Ankle deep in number four....

So you might be wondering why I haven't posted in a while...I said might lol. Things have been beyond wild here the past few months. Joe and I successfully ran our first 1/2 marathon and we did great! Ran great and raised $1000 for a great cause. It was just before the race that we got some news.....Joe would deploy to Afghanistan in the spring. Things went into hyper drive very quickly. We visited family and more family visited us. And before we knew it April was here and Joe was gone. I have to admit I did not prep well for this deployment. Emotionally, it has not been good. I have been plagued with nightmares and even thoughts during the day that my hubby will not return home. Three other times, Joe has gone overseas to serve our country and these thoughts didn't haunt me like they do this time. I am chalking it up to either God is trying to teach me sacrifice...even more so than just living without him for a year...or the devil is trying to do whatever he can to hurt my marriage. So I pray...a lot. And I am relying heavily on my faith. Big Joe is doing well. He is very busy. I get to talk to him pretty regularly when he's not working 20 hour days, or the Internet connection isn't bad. He feels he's in a job that's making a difference which is most important. He has his own, although tiny, room. And today, despite being in the desert he complained his AC needed to be turned down lol. So I think overall he's doing well. The kids and I have settled into our deployment routines. Little Joe is out of school for the summer and he helps me run errands and we go to the barn when we can. The younger kids are in a summer preschool 3x a week which allows me to run errands with one child instead of three..woohooo! We've gone tubing on a local lake, swimming several times at Callaway Gardens, and played laser tag and putt putt. It's been emotional with our animals. Zhuk, our devoted yet not too bright lab mix had to be put down. He had gone blind in November and over time his digestive system started to weaken, he was "wall pressing", as well as getting aggressive. I made the difficult choice, and a friend went with me to do the deed. It was awful. We have gotten a new puppy, named Marshall. He is a Weimaraner. Very sweet, smart, and thankfully Garrett, who was very much bonded with Zhuk has taken to Marshall like a fly to honey. Needless to say it's been a roller coaster. We pray that this sudden deployment brings great things to Joe's career in the future, and us closer together as a family unit even while he's away. So here we go....deployment number four. Today is one day closer til we are together again.