Past the Halfway Mark..

Well it has been awhile since I last updated and I'm sorry for that. But we have been SUPER busy. Well I should have updated over the summer because I had PLENTY of downtime but the kids were in the pool almost daily and I hate being on the computer while they are swimming so I just didn't. Now for an update...

We are past the halfway mark of this deployment which means THIS DEPLOYMENT IS MORE THAN HALFWAY FINISHED!!!! Even though I still feel like we have forever and a day until he is home :( but its still nice knowing that we're so much closer than the day he left :) So here's what has happened since last time I updated..

Over the summer the kids and I headed to Texas. That was a LONG two months. YES we went home for the WHOLE summer. I have never been so bored in my life! I enjoyed seeing family and friends but it was hard because almost EVERY weekend we were driving somewhere to spend time with someone. My parents live in a tiny podunk town (its also where my husband and I grew up) and their is not much to do there so anytime we wanted to go and do something we had to make the 30-60 minute drive. But a lot of exciting things happened while we were home. My best friend got engaged(and she asked me to be in her wedding!!). My brother got engaged. I WENT BLONDE! We went to Florida for a family vacation and I got to see my amazing friend Kelly who I met while we were stationed at Bragg together. And I'm sure other exciting things happened but I seriously cannot even remember back that far.

Adam had some scary things happen during the summer. Well they were scary to me, I'm not sure how he felt about them. But I'm not going to go into detail about that.. Thankfully he is still safe and is just as ready to be back home as we are to have him back home. He picked up ping pong and started playing volleyball to keep him busy while he's not at the gym or doing school work. Which honestly I'm glad because he was watching WAY too many movies :). I kept thinking that has to be boring. Right? I mean you can only watch so many movies.. But I like knowing that they have some things for them to do during down time.

The kids and I got back to NY a few days before school started. The drive was LONG! But thankfully my mom drove it with me and then she stayed in NY for a few days because my brother was flying up to visit his fiancé and we spent a little bit of time with them before my mom flew back to Texas. The kids started school and life went back to normal.

Brett is now in 2nd grade and Brynna is in kindergarten. I have no idea what to do with myself now that my side kick is gone. Brynna and I use to do everything together and now she has left me for school and he friends. But they both really enjoy school. Brett also started soccer and Brynna started gymnastics. Next week they will also be starting piano. I had planned on getting a job but due to us going home for Thanksgiving and Christmas and then Adam getting home sometime the beginning of 2016 and THEN him wanting to go home a month after he gets back and THEN us going on our trip without the kids we decided it still would not be best if I got a job. So I got my business license and am doing photography. Photography is something I really love doing. I've done it for awhile for my friends and family and taken photos of my kiddos many times. Finally I just made the move and am now able to do it and get paid. I also signed up to volunteer some while the kids are at school and meet up with a few spouses during the week just to keep me busy. I try not to sit at home during the day because then it becomes extremely boring and I turn in to the lazy bum who doesn't want to get out of her pajamas.

Truthfully this deployment hasn't been all that bad. Yes their are bad days and my next blog post will probably discuss some of the bad days we have had, but I am extremely thankful for facebook video chat and calling, Skype, facetime, the internet, and just the fact that I am able to hear his voice or see his face almost every day. We miss him daily and life sucks without him home but I know it wont be much longer.

Today we made some goody bags with the FRG and it was nice being involved again. I missed helping out with the FRG, our last two FRG's I was very involved in but this base has been a LOT different for me. I don't know anyone that he works with, I haven't been too involved with the FRG, and I honestly don't even know where he works. I've been there a few times but if I needed to go pick him up tomorrow I'd need him to give me turn by turn directions lol. Funny thing is this base is the smallest base out of the 3 we've been to.

But that's it for now. I promise I will do another blog post soon. And it'll be a little more out of my comfort zone. But I'm blogging for 2 reasons, 1 is so later on I can look back and reread everything and 2 is because if someone is searching and finds my blog I want them to realize they are not alone and sometimes life isn't always perfect, BUT it has it's not so great days..

D-Day.... Unknown Territory

I have been missing in action for awhile due to my husbands deployment it has been so hectic so I took a little break from blogging. BUT I'm back now and a LOT has happened.


Deployment day has come and gone and it was exactly what I expected. Full of tears. LOTS of tears....... From ME.

