Boom

Life has yet to slowdown. Stacked brown boxes fill our home from wall to wall and random furniture pieces are strewn throughout the halls still in search for the appropriate spot. We’re slowly settling into a new routine and unpacking our household goods and years of memories, but not without a few tears—tears from damaged furniture, broken china dishes, damaged paintings, but mostly because $260+ was stolen out of Krysta’s piggy bank. Seriously, what type of grown man steals from a child by smashing a piggy bank into dozens of pieces, then playing it off by wrapping the broken pieces in packing paper? He wasn’t very smart because he forgot the cork at the bottom on the box, which makes it extremely obvious what happened. My heart aches for my daughter, as she has been saving her money for a VERY longtime. This whole moving situation disgusts me.

Note: For my milie friends in Alaska or moving to Alaska, do yourself a favor and avoid hiring Alison’s Relocation's INC. It’ll save you a lot of heartache. Email me if you want the specifics on our experience, as this was just the tip of the iceberg.
 

Moving on to happier moments….

Independence Day!

Monday we set everything aside and celebrated our country’s birthday.

It was a day to honor all of our men and woman who defend our country on a daily basis, and to give our respects to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the name of freedom throughout past wars. And so to honor our military and country, we pulled out our American traditions of barbeques, sparklers, fireworks, and of course decking out in red, white, and blue.

If there is one statement that sums up what this country means to me, it is this:

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."
~Ronald Reagan

Earlier this week while we were sitting in the Chick-fil-a drive-thru, when Krysta asked why we moved to Oklahoma. As I searched for words for her 8 year old mind to understand, it came down to this…

Daddy’s job is on a 12-18 month deployment cycle, where as the other base is every year, so daddy would be home more often for birthdays and holidays, and he may even be home for the firsts—first words, first day of school, first soccer goal.

I could see her face shift into sadness as the wheels in her head started spinning, trying to digest what life would be like without daddy home.

I continued the conversation very light heatedly with--daddy’s been gone 6 times and we had lots of fun hanging out together and visiting Nana and Mimi and the beach and we did just fine while he was away and daddy’s keeping our country safe and it’s going to be many months until he has to leave again and…

She nodded her head in understanding, but I could see little tear puddles forming at the bottom of her eyelids.

Explaining wartime and what it means to protect our freedom to a child is a lot harder than it looks. I’m terrified that my choice of words and the actions we take before and during deployments would harm her mentally. There is no amount of self-help books and counseling that will stop the inevitable… daddy will one day deployment again and it will take the strength of God to pull us through.

Fourth of July night we packed into the car and drove the college to watch the firework show.

Boom. Boom. Pop. Fizzle. Pow. Bam. Bursts of color exploding throughout the sky, one after the other.

Did anyone else have Toby Keith’s, Courtesy of the red, white, and blue playing in your head as the fireworks lit up the sky? Or Martina McBride’s, Independence Day? Or even the Star Spangled Banner? I did, and it was awesome.

Happy Birthday America!