Send A Card, Please

Hey Friends! This takes just a minute to do and will mean a lot to the soldier who receives it. Thanks! :-)

Here's A Cartoon So You Don't Have To Listen To Me Whine About How I Got NO SLEEP Last Night Because Of Pirate Puppy

Because I've Lost My Mind

Meet the newest member of our family...this is Pirate, Keith's puppy. He's an Australian shepherd and Australian cattle dog mix. Keith LOVES him.



Here are all the animals! From left to right...Miti, Emily, Pirate, Keith, Jasper.

Four

My sweet boy is 4-years old today. Happy Birthday, Keith!

Patio

This is the beginning of the patio project. The existing patio was dug up and enough dirt taken out to lower the new patio six inches.

Notice the plywood over the patio doors? Those doors are rotten because the patio sloped towards the doors and whenever it rained, the rainwater ran into the doors and into the house. New doors have been ordered and should be here in about 10 days.

Here is Keith supervising the tractor digging out the dirt.


Our magnolia tree. It lives among other plants in the new flower beds - plants that I have no clue how to take care of. For crying out loud, I killed my aloe vera plant!


The finished product.

Alive and Well

Well...it has been about 2 months since I was here. I've missed you!

Lots has happened during that time so I'll just give you two of the biggest today. We've got plenty of time to catch up later.

First, Sid left for Operation Iraqi Freedom at the end of September. The above picture is of us about 3 days before he shipped out. He was able to take the children to school that morning before reporting to Camp Shelby. Sid spent 2 weeks in Kuwait getting acclimated to the climate and getting new protective gear. He's been in Iraq for about 4 weeks. He says it's really pretty there at night but looks like a cesspool in the daylight. Temps are in the 70's. Following is an excerpt from one of his most recent letters:

"The Mission - my Military Police platoon is responsible for mentoring the Iraqi Police on the East side of the Tigris River in Mosul. Mosul has a population of 1.8 million. The Tigris River runs down the middle (mostly) and is the natural reference point. Not really an amazing river by our standards. More like the Okatoma with less trees. Anyway, I have 3 squads and they each are assigned to a District Headquarters. We travel to each DHQ about twice a week to train the police officers and assist in the maturing of law enforcement. I am out about 4-6 times a week as I travel with each squad on most missions. There are plenty of US forces here in Mosul, but the only ones going out are the MPs because of our mission."



One of the reasons I've not been blogging is because I've been trying to get us in a routine at home. Weekdays are easy...we have places to be and things to do. Get up, go to work/school, come home, dinner, bath, homework/movie/reading, bed and repeat. Weekends are hard. That just seems to be the time when we miss him the most. But the world hasn't come crashing down around us which makes me think we can do this!

Second, I celebrated my 40th birthday in October! To illustrate what it has been like around our house, here are some Emily quotes for you.

A few Sundays ago while thanking k-4th graders for making cards for Sid's platoon during Sunday school, I made a joke about Sid being an old man in the army to which Emily replied "Yeah, Daddy is 40. Wait...you're 40 so you're an old woman!"

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Emily: "Mommy, when were you born?"

Me: "On October 15th, 1969."

Emily:"Wow, I didn't know they had months back then!"

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Me: "Hey Em, do I look older?"

Emily: "Yeah and you look shorter, too."

So I guess you can see that things are pretty much the same since we last connected. I'm looking forward to catching up!

Exhibits A & B

This is two nights in a row...everybody starts out in their own bed, gets up at some point during the night to go potty and then gets in bed with me.

This is why there is no room in my bed for ME!

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Last night during Praise Team practice, I got my feet tangled up in one of the mic stands and went tumbling down the altar steps. It was a pretty hard fall. I'm stiff today but otherwise just fine with the exception of some fantastic bruises forming down the left side of my body. This morning, I was telling Emily about the fall and pointing out a few of the bruises.

Emily: "What about your face?"

Me: "My face is fine."

Emily: "Oh, it looks puffy."

I'm waving my pride flag in surrender.