Day ONE!

Day ONE  is in the books! Shaun deployed today to the Middle East. I can't exactly say specifics about where he's going, what he's doing, or really much else on here (and if you need to know, you already most likely do anyways :) ). What I do plan to do while he's away, is keep track of what is happening on the homefront. He'll most likely have access to internet at least occassionally if not more often and this way he can feel like he knows what's going on here even though he's on the opposite side of the world!

Note: I have some serious blogging to catch up on as well. Hopefully I'll have time in the evenings to do a little of that too!

So today we all got up, got ready, and had a big-ish breakfast. All my people are breakfast food lovers so I'm learning to love it as well! We had to leave around 10:30 to take Shaun out to base. Grammie came out with us as well. We dropped Shaun' bags off and then went to a park to play. Yes it was pretty much freezing out, but again, I'm learning that all my people are unaffected by cold weather, so I played too!

Before long it was time to take Daddy back over to the planes and say our goodbyes. Goodbyes are never easy. We prepared the girls and Parker as much as we could and they actually handled everything really well. In many ways we are thankful that this assignment is what it is. At one point it was looking like Shaun would be in a much more dangerous place for a much longe time. All in all we are very fortunate things turned out how they did.

We hit up "Miss Calister's" as my little misses call it, on the way home for lunch and then went home to read the letters Daddy wrote all of us and see what the rest of the day had in store...

At this point I should share that Shaun and I have the WORST garage door ever! We've had people out 3 times this year (well last year) to fix it. It was making an awful noise and we joked that it would break the day he left. We were only off by one day. It broke yesterday. Like the door literally has cracks in it. Then, the other funny-ish thing happened last night. When Shaun and I went to bed I commented that it was really cold. He agreed, but since our room faces the North and is always chilly, we didn't think anything of it. Well, our Lilly girl got in bed with us three times last night. After taking her back to her bad twice, we just let her stay with us. She and Shaun both LOVE cuddling. I swear I don't know how they don't smother each other on the nights we let her stay in our bed. Anyways, the first time she came in Shaun took her back to bed. He realized when he got up that our house was FA-REEZING!! Since things seem to break when he's about to leave (and since our heater gave us trouble to the tune of $600 about 10 monhs ago) he just KNEW our heater was out. However, he found that it was simply turned off. I have absolutely NO idea who did that yesteday when the house seemed hot and the heater was going like crazy. No idea.;) So, when I say that we went drove home from base to see what the rest of the day had in store for us, I meant it!

2 hours home...

Gabby runs into the living room screaming, "The volcanoes not going momma!" The volcano is the fish tank accessory that makes bubbles/oxygen for the fish. If you'll forgive me I'll be honest and say that in my head I was like HELL NO! WE CAN'T HAVE DADDY DEPLOY AND ALL THE FISH DIE ON DAY ONE OF MY SOLO GIG! I grabbed the phone to call Shaun. It was about 30 minutes until his plane took off. He told me that the volcano didn't have to run and that things wouldn't die, but his brother was calling him so he put me on hold.

With Lilly holding the lid of the fish tank, I got the volcano out. I realize that the tubing and stone that produces the bubbles isn't glued to the inside top of the volcano anymore. I'm all like hmmm...what kind of glue do you use in a fish tank.. About that time I realize something is tickling my hand. I look down and realize it is one of the sticking fiddler crabs Parker insisted Shaun buy yesterday. Parker insisted. Do you believe that? Me either. Actually my sweet hubby who is leaving me for several months thought it would be a good idea to buy two fiddler crabbs and two sucker fish "to help you keep the tank clean while I'm away dear." I personally just think he wanted me to have 4 more living things to take care of but that's neither here nor there. ;)

Anyways, the crab had crawled up the volcano, back down the hole of the volcano, pushed the rock/tubing down, and then thought he was going to hang out on my hand. My daughter will now know that the appropriate reaction when a crab no bigger than 1-inch crawls on your hand is to scream like you are being chased by a man-eating crab, drop whatever you are holding, and vicously shake your hand to get all the crab stuff off of it. Proud parenting moment.

Shaun still hadn't called me back. Just then I realize that we have a frog floating belly up in the fish tank. Now these frogs are tricky. I've named them all Shaun because when they sleep, you'd swear they were dead. The float all around and look really bad. So I get the net to check. These frogs have tricked me before and I will not be tricked this time. I tap the belly of the frog. Nothing. Sad face. I go get something to hold underneath the net when I take the frog out and transport him to burial at toiletbowl sea and go back in to scoop him out. In a reach the net and I'll be darn if that frog didn't start wigglng like a crazy fool!!! Part of me was really happy that nothing died on my watch (well at least on day 1), but the other part of me was and still is stupid angry that that little sucker fooled me again. At this point the phone rings and it is Shaun.

He tells me we don't need the volcano. It was a quick conversation. I go back into the playroom where the fish tank is and see the first frog I saw floating. In my head: Oh man! We do have one dead. Well the good news is he didn't trick me then. I guess I must of reached for the other one when I thought I was getting the dead one. Weird.

So I get my net and little cup again and go in for the frog. And I'll be damned if that frog didn't start going crazy again! Anyone interested in taking a frog or two off my hands? Seriously. I'm not really into being made a fool of BY A FROG twice in one day. This time I watched the booger just to make sure touching him with my net wasn't like giving chest palpitations. Once the thing stopped going berzerk he slowly climbed up the side of the tank, got still, and slowly started leaning back. Floating again. Part of me wanted to chase him with the net one last time just to get back at him, but then I probably really would give him a heart attack.

The rest of the day was way less frogful evenful. We played, jumped outside on the trampoline, the kids played more in the sandbox while I broke down a bunch of boxes from our new trampoline and took down one remaining extension cord from our Christmas lights.

I cooked dinner. It may have only been mini-hot dogs inside crescent rolls with cheese, peas, yogurt, and milk, but my e's ate a whole lot of it. And we even sat at the dinner table together. So I consider this a success. After putting Parker down the girls and I did a craft and then they went to sleep.

Once I publish this, I have an exciting evening of laundry folding ahead of me. Woot woot!

Least favorite moment of the day: Hugging this airman for the last time for a while. I will miss him a lot!

Coming in a close second would be my little run in with Shaun the frog. I'm still not quite over that.

Favorite moment of the day: When Parker yelled out our car window "I YUH-U!" at Shaun as he was walking away from us after saying our goodbyes.

On now to day 2!