Friday, May 30, 2014

A WHOLE Hand!!



"Is Daddy staying a whole hand?" Carmen asks with excitement.  I answer, "YES! Plus 2!"  Carmen responds, "He's staying a whole week!"

OK, that was adorable.  In our language, this makes perfect sense to us, since this is the life of our family.  We count the days until we will see Daddy on our fingers.  Pinkie Day is TODAY!!  Pinkie Day is the best.  Well, Carmen suspected that Daddy would be home for a week and so she held up her hand to ask.  She knows on her fingers the days of the week and when Pinkie Day is.  It is adorable.  It is a simple thing but it provides the children with such security, joy and anticipation.

And now it is Friday of Pinkie Day Week.  George is still home and won't be going back to Richmond until Monday morning.  One of the great things about his job is that he is able to take more time off.  Every four or five months, he gets a week off.  This started me thinking about how much time families actually spend together when the dad or mom is living at home and working 9 to 5 jobs.

When George is home for a week at a time, we spend so much quality time together.  Also, our children are not even attending a traditional school, so when Daddy is home, they are home all day, as well.  I can adjust my school schedule to accommodate family time with him.  Families with both parents living at home (AND sometimes both parents working AND with children enrolled in a traditional school WITH after school activities) can be far less likely to have the amount of family time that we have.  It is interesting to think about.  I also reflect on this because so many family and friends have expressed care and concern to us over the almost 2 years since George has been traveling.

I guess I want everyone to know that no matter what the situation in your life, you can always make the most of it and make it even better than it may look from the outside looking in.

We are making memories this week.  George is watching John grow and reach milestones.  He is spending time with the children working in the yard.  He took them bowling last night.  George and I even had a "date" all afternoon.  We went to monthly foster care training and stopped at a friend's house on the way home.  We were actually in the van by ourselves!  That alone qualifies as a date to me!  Even if we just drove down the street and back.  :)  We had an amazing party at our home on Sunday evening.  We made pizzas for our guests in our homemade fire brick oven.  I rolled out pizza dough balls for over an hour!  George manned the oven and baked pizza after pizza.  It was great fun and a huge success!

For those of you not on FB, below is a picture of what I looked like while hosting that party.  I got very few pictures from that get together but managed to end up with this one.  I believe at the point this picture was taken, I was explaining to everyone that the pizza making table would work kind of like Subway.


We spent Tuesday together while we took George to a doctor's appointment in Charlotteville.  We went to the park and then to Spudnuts for yummy donuts.

During the week, George even joined us for story time to listen to a chapter of Peter Pan (although he drifted off to Neverland during the first page).  He also watched Star Wars Episode 1 with Emmett and Carmen (although he drifted off to Neverland in the first few minutes :)

Tonight we have friends coming over for pizza.  Tomorrow we are going to a homeschool picnic.  Sunday, Carmen and I are going to a bridal shower.  George took Emmett down to VMI to see some friends in the alumni office who are retiring.  Emmett came home so excited because he got ice cream, too.  When going out with Daddy, ice cream is usually in the picture somewhere.  :)  Come to think of it, there was ice cream after bowling, too.

What a blessing it is to have time with those we love.  Being separated so much allows for more creativity and expression in how we actually spend time together.  With us, there is no boring day- to-day.  There is always the anticipation of when our next adventure will be and who will come along for the ride.

Have a great weekend, everyone!  My computer is telling me to "plug in or find another source" so that is my signal to sign off and get outside and help with the firewood....

Til next Pinkie Day!!!  See you in June...

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