Happy 4th of July!

I hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July weekend!  I couldn't have thought of a better way to celebrate this incredible holiday than being able to participate in my husband's promotion to Captain!!!!  He requested that me and his mom pin his Captain's bars onto his uniform- (part of the ceremony).  It was amazing to witness this event as he swore to defend the constitution and our country.  I am so proud of him and I wish there was a word perfect enough to describe how incredible he is but there isn't one.  This promotion was a lot calmer than his first one when he was promoted to 1st Lieutenant.  His first promotion was during his first deployment to Iraq and in the middle of his ceremony, alarms started going off telling them to take cover because they were being attacked by mortars.  Luckily no one was hurt:-) 

 

I feel like I write/talk about the military a lot, and because I do that, I feel like people get tired of it- but that's our life.  We try as hard as we can though to make sure there is a good balance in our lives.  When we lived in California, we lived off base so we could live as much of a civilian life as possible.  JC always left his work at work and never brought it home.  We did as many activities outside of the military as we could in order to get away from the thoughts of future departures and absences from each other in our lives.  Unfortunately, I never escaped the anxiety of having my husband leave.  Even though we have tried to distance ourselves from the hectic lifestyle of the military, we are still very proud to be a part of this amazing organization and we feel nothing short of appreciation and gratitude for the opportunities it has provided us to learn more about who we are. 

So JC is gone again for another 3 weeks:-( 

Fortunately, this time he is just gone to participate in a training session for his new recruiting job and more than likely, he won't have to leave again after this.  I guess I'm still just a little bit sensitive since he just came home 2 months ago.  We are grateful that he is getting this incredible training by people who teach employees of the Fortune 500 companies.  I'm so jealous that he is going back to VA and not only VA- Leesburg VA!!!!!  I almost started crying when I found out that was where he was going.  For those of you who don't know, I taught 6th grade English at Leesburg Middle School, and a huge part of my heart is still back there.  I would go with him, but he is going to be in classes all day long, 6 days a week.  Plus. . . my brother's girlfriend is getting baptized this Saturday, and I'm going to San Diego to be there for that special occasion!  Yay- we love Melodie and we are so happy for her!!! 

My husband told me he was going to be looking at our blog to see pictures of Tucker since he wasn't taking any with him, so I'm going to add a few pictures that my sister in law, Kenzie, took of him.