I am thoroughly enjoying my newest present from Mike! I carry it around with me throughout the day and read snippets of it every chance I get. I even tweeted a passage from it this morning and several folks commented that my husband needs to give lessons on romance at the local community center :-)

The journal got me to thinking about all the special ways Mike has also made sure to communicate with our children while they were going through deployments. Because they do, ya know. Go through deployments I mean. It's harder on them than the adults sometimes I think.

Mike always wanted the children to know that he loved them and would write specific letters addressed to just them. Each of our children were thrilled at getting these letters.

Letter writing was a given, of course.

But he did more than just write letters.

For one of his earliest deployments, back when the children were all still preschoolers, Mike made a video of himself reading several Dr. Seuss books. He sent the video and the books home to the children. At the end of the book reading, he let the camera keep recording as he went about the mundane task of cleaning his barracks room. The children used to get up and go clean their own rooms when they watched daddy cleaning his room, too. It might seem silly but it showed them that daddy didn't leave just so he could go have all sorts of fun and games without them. He was working and living and counting the days until he could return home to all of us.

On Mike's most recent deployment to Iraq he sent the children each a pair of their own dog-tags. He used a metal stamping kit to put his own little love note on the back of the tags... he had even less room than 140 characters so the notes were really small and abbreviated but each of our children knew exactly what it meant when they read it. They still wear their tags. They are one of the children's most prized possessions!

Mike also sent each of the children Bibles with special hand written messages from him and with special verses highlighted during one of his Iraq deployments. All of his deployments to the Persian Gulf area were hardest on the children (and me, too) because we honestly didn't know if he would be coming back. We knew friends that didn't so its hard to pretend that everything is peachy king. We never lied to the children or to each other. War is war and death happens in war. We simply trusted God in His wisdom to know what was good for our future and our lives. I am thankful every day that He saw fit to send my husband back home safely to our family!

Mike always made sure to order birthday and holiday presents specific to each of our children's likes and dislikes as well. Sometimes he sent them gifts that you just couldn't get anywhere else. When he was deployed helping with the tsunami relief effort, he worked along side many military folks from that region. Our youngest son loves hat pins and so Mike traded several pieces of his own insignia for several pieces of a Sri Lankan military guys insignia and sent that back to our youngest.  Our middle son collects coins so Mike has sent him coins from around the world. And so forth. Each child often got books, clothing, toys, and other gifts that were unique to their own personalities. I love that my husband made such an effort to remind each child that he knew and remembered them personally even while he was away!

This military life is not always an easy one but it is the path that God has led us down. I am thankful for all the ways our family has grown through our times together, and our times apart. I am thankful for a husband who has worked so hard to show each of us in so many ways that he knows and loves us individually, and collectively.

These examples, of course, are just a small sampling of the many things Mike has done to ensure our kids KNEW they were loved by him while he was deployed. What are some ways your spouse has made sure to stay connected to each member of your family while he was away?

 I'd love for you to share in the comments :-)

Sallie

February is always a special month for my husband and I. We first met 20 years ago and he moved more than 900 miles to live close to me on Valentines Day of 1991 (and we were married by May, in case you were wondering). He gave me a yellow rose then and they are now my favorite color rose and a tradition for us. I almost always know what I'm getting for Valentines and I wouldn't have it any other way :-) One of these days, when we own our own home,  I plan to have bush after bush of them! 

We've also developed another tradition over the almost 19 years we've been married: letter-writing. It wasn't one we planned to develop but with as many deployments as Mike has had, as well as having lived in separate cities when we first became "a couple", it became a natural thing for us to do! I literally have letters and cards spanning 5 or more years worth of deployments packed up in boxes. I also have over a year of emails from deployments saved. I just can't seem to let go of them because their words mean so much to me. I enjoy getting the stacks of envelopes out, untying the strings, and reading through so many endearing words. They remind me of how strong our love really is. For one deployment, Mike even left notes hidden around our house for me to find. I found them in my Bible at church, in the bottom of the flour bin, in the dresser drawer, under the coffee filters, and so many other places. Love notes have always been a part of our life!

Knowing how much his written words have meant to me over the years, Mike recently bought me a new journal. This is a different kind of journal though. It is for me but he is the one doing all the writing! Mike is writing small love notes in it for me daily.  This is one of the sweetest gifts I have ever been given!! I find myself on pins and needles every evening waiting for him to finish up his thoughts for the day. I also find myself needing to find two quiet times a day -- one for God and Bible study, and one for sweet written words from my husband :-)

Do you have any specials gifts that mean more to you than others? What made them so special? I'd love for you to share in the comments!

Sallie

We've done Christmas without Daddy a few times... whether it is peacetime or wartime, from experience I know it still hurts just the same. Thanks Big Daddy Weave for doing this song... it made my hubby, the Marine, cry as much as it did me. Oh, wait, he says his eyeballs were just sweating ;-)

Sallie

**WARNING: This is a poop story...kinda** 

We have new neighbors all around us. That is typical in military housing in the summer. We were at our last base for just over six years and lived in an older housing unit for the first four years we were stationed there.  We lived in the second new base house for a little more than 2 years. Many of our neighboring town-homes saw 2 or 3 residents in the time span we were there. We have only been at our new base for just over a year, and received our house on base right away. We've already seen neighbors come and go. More than that, though, we are once again the old dogs on the block.

