Between Photographs

I love photography. I don't have many pictures of when I was a child. The few pictures I have I treasure. At one of my dad's birthday parties my aunt brought me a bag of pictures that had dozens of snapshots from when my sister and I were little. I can't wait to find just the right picture frames to hang them in my hall. That is a task that I have been meaning to do for a long time. The photographs are still there waiting for me. Still ready to take me down memory lane every time I pull them out.  But what happens between the snapshots that we take? What does life throw at you that isn't captured by a photograph?

Last night my husband and I went to a Passenger concert. The concert was absolutely amazing. I could go on forever about the concert. On the way to the concert I looked at my husband and was really disappointed that I had forgotten my camera. About a year ago I took the plunge and invested in a good camera. I am still a novice photographer but LOVE taking pictures. You can capture so many things in a picture. However, the one thing you can't capture in a picture is the feelings. What was the emotion of the moment? Sure you see people smiling and laughing or making a sad face but what was the true emotion of that day? A picture can't tell you that.

Vacation-It Is What You Make It

Well, vacation has come and gone. I always find myself wanting to stay longer but longing to be home with my own stuff, including my bed. I had a great time with my husband. I feel relaxed, rested and ready for summer school.(ok, as ready as I can be for another semester) But it didn't start out that way.

We wrapped up Parker's birthday party at the skate park on Saturday, kissed our kids good-bye and went on our way. Heading east towards the beach, sun, and rest. We arrived at our hotel, got checked in and quickly became disappointed and irritated. My husband booked our trip. He planned everything. I wanted it like that. I just wanted to pack my bag and leave. No worries about entertaining us or what if my husband wanted to do something that I didn't know about....etc. My husband searched the internet and found a hotel that he liked and they even had a "romance" package available. He booked that package. It was to include room service breakfast, dinner, chocolates, rose petals, movie tickets and a late check out time. My thought was, sounds good to me!

Beach Baby, Beach Baby Give Me Your Hand

Before the accident my mom planned a trip to come and visit while my husband was deployed. She was coming to help our youngest celebrate his birthday. Parker wasn't doing to well with Ted gone. He was angry even though he wouldn't admit it. My mom would provide a good distraction for him. She booked her trip about 6 weeks ago. We are now T minus 2 sleeps!

I'm not sure who is more excited, me, my mom, or my kids. It's been a year since I have seen my mom. She's gonna flip when she sees how big the kids are. Ok, not Mackenzie because she never grows(she is short like me) but the boys are almost as tall as I am.

Excitement

I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas morning and it is simply taking to long to get here. What am I so excited for? Women of Faith. Each year it's my short TDY trip to help me refill my empty cup.

For the past few years I have gone with my girlfriend, her sister and her mom. (there are others that join us from time to time but those are the usual key players) We usually would travel to Charlotte for the conference. It seemed to be the easiest for most of us to get to. I always look forward to going. Each year the enemy tries to throw things in our way and prevent us from going. Each year we overcome those things and plow forward.

Surprise Me God

It has never been a secret that things at our house are like a roller coaster. There are definite HIGHS and definite LOWS and there are the in between moments that you aren't really sure what to do with.

During the past few months re-deployment (for my civilian friends read Ted being home) has had its challenges. There were times I wasn't sure what God wanted from me and I wasn't sure why I kept ending up in the same place.  Because I was in this place over and over I was sure I was missing the lesson but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to me learning from this.

Since our deployment cycles are short we encounter a whole new set of circumstances to deal with. Before coming to this unit I thought for sure that shorter deployments would be much easier to deal with than the year deployment we had just gotten done with. The grass is never what it seems to be on the other side. Shorter deployment cycles also mean shorter at home time. We never thought this would be a problem.  But since I am so used to Ted coming and going, if he is here for longer than a few months I don't know what to do with him being here. We are good at the honeymoon period of re-deployment but it's what comes after that period that we aren't sure what to do with each other. It isn't to often that we get to visit a stage past the honeymoon period of re-deployment so it is almost like we are navigating through uncharted territory.