A Week in Review

   All I can say is WOW. The first week of Aj being gone has flow by! Thank you to everyone who has called, left messages, and just been so incredibly positive and encouraging to me. I really thought this first week was going to be rough, but it surprisingly was a piece of cake! I was a little bit intimidated by those who have said the first 2 weeks are hard, but thanks to family and friends it has been one of the best weeks. Lets hope this positivity continues!

   

(The wreath Aj's mom and I made. It will hang on my front door until he is home)

    Throughout this past week I have spent most of my time with Aj's parents and my sister. Aj's family has made this entire experience so easy for me thus far. They have been through everything Aj and I are experiencing plus some. My sister has stayed over a few nights with me this week and we just had fun watching movies until we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer. The nights are the hardest part, and so I work really hard at exhausting myself during the day so that I can quickly fall asleep at night.


    I have decided to do a countdown to R&R. Originally I wasn't going to do one, but I have been convinced by a few wives that it is a fun, and a very rewarding thing to do for myself.  I struggled to figure out what kind of candy I wanted to use for my countdown. I couldn't do anything I really liked  and I also couldn't do anything with just one flavor, otherwise I would hate this countdown. I finally decided on jolly ranchers. My sister and I went to the store where I bought 20 bags of jolly ranchers (each bag only had like 17-20 pieces in it). Talk about looking ridiculous walking around with that many jolly rancher bags. I ended up being approached by a lady who thought they were stocking stuffers. I think she was a bit disappointed when I told her I had a very long countdown!  Aj thinks I'm crazy for subjecting myself to eating all that candy, and I'm sure he is referring to me as his crazy jolly rancher wife. 

                     (8 months worth of jolly ranchers, yikes!)



  The most difficult part of this deployment was getting through Christmas, and we made it! Aj has been so incredibly wonderful in keeping in contact with me. He was able to call me 2 days before the holidays and he called me Christmas morning. He absolutely made my day, and hearing his voice gave me so much strength to get through it all.

(We decided to do the tree a bit different, I wish I took a better picture of it actually finished, but oh well!)

   His family and mine spent Christmas Eve together like we do every year. It was so much fun, and so very relaxed. His family and I decided that even though Aj couldn't be with us, we would still buy him a bunch of gifts. We all took turns opening them and taking pictures of each of us with his gift. We sent them to him via email so he would know we didn't forget about him!

                   (Conan giving me smiles on Christmas morning)

   My sister stayed the night Christmas Eve, and for Christmas breakfast I went over to Aj's parents. I can't tell you how many times I went back and forth to our home, Aj's parents, and my moms. Thankfully we all live about 5 min. from one another! Christmas dinner was spent with our good friends Adam and Amy, who were so gracious enough to help us all get through Christmas. We really wanted to do something nontraditional with Aj gone, and spending it with them was just that! It was a really great time, and they were perfect hosts and distractions for us!

So that's about it for now. I started working out a few days ago, and next week I'm attending a fostering orientation because I have decided to help out our local shelter that is over flowing with animals that need some extra TLC.  The next difficult hurdle is getting through New Years, but once that is over I can celebrate the fact that I can now say "Aj comes home at the end of the year" instead of "Aj comes home next year" =D