Day One

Okay, so Adam is officially in Stuttgart, Germany. I posted his time zone in my gadgets on the blogger site. It seems he is 8 hours ahead of PST. I am missing him today - the little things the kids did, the report on his family after he left, you know all those things you talk about! The pillow talk.

He officially left Friday night if you are in the PST. Nothing is ever simple here, Friday, was the date of Russell's school's Fall Festival. This is the PTSO's biggest fundraiser of the year. And I am on the board and it is the ONE day I am fully committed to. Which just figures, since these things can never be simple!!! One thing that made life much easier was Adam's mom, stepdad and 1/2 bro, Morgan came for the weekend. They left Sunday morning.

Let me say that my new friends on the Board of the PTSIO have been incredibly supportive. Women I don't really know all that well being generous with their offers of babysitting, thoughts and prayers, and helpfulness. All this time I have dedicated thus far to PTSO has earned me some points!! Ha! Seriously, most of these gals, whom I didn't know until August, have been so good to me; it warms my heart and makes Vegas more fun.

At Fall Festival, I intro'ed the Co-Pres of the PTSO to Adam and she was so sweet. She just basically told him how honored she was to meet him and thanked him for his service and then told him she was keeping her eye on me and told him to email her via the school website if he felt like I needed a break b/c she knows our kids and is happy to babysit anytime. Her husband told Adam the same thing separately. How nice is that? I am really flattered. When I first met her, Faith, I really misjudged her. It just goes to show you can't judge a book by the cover - that is a good lesson for me.

So, Fall Festival... I sort of put myself in charge of the Silent Auction and Raffle. I won't go into details, but I have experience with silent auctions when I lived in OK and worked with Big Brothers Big Sisters. Those were BIG auctions, like $60k auctions. I feel like when we are in a duty station and I can help community, it is my duty to help in areas in which I can help. So, I took over the the auction and raffe and we made over $3k, which is great when you think we had a total of 58 items. That's like $55 per item. In this economy, that's decent. I worked my tail off on it and told people to help or get lost if they were going to try to tell me what to do!!! Ha! I do feel like it is my responsibilty to pass on knowledge to groups before we move on to a new duty station and when I leave, I hope that I left making them better. And I think that I will make Russell's school's PTSO a better fundraising organization than before I was on the Board.

Okay, so Day One without Adam. His fam left about 10:30am. After they left we had a good day. I made Russ a list of all of the things he needed to do today and then at the end of the list wrote his reward for his accomplishments. He got it all done with pride. Note to self, make Russell a list every Sunday!! We actually have had a good day today. The kids were helpful, Rachel wanted to go to bed early, Row went right to bed, so far, so good. I am sure it won't be this good every weekend!!

I do want to note that Morgan, Adam's bipolar 16 yr old brother, was so much better this weekend than I have experienced in a long time. He helped with the kids, he took out he trash when I asked him to, he played with the kids too; all of which are improvements and I am sure added to the ease of the transition of Adam leaving.

Sooooooooooooooooo.... Day one of Adam being deployed has been a good one. Day two may not be so great, but Day One was good.

Oh, don't worry, I won't report every day!!!

Weekend with Daniel

I really need to blog about San Diego, but this is a quickie about Daniel. Daniel is Rachel's class pet and he is stuffed animal lion. You get him for a weekend, take pictures, make a scrapbook page about your weekend and off he goes to the next student. Well, Daniel got lucky last weekend b/c we had ALL kinds of activities planned.

First up, I took Rachel and Daniel to Disney Live. We are sitting in our 2^nd row seats and hear this little voice say "There's Daniel and Rachel". We were sitting directly in front of one of Rachel's classmates, Christopher. Well, that deserved a photo right there – what are the odds of that? The show was fine, not as good as Sesame Street shows or as good as Disney shows in the parks, but Rachel and Daniel enjoyed it and that is what matters, right? I have to say the Buzz Lightyear and Woody were a little creepy looking.

Daniel's Saturday consisted of Russell's soccer game; he was a great cheerleader with Rachel. Then Rachel's class was performing at the Sat. evening church service. She goes to Lamb of God Lutheran School, which is of course attached to Lamb of God Lutheran Church. She had to wear a chapel uniform, (OMG, what is a chapel uniform? Luckily a jumper and peter pan blouse that we already have!) and we had to attend the church service. So, I left the boys (Adam and Rowan were under the weather) at home and took Rachel to church. We sat with Rachel's friend, Talulah and her dad, Lino. (Great family, lots of fun and they are from New Jersey.) Rach and Lulah were so cute in church, whispering, coloring, giggling; it was so much fun to sit next to them. Amidst the giggling and shooshing, I am trying to be a good visitor and pay attention. And what does the good Reverend start to talk about? Marriage. Uh oh, I am thinking…. Oh My God, I mean Gosh, here it is, I am at church and he is going to start talking about the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. Fantastic. I think most of you know, I support gay marriage because to me it is plainly and simply discrimination. Don't get me wrong, I think churches have every right to not support it in their private institution, but the government should not discriminate. Like I said, plain and simple.

Okay, back to church. What can I do? I can't walk out b/c Rachel and Daniel still have to sing and I would totally walk out otherwise with the whole anti gay marriage sermon. How would it look in Daniel's scrapbook: Rachel's mom stormed out of church b/c she won't listen to anti gay marriage talk! Ha! Lucky for me, I was wrong!!! It was children he focused on and how they are little sponges and we should always bring them to church. Phew! So, then he invites up the uniform clad sponges and they sing. Everyone is taking pictures, the whole congregation is happy and the little sponges are adorable!!!

Sunday was football day, so Daniel got to witness us teaching Rowan how to signal and say touchdown. Not too much there. Then we made his scrapbook page, (Rachel put a paper cutter in her mouth, but no blood. Really, isn't she too old for that?), turned him in on Monday and Daniel will go on to the next house!