you know you're a military wife when...

...a mere 11 seconds can make your whole day.

That's how my day went today.  After 2 failed attempts to connect (comms are great across these 7,000+ miles) on the phone, the third call (which barely had a chance to even ring) went like this...

me:  "Hi!"
Pat: "Hey, I gotta go, but I love you."
me:  "Oh.  Okay.  I love you too."

And instead of being sad, I find myself feeling so incredibly thankful and lucky that my husband took those 11 seconds out of his without-a-doubt beyond busy day/night to call me and tell me that.  Oh, how I love that man!

oh, hello there.

Hey, it's me!  I'm back in the land of the living.  I know, it's been a while.  But there's a good reason for that...

First things first, Patrick is gone on deployment.  It's been about 2 weeks now... And it's not really getting any easier as the days go by.  Hopefully that will come...

Here's us having our goodbyes...

& one last one with Jr.

After he left, I spent a few days in 'mourning'.  But then I had to get to work, finishing up moving out of the house and cleaning it.  Then the boys and I were on our way to my parents' house for the duration of the deployment.

Seating arrangements in our overly packed Tahoe

(note Jack is in the center console...)

Jack wanted to help unload when we got there...

Now that that's done... I will be keeping myself busy settling in to my new "apartment" and setting up the nursery.  And all other things that need to be done to get ready for a certain little guy's arrival in less then 8 weeks (seriously?  that soon?!).  We also find that we spend a lot of our time sitting by the phone waiting to hear from Dad.  We've gotten a few so far, but it still feels unreal.  Like a cruel deja-vu.

So, c'mon Sharkbait.  Hurry up and get here so I can be deliriously tired and forget which day it is.  My plan is to wake up one day and Patrick will just be home.  That would be nice, wouldn't it?

block leave

Patrick and I were able to get away to Boone, NC for a few days and rented a cabin in the mountains.  We thoroughly enjoyed the cool mountain air, and the sightseeing, and the hiking and fishing.  While we missed the dogs, it was so nice to have time for just the two (three) of us.

Outside the entrance to the cabin property

Our Cabin:  Creekside Overlook

 Time for some gem mining!

 some good gemmies in there

 hike to the waterfalls

  on our little porch swing

 funny cows all huddled under the shade

 out on "The Blowing Rock"

'anniversary' celebration

Since Patrick won't be around for our one year anniversary, we opted to celebrate it a month early.  Old, frozen cake and all...

for the love of dogs

Just wanted to give my boys some love... they've been extra adorable lately...

Winnie came in with sand all over his face

 Jack with a chew toy, not chewing it, but holding it like a cigar

 Jack sprawled out like a seal, ha!

 Win in complete bliss, lounging

 Fighting over the new walrus toy

 Fighting over the new shark toy

Boy, I love these boys!

first father's day

Well, first father's day for a human baby.  We've already had several we celebrated for our dog babies.  

We wanted Patrick to know he is very much loved, so we got him some gifts to make him smile...  And if you don't know us, we are big fans of NBC comedy shows.  Particularly The Office (um the intro at our wedding was to the theme song...) and Parks & Recreation.  Cue father's day gifts:

Opening gift one... we couldn't wait to give it to him

 Michael's Office mug!

 Jack loves it

 And Win loves it

 Jack and Win with the other present that got delivered later

 What could it be?!

 Opening...

 And it's...

 Ron Swanson's Pyramid of Greatness!  Seriously, if you haven't seen the clip, it's hysterical

Love you hubby!

clueless.

Well I am officially two for two when it comes to being the target of socially unacceptable behavior here in Winston Salem.

Yesterday I was subject to a rude comment by a woman (still blows my mind that women are more insensitive than men) at a store where we were shopping.  As we were walking out, she asked Patrick when the baby was due.  When he said September, her response was "THAT baby is due in September?!" then she checked her watch and said "I don't know, we close in 2 minutes, you'd better get out of here!" as if I was about to give birth right there in the shop.  Seriously?!  As a woman, she should know a little something about hormones, and how it feels when someone calls you huge.  As if I didn't already know.  How about you grow a human and then get back to me...

Then today we hit up Bojangles (Patrick needs to get in as much BoJo's as he can before he ships out) and the lady cleaning up the trays caught us in her radar while we were simply trying to fill up our iced teas.  She said something about no more kissing since there's a baby on the way (I'm still not sure why) and then proceeded to tell some story about how her husband would rub her belly all the time and she would hate it.  So I guess that meant that she thought it was appropriate to mimic the sentiment on my belly.  Like full on, with her other hand behind my back so I couldn't get away, pushing me more and more into the Buddha-Rub.  Really, lady?  Yes, you hated your husband touching you like this but I love it when complete and total strangers do it to me.

FYI:  Here we are after celebrating our 'anniversary' (more info to follow) just mere hours after the woman was convinced my due date was much more imminent then we led her to believe...  

Sorry about that, apparently I just needed a minor venting sesh.  More fun blog posts coming soon.