An enjoyable Saturday spent with the Fam...

Well, since Hubby was home we got to enjoy the Downtown Farmer's Market as a family again.

TacoDeli breakfast tacos. Ginger Scones, Blue Cheese and Bacon Quiches.... sooooooo tasty. Hubby was in bliss getting to enjoy his beloved breakfast tacos. Homemade while very tasty just aren't the same as the TacoDeli ones. He also enjoyed some of the coffee that he always gets from the Texas Coffee Traders and I enjoyed a lovely Hibiscus Tea from Nile Valley Herbs. It is sooo amazing and I just love to support him and his business. He uses part of the proceeds from the sales to help bring clean water and assistance to his home village in Kolomiseed in Africa.

I also got to see one of my wonderful AustinMamas who work one of the farmers stalls. Always great to see Ms. Debi.

After enjoying our wonderful breakfast while listening to a great singer playing at the sitting area we headed over to BookPeople another wonderful Austin based company. The kids enjoyed the bookstore and I picked up the latest copy of Alton Brown's new book Good Eats: the Early Years and my wristband for the book signing tomorrow. Yep, we're gonna see the Man himself, Alton Brown tomorrow. Okay I admit I'm pretty damn excited but then so are the kids. They soooo love to watch Good Eats. I've got about a dozen episodes DVR'd and they watch them just as much as they watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars. His only serious competition is the Weather Channel.

Yeah, so I've got weird kids... what's it too ya?!

It was a very enjoyable day... of course on the way home the kids (especially Child #3) wanted to go to Terra Toys. I swear he knows exactly where it is because as we were driving down Burnet on the way home he wanted to know if we were going to Terra Toys because it was right ahead (1/2 a mile away!). Boy is way too smart for his own good sometimes.

Today was a rough day.

This morning Hubby got a phone call. A phone call that no one wants to get. He found out that one of the vehicles with four guys from his unit in Afghanistan was hit by an IED in while on a mission Two of the men were killed and the other two were seriously injured.

Hubby was so upset. He was angry that he was here and not there. Not that it would have stopped it from happening but he felt so powerless being on the other side of the world when two men who were friends died. Even though they weren't "directly" his men, they were still his men. They were some of the men they are there to protect.

Hubby doesn't show lots of "sad" emotions. He keeps those inside a lot. I think I can count about a dozen times I think I've seen him seriously tear up or cry. Most of those were when each of the kids were born. In the past four days I've seem him tear up twice. When he was hugging the kids for the first time at the airport and again when he got off that first phone call.

I was about to call one of his best friends K (who is also military) tell him the Hubby needed him when the doorbell rang and there he was. K had heard the news and came as soon as he could. Hubby needed to have someone he could talk to who really understood what was going on. While I can be as supportive as possible, I've never been to war and I've never lost someone I knew closely like that. K has and he also knew two men who were injured. There was also another vehicle hit by an IED further south of them. All four men were killed. October has become one of the deadliest months for our soldiers in Afghanistan.

Please keep them all in your thoughts and prayers.

Homecoming.

He's finally home. He was able to get an earlier flight out of Dallas. He called me from Dallas and said he was about to get on the next flight... which gave me about an hour before he'd land in Austin.

So after a frantic gathering of the younger twosome, a quick run over to school to grab the older twosome and then it was off to the airport. I'd made a welcome home sign before hand and stashed it in the back of the Disco. I didn't tell them where we were going before but Child #1 is sharp and she figured it out. Thankfully she caught the look about keeping quiet about it.

Because of the rules about gate security we had to wait outside the terminal at the top of the stairs from the baggage claim. And of course the airport security guard kept staring at us like we were gonna rush her station and do "something". Yeah I'm there to create havoc and destruction on your airport with my four small children... wait a minute... okay you got me there. My four little hooligans are there to destroy the airport.

I can't believe I forgot to take any pictures of them standing there waiting with the welcome sign. DUH!!

We got there a little bit before his flight landed (few minutes delayed) so we got to watch lots of other people walk by. At one point a man in ACUs walked by and the Wee One Child #4 stared at him watching him walk by, she kept watching him intently trying to make sure he wasn't Daddy. So of course she was turned facing the wrong way when he did come walking up. The kids totally mobbed him hugging on him. Again I forgot to take any pictures. Double DUH! I of course had to wait my turn to get a hug... several minutes later.

But now he's home... for two weeks. Such few precious moments before he has to return.

Heading home!!

Heard from Hubby... he's in Germany then onto Dallas and onto HOME... so soon!

He should get to Dallas early tomorrow morning and then his flight to Austin is in the afternoon. Maybe sooner if he can catch an earlier flight.

Trying to get the house straighten up before he gets here. Have to put the garage back together with all the stuff I'd pulled out for the garage sale yesterday.

So much to do!

It's been 229 days since I've seen him in person. Skype (when it works) is great but not the same thing.

Well that didn't go as planned...

A large group of mamas from my local moms group got together for a community garage sale. 22 tables with lots and lots of stuff. Should have been awesome. Would have been awesome if it had stayed at the 15% chance of rain that was forecast all week for Sunday.

Nope wasn't a 15% chance of rain by the time the garage sale was about to start... it was 70% that quickly went up to 100%. And stayed there for the next 3 hours.

The cafe that was so kind to allow us to take over their parking lot for the sale insisted that we set up inside as much as we could. The owner didn't want the sale to be a total bust since he knew we'd all worked so hard at getting everything together.

