Gil's Deployment!

So the time finally came for Gil to deploy again. We have been very lucky to have had him home for 3 1/2 years since he was deployed last time. I am glad we had plenty of time to get settled in here before he left. It has made it much easier. I am blessed to have some great friends here. The few weeks prior to him leaving were a lot of fun. He had two weeks off. We had a lot of family fun time and Gil and I got to go on two really fun dates. One of the days we all went down to Nashville. We went to Build a Bear Workshop for the kids to get a stuffed animal with a message recording from Daddy. It was a lot of fun.



Walter and Jem got wolfs. Walter's is called "Darth Wolf" and has a Darth Vador outfit. It is pretty cool. Rilla got a pink bunny and added all the frills. It is so cute. Shirley got a little doggy and picked out a plaid shirt for him. Gil recorded a message for each of them and it is in their stuffed animals.

The kids love them. It has definately helped them. They sure love their daddy. He is a great dad. They will really miss him, and so will I.

Jem's 6th Birthday!

Jem turned 6 on January 30th. January was a long month. Shirley was very sick during it, so after attending another child's Chucky Cheese Birthday Party we chose to do the same for Jem. He was very excited about it. It ended up costing less than I expected it would, and I hardly had to do anything. That was nice. Plus, with Gil deploying end of February, it was nice to do something extra special for Jem who is going to miss his dad terribly. We,b scheduled his party for 9:30 Saturday morning. That way it wouldn't be too crowded. We lucked out and had a snow storm the day before so there was about 7 inches of snow. that kept people from going to Chucky Cheese (that didn't have a birthday party). We were the only ones sceduled for 9:30 so we had the place to ourselves (and the few families we inviting). That was really nice. There were 8 or 9 parties schedules after us, so I was glad we picked the early slot.

We had a blast. Jem absolutely loved it. It was worth the money we spent. I plan on doing the same for Walter's birthday in June.

Jem is doing great in school. I wasn't sure how school would be for him since he had a hard time sitting still when he was younger. He has no problem, however. He is all about following the rules and doing what he is supposed to. He is a great little boy. He is a very good big brother. He and Shirley get a long great. Shirley just loves him and Jem is so patient with him. They are very alike. Jem is still into Crystals, rocks, and bugs. He got two crystal making kits for his birthday and a crystal mining kit. He loves them. The crystal making kits will last for months, too. His newest obsession is diamonds. He really wants a diamond. I have been trying to get him to understand they are too expensive. I am tempted to buy a fake one and pass it off as real. Would that be wrong?