Most people knew Adam was deploying but only certain people knew exactly when and it was nice having family visit before things got REALLY busy. Then after all our family visited Adam went on block leave and we made a trip down to NYC, I will have a blog post about that later on so be on the look out. We had a BLAST, it was our last family trip before the deployment and it was amazing! Then it was time to come back home and buckle down for the deployment. He had a week left of work and then it was time for him to go.

They were off work the Friday and Monday before the deployment, going back to work Tuesday and were supposed to deploy sometimes Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. So Friday evening as soon as our son got home from school Adam and I had our final date night. We had dinner and watched Furious 7. That was not the best movie choice whenever you have been holding back a week worth of tears, but it was a movie we both really wanted to see and it was a really good movie either way. At the end of the movie I shed a few tears. THEN it was the dreaded ride home..... The drive is probably 20 minutes at most and about halfway home we were talking about random things and then it got quiet. And all I could tell myself was DON'T let a tear fall, I knew once one tear fell they would just come pouring out. And my eyes let me down.... One tear trickled down my cheek and BOOM! It was like someone blew up the Hoover Dam and they ALL came flowing. And I tried so hard to just look out the window and not let him know but he noticed.... That turd thought I was still crying about Paul Walker in Furious 7! REALLY?? Paul Walker!!! Yea the ending was sad but come on now... NO I'M NOT CRYING ABOUT PAUL WALKER! Thankfully he made me laugh so by the time we got to the gate to get on base my face didn't look like a swollen red mess.

We had a great weekend and then Monday night came around. Monday I did great but Monday night... Yea that's a different story haha. Monday night we let the kids fall asleep in our bed and got some final family cuddles but then ended up moving them to their bed. I rubbed Adams back like I always do and I THOUGHT he was almost asleep. And then he asked "Are you crying?" And I just laid their and started to BAWL! He rolled over and just held me for what felt like hours. I just wanted time to freeze. We talked some, I cried some, we talked some more, laughed, and fell asleep. The next morning he went into work and when he got home he told me they delayed the departure 24 hours... Even though I was SO happy that we had another 24 hours with him all I could say was "WHAT! I did all that crying last night for nothing!?" we both just cracked up about it. But it was nice knowing we had just a little bit longer.

I surprisingly did NOT cry Tuesday night. We went right to sleep. I think I was exhausted from all the crying I did the previous night haha. Even though I was not ready for him to leave, I was ready for the leaving part to be over with. Anyone that has ever been through a deployment knows that the anticipation and working up to the leaving part is probably the hardest part. Then they leave you shed some tears and the hardest part is over with. Now you can look forward to the homecoming.

Wednesday was a little harder than Tuesday. I knew those were our last few hours before we dropped him off. I knew we would not go to sleep together in the same bed for the rest of 2015. I knew they were not postponing it any longer and as much as I was ready for the leaving part to be over I just wanted a little bit longer. Wednesday night we put the kids to bed and we watched a few of our tv shows I had recorded. Thankfully Criminal Minds came on that night. That'll be the last time I watch criminal minds at night. From now on I will have to record it and watch it the next morning. And then 1:30am rolled around.

Yes that's correct I said 1:30AM! He had to be dropped off by 2 AM! I don't know why the military has to make EVERY THING so complicated. So at 1:30 AM we woke the kids up put them in the car and made the long dreaded trip to drop him off. The kids were exhausted but it was in the middle of the night so they slept until it was time for goodbyes. We decided this time it was best to just say our goodbyes at the car. Originally we were supposed to drop them off by 2 AM and all family had to be gone by 2:30 AM then it changed to drop off 2 AM but all family could wait in a gym until 4 AM. As much as I wanted to stay at the gym and wait and hope that we'd get to see him again I don't think the kids or myself could deal with that. So we didn't... We pulled up to the parking lot and I just broke down. Seeing him give the kids a hug broke my heart into a million pieces. Then it was my turn. And he just held me. We all got our final hugs and kisses, he shut the door, and like that it was all over. I was sobbing as he was walking into the building. The goodbyes/see ya laters were done and he was gone.

