Summer is winding down

And not only summer, we're nearly done with this deployment! We're so ready for Patrick to be home with us again, especially Gyven, who has made everyone promise him that his daddy will take him bowling at the first opportunity, and he reminds us of this promise daily!

We had a wonderful R&R! The kids had so much fun with their dad and we were all thrilled to see him. He's now back overseas, and we'll be without him until the deployment is over. We're all hoping these last few months we have left go quickly!

Real fast...

Patrick just texted me. He is stateside!

Patrick deployed yesterday. We were handed orders less than 8 hours in advance of the plane leaving, but at least I have a copy. We're going to miss him a great deal, but so far we are doing okay.

Well this is getting ridiculous.

In just over 24 hours, Patrick is supposed to be on a plane headed overseas.

We still have no orders. The comedy is not lost on me, but the frustration is winning out. We've been on this roller coaster of "Yes he's going. No he's not. Yes, he is." and on and on since June. Just once I would like what I have been told and the actual outcome of events to sync up.

In the meantime, we've been filling our time admirably, with trips to a pumpkin patch and the zoo, buying last minute things Patrick might need, and generally just trying to enjoy the time he has if he is on that plane tomorrow. Sidney has started taking steps and is turning into quite the comedian. Tonight we're going to make some more pumpkin treats from our farm fresh pumpkins, let Patrick finish packing and try not to panic too much about the uncertainty tomorrow still holds.

Patrick was bumped. He'll be home a little longer, tho deployed before the end of the month. Right now it's just a matter of when, tho we don't expect to have him home more than a few more weeks.

Today we took the kids to Build-A-Bear to pick out a deployment bear for each one, to cuddle while daddy is gone. It's usually our birthday activity to visit build-a-bear, but we decided to make a special exception.

We've heard back from the school district, and now we're just waiting on them to evaluate Gyven and Kyra and determine their eligibility and placement. Right now the soonest they could be in a classroom is sometime in November, just because we're going to have to wait a bit for an available evaluation time. Gyven and Kyra are both very anxious to get into school, Gyven has been asking about it constantly since we turned in the paperwork to the school district!

Sidney's diaper here's outer layer is made from the same material as his daddy's ACUs, and we borrowed his patrol cap for this picture. We cloth diaper for lots of reasons (from economical to skin sensitivities), and one of the later reasons we added to the pile was the cuteness factor. In my opinion there's not much cuter than a sweet baby in a cloth diaper. Sidney has made a few milestones this week, he's tried taking a single step, started standing alone without encouragement, and waving. Gyven and Kyra are both only a few interviews away from being enrolled in school before the end of the semester. I'm looking forward to them getting to interact with more people and learn some new things.

We've spent the last week preparing for Patrick to deploy early tomorrow morning, and it's been busy. We're hoping the whole thing goes smoothly, tho at this point he may be bumped to the next flight at the end of October. We won't know for sure until the morning.