BREEZY FIELDS

As a wife, especially as a military wife, you do hard things.  It's the way it goes.  Today I have decided what one of the hardest of those things might be, helping your husband pack.  I'm not talking packing for a trip to the car races for the weekend or a weekend backpacking expedition.  I'm talking about the kind when you know you aren't going to be with him again for a very, very, long time.  That is the packing I dread.  There are a few different aspects to this that make it so difficult and press me to put it on the list of things I hate. First, the pressure.  This is the case for any trip, is everything washed?  Is everything found?  Socks matched?  But for a soldier it is much worse.  There is SO much that they have to have, "according to regulation."  You can't really fudge anything.  You also feel like you are sending them out for an indefinite amount of time and you want them to be comfortable, be prepared, b...

As usual, we had a great weekend.  Friday night we drove down to Pa's retirement and center for the family swim night.  It was so fun to play with the kids in the warm water.  When it comes to water temperature I have senior citizen needs.  When it was time to close up shop we headed up to Grandma Bennett's and Pa's for ice-cream, popcorn balls, whatever hit the mark, and continued to visit with Meags and Cor and the boys (Hazel and Bennett were on a trip with their g'ma Allen), and mom and dad.  Saturday morning Mike and Cory took off early to go mountain biking.  Mom and dad made delicious oatmeal pancakes and eggs and juice for breakfast and then we cleaned up and headed out for a walk in the beautiful fall sunshine with Meagan and g'ma and Harris while Pa and Wil headed off to the BYU football game. A few hours later we were back and making lunch and then changing to go to Audrey Schickedanz's baptism.  It was so good to see the Schickie's and Au...

These are questions that Baylee, our respite care provider in California, needed answered, in detail, for a paper she is writing.  The questions included how the kids and I dealt with deployments and moving etc... I thought that while I was expounding on the subject I might as well throw it onto the blog. Being in the military is definitely a mixed bag.  When Mike and I decided that joining the Army would be a good decision for our family it was a time of peace, as a country we had seen very little action for many, many years.  Of course we knew what the job entailed but at that time it seemed so abstract, not really something we were going to have to worry about.  We joined desiring a stable job, health benefits, a chance to see the world, help with education, and also with the feeling that what Mike would be doing as a career would be an honorable and significant way for him to spend his time. The beginning was difficult, we quickly had to learn how to live a...

Almost two weeks?  Yikes!  Sunday we made a mad dash down to Battleground/Vancouver.  We couldn't leave Saturday or Jane would have missed the Stake dance- Tragic!  So we left at 7 Sunday morning for church and an afternoon with my family and then we popped over to the Stinchfield's for a Marnie/Sawyer birthday party.  A great day.  Sawyer got spoiled and he has been in little pig heaven with all of his new toys. The rain has set in- so far I am handling it.  Impressive since it has been a week, eh?  Ellie has been having sleeping issues the last few nights.  It's nearly killed me.  I suspected maybe she was a little cold and that's what might be waking her early.  I put more blankets on her last night and she stayed asleep.  Time will tell. We are loving having Mike home.  We get him for three more weeks.  I will be in major withdrawal come November.  We all will. I have two loads of laundry to fold so I m...