In each housing section (quadruples, duplex, circle, etc..), we always experienced being the "oldest resident" on the block, so to speak. We were a bit surprised at how fast it came this time considering we've only been here a year but just as many neighbors got out of the military this summer as received orders to new duty stations. That seems pretty unusual from my past experience but I guess it just worked out that way.  

We always look at this as an opportunity to give back to our neighbors. We know we have experience and knowledge of the general and local area and share that info in the most helpful ways we can. We try to get to know the families, give cookies, say hello to the children, pet the animals and so forth. We just try to be friendly. I think most of our neighbors would agree with that. I think most of the neighbors try to be that nice and outgoing to us as well. 

But, ya know what? There is almost always a rotten apple somewhere in the basket waiting to spoil the camaraderie. Unfortunately, they just moved in next door to us!

Base housing does not require a fenced in yard for dogs but they do specify that your dogs must be tied up when they are outside and can not be left outside for longer than 15 minutes at a time (even in a fenced enclosure). There also has to be supervision when they are outside. I consider sitting in my screened porch, or looking out my kitchen window, or pseudo french doors good enough supervision. Apparently our new neighbors do not. Apparently they are afraid, too, that my two dogs morning o'dark thirty poops might cause an epidemic of flies if not picked up by the afternoon.

The only bit of conversation we have had at all with this new set of neighbors has been when they have pounded on our door to demand we come pick up a single poop. Twice. I have tried to wave and be friendly but there seems to be no desire to talk or be friendly back. They only want bad poop talk or no talk at all it seems.

This weekend when we were out of town, we had a friend take care of the dogs. We didn't worry about them cleaning up because it was only gonna be three or four days and we thought it was great that they were helping us out by watching the dogs. Our dogs are regular... like metamucil regular. They have two poops a day and that is it. Take into account that we have a small dog and a medium sized dog and you get the picture that it isn't as if our yard easily becomes a wasteland of poop in the span of a long weekend.

But it's not just our dogs...

Here is what the new neighbors don't understand because they have failed to get to know us as neighbors: Nearly every morning, because we homeschool and I want our kids to have a clean place to play in, I send my kids out on poop patrol to clean up the whole area that is considered community space that runs between the backs of our 5 sets of duplexes. I cleaned up 4 poop piles behind this particular neighbors house this morning. The big reason for this is that we live with the community dog park right out our back door pretty much. Well, it's on a diagonal across from our house but you get the picture. Everyone and his neighbor walks through this area to get to the dog park to play with their dogs. Sometimes the dogs don't make it to the park and have an accident that the owner neglects to pick up.

We could easily whine and complain and become the poop police on the phone with the housing office every day to complain that so and so's dog got out again, or so and so didn't pick up the poop when their dog couldn't wait the 15 or 20 feet left to go to make it to the dog park area. But it's nicer to just take the loose dog by the collar back home, or pick up the poop without whining because hey, it is just poop after all.  

After we talked to housing yesterday and today, we moved our dogs tie-outs so they can not possibly be anywhere next to this neighbors house. You see, the neighbor could not just complain that there was poop in the yard area but had to exaggerate their story. They told the housing office that we owned 3 or 4 dogs (instead of the two.. base regulation only allows for us to have two). They also told housing that our dog was always off its tie out (not true) and scratched up and ripped holes in their screened in porch and door (again, not true). As a matter of fact, pictures to the housing office with a rep coming out to inspect will show absolutely ZERO damage to their screens at all; not even a single paw nail pic on any of the screens or door.  

Will we stop cleaning up the community area between the town-homes, even this neighbors town-home? No. Our kids play there with other neighbor kids and its neighborly to help keep these areas clean.

Will the housing office doubt the validity of claims made by our newest neighbors in the future as it can easily be proved that false claims were made this time? Yes.

Publilius Syrus once said that "It is folly to punish your neighbor by fire when you live next door." I hope that in exaggerating their story to try and further our punishment, our neighbors did not punish themselves by becoming a family known as liars that cry wolf for unimportant things. Hopefully they will learn that being a good neighbor means putting up with little things in the community at large because no one is perfect... and its the neighborly thing to do.

Sallie

My hubby might be pushing 45 but he still puts out 100% as a Marine! He wrote a blog post the other day about what it is taking physically right now for an "old Marine" to make it. I thought I would share the post and these pics -- what he typically looks like after a workout. You can read the post here.

My husband HAS to work out on a daily basis to keep his job. I like to walk, and can go anywhere from 3 to 7 miles at a time depending on my mood, but don't push much more than that. What kind of workout do you do? Is it just for fun? Maybe to help keep yourself in shape? Or, like my husband, does keeping your job depend on the workouts you do?

Sallie