1 week left!

Dusty comes home in 1 short week! I can't believe this long 4 months is actually almost over! I am SO excited but I've also been missing Dusty almost worse than at any other time since he's been gone. So, I read back through his letters to reflect and get some happy thoughts. Here are a few things that Dusty has written to me to bring smiles to my face and heart.

I love you good & plenty, but never enough to equal our symphony of dove, I mean love. Some might snicker at our milky way of almond joy but no butterfinger can lay a finger on our hot tamale love life. I’d bet my payday that ‘yorkooler’ than all the nerds, airheads, dumdums, and sour patch kids on the block. You shine like a starburst because you’re my sweetart. Just ask the swedish fish.

You are the coolest person in my mortal existence, you span beyond mortal.

I love you so much my left hand hurts from holding this pad for the last hour.

I guarantee you could beat the crap out of every female here.

I love your guts and the rest of you ain’t half bad either.

The nova definitely needs to be a bench seat in the front.

Sometimes time loses meaning for me, like eternity seems smaller somehow, as if things viewed in terms of events and sequences makes time irrelevant thus bringing new meaning to eternity- I feel that way about you. You mean so much to me that I don’t realize that 5 years have gone by. I don’t care about passing 10, 15, 20, 50 year anniversaries, I just want to be with you, live and experience more, be with you.

awww... all better. I just love this man!

A Meddled Mind

This is what having a husband gone for 4 months will do to you: Samantha was having a rough night and I just could NOT get her to settle down. I kept wishing Dusty were here so I could say, "okay, I tried everything I could think of, now it's your turn" so instead I wrote to him about my awful night/morning. Maybe I was missing him just a little too much, maybe I was just tired but this is the craziness that came out. hehehe. (Silver Fox is what all his army buddies are calling him because apparently he has lots of grey hair!)

Hey there silver fox! I’m just practicing your FTX schedule-ya know just for kicks. I went to bed at 0007 and woke up at 0253. I think I’ve finally completed my mission but I’m not quite out of danger so I decided to document my progress:
“The enemy” woke up at 0253 (actually probably before that but I was hoping it would just go away so I wouldn’t have to engage in battle). I went in and engaged in physical, silent combat to disarm the enemy. The enemy sounded the war cry. I retreated for 10 minutes. I crept back in to enemy territory and engaged again in physical, silent combat with the same results. I repeated this several times with zero success. I changed tactics. I entered the enemy zone at 0351 and engaged in physical restraint and vocal hypnosis. The physical restraint was successful but my attempt at vocal hypnosis was more like auditory torture at this hour. I also devised an attempt at disarming the enemy with sleeping poison. This worked for approximately 30 minutes but the enemy must have a developed immunity. I attempted further physical, silent combat and upon retreat, threw up large barriers in my path to discourage following. Reinforcement radioed in with a formula for a new sleeping poison. This was also successful for 30 minutes. At 0508 the enemy dropped a stink bomb and let out another war cry. At 0514 the enemy sounded a peace signal but I think it is a decoy. 0518,0524-more peace cries, then I attacked full force and SUCCESS. The enemy surrendered at 0610.

Only 5 weeks left!!

It's hard to believe Dusty will be home in 5 weeks. He is completely done with Basic Combat Training and graduated with flying colors. Now he is doing Advanced Individual Training to becomea combat engineer. That basically means he's blowing things up almost every day so he's having loads of fun. Last week he made a 15ft deep hole with C4-yep he was pretty stoaked about that. We're doing really well. We took a trip down to Utah and stayed with Deb for almost a week. Brian's doing Joy School and Samantha is trying to get brave enough to walk. She's taken lots of steps on her own but not toddling around on her own yet. Dusty gets to call us at least once a week and we get lots of letters. I'm keeping busy with doing some projects around the house like this bulletin board. Dusty's going to come home to a whole different house. :-P Thanks to everyone who calls and comes over and invites us to do things. Missing Dusty is much easier when we keep busy. And Happy 4th of July everyone!

Swimming is so much fun! Angie brought her kids, KimberLynn and Lucas over for a swim in Samantha's new pool. Happy Birthday Samantha!

School Out!!

Today was the last day of school! Everyone kept asking me if I was excited and yes, I'm thrilled to be able to stay home with my kids next year but I was a little sad too. I've worked my tail off for two years to make that program successful and it's pretty tough to just walk away. It was a good day though. The staff got me a certificate to a spa... so a massage, a pedicure? hmmm we'll have to see. Dusty's been gone a little over a month now. We're adjusting but missing him tons! I've been trying to take lots of pictures so I can send him pics of the kids about once a week. Here are some of them.

Spring Photo Shoot

It's Sunday and here is the frigid northwest the wind is blowing over 30mph. All the ladies had to hold their dresses down on the way out to their cars after church. It was really kinda funny. Dusty fell asleep in his chair so I decided to take a few pictures of the kids real quick. They get pretty tired of mommy say "smile" "Brian, just let Samantha touch you" "smile" but I got a couple of good ones.

Brian and Samantha are actually starting to play together now! It's super cute. Brian will imitate Sam's yells and "talking" and he really likes to play peek-a-boo with her.

Samatha learned how to come down the stairs without falling--it takes her a longtime though because she'll go down one or two stairs and then forget she's trying to get down and crawl back up. hehehe.

Dusty leaves for Basic Training on April 21 to Missouri. Then he'll go straight into advanced training and he should be home the end of July.

We put our house in up for sale!

We figured the kids and I could move in with my parents if it sells soon and then we'll be ready to move as soon as Dusty gets back. We want some property. We've been looking around here, and a few places in Southern Utah but I think where we end up will depend on where Dusty gets a job.

All these changes are exciting, scary and pretty stressful but I know that God will bless us as long as we're willing to serve him.

Anyone want to move to Idaho?

Anyone need a vehicle? (we're selling a few of those too-we have 7)

Dusty is joining the National Guard. He goes in for MEPS (his physical and stuff) on March 9th and they'll tell us then when he leaves for basic training. Believe it or not, I'm kind of excited. The whole being without a husband for 4 months is really going to stink but Dusty will get all his schooling paid for and we get health insurance and job placement assistance, and lots of other nice perks.
Brian turns three next week- April gave me the idea for a dinosaur cake. good one eh? We'll see if I pull it off. Maybe I'll do "Dragon Warrior" instead (He loves that movie).
Samantha is trying SO hard to walk. In fact when you go to sit her down on the floor, she just falls over because she won't bend her legs to sit down. She's a silly one.
Both are already in bed AND asleep! A miracle!!!
I'm currently involved in this weight loss contest so hopefully the pounds will keep coming off or I am going to be even poorer than a poor school teacher.
The temperature was actually above freezing today so hopefully Spring is on its way.
Garden or no Garden?