"The Prettiness of Outdoors" By: Miah

"Look very carefully, there are things you might not see!"

"My mamma took these, but I like them."

Summertime!

Or, well, a month into it anyway. A lot has happened, so as I gather my thoughts, I will work on the pictures.

The girls went to stay with mom and Ron for a month, during which time Jay and I got to pretend we were childless...We went on dates, watched grown up movies, ate at nice restaurants, and had quiet time at home. The only issue being we aren't actually childless, and after about two weeks I really missed the little monkey butts. Jay was at work all day, I was alone at home. You'd think I would be bored the entire time, BUT I took the opportunity to thoroughly organized several of my most dreaded areas. I got the utility room and all of it's tools completely sorted, the art room rearranged to better suit my needs, the "Harry Potter" closet (the one under the stairs) cleaned out, the pictures I wanted to toss out cleaned out and into the trash, I finished painting my deck furniture,

built two stools to go with, and the dread linen closet cleaned out and sorted. The sad thing is that only took a couple of days. The rest of the time I caught up on reading, and tv shows. Really sort of Blah.
I think I mentioned before that my mom broke her shoulder this summer while the kids were with her, which is why we had to go get the kids instead of mom bringing them back. If you only knew what sort of begging and cajoling it took to get Jay's boss to allow him to leave the state for the weekend! As it was, we only had two days to drive 17 hours round trip. It didn't sound like it would be too bad, oye, though it was! I was so tired after that weekend it didn't really feel like a weekend at all, and poor Jay had to go right back to waking up at 3 am.
While we were at Mom's we gave Miah all of her birthday presents, the biggest of which was a dvd player for the car (thinking of that long trip home!) and a huge box of blocks which had us on the floor building crazy stuff for hours.
When we got home it was time to get ready for Sheila and Scotty's fourth of July visit. We had the best 4th we've ever had possibly. Sheila bought a badminton set,

which was a lot more fun than I thought it would be, the kids all played in the sprinkler, Scotty took over the grill and we had hot dogs, burgers, corn on the cob, potato salad, coleslaw, and steak.

(Dobby had a good time too, getting to run loose all day in the yard) I can't wait to do that again! I tried to get a picture of my girls while we were playing in the backyard, but all I ended up with was this:

Laurel was trying to get Miah to hold still and smile, but it just wasn't happening. They ended up getting into a sister scuffle, which I of course documented! It's funny and so cute. They were laughing the whole time, hamming it up for the camera.

My kids weren't the only ones play fighting though:

Over that weekend we also went to see Obsessed with Beyonce'. I LOVED that movie. I swear Sheila and I were holding back cheers at the end. lol

My garden is a little sad at this point. I have strawberries, cucumber, jalapenos, banana peppers, tomatoes, and lettuce. I was able to make an awesome completely home grown salsa for taco night, salads, fried green tomatoes, and those herbs have helped make many a tub of hummus, so I can't really complain too much!Everything else sort of pooped out with the lack of rain. I did get a lot of use out of my herbs, though now most of them have dried up too. I'm hoping next year the soil quality will be better (using my new compost, yay!) and maybe, just maybe it will rain like it's supposed to! It seemed like it would never stop raining when we first got here, but now it's hard to remember when it rained last. I really miss turning off all the lights and tv, opening the doors and feeling the breeze while listening to the rain, and the thunder. The funny thing is that I found out that my little chihuahua is scared to death of thunder. Hilarious!
Forty two days ago, Jay and the family have hit and passed a huge milestone. Two Hundred days home in a row. This is officially the longest Jay has ever been with us. Now two hundred forty two days and counting. It's absolutely amazing to me. Some will be happy to know that While I've joked several times about getting tired of him after such a long stint at home, it's not true. He calls every day before coming home to see if I need anything, and more often than not stops on his way home at night to pick up what he calls "nummies", and we are getting along perfectly. I get excited at the movie theater because when we see a movie trailer we really like, I don't have to calculate whether he will still be home. It's a frequent reminder that at least for the next couple of years, I don't have to count down to deployment, or 24 hour duty (they do 12 here) and no stints in the field for a month or two at a time. Thank god! With that and the fact that we aren't on post, I almost (almost, I say) feel like a normal family. Except for the three month funeral duty Jay is on. It's not something I want to dwell on, but it's safe to say that this has been a huge issue in more ways than one. It's horrible.

Speaking of which, also this past month my Uncle Kenny died. He was ill for a long time, my whole life really, and apparently had been getting worse recently, culminating in a hospital stay and his passing away. We weren't very close, but I feel bad for my mom (who lived with him and my aunt for a long while when she was younger) and for my Aunt Barbara and my cousins. I wish I had the words...but who ever does?

Well, that's it in a nut shell. Our summer so far. The only thing we have left is tales of playing the "shout at the movies" dvd game, and board games....so dull not even I want to talk about them. Those are the best days though, aren't they? Boring to talk about, but great to live.

I hope your summer is being good to you.

-S