Deployment Day +62

Sorry it's been a while since I updated. We all had a nice Christmas. The boys received tons of gifts, and Chad was even able to open up a few gifts himself! I'd sent him a Christmas tree and lights and a few decorations so he had some gifts under it! He has more coming, they told him a couple days ago that he currently has 2 boxes waiting for him, so hopefully at least one of those is from me! :) I have another box to mail out tomorrow to him. I must say it's really  nice to not have to pay postage to send him things, really makes life much easier on us in that dept. Last year there were times that postage cost more than the items combined that was sent to him.

We got to do a Video Teleconference with Chad on Christmas Eve. It was so nice for the boys and I to be in one room and Chad able to see all of us, with them having to be on my lap or pretty well on top of me, like they have to with the web cam (which is still such a huge blessing in itself!). The boys loved seeing Daddy on a screen bigger than our 17 in. flat screen computer!

Chad was able to get online on Christmas and although he didn't have his laptop (that Internet cafe is currently closed temporarily) I turned our web cam on so he could see us, see some of the gifts, the MESS of gifts that were all over the living room, a special gift from my mom (a plate with our family picture on it...really beautiful). He also called later that evening, but the boys were already in bed.

Chad got a calling card a few days ago, so he's called us two days in a row now, which has been really nice for the boys to get to hear Daddys voice since they haven't heard him much in the last few weeks. I have to say I know Chad's anxious for the Internet cafe that's close to him to open back up, and I definitely am! It's nice to see and hear him! Plus with the help of a good friend of ours (my best friends husband) he got it so my mic is fixed and Chad will be able to hear us now too!!! Anyways!

Chad's doing good. He's been working longer hours the last few days. Today he got to waste time looking for parts at the camp that he's at, and those parts which he was told "are here" of course are NOT there! Yeah...nothing like wasting a soldiers time looking for something that's not there, I'm sure he couldn't have done anything else more productive! LOL Ah...so is the life of a soldier! A lot of hurry up and wait or here go find this...oh never mind you wasted 6 hrs of your day and it's not here after all. That does aggravate me, because I know how much it aggravates Chad.

Chad hopefully will be getting his digital camera cord soon so he can transfer pictures onto his laptop easy. He has another little "thing" (my mind literally just went blank on the name of it! UGH) that he can transfer pictures from his camera onto his laptop, but until he can hook his laptop up to the Internet it's not going to do him much good! Anyways, once he sends me the pictures, I'll put a few on here! I'm hoping he's taken some of himself!! If not, I'll hound him to do that!

I have to mention that I know Chad really has been missing us terribly. He always has a hard time with deployments because his #1 priority is our family, as much as he loves the Army, he loves us more. Anyways....I'd been doing really good, missing him, but hanging in there. Christmas pretty well sucked out all that "hanging in there" feeling. I had a nice little cry, but I'm doing better now. This is the life though of an Army family. There's the ups and there are the downs. We're here to share those ups and downs. So don't worry, no need to tell me to "be strong" because seriously, even if I was just crying everyday, down in the dumps, telling someone to "be strong" just seems to push most deeper into sadness or despair, and it gets truly very annoying being told that, when they're not in your shoes, never have been, and most likely never will be. The closest I can tell you is when people would tell me "things will get better" after our daughter died. You can't ever know if things will get better, and honestly we all have the rights to feel sad, down, happy, and up...when we feel them. None of us can truly know how another feels, the best we can do is relate and even then most often that's a stretch, because we all have different life circumstances.

Ok, I know I really went on a whole other realm...I guess I get enough of either "Wow you're so strong" or "Keep being strong girl" that well I'm at my limit of being 1. told what and how to feel and do. 2. Feeling like people think they have the right to tell me how to think or feel. I think for the most part I do pretty good. I have my low moments and I have my high moments. I'm pretty average in that sense. I'm doing the best I can. I try to be the best wife to Chad, the best mom to our boys, and the best Child to God. I'm not perfect, none of us are...but I'm doing good I think.

Thank you each and every one of you for reading, supporting, and most of all praying for Chad and our family. It means the world to us.

God Bless