Well I probably wont post again anytime in the next week or two. We are in Ohio on vacation and having an awesome time visiting with all our family!! We are doing camp outs, and art projects, photo shoots and swimming. The kids (and adults for that matter) are having a great time!
This week we are also going to look in to some apartments for when the kids and I move back next month. This is bitter sweet for me. I love the thought of being here with my family for a year and the kids being able to be with there Cousins and Aunts and Uncles and Grandparents BUT still I would give pretty much anything to stay in Washington with my hubby if that were an option. Unfortunately that is not an option. My DH will be half a world away. This will be our second time going thru a deployment as a family. His first to Iraq. I am so incredibly proud of my husband for doing what he does. For protecting us and our rights as well as the rights of others. When I think of my husband I think about Captain Moroni and the title of liberty. It said
" In memory of our God,our religion,and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children."
That is why my husband does what he does. When we talk about our lives in the military those are the things that come up.
When we talk about being apart for a year we get all sorts of reactions. Anything from "Wow that must be hard." to "I would never do that!" It IS hard and honestly you probably couldnt do it! But this is the path that God has put our family on. We have known that since day one, since the day we decided to talk to the recruiter and because we are doing what we know the Lord has directed us to do He blesses us and strengthens our family and gets us thru those long seperations.
We never intended to move away from our little hometown and we never intended on going active duty Army. When my husband was laid off from his job several years back we started praying and he started searching for a new job. Then one day I was sitting in my living room and the idea came to me. Why not just go active duty. At that point my Justin was a reservist. When I brought this up to justin he was shocked, I had always been very adament that this was my home and this was where I would stay. But from that moment we started praying about going active and it just was right. Beyond any doubt we both knew that this was the path the Lord was leading us too. Despite our fears and despite our familys shock and upset we couldnt deny it was the way Heavenly Father was leading us. I cry about it now when I think about it because from the day we made the decision to do what Heavenly Father asked us to do we have been blessed beyond anything I could have ever imagined! Heavenly Father is SO good to us!
Wow I hadnt planned on going into all of THAT in this post! But there you are! =-}
We got together last night with all our friends here at Fort Lewis for one last cook out before all the guys start shipping out. My guy is one of the first to go. With him our friend Jason (pictured beside me) and Hoffman (pictures front and center of course) are heading out the begining of August. Our friends Chad (pictured back row with his daughter on his shoulders) and Steven (pictured next to Chad) are heading out late September/early October.