I cried the whole way home.. Once we got to the house both kids were asleep and I just sat there. I didn't want to walk into the house. I have read many blog post about how different it felt walking into the house after you drop them off and I did not want to feel that way because I knew it'd make me cry even more. But I had 2 kiddos that were ready to go back inside and get back in bed. I can agree with every one else, walking into our home it just feels different, it feels empty, alone.

We walked inside, everyone curled up in mommy & daddy's bed and it was time for bed. I honestly don't know if it took me long to fall asleep but I do remember crying myself to sleep.. I was terrified of this "new normal"... The unknown.

2014..

WOW!!!

WOW!!!!

Just thinking about everything we have gone through this past year and all I can say is WOW! What a year. So here is a very quick recap of our year...

January
- Kicked off the new years with family back in Texas
- 2 Months pregnant with surrobaby

- Got temporary custody of Adams niece

- Headed back to Fort Bragg, NC
- First huge snow of the year in NC!!

February

- Bought a minivan.... For those of yall that don't know I am SO not a minivan person haha
- Brynna started gymnastics
- Adam was in the field and his battery was involved in a training accident that killed a soldier, severely injured 2 others, and a few others suffered minor injures.
- Brynna did her very first pageant(she decided pageants just aren't for her)
- J&J(surrobaby's parents) came to visit and we found out surrobaby was a girl :)

 

March
- Brett got septic arthritis and ended up having emergency surgery and was hospitalized for a week and out of school for a month and had to do physical therapy twice a week
- Adam's niece went back to Texas
- Brett turned 6!!



This was 2 weeks after surgery.
The right foot was the infected foot and the left foot was what his normal ankle would look like

April
- Adam reenlisted into the military
- Brett was able to go back to school exactly one month after his last day of school due to the infection
- We headed out to our first beach trip of the year
- AND we found out we'd be pcs'ing to Alaska come October!!!

May
- Our 3 year wedding anniversary
- I got pregnancy induced lactose intolerance(that was miserable!)
- Brett was released from physical therapy
- Headed to the beach for memorial weekend and we decided to camp at the beach at 32 weeks pregnant haha
- Adam became a big brother again!!
- PCS'ing began.......

 

June
- My last full month pregnant
- Found out I was SEVERELY anemic.. My numbers came back at 7.4 and they want them at 11 when your pregnant
- Brett's last day of kindergarten was in June
- We decided to make one more beach trip to the outer banks. It was one beach we wanted to see before we moved from North Carolina and we knew if we didn't go before I delivered then we wouldn't be able to go at all.
- Brynna learned how to swim
- Adam's birthday!!

July
- My due date with surrobaby was July 16th!
- Went into labor July 1st and had surrobaby July 2nd at 1:02am. I was exactly 38 weeks! If you'd like to read more about the surrogacy journey click here and it will take you to my surrogacy blog.
- Since we were moving to Alaska Toyota wouldn't sign off on us taking the van with us so we were able to just give it back. Which I was VERY happy about ;)
- July 17th the movers came and July 18th we headed to Texas
- Adam and I were able to surprise my family in Mississippi while we were on our way back to Texas
- Temporarily moved back to Texas to live with family and Adam started his tdy school to reclass in Fort Sill, OK while we lived in Texas

August
- I chopped off about 10 inches of my hair and donated it..
- Adam failed his reclass which actually turned out to be a blessing in disguised
- Brett started 1st grade and Brynna started pre-k
- Brett came home from his first day of school with his very first loose tooth!

September
- Adams orders ended up change from Alaska to Fort Drum, NY
- Since we were now moving to New York we had to drive. Originally we were flying to Alaska so we had a crap ton of suitcases we'd be flying with us. Well now we had to scramble to find a second vehicle that could tow all of our luggage.
- We ended up purchasing a GMC Acadia
- Adam was promoted to Sgt
- We left Texas and started our road trip to New York September 27th. If you'd like to read about our road trip click here. A few stops along the way were Graceland, Grand Ole Opry, and Niagara Falls.
- We finally got to New York September 30th

 

October
- We were offered our first home October 2nd but turned it down. A few days later we were offered another home which we were happy to accept.
- Brett started school again in New York a few days after we got a house
- October 11th Brett was climbing our fence and had his hand bit by our neighbors dog and we put in a full arm splint for about 3 weeks
- My great grandma passed away a few days before my 24th birthday
- Found out Adam would be deploying sometime in 2015
- Our HHG were SUPPOSED to get here the end of October but never showed up -___-

November
- My mom came to visit to help with our HHG but they ended up getting here after she left.
- We experienced our first REAL snow!!
- Our HHG FINALLY got here November 14th. 4 months without HHG was now fun.
- We got to experience our first lake effect snow storm. THAT WAS CRAZY!!!! Schools shut down, the base shut down, EVEN WALMART CLOSED haha
- We celebrated our very first Thanksgiving just the 4 of us..

