Fire Station Celebration

Last night was a bit exhausting. I was up and down all night...between Benj getting up a few times and the dogs barking (which I always have a hard time falling asleep after they sound an alert. ugh. They are my watch dogs and allow me many restful nights until they bark...then I start to wonder what they're barking at.)

So, Benj started this wonderful day around 5 a.m. and after sending him back to bed won a spot in Mommy's bed around 5:30 a.m. I was too tired to fight the battle today.

We stayed home from Sunday School since Samuel still doesn't seem to be 100% and made it to church just fine. I held Samuel through the services instead of dropping him off in the nursery and he did surprisingly well.

We came home, had lunch and changed Benjamin out of his church clothes then were off to his best buddy Jack's long anticipated birthday party at the fire station. He was so excited. But he did fall asleep during the 15 minute ride there. He had a blast. They got to climb on a fire truck, ambulance and other fire vehicles. I think this photo of Benjamin says it all with his expression of pure happiness.

I met another mom at the party whose husband is in the National Guard unit here that was activated. They have been in training for a few months and soon, after a brief visit home, they will leave for Iraq for 9 months. She has a 3 1/2 year old son and a 1 year old daughter. She had a few questions about communication with them over there...but I'm sure everyone's situation is different with that. We've been so fortunate that Don has daily access to e-mail and is able to call about once a week. Her husband was deployed 18 months ago to Afghanistan so she's been down this road already.

Don e-mailed a lil this morning and this is what he was up to today:

"Went to chapel. Went to lunch. Had an internal office meeting. Submitted a test for ILE. Started the next module... it is a streaming video of an Iman speaking at ILE. It keeps buffering when it catches up to the download every minute or two...so I find other things to do for 5-10 minutes and come back and watch two more minutes or so. Waiting for dinner."

Well, that's all I have for now...I have laundry to finish up, dishes to do and about half a dozen other things yet tonight. Thank goodness the boys and I all had naps after the trip to fire station today!