March 30, 2009

Regan performed at the Stars of Tomorrow competition in Torrington and took first place. She played "Rain Song" on her guitar, and did a great job! I wish Jayson had been here to hear her. He would have loved it! When he was home for leave he found out they had been learning to play and even got to meet their guitar teacher. He was impressed! And of course they were so excited to show him what they had learned!

March 28, 2009

Jayson just left to go back...cry cry. We had a really nice time when he was here. He got into Cheyenne at about 4 on March 11th. When we got to the airport, the kids walked up to him, and he didn't know we were there. They got about 10 feet from him, and just stopped. I guess they didn't know quite what to expect either! Jayson then looked up and smiled, then they were okay. Of course the kids all talked non-stop, as they had about 9 months worth of "guess what's" to share!

We had a nice 2 weeks. In fact, that was the fastest 2 weeks EVER. We took the first weekend and went back to North Dakota so Jayson could see his grandpa. The rest of the time was spent by Jayson doing some catch up work, like washing vehicles and getting things back in order that I might have not gotten around to, like cleaning the garage. We spent lots of time together with the family just trying to enjoy each other's company. It was great for everyone, and I think it put the kids minds at ease to know that dad is okay, so they will be okay.

Now he is gone again, and I am a bit sad. It seemed like the past several months lasted forever, and that Jayson had been gone so long. After he had been home for a few weeks, it was as though he had never left, which was wonderful. Now he's gone again. But now we only have about 2 months, and he'll be home for good!

March 3, 2009

Things are going better now, yay! I have been feeling much better, and keeping busy running kids to and from activities, working, and generally trying to keep the household running! We had our first baby cow a few days ago, so spring is on it's way! I tend to be solar powered, so winter always brings me down, but this year it really about did me in! I am so glad summer is coming.

Jayson is planning on taking leave in a few weeks, so we have that to look forward to. I am anxious for him to get home, and hope he will be proud of all we have done here, and will be able to relax.

Truth be told, I am also a little nervous about him coming home. It seems like he has been gone for such a long time, and they say people change, but I hope he hasn't. I think that is what my biggest worries are...that he won't think we have done enough while he was gone, and that he will have changed. But I get butterflies in my stomach when I think about him coming, so that's a good sign!

January 25, 2009

Things have been really hard lately. I went to a "really dark place" shortly after Christmas, so much so that I finally went to the doctor. I could not shake the blues, and just felt like I was constantly on the verge of tears. The doctor prescribed an antidepressant for me, and I took it for a few weeks, but started developing a strange side effect...yawning. Constant yawning. It didn't matter whether I took the medication in the morning or in the evening, I yawned about every 5 minutes! Needless to say, I stopped taking it, as it wasn't doing me any favors! Thankfully I was able to finally put all the stress of the Christmas vacation behind me and start looking forward to March, when Jayson is planning on taking leave!

The kids all seem to be doing well. They are keeping busy, Morgan has been a great help with the "man" chores, especially the cold weather ones like taking care of the cows and shoveling snow. I feel blessed to have such great kids! I only hope I am making this whole deployment as easy on them as I can. Sometimes when I feel down I feel guilty because they have to deal with my crabbiness, which isn't fair to them. It is hard on all of us, so hopefully we all emerge stronger!

January 4, 2009

Happy New Year! Christmas was...tough. I didn't get a chance to post because things got a little rough. Jayson's grandma passed away on the 23rd of December. He was very close to her and was unable to come home for her funeral. Her funeral was the 28th of December in Devils Lake, North Dakota.

The kids and I went to Newcastle to see Jayson's family for Christmas as we always do. His dad had already left for North Dakota, so it was just his Jayson's mom and his sister and her kids, and our kids and me. We had a nice Christmas, and even got to have Jayson there via computer for about 4 hours! He was able to watch the kids open their presents through the web cam, so it was great that he didn't entirely miss everything!

We went home the day after Christmas, got all the pets taken care of, and headed up to North Dakota for Grandma's funeral. Everything went well there, it was sad, but nice to be able to be there for Jayson and his family. On the drive home, the kids came down with the flu, so I had 2 of them throwing up every half hour or so, there was a big nasty blizzard for about 4 hours of it also, making for some serious white knuckle driving, and with all the emotions of the week, I was never so glad to get home late in the evening...after about 14 hours of driving through storms with sick kids....