2 Months Later....

Wow! Time has certainly been flying here lately, and here we are with 2 months worth of updates!! Good grief! I apologize for not getting these up sooner, but I currently have no working computer in my house. (one GIANT pain in the butt!!) Of course, my computer started acting funny THE DAY after Doc deployed. Funny how the electronics work perfectly until the man of the house leaves for 7 months, eh!?! We actually have a 2nd one also, but it's in need of new recovery disks that I just frankly haven't made time to order yet. Hopefully it will be up and running soon!

Well, here we are, 2 months down of deployment #2. These last 2 months have gone by so fast, but SO SLOW at times as well. I pulled an all-nighter the day before Mother's Day to see him off, and it's been crazy busy ever since. Note the word "crazy". This deployment is the exact opposite of the last deployment to Iraq. I was a stay-at-home mom then, to a 1 year old who had no comprehension of what was going on, I had great friends who had mellow, laidback lives, Doc was bored in Iraq with hardly any action whatsoever, we had NO issues come up at all during that 7 months, and I had a beautiful wedding to plan to keep me busy! This deployment I'm a full-time working mother, to a potty-training 2 year-old who knows EXACTLY whats going on and hates the fact that her Daddy is gone, we have a cat, a dog, some fish, and a roommate, my friends have TONS of things going in their lives, Doc's unit is having an extremely bloody deployment already, and I swear the day after he left EVERYTHING just decided to start going wrong here on the homefront!

Just a couple weeks after Doc left, we had Cara come to visit for 2 weeks! It had been over a year since we had seen her, and we were SO happy to have her here!! Unfortunately for her, she came during the craziest couple of weeks we've had so far, so it was very eventful for her! What a blessing it was to have her here to be with us during everything! It was wonderful, and we did find time to have a little fun through it all! :) We went to a luau, did some window shopping, ate some yummy food, and of course, enjoyed watching all of our shows together in person, rather than on the phone the next day! :) We were able to celebrate Cara's 1-Year Anniversary of being cancer free!!!! What an awesome thing to celebrate!!! Please still be in prayer for her kidneys, as they still have not started functioning again from all the treatments!

Just a week after Cara left, Nanny and Poppy (my parents) arrived!! They spent the last two weeks with us, and went home late last night! It has been SO AWESOME to have them here!! We miss them so much when they're at home in Illinois, so it was great to get to wake up to them in our home every day for 2 whole weeks! Jordan didn't go to Miss Jenny's at all during their visit. Nanny and Poppy wanted to keep her at home with them :) We all had a lot of fun together, going to the luau, cooking dinner together, playing Yahtzee, the usual! It was so nice to have the company of my parents during the 4th of July. This is the 3rd year in a row that I have given my husband to Uncle Sam for the 4th, and in lieu of Doc's recent events, it was very emotional for us.

On a random side note, I have been embracing my inner country girl lately! On the 4th, after Jordan went to bed, my parents were tired and went to bed, and Christy and I went to a Country Bar!! Christy and I have been dancing together (clogging, line dancing, 2-stepping, waltzing, cha-cha'ing, you name it!) since we were wee little kids, and I cannot tell you how awesome it was to dance with her again! We will, for sure, have to start doing this more often! We each had 1 beer, and then switched to water, and I have to say, dancing is SO much more enjoyable sober! Those few years that I wasted being wasted in college are such a blur to me, and I have been feeling so much regret about that time here lately. The pure joy that I get from dancing, enjoying my friends, and knowing that I'm still able to hear God if he should want to use me at that time is so much better than anything I ever thought I could get from Jager and Smirnoff. I have been trying to sort through those years in my head for quite some time now, and the only thing I have concluded is that I am incredibly thankful for a God who will give you unlimited amounts of support and help when you decide to make a seemingly impossible change in life. Even more, I am thankful for the Grace that has saved my life! It makes me ill to think about where I would be without it. Thank you Lord!

All in all, things HAVE started getting better, I can feel it! I feel so much more comforted than I did in the beginning of all this. I have had to make some extremely hard decisions regarding taking things out of the picture and realizing that I have to say no if it's more than I can handle. Things are certainly more calm around my house, and though I'm sad to not have visitors anymore, I am anxious to start re-organizing, cleaning, and getting things back in order :) This will surely illeviate some stress all by itself! :) I am fully confident and sure that this "calmness" is NEEDED, and NOT a time to take on anything new until we've had a long enough chance to fully recoop from the last few weeks. Thank you all so much for the prayers, please keep them coming!!! While you're praying, please keep my friend Monique in your prayers as well! Her husband is deployed with Doc, her daughter Kamryn turned 2 last week, and she just gave birth to twins last night! One boy and one girl, Kody and Kelli are their names! Kody has fluid on his lungs and is currently in NICU, and Kelli so far is doing well!! Unfortunately until this work week is over I won't have time to PHYSICALLY see them, but I hope to soon!!! Have a good week everyone, and God Bless you all :)