Well the vacation, yes had to end, but now we eagerly await Mommies coming home!!
Me and the kids, well more the kids really, throughly enjoyed our great time visiting family and friends in and around Santa Fe, NM. We spent just over a month being able to explore Northern New Mexico and visit with cousins my children rarely get to do! Everyone was soooo welcoming and loving, it really shows how family is oh so important in life.
It was a total whirlwind, from simple pool and trampoline time at my sisters home, to river fun in the Sangre De Cristo mountains!! Leaving as always was sad, and brought bouts of tears from my kids, but the memories made are priceless!
Our trip home was punctuated by a short visit to My Aunt CC and Uncle Duane, who cooked us a great home cooked meal and let the kids do some garden picking as well. Wishing we could have spent more time, but sometimes life throws certain curveballs that we have to just adjust too.
Drive home was very uneventful, which by the way is a GOOD thing! A lot of travel was done early in the morning, so the kids were asleep for a majority of it, but some of the drive through Arkansas, Mississippi, and even Alabama was gorgeous, all be it very hot!!
Now we are home again,and prepare to greet the Mighty Iwo Jima as she returns to port after an arduous 7 month deployment!! The kids are very excited, everyday they ask, “Is it Monday yet?” This will actually be my first time on this end of a coming home, spent so many times on the other end slowly waiting on the ship to make its way to the pier, I remember the time seems to crawl by as the ship moves at what seems like a snails pace through the channels and waterways, finally catching up to the tug and boarding the pilot. Then even more time as you slowly move toward your assigned pier, waiting inexplicably, excited and anxious, for first the call of “First Line, shift Colors.” and then much later for posting of the watch, and “liberty call, liberty call!” Now we get to be the one on the pier, waiting as patient as possible to see our family matriarch to walk off the gangway!