At the beginning of the month or end of September I can't remember which, we took the kids to look for their Halloween costumes. They get to pick them out from the used clothing store, and we always have so much fun sifting through all the fun costumes. Connor found a spiderman mask and insisted he be Spiderman. We could not find a costume for the life of us, but then we saw this at walmart and it was perfect and in our price range, well a little more, but he is the youngest child and is completely spoiled. He has loved it and worn it over and over and over and over, so totally worth it!
October meant leaving month. We got Derek all packed up at the beginning of the month not knowing what day he would have to leave until last minute. We ended up shipping all of his winter gear there because his bags just didn't have enough room. The deployment sure got real this month because we could no longer say next month anymore.
General Conference
We LOVE general conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We have a living Prophet of God and we get to listen to him every 6 months. He gives us counsel and warms our souls. And all of the Apostles on the earth have the same power as when the 12 Apostles were on the earth with Jesus Christ. We are so grateful for technology so we can listen from the comfort of our home.
The kids love our family time. We painted pumpkins, colored pictures, and played games as we listed to prophetic counsel and learned that our church will go from 3 hours to 2 hours. There have been so many other changes made as we strive to live more like our Savior Jesus Christ.
One of the changes made a year ago was that the Priesthood session for priesthood holders 12 and older will be held only once a year as well as the women's conference will be once a year now in October. Another change was that girls 8 and older are allowed to attend the women's conference. This was Eden's first year and her and I got to go together to a dinner before and sit in our church building to listen to the prophet speak to the women of the church. It was an amazing experience.
The Prophet listed 4 invitations for the women:
1. Participate in a 10 day fast from social media and from any other media that bring negative or impure thoughts to your mind; pray, record and follow through with each impression.
2. Read the Book of Mormon between now and the end of the year; mark each verse that speaks of or refers to the Savior. Be intentional about talking of, rejoicing in, and preaching of Christ with your family and friends.
3. Establish a pattern of regular temple attendance; seek to know more, understand more, and feel more about temples than you ever have before.
4. Participate fully in Relief Society; study the current relief society purpose statement, develop your own purpose statement for your own life, savor the truths in the relief society declaration.
Eden got to sit by all of her church friends and it was so much fun. Some of the 8 year old girls in our ward at church.
So, if you ever wonder what a Prophet of God tells his people I would love to show you more! He speaks every 6 months to us!
He is coming November 18th to San Antonio and I am trying my hardest to go visit him with Kael and Eden!
The kids love playing with the dogs.
On October 8th there was no school for Veteran's Day, so we took the kids to build a bear to make a deployment bear and record Derek's voice and then we took them to a movie. It was so much fun.
It rained so much in September and October. There were worms everywhere. We found the longest worm probably ever. As long as the kids arm. So gross, but kind of cool.
The morning after build a bear I decided I needed to comb Eden's hair before school. I'm grateful I did because as I was combing I found a BUG in her hair. Yes, it was a head louse...
It was awful. I wasn't sure it was head lice because we never have had it. So, I sent the kids to school and came home, found the bug, googled, and then cried a bit with Derek as we killed the bug and furiously started gathering all the bedding and stuffed animals to bag up. Derek ran to the store for bushes, combs, shampoos, and kill all the bugs stuff he talked to the pharmacist for. I'm so glad Derek was here. Then, I went and grabbed the kids from school, shampooed all their hair and started combing. Thankfully Eden was the only one with nits and only the one bug. It makes my head itch thinking about it.
It took all day. And all afternoon at the laundry mat. All the kids snuggled their build a bear, and Eden her new deployment kitten especially all night long... It was kind of heart breaking having to take them away knowing they wouldn't have them now the day Derek left because he was a week out potentially and we were told to store them in a bag for at least 2 weeks.
For something so small, it sure was a lot of work. Still finding dead nits a month later.
We went to a football game for Jacob Pinkston. It was so much fun. The kids had fun playing on my phone. I didn't even know taking a picture with a creature was possible. We love watching him play football and cannot wait for more games in our future.
Sleeping Connor. He is so peaceful when he sleeps so I always take a picture. He is now obsessed with sleeping in my bed...
We finished our deployment wall for when Derek will be gone. The kids helped us put it together. I'm so happy with how it turned out. We can write our questions for Dad on the wall so we don't forget. Put letters to send him. See where on the map he is and know what time it is for him all the time. I love it.
