Just getting started

Well, my husband as been gone roughly 4 and half months so far. And I am just now getting around to starting a blog. He was ADVON, so he left a few weeks earlier than the rest of his company. While it sucked for him to leave early, his was a great thing for him to do for his career.

Over the last 131 days, we have had some good times, bad times, and just some really really crappy times. Having kids has really made the deployment that much harder for us. While we knew that Rob would eventually get deployed, it was surreal when it finally came time. Our kids, Jonathon (6) and Austin (3) have handled the deployment like little troopers. There's been nights when the 3 of us have sat and cried because of missing daddy so much, then there are other times when we just talk quite a bit about him. I have pictures everywhere of him, and they write letters and draw pictures for daddy all the time.

Not even a month into the deployment Robs company suffered a few losses. A few of the men I knew personally, others I just knew names. One of the soldiers lost, happened to be someone really close to my husband and I.

We have been at Fort Lewis since March of 2005. And every year for the holidays my house was filled with soldiers who couldn't make it home. Actually this year I am worried about what I am going to do for Thanksgiving, not having 20+ guys to cook for has me feeling a bit depressed. One of the soldiers we lost had spent many times with us over the last two and half years, and his death really hit me hard. I actually found out about his death on Memorial Day. My neighbor, whose husband was also deployed with mine, came over and asked if I had seen the DoD release of names, it was then that she told me about the death of Cpl Mathew LaForest. He was a good kid, and his death affected many of us.

Well, I think this is enough for now. I plan on posting another blog later to catch everyone up on things to get my blog up to date.