How are you spending your New Year's Eve??

We are spending it sitting here in New Jersey today. I can't even describe to you what kind of emotional, stressful, and tiring day it has been spent at the Passenger terminal today. We arrived at 930 AM at the terminal to wait patiently for our flight to arrive and find out if we would be on it. The roll call wasn't until 330, so we knew we had plenty of time to waste around the airport. Around noon or so, the snow started falling and the wind started picking up. The next thing I knew they were changing our roll call to 740 PM, uh oh, I knew this wasn't going to be good. They made an announcement for us telling us that the plane might not even be able to land, due to winds. My heart dropped. Here we go again. I just wasn't sure how much more my emotions could take. All we could do now was wait and watch the weather and the screen to see if the time was changed again for roll call.
Finally around 6PM they announced that they were not sure of how many seats were available, but they wanted to get us all ready so when the plane lands, we all could be bused out there and take off.....to home....Travis AFB. After taking all of our luggage, giving us tickets, purchasing a meal, and sitting down waiting to be called to the gate, they made another announcement. They flight was being delayed, yet again, for TWENTY-FOUR hours. This time my heart not only sunk down, but tears instantly welled up in my eyes. All I want is to be home, in my bed, with my dog and enjoying my last few days before I have to go back to work. That's all I want, is that so much to ask for? I had my fun, saw all my family, even seen lots of snow, so I am done with this trip and want to be home!
I knew this announcement was bad for many reasons. 1. There wasn't any billeting rooms (like we stayed in the night before) open on the base. 2. It's New Year's eve and I wasn't sure how easy it would be to find a hotel room. 3. I wasn't going to sleep in my bed yet another night.
Well, we found a room over here at an Army base connected the Air Force base. The kids have had a BLAST today. They have been wonderful and have played so hard with many new friends we have made on this leg of the trip. They are out in the hallway playing with many of them as I type away here in the room. They think this is just the best vacation ever. I wish I could say that I am enjoying it as much as they are, but at this point I am not.
So we will be spending our New Year's eve here at Fort Dix, New Jersey. I am sure we will stay up tonight until the New Year arrives. I am going to pull out my camera and start making some memories cause I know one day I am going to look back at this and just laugh and talk about how much fun we had. I know my kids will look back and remember this New Year's Day.
On another note, I found out today of a date when my husband will be arriving home! Yes, I will be hugging and loving on my husband in 13 days!! Can you believe it? I can't believe that six months has finally went by and is coming to an end. Hooray! I finally made it. I am so very proud of myself for how well I have handled this deployment. There aren't many people that can do what I do on a daily basis.
I am going to go and play with my kids now in the hallway. Can I just say there are some GREAT people in the military? I have had so many people that have helped me with my luggage, and I have LOTS of luggage, and have made sure I found a place to stay. It has been wonderful. We have met some great people. We are all in the same boat and all stranded here, but are making the best of it. We all ordered Chinese at the terminal today. I think I saw the Chinese Delivery guy about 4 times today. He made some good money today. Tonight we all went in together and got some Domino's. I hope you are enjoying your New Year's eve as much as I am.
I just hope this next year I get to spend more time with my husband than I did this year. That in itself will make it the best year ever.......

Our Wonderful Christmas

I wish I could say I was sitting in my house in California with my Yellow Lab lying at my feet, but I can't. I am sitting here looking out the window watching a KC-135 land, in sunny New Jersey. Our trip hit a little speed bump on Sunday night, after driving 9 hours in the car to Maryland. We checked into our hotel and I called to check on our flight for the next morning and they informed me the flight was canceled. I had a slight melt-down, but soon recovered and came up with another plan. I am hoping plan B works. We will find out tomorrow. Please keep us in your prayers tomorrow afternoon, that we get back home. I know this is what Space A is all about, but it still can be tough and stressful. The kids are doing great and having a blast. We have a small apartment type hotel (TLF) here and are enjoying the space. I must admit that I have wonderful kids, that are pretty flexible and well-traveled.

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas! Ours was fabulous and there was only one thing missing, my husband. I am hoping to find out something soon about his arrival home. Hopefully by next week! We had a blast in Ohio for Christmas. It was alot easier with the kids being a little older. I think we got to see everyone we wanted to this time. I took tons of pictures, but seem to be losing my memory a little. I didn't get hardly any pictures of my moms side due to me thinking I forgot my camera, it wasn't until everyone left that I found it sitting by the front door! I was so upset! I guess that's part of getting old.....not that I am. So I have tons of pictures, but not many of my mom's side. Hopefully I can steal some from my cousins wife soon and I will share them with you then.

I guess you will see how much fun we had in our pictures. I wish I could say that we had a "snow" day, but there wasn't any snow falling in Ohio during our visit, of course. After all the shopping and stuff for "snow" gear and I didn't even get to use any of it! That's the way the weather works in Ohio, you never know what you're going to get.

Enjoy the slide show. Thank you to everyone that made special trips to see us, that made room in their houses for our crew, and to everyone that altered their plans for us. We appreciate it so much and loved seeing each and every one of you. I would like to say we will do it again next year, but I can't say that for sure....sorry.

The "joys" of flying Space Available!