The call came soon enough. On Tuesday October 16th Derek got called to come get his orders, and less than 12 hours later he was at the airport to leave. I'll copy what I wrote on my journal.
This is the beginning of our deployment story. We found out in May and honestly it wasn't that big of a shock. Whenever something could "potentially" happen for us in the military it usually did. My husband is an anesthesiologist for the United States Air Force and sometimes it seems like "luck" is not on our side.
With all that however we felt really lucky to know almost 6 months in advance that he would be leaving. So many people have very little notice before they leave. We got to move houses, take a huge test, visit family, graduate residency, go on a vacation and have almost an entire month to hang out together before he left. It was quite awesome looking back. You would think that knowing 6 months in advance that he would be deploying that they would get his orders to him with a fairly good notice. That was not the case for us. We literally didn't know when he would leave until about 15 hours before he left...
That was our day yesterday. Hurry up and wait. We do that so often now it is a quote on our wall. At 3 pm he got the call to grab his orders and that mad dash began. It's a good thing that we are such organized, type A, crazy people who pack well in advance and have our check lists complete.
His flight was first thing in the morning. 8 am to be precise, which means we left at 6 am for the airport. I'm leaving out so many awesome details and I just don't care anymore. So be it. I'm tired from being up anxiously awaiting today almost the whole night. Last night he blessed our children and myself. "We do that in our church, it's pretty amazing." We got the kids and I our own special dog tags with a quote on it that is our school year quote to help us through the year. We got the kids a special picture framed with just them and their Dad to keep by their beds. It was so sweet and he is so sweet to our family.
This morning I won't forget though. My sweet husband. We loaded in our van. He prayed for us. We drove. Anxious. Knowing and yet not knowing what would happen. I have to say it went pretty perfect. Just how I wanted it to go. You play these scenes out in your mind so many times. Then, that creates expectations that mostly lead to disappointment when they don't turn out like the movie in your head. This was not one of those times.
We got great parking and with military bags and 4 children in tow let me say how awesome and a blessing that was. We walked him into the building. We found a quiet nook. I went to take a picture of the kids and their Dad. A sweet gentleman asked if he could take the picture and I actually got to be in the photo. I had prayed that would happen. My sweet husband hugged each of his children. He hugged me. We kissed. Elara covered her eyes. We cried. We cheered each other on. We went to leave and he asked for one more kiss. Our eyes were red and we walked in separate directions.
The kids were giddy and ready to go eat some yummy food because I promised them IHOP before school. We made it to our car easy peasy. Connor pushed the assistance button in the elevator for the first time. My dreaded nightmare happened. Guess what?! Nothing happened. It turned on and we walked away. I laughed inside because I faced a fear and lived through it.
We got to the van. The kids loaded in and then Connor yelled at me. "Not you Mom, DAD. I want Daddy!" Oh great, I thought in my head. It has already begun. With teary eyes I had to explain again that Daddy was leaving on an airplane for a long time and Mom was all that was here and can I help him with his seat belt. I think the airplane seemed exciting because he let me. And I bribed him with pancakes. That always helps. The girls were excited for the food. Can you guess who most? Yup, Eden. Eden was ready to eat. Elara's eyes were hurting. Kael was melancholy.
Just how I imagined. The drive was uneventful except every airplane in the sky must be Dad's.
We took our sweet time at IHOP and just enjoyed being together. We shared a hot chocolate. I got Elara an orange juice. The kids picked their own meal and it was just nice to be together. Having fun eating lots and lots of carbs
That night we had activity days for Eden and I was helping be in charge of it. It was a really nice distraction with lots of people who have been or had a husband deployed. Eden had so much fun, and loved sewing her very first pillow case. I'm so proud of her.
That night Connor got himself all set up for bed. He knew Daddy went away on an airplane. So, he thought he needed to set up a bed in Mom's room with his Daddy picture.
The rest of the kids felt the same way because I think everyone except Kael was in my room that night.
Derek had many legs of the journey. He went from San Antonio to Dallas to Norfolk Virginia. Then, there were about 30 guys stuck in Virgina for about 2 days.
It took about a week for Derek to get to Afghanistan. From Virginia he flew to Germany, then to Kuwait, then to Quatar, and stayed there another 2 days, and then on to Bagram. Lots of jet lag, and lots of flights.
All the while our lives went on, which will be on the next post.
