Where Do I Even Begin?

To say it's been a long time since I've updated this is a gross understatement! In order to keep my sanity I'm just going to give a brief rundown of the last six months and then hopefully post a few pictures, as long as blogger cooperates with me. :)

Jeremy left for Afghanistan in May right after we got back from our Hawaii trip. It all happened a little quicker than either of us were expecting but such is the life of a military family I'm told. Thank goodness we are only part time, I don't know if my sanity would be in tact if we were full time seeing as I'm such a planner and all. :) There was much more of an adjustment than I was expecting but thankfully my family is close and we spent quite a bit of time with them over the summer. I am also blessed to have good friends that live close who helped to occupy some of the many hours of loneliness of the summer. Netflix and I also became good friends during that time, mostly in the evening after Sydney went to bed. :) I really don't care for silence in the house and the radio only worked for so long.

In August Sydney and I took a very last minute trip to Canada for two weeks. My grandmother passed away unexpectedly and I wanted to be there for her services. It was a very bittersweet trip, Sydney was finally able to meet my "Canadian Family" and that was a lot of fun to see. My Uncle Steve and one of my cousins tried to teach her all sorts of bad habits while we were there, which was nothing less than I expected based on the childhood activities that took place when we visited. These included things like performing tricks such as rolling over and jumping for balls as well as burping and other such activities. Fortunately we have been able to break these habits since coming home.

Jeremy came home at the beginning of September. After a couple of weeks off he went back to work for several days and then we headed to Colorado for a family reunion/anniversary celebration. That was a wonderful trip, catching up with cousins and having all of the little ones together and interacting was great! On this same trip we also exposed Sydney to her first camping experience. It wasn't too bad but I don't think we will try that again for quite some time. Camping isn't my favorite activity anyway and throwing in a toddler that isn't sleeping well in the new environment made for some long days. Maybe one of these days I will learn to enjoy the activity more. But honestly I'm perfectly fine enjoying nature during daylight and staying in a hotel room with private bathrooms and showers, so I'm not going to try that hard. :)

Sydney started Preschool in late August. She looks forward to seeing her teacher and "new friends" each week. I use these days to work from home mostly. We found out that Sydney will have a new little cousin in early June. My sister Karrie, who will have to start a blog soon :), and her husband are expecting their first little one!! They lovingly refer to this little one as Gummy Bear, usually just Gummy for short. It's so cute to hear Sydney talk about Gummy Bear! I pulled out our infant carrier several weeks ago and Sydney sat down in it and told me how that was her car seat. After explaining to her that it was for little babies and that we were going to let Gummy Bear use it for a while she would say "Gummy Bear use my car seat while" every time she would walk past it. I think it's going to be so much fun watching her with the little one!

I think that covers some of the highlights over the past six plus months. Now I have to go be productive. I will try to sort through and post some pictures in the next few days.