to the door and noticed its hours, it said they closed at 2200. I thought to myself I wonder what time that means, turns out it meant 8:00, and it was 8:00. Thankfully they let us come on in and order some dinner. Cayleigh-Grace and I were so happy we were starving. We had driven straight through without stopping and I had only packed snacks for her.

We had a wonderful room. It had a kitchen, living room, bedroom, and good size bathroom. The closet in the bedroom was a full walk in, I think it was as big as my closet at home! We were even able to get the same type room when all three of the kids and I took KS back up there.

Our Room

After we got settled and finally had some food in our stomachs Cayleigh-Grace got her bath and then we watched some of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular before I put her to bed. The Rockettes are amazing, you can just see the dedication they have in their dancing.

She was so tuckered out from our busy day, she fell right asleep as soon as I put her to bed.

A Gift

This was my husbands Christmas gift from me. I wanted to give him something that 1. would make a difference, 2. that he could actually take back to training, and 3. that he could cherish for years to come. I know that I hit the nail on the head with #2 I just hope that numbers 1 and 3 fall into place the way I have prayed they would. My husband has not had a relationship with God since June 4th of 2000 when his parents were in a horrendous motorcycle accident and his father was killed; his mother almost died from injuries sustained in the accident as well. As he has told me many times him and God are not on speaking terms right now. Well since he has left to become a soldier all of this has changed. He now attends chapel every other Sunday and on the odd Sunday's that he does not attend he participates in a Bible study that him and six of his friends put on while sitting on the floor in the barracks. I truly believe that going through all of the mental rebuilding that the Army puts you through has made a difference and has softened my husbands heart to the Lord. I pray that one day he will have the relationship with him that he used to have.

If you would like more information on the Soldier's Bible click on the link and it will take you to a description of it.

9 Year Anniversary and a Goodbye.

As of 7:00pm Sunday night KS was safely back in the hands of the Army, and our wonderful Christmas Exodus was over. The kids and I are back on our own again; stalking the mail lady and waiting for our Sunday phone calls. I started this post (well the title at least) on Monday when we finally made it home, I just couldn't bring myself to finish it. Leaving KS this time has been much harder on me then it was the first time around. The kids are taking it better and I am taking it worse, go figure. I know KS took the separation worse this time as well.

After we dropped him off Sunday night the kids and I went back to our hotel on post and then headed home Monday morning, Monday by the way was KS and I's 9 year anniversary. Its amazing how fast the time has gone when you are looking back on it. We knew within three months of dating that we were going to get married. Most people thought we were crazy being as young as we were, 15 & 18, and already talking about marriage but we just knew we were meant to be together. The funniest thing is that I remember having a discussion with him early on into our relationship and we were talking about him enlisting in the Army and I told him point blank if he ever joined I would leave him b/c I would not be able to handle the stress from that. If only I had known then what I know now... I would have had him go ahead and enlist right out of high school and we would already have 8 years under our belt.

I did get a wonderful anniversary present last night, and it wasn't even from my husband. The amazing woman who took our pictures before KS left also did an "ACU" photo shoot for us during Exodus. She posted some sneak peeks for me to enjoy last night, so I figured I would share a couple with you.

This picture makes me laugh every time I look at it. I had put the hat on myself and was quickly informed that I didn't do it right, so he had to fix it for me and put it on "correctly".

This picture had me bawling last night, it really symbolizes what we are going through right now.