Let the COUNT DOWN begin!

Wow! What an emotional couple of weeks! Actually if we go back to the evening we got the phone call about Kiley being deployed....it's been an emotional 5 weeks!

Kiley left this afternoon to serve at Kirkuk AFB in Iraq. He is due to arrive there by the 2nd of December. This has been quite the process getting ready for this big day! We were first told that he'd be leaving the middle of December. Then one day Kiley called me & asked me if I wanted the bad news or the really bad news....ended up being that he was to leave December 1st instead. Long story short....that happened a few more times & the date kept being earlier & earlier. At one point, he was supposed to leave Sunday, November 21st.....we found out at 1:30 the night before that they were able to get him an extension until TODAY! Those were some stressful days! But needless to say, we were able to spend this last week together as a family & had a lot of fun! And had him for at least one holiday! We had a busy few days with Thanksgiving Turkey Bowl, Build a Bear, Christmas Decorations, movies, family pictures, parties, BYU/Utah football (boo), bowling, shooting hoops, playing on the new swing set, & some good old family down time! We are so grateful for such wonderful friends here in Texas who have been so supportive & willing to lend a helping hand & a listening ear! Kiley flew out to Baltimore this afternoon around 3. The kids & I were able to get passes to go with him up to the gate. So grateful we were able to spend those last few minutes with him as a family! We all cried, some of us sobbed! Sweet Olivia sobbed the entire drive home! I told her that daddy would be home a few weeks after her birthday. She asked me several times this evening if it was her birthday yet! Sweet girl has no idea that her birthday is a long ways off......6 months to her is gonna be like 6 years! Kiley will fly out to Germany tomorrow & then eventually make it to Iraq sometime on the 6th. He will be the only Anesthesiologist there & we've heard from several people that he will be working with a great group of people! They aren't too busy at the base he is going to, so he plans to workout, study, & watch all of the episodes of 24! I may need to be deployed when he gets back!:)

Driving home without daddy! Two very sad girls!!!!

***MORE PICS TO COME, BUT I'M GOING TO BED, SO IT WILL HAVE TO WAIT!!!***

Playing catch up.....but not just yet!

Sorry Friends & Family! I have been so incredibly busy this fall & updating the blog seems to be a task that I struggle meeting! I have some GREAT intentions of getting this thing up to date.....how ever, it will have to wait a bit more. I did want to post on here really quickly that my wonderful, amazing husband is being deployed to IRAQ this upcoming week. We found out about 3 weeks ago. He was supposed to leave the middle of December, then they upped it to Dec. 1st, then upped it again to BEFORE Thanksgiving, and this morning they called him & told him they had a plane ticket for him for Sunday. He told them that wasn't going to work for him! So his Flight Commander & the Deployment lady is working on trying to get things pushed back a bit so he can at least spend Thanksgiving with us! He'll be gone about 6 1/2 months. Hopefully we'll survive here with out him! He's my best friend, motivator, mentor, the one person I can always count on, & I could go on & on & on, but I'll spare y'all! :) Give me another week & I will be working hard to add some more pics & share with y'all what we have been up to the past 6 months!