It was great to see a bunch of great friends and I did sell a few things but not as much as I would have liked to. Another mama came up with a great suggestion for us to try again next month in an area that would be covered so weather shouldn't be an issue.

Here's to better weather for the sale next month!

The kids did enjoy spending the day with my mom again. She was very kind to drive over again and watch the kids so I could go down to the sale sans kids. It is so wonderful to see how much Child #4 has become comfortable around my mom. She just loves to sit right next to my mom almost in her lap at any given time that Mom sits down. :-) Its very sweet. She loves her MeMa. We've been so blessed with children that don't seem to have high separation anxiety and have a general ease around people. I was wiped out from being up late the night before to finish prepping for the sale and all the moving and carting of all those bins of stuff so I was able to crash and take a nap while Mom was still here.

Theoretically he boarded an airplane for Kuwait about 14 hours ago...

T-Minus 4 Days... plus or minus a few days...

Just got to love how exacting Hubby's arrival date is. He should be leaving Afghanistan on Sunday the 11th... then it could take anywhere from 36 hours to 4 days for him to arrive in Austin. All depends on what flights are available and where he's routed through.

I can't believe he is going to be home again in less than a week.

I've miss him so much. It just isn't easy being a single parent when your other half is on the otherside of the globe for almost a year. It's going to feel so strange to have another adult in the house... someone else who can make decisions and understands the consequences of those decisions.

Its going to be very weird to have someone in the bed next to me again. Yeah the kids have made the rounds with climbing into bed with me on various nights over the past year but it isn't the same.

Rain, rain, rain, and more rain...

How much more rain can there be? Must it rain all at the same time. How about spreading it out over the months instead of hitting us with it all in a few weeks.

After taking the kids to school this morning, I climbed back into bed with a very tired Child #4. She didn't want to go to sleep last night and was justup off and on most of the evening. She wasn't cranky or sick... just "not tired". Well I was still tired (trying to keep from getting to run down with this possible flu) and I made her get back into bed with me.

It really is nice to sleep in a cozy bed when its dark, overcast and rainy outside. I do love to sleep when it rains. There is just something so soothing and comforting about the sound of falling water.

Just a quiet lazy morning...

Must not get FLU!!!

Even going to bed fairly early (at least for me) I still woke up feeling all wiped out and tired. With a lovely rockin' headache. Nice... I really don't need to get sick right now. I've got too much to do. I need to get ready for the big garage sale this weekend (must earn some money back after the most recent monetary hemorrhage!) and get the house put back together before DH flies in next week sometime.

I feel like I'm running a fever but haven't registered over 98.4 all day... much really means a low grade fever for me with my normal temp of 97.8ish. Been taking lots of vitamin C to try to not get the flu from Child #1.

I don't need this. I really don't need this.

The 5 year olds birthday party.

So I pushed child #3's party to the weekend of Oct 2nd because the weekend of the 26th (his actual birthday) was suppose to rain the whole time... not a single drop all weekend. Beautiful blue skies and very warm. Okay yeah it was pretty hot that weekend but it didn't rain.

It was only suppose to be a 10% chance of rain for today... it was overcast all morning. We got to the park... a family favorite because of the awesome huge sandpit with buried dinosaur bones... got everything all set up down under the sunshade and not 20 minutes later...

Torrential downpour. Not just a little light rain. Wall of water pouring from the sky rain.

We quickly grabbed everything and ran up to the covered shelter areas. Thankfully the group that had reserved one side of the pavilion was finishing up (they were just waiting for the rain to ease up to leave) and graciously offered us the use of the area. The other group (which had NO ONE there yet and never did) was totally giving us dirty looks when we all first ran up to the area because we'd invaded their space. Yeah my little band of about a dozen people that were all huddled at two tables on the side away from them were just totally cramping their non-exsistant party guests style... and of course at least another 15+ people who had been out riding or running on the trails that suddenly ran for cover. Some people are just so classless.

While it was extremely wet and caused the cupcake icing to melt a bit and the oreo "Mickey ears" to slide off the cupcakes the kids still enjoyed them.

Even with all the rain (which caused at least a dozen people to cancel) and not too many guests showing up (thank you thank you thank you for those brave few that did!!!)... he had a great time. He is just such a happy boy. Truly happy. My 95 percent boy... he is happy 95 percent of the time.



My mom was able to drive over from Houston and spend the day with us. All the kids were so happy to get to see her and hang out together.

Everyone was wet and chilled by the time we got home so all the kids went into a warm bathtub while Mom and I snuggled in a couple of warm robes. We ordered Chinese food and watched Monsters Vs. Aliens again. Overall a success.

Marathon Kids

For four years now we've done Marathon Kids. I have to say that this year was the most disorganized year to date. Every year they have called everyone down by grade. Why they always started with fifth grade, then fourth, then third... then kinder, first grade and finally second. Why have the oldest start first never made any sense to me. Yeah have the youngest kids with the shortest attention span wait longer than older kids who have patience.

Yeah that makes A LOT of sense... NOT!

This time instead of having everyone sitting in the sections by school (per previous years) and calling everyone down by grade is was done by section only. Which turned into a free for all. VERY POORLY planned!

This year thankfully we didn't have the heat to deal with like two years ago but it was misty rain most of the time. The only time it wasn't rain... when they were doing the non-stop speeches. While I understand how much work it takes honestly a bunch of elementary students just don't have the patience to sit through 45 minutes of speeches... most of which you couldn't really hear anyways.

And they only had the kids run 3/4 of the lap this time, in the past they did almost 2 laps. Really didn't feel like much of a run for them.

Kids enjoyed it which is what is important...