The Command Picnic

A few weeks ago Phil's command had a picnic for the families. It was a lot of fun!

We even got to go out and ride on one of Daddy's boats!

The weather was perfect for it.

We had the CO's (Commanding Officer's) family on the boat ride with us which was a lot of fun. His wife, Amanda, took this picture of us. I particularly like the boys' expressions. We had some helmet issues with Joshua. Can you tell?
We all got sprayed a little with some of the turns they took. Honestly, I'm kind of jealous now that Phil gets to have so much fun so often. I'd ride on these boats again any day!

Good morning!

This is more for Daddy but we thought you all might want to see it. The boys have taken to wearing Phil's old t-shirts to bed. They even still smell like Daddy!

 This is the boys in our bed this morning. Seems to be their favorite place to be since Daddy left. We read bedtime stories here and they come in and curl up here for a few minutes before breakfast in the morning.
We miss you, Daddy!

O Shenando....

While my parents were visiting Phil was on his pre-deployment leave (time off). We decided to take a little trip during that time. We were able to get out of Virginia Beach and headed toward the Blue Ridge Mountains and spent a few days in Shenandoah Valley. It was beautiful!

Phil and I headed up a day ahead of my folks and the boys. We had dinner out, drove the scenic byway and hiked a little bit. It was so relaxing and beautiful!

The one downside to being so far out? NO cell reception for us at all! Made it a little difficult to coordinate meeting up with my parents. It all worked out eventually, of course.
We relaxed and breathed some clean air. We also visited this cool place (yes, I just said "cool" and I know that totally dates me) called Luray Caverns.

 We are now the proud owners of boys who know the difference between stalactites and stalagmites!

The roads out there seem to all be twisty and turny. Nice for a vacation but not sure I'd like to drive it all the time.

When we finally headed home we got to bring home with us a 30 year old Daddy!

Arthur was pretty glad to get to tag along as well!

Saying Goodbye

Why do I have time to start catching up? Because we've finally reached D-day (deployment day).
This morning we dropped Phil off to catch a bus that would lead to a flight out of our country and onto another.
He'll be gone about 7 months, give or take. We're all handling it well so far but we have a long way to go, of course. We're taking it day by day. Right now is the end of day one. Tomorrow is another day.
For now... here are our pictures from this morning!

A Nana and Papa Visit

Now time for some catching up...
My folks came out to visit. Our visits with Nana and Papa are some of the highlights of the boys' year. Can't blame them, really. They do a lot of fun stuff when Nana and Papa are around!

Papa doing stories before bed.

Goofing around with Nana...

Going to the Zoo

Going to Chuck E Cheese...

Decorating cookies... (and eating them...)

Even napping is more fun when Nana and Papa are here!
We did so much more. We took a trip up to Shenandoah Valley (I'll blog about that later), celebrated Daddy's birthday, even visited a bouncy house! We're so glad they were able to come and visit.

Counting Down

We're only kind of counting down.
It's hard to actually count down... when you don't actually know when he's going to leave. We know time is short, though, so we're trying to do our best to enjoy our time together.
Yesterday we finished up our touring of the historic triangle not too far away. We've visited Williamsburg a few times, visited Yorktown a while back and now we can add Jamestown to our list. Actually we visited Jamestowne, if you notice the difference.

 The boys weren't crazy about the tour but Phil and I found it really interesting. They did find ways of entertaining themselves, though. Good thing it was a really nice day!

One of the neat things is we came during a time when they actually have a live archeological dig going. Again, much more interesting to Phil and I, I think. Josh did get it, though. He was more intrigued by trying to figure out how long the lead architect had been digging then on what they had found. He's definitely our numbers guy.

Here are the boys with Pocahontas (wearing the wrong attire for the area she was from, but it was made in 1922 so you have to cut the guy a little slack about it).

It was a really nice day out yesterday. We stopped by Bass Pro on the way home and got a few more things to help Phil prepare for his time away. We even got ice cream before bedtime. Jeremiah woke up this morning and one of the first things he said was, "Thank you for taking me to that ice cream place last night." Must have made some sort of impression!

Missing In Action

Yes, we've been preoccupied lately... to put it lightly. We probably will be for a bit longer. We're counting down the last few days until Phil deploys and we're trying to enjoy our time with him as much as possible as well as get things taken care of so we'll be prepared for him to go. We've had family visit, taken a little trip, bought a new car, done loads of housework and accomplished a huge list of projects around the house. I'll do my best to put up pictures of all these little adventures later but for now, here's a little one of the boys to tickle your funny bone (brought to you courtesy of our local dollar store).