Enjoying Time

The last time John left for a deployment (January of 2010), we were not able to spend a lot of time with him before hand. He was constantly working incredibly long hours (let's say 4 or 5am until 9 or 10 at night NOT including duty days), and the ship got a week of stand down time (called POM). We took the kids to Disney for 3 or 4 days and that was our quality time. 

I can't believe how little Turner was during the 2010 deployment!

This time, his schedule hasn't been nearly as grueling! POM was a week long and he had to go in every day, any way, but at least he was able to delegate the work instead of doing it all himself. 

Tomorrow we will take the kids on a weekend trip to Great Wolf Lodge (hotel with an indoor water park) and then soak in the last week together. 

Playing in an early spring rain.

I say "soak in" like he'll be gone for a year: it's really not that bad of a deployment. John leaves for 6 months but, apparently, the communication is much better than anything we've experienced before. I'm looking forward to that! 

A new world map just came in the mail and I even decided to get Turner a beginning geography book so he can enjoy reading the map and talking about where daddy is. He was every excited to look at the map but he started to get upset just thinking about John being gone. Poor little guy! 

The kids love hearing John read "Night of the Moon Jellies" because he uses an New England
(setting of the story) accent. It seems my southern version of New England
isn't good enough!