I'm Still Alive!

It has been exactly a month since I posted anything at all, and longer since I posted anything of substance.  I apologize for my absense; I'm sure you'll forgive me after you hear about the month we've had!

M finally returned from deployment on December 20, and it has been so wonderful to have him home.  He had two weeks of leave beginning immediately after he debarked the ship, and it was certainly a busy two weeks!

The first 5 days after he returned were spent adjusting to life as a complete family again, and filling M in on everything that happened at home while he was gone.  Of course he was able to share his adventures with us as well, but I think we had more to tell.

SJ spent her first Christmas with just Mommy and Daddy.  I told her all about Jesus and His birthday and why we celebrate, and then we helped her open her gifts. She was less than thrilled with the unwrapping of the presents, but I think she enjoyed the gifts themselves.  We decided to forgo the festivities with our extended families this year and spend some quiet time together for a few days before making the trek to visit everyone else.

Sunday, December 26 we awoke to nothing less than blizzard conditions.  I had been keeping an eye on the weather forecasts and had hoped we could get on the road before the storm got bad; unfortunately we were true to form and late as usual.  When we were finally ready to head out around 10 am, there were already six inches on the ground!  On our way out, we passed what seemed to be the only snow plow employed by the City of Virginia Beach - and wouldn't you know, it was stuck in a snow bank on the side of I-264!  We made slow, but steady progress, and eventually cleared the storm once we got west of Richmond.  (I checked the weather report when we stopped for the night and saw the Virginia Beach ended up getting over 14 inches of snow!)  We drove until 6 pm, and then stopped in Beckley, West Virginia.  We got up in the morning to find that about eight inches of snow had fallen there overnight.  Thankfully, the mountain town knew how to handle snow and we had no trouble with the roads there.

On Monday M and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary!  We spent it mostly on the road, but we had a safe trip to our hotel in Jeffersonville, Ohio.  We were able to travel up to Columbus to meet some friends of ours for dinner at O'Charley's.  S and T went to our church in New York and moved to Columbus last summer.  We hadn't seen them since we moved from New York last February, and they recently had twin girls.  It was so nice to catch up with them and meet their babies and they got to meet SJ.  We did have minor snafu with our GPS getting us lost on the way back to our hotel after dinner, but we finally turned it off and found our way back with good old-fashioned maps.

Tuesday we attended the wedding of a very dear friend of mine.  She was stunning and the wedding was lovely, and most importantly I was finally able to meet her new husband!  He is in the Air Force and they are stationed in Pensacola, Florida, so it will probably be a while before we see them again.  I am so glad we were able to make the trip to see her wedding; I have missed her so much!

We got back on the road right after the reception and headed to visit M's family.  We spent two (very busy) days with them and then drove across the state to visit my family for New Year's.  Sunday we drove back down to Hampton Roads and M was back to work on Tuesday!

Since we've been home SJ has entered a completely new phase - one that involves refusing to sleep!  I'm sure having Daddy home and then having her routine completely thrown out the window certainly didn't help anything, but oh my goodness the past two weeks have been trying.  She used to fall asleep relatively easily and then sleep a good 8-10 hour stretch most nights, but recently it's been a fight getting her to even fall asleep at all.  Once she finally is out, I'm lucky if she makes it four hours without waking up again.  Several nights she has been up nearly every hour.  I think we're finally past the worst of it, as she has actually put herself to sleep without fighting for the past three nights, but she's still waking up much more frequently than she ever did as a newborn.

In other news, we also visited a new church yesterday.  Before M left, we had been attending a medium-sized Baptist church about 25 minutes from our apartment, but we hadn't been able to connect well there.  It was a drive for us and we just never felt quite at home there (and they were in the midst of a pastor search, which is something I haven't been able to escape for nearly a decade).  Once we move next month, that church will be closer to 40 minutes away and it just didn't seem reasonable to keep attending there.  This new church is only 10 minutes from our new apartment, and we felt right at home there.  The church is small, only about 60 attendees, but our church in New York was also small and just right for us.  Everyone was very welcoming, and the church is communally-focused.  It is an Evangelical Free church and I know it is doctrinally sound, which is obviously important.  I hope we are able to build great relationships here and get connected like we were in New York.  I have so missed the Christian fellowship and companionship!  

So there you have it, Blogger world - an update on life in this Navy household.  The biggest news: we survived our first deployment!