December
- Adam and I went to our first military ball and we had a great time
- Brynna turned 5!!!! WOW! 5 years old 29lbs and 3 feet 3 inches tall.. And she is still in a 5 point harness which I'm pretty proud of :)
- We had a great Christmas. It was just the 4 of us and it was our first Christmas alone with no family other than the 4 of us but I was so thankful to have Adam home with us and be together :)

ROAD TRIP!!

We decided instead of just driving to New York we'd leave a couple days early and turn it into a road trip. The drive was about 1600 miles so the army gives us about 4 days to drive it(they calculate 350 miles a day). Anytime we drove to Bragg we just drove as much as possible stopped once over night and drove the rest but with this one being such a long trip we wanted to enjoy it instead of being miserable and in the car the whole time. So Friday afternoon I pulled the kids out of school we said our last see ya laters and finished packing up the stuff.. For this drive my mom, Gigi, and brother came along to help. I am a horrible long distance driver so if it would have been Adam and I just driving the 2 vehicles we would have taken a lot longer than 4 days.

Saturday morning we headed out about 5:30am.. My plan was 5am but things NEVER go as planned when a bunch of women are traveling. Adam and I drove the Acadia and we had Brett, Brynna, and Corben in our car, then my mom and Gigi drove the Acura. I started driving first and I drove all the way to Texarkana. When we stopped to get gas Adam drove the rest of the day. Every time we stop to get gas we make everyone get out and use the rest room. Seriously 30 minutes after we got on the road again Brett had to pee and then after we let Brett pee Corben had to pee like 5 minutes later! We stopped on the side of the road for both of them and then continued on our way. Once we got to Memphis our hotel still wasn't available so we headed to mud river. Well once we got there we found out Boidoe(our dog) was not allowed in the gates.. Which I personally think is dumb because its an outside area. But oh well. So we went to a grassy area right next to the Mississippi River and had a little picnic so the kids could run around before the hotel was ready.

We finally got to the hotel changed and headed out to Graceland. At first we weren't sure if we were going to pay for any exhibits but once we got there we saw that you couldn't see anything unless you paid for the exhibits. So we did the graceland platinum tour + airplanes tour. It was so neat seeing everything. My only complaints is I did not like the ipad tour. I understand why they do it but I wanted to take pictures and the ipad just kept getting in the way. Also we took our kids and they were more interested in going to the play ground(which was off limits) and swimming in his pool(which was also off limits haha). It was so amazing seeing all his outfits, awards, accomplishments, and so much more. But it also makes me sad knowing that another amazing artist turned to drugs. Graceland took us about 2-3 hours but it was worth it.

 

 

 

 

 After Graceland we headed to Beale st. It was not at all what I expected. We were a little underdressed and not looking to party haha. Beale st is more like a strip of bars. Well we wanted BBQ and a lot of people recommended BB Kings. They wanted a cover charge so we said thanks but no thanks. We walked down the street a bit more and found Rum Boogie. It was a pretty cute place and had really good BBQ but was kind of pricey. We had dinner and then headed home and called it a night.

 

The next morning we headed out early and our first stop was Nashville. It was only a couple hours away so we were only spending a few hours there before we headed to Ohio. Adam brought up slug bugs while in the car and we decided to play well then he said never mind because he "had to pay attention to the road and wouldn't be able to look for slug bugs". When in reality he was just scared I'd win. The first place we went to in Nashville was the Parthenon. The inside of the building was closed but we got to walk around and take a few pictures so that was neat. While we were there we all went to the restroom and leave it to me to almost leave my phone in the restroom. Thankfully Brett and Adam went in after me and Adam grabbed my phone.