Here I sit in front of my computer, when I am suppose to be on the plane I hear revving up out on the flight line. The kids and I attempted to leave on a flight this morning to our destination, but the attempt failed. They only had ten seats available, so obviously they had ten people ahead of us. The part I don't like is that we are bumped down a Category, due to flying without my husband. In my eyes, we should be bumped UP a Category while he is away. That just seems fair to me. There were many families that didn't get on this flight, so I know they are going to be back there this evening, along with us, fighting to get on this last flight out.
Please pray that we get on this flight tonight. It broke my heart to hear Jaelyn cry when I told her to head back out to the car. She screamed "I want to go on the airplane and see GRANDMA!!!" It's hard to explain Space Available to a four year old, but I told her that we will try again tonight. It's a bigger plane, so hopefully we have a BIGGER chance of getting on. IF we don't get on this flight out tonight, then I am not sure when we will get out. There aren't any other flights out to our destination the rest of the weekend. I am putting a cut-off day of Tuesday, as my last chance to get out of here. We'll see what happens.
I just pray we get on this one tonight and then I don't have to worry about figuring out the rest. This is the worst part about the traveling and I usually have this really smart and good looking man to help me (my husband) with all of the decisions, but right now, I am alone in this.

I hope the next time I am updating to be in the cold, snowy state of Ohio! Let's keep our fingers crossed!

Patience? What's that?

Here is a part of Steve's birthday present. I had a friend from Church take these for us to send to Steve. I think they turned out pretty good, considering the group! I hope you enjoy.....

This week is all about patience for me. It is going to be an interesting week for me. If you know me at all, then you know that I am not a very patient person. Now, I have TONS of patience with kids, but anything else.....forget it! I have this problem and I think it's called "Impulse control"....lol...if I see something, then I want it or THINK I NEED it now. It's amazing how far I have come over the years, as I progress in age, but I still have a "slight" problem with it every now and then. I am hoping I am able to get through this next week with a lot of patience. I will let you know how I do when it is all over with. There are a couple of things testing my patience this week, one I can't control, but the other one is waiting on the right flight out of here to home. I have my plan all set in place, now I just have to wait and see what flights are going out on those dates. If something comes up any earlier than my scheduled dates. then that is where I will run into trouble with my "impulse control" issue. And you were wondering where Chelsea got it from huh?

Our Christmas musical went great! I am so proud of all my preschoolers at Church. They did so fabulous and I just love each one of them for the great job they did. Each year is very stressful up to the day of the musical, but once it's all over with I just sit back and realize how well it went. This year turned out great and I know next year will be just as wonderful.

I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season. I know I sure am. I love this time of year and I know once it's over with, I am that much closer to seeing my wonderful husband. We are so excited about him coming home and it's all we talk about around our house. Steve received his birthday present and he LOVED it. I was very worried about if he would like the things I got him, but he did.

Well, pray for me this next week or so. I am hoping soon I will have a post full of lots of NEW happening things around here. I can't wait.....

Good Days and Bad Days...

It seems to be either or lately. I either have a really great day, or I have a really bad day. This week has been full of bad days. Now I say bad days, that doesn't necessarily mean the whole day is bad. It just seems to be very difficult coming off of a four day weekend and getting back into the grove of things. I really enjoyed my time off this past weekend. I made sure to take time for myself, get some much needed deep cleaning done, and spend some quality time with my kids. I am very blessed to be able to spend alot of time with my children on a daily basis. I know it's not always easy for working parents to find alot of time with their children, so I am lucky to be able to work out of my home. Soon enough my time of working out of the home will be over, but raising my children never will be. I am grateful and blessed to have been able to be a stay at home mom. One day I will look back and be ever so grateful for the time I spent with my children. Now don't get me wrong, there are days I just would love to run out of the house screaming and the past two days have been just like that.
Today has been a much better day though and I am so glad. I am getting so excited about our vacation home. Yes, I am calling it a vacation because it's a vacation from my house, work, and life. I get to go home and spend some quality time with family. That is the greatest Christmas present ever (besides if my husband could come home early). I already have my whole trip planned out and am ready to get it started. I have been praying about my trip that it goes well and I don't have too much trouble with traveling alone, and it seems to be working out just perfectly so far. This doesn't mean that it's going to GO perfectly, but so far my planning is...LOL. I have found a base on the east coast that flies here three times a week, and they have flights from here about two to three times a week to that same base. I also found at that base, they have a car rental place right INSIDE the terminal where I will be landing! PRAISE THE LORD! This is an answered prayer! I have been stressing about how I would get to the car rental place, dragging luggage and three kids. Now it seems to be working out. It is looking like I might actually be leaving two weeks from tomorrow. Just knowing it is so close, just has me so anxious to get it started.
I think I have all the needed items for snow. We have borrowed some and purchased most. I am sure I will get there and realize that I have forgot something, so I will probably have to do some shopping while I am home...darn. I do have to finish up some Christmas shopping when I get there because I don't want to drag it on the airplane with me. I will have plenty of family members VERY willing to take my children, so I can go out and finish up my shopping...alone. That will be exciting to get away and not have to worry about leaving my kids. They will be glad to get away from me and spend time with their family.
I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving as much as we did. We did a whole lot of nothing, but sitting around and munching on food all day long. I baked two pumpkin pies (I don't know what I was thinking) and had to send one to my neighbor next door. Pumpkin pie is a HUGE weakness of mine. There is no way I am going to let a pumpkin pie get the best of me! NO WAY! I ate a couple of pieces and then got rid of the rest. Boy times sure have changed.
I will be updating hopefully this weekend with some new pictures. It will be a busy week this week due to our Christmas musical coming up this Sunday. Our rehearsal is all day Saturday and then the musical is Sunday. The kids have been practicing so hard for this and I can't wait to see the final product on Sunday.
Have a great Hump Day everyone!