 

 

Then we headed to lunch. We were all starving but we had Boidoe and it wasn't cool enough for us to leave him in the car with the windows cracked.. So we found a pizza place(Pizza Perfect in Nashville) that had a patio and allowed dogs out there. It was a pretty neat place too.

After lunch we made a quick pit stop at the Grand Ole Opry. We would have loved to stay longer but we had Boidoe plus we needed to get back on the road to get to Ohio in time to get to Niagara Falls in time.. Well once we got to the Grand Ole Opry we parked up front got out and took a few quick photos.. As I was taking pictures of the boys I look over and there is Brynna vomiting on the concrete right in between the guitars. She wanted to make her experience memorable haha. Once she was done though she still wanted to take a picture.

 After the Grand Ole Opry we were back on the road for the rest of the evening and headed towards Ohio. Which is where we were spending the night. I drove the first 3ish hours and sure enough while I was driving I saw a slug bug and you better believe I let him know I saw a slug bug while I was driving haha. It became dark before we got to Ohio and I had a little surprise for the kiddos. We had cookies, a glow stick party, and then it was movie time until we got there.

 

The next morning we were on the road again and only a few hours from Niagara Falls. BUT before we got out of Ohio we had a quick stop we had to make to see a HUGE chair. Austinburg, Ohio they have a very large chair that I thought would be fun to take some pictures on and see. Let me just warn you.. This chair is not short people friendly. Holy crap I didn't think I was going to be able to get back down. If any of yall are curious where this chair is the address is 1933 HWY 45 Austinburg, OH. We were also supposed to stop in Tennessee and see a cute pink elephant holding a martini glass. But I completely forgot about it and we ended up passing it by.

 



Once we got close to Niagara Falls I called the hotel we were staying at in Buffalo, NY to see if we could check in early and thankfully it was a week day so we were able to. So Boidoe stayed at the hotel and we headed to lunch before we went to Niagara Falls. We had lunch at a place called Duff's they are supposedly known for their wings(btw if yall didn't know buffalo wings were first made in Buffalo, NY). My drink of choice whenever I go out to eat is sweet tea. Lets just say that drink of choice will now have to change to something else :( sweet tea is disgusting here! HORRIBLE haha. At Duff's my mom order wings with Suicidal sauce on it(it wasn't the HOTTEST but it was the one right below their hottest sauce). Lets just say it really wasn't THAT hot. It was hot but not what I expected. My brother ordered Mild Medium and I ordered Medium Light. I should have went up one or 2 more because it wasn't what I expected. Their signs make you think their sauces are REALLY hot but they aren't too bad. But other than that the food was really good. I recommended only ordering 1 large order of fries for a group of people or just one small order of fries for 2 people to share. Their fries are in a decent sized bowl so we wasted a lot of food not knowing that. 

 

 

After lunch it was time for Niagara Falls. FINALLY! This was the thing I was most excited about with the whole trip. There was a lot of construction going on so it was kind of confusing find our way to the falls but when we found it, it was GORGEOUS! We only saw 2 different falls but we will be going back to see more. And maybe even the Canada side. It was so neat standing at the falls and pretty much being able to just wave to the people on the Canada side. It was a lot of walking but well worth it. Plus it was nice getting to stretch our legs after being in the car for so long. Also, next time I will bring Brynna's stroller. IF you hae never seen the Falls you need to put that on your bucket list. No matter where you live. The Falls are a MUST SEE! We tried to stop by an ice cream place called twist o' the mist but it was closed and it looked like it may have been closed down for good. We were a little bummed about that but we found another ice cream place to stop at for the kiddos. After the Falls we headed back to the hotel and played Uno Dare(oh my goodness that game was hilarious) and watched a movie.

 

The next morning we got to sleep in a bit later than the previous days because we didn't have to be anywhere except the airport at 2pm which was only 2 hours away. Around 10am we all headed out to the airport and grabbed lunch once we got to the airport. It was our last meal with Gigi(my grandma), Vivi(my mom), and Corben(my brother) before they flew back to Texas. I hated that they had to leave but I was so glad they were able to come along for the drive and help :) We dropped them off at the airport and then headed to Fort Drum.. It was only about an hour drive but holy smokes it felt like FOREVER! We found out later on the navigation took us the long way but oh well we finally found it :) And we made it in one piece. No flat tires like our PCS to Bragg haha.