11/12 - When life gives you lemons ...

I feel like life has given me a nice huge basket of lemons lately. Brad has lived in our house for 2.5 weeks and that's it. We were here for a week unpacking and then moved my mom out of her apartment and in with us and helped her get unpacked. We then took a family vacation and were back for a day and then boom, he was gone. He was due back on Oct. 17 but we knew he would probably have to stay a little longer and in our minds, that was till the very beginning of November. Last week, someone left a basket of lemons on my doorstep. OK. So not really a basket but that's what it felt like. We got the news that Brad is in a unique situation and nothing can be altered about what he needs to do. Since he came from a school (where he was not flying and thus not current in his qualifications) he is a different category and has to do everything by the textbook. Originally they told him he could come back in January. Brad pushed for a different date so now we are praying that they can push him through very fast and that he can leave San Diego by Dec. 18 and it will take him 4 days to drive back here so hopefully we can celebrate Christmas together.

So what did I do with my lemons? I threw some of the against the wall and pouted for the evening. The next day I told the boys the news. I then threw out most of my lemons. When Brad told me the news there was no reason at all to be upset. He was upset. He was frustrated. He wants to be home with his family. I quickly realized that while I wanted to complain and be upset, there was no use for that. I vented to a friend for a bit via text messages and that was my throwing a few lemons at a wall. I then bagged up the rest of the lemons and threw them away. I don't wanted rotten lemons. So now we trudge on. I'm not sure why God has made a 2.5 month training take 4.5 (we are praying for not longer than that) knowing that Brad will start work-ups soon and then he has a 9 month deployment. At times I feel like Satan is trying to knock on the door to our house and is seeing if we can handle everything he throws at us and I pray that we can handle it. That God will provide our family with the strength to handle the times apart that we have coming up.

6/16 - Brad's ACSC Graduation Ball & Ceremony

I finally got to wear a dress that I bought over a year ago to Brad's Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) graduation ball. I was glad that I didn't have to worry about finding a dress and jewelry but I must admit I was dreading going. I bought this dress a year ago when I was feeling much better and was not having medical conditions which prohibited me from exercising on a regular basis. That said, I felt like a stuffed sausage but at least it fit. :)

Brad has never had to wear this dress white uniform before. I got all the pieces he needed for it when I was in Jacksonville house hunting a few weeks ago. The only thing I didn't get is new medals; his medals are woefully not current but we can fix that when he can get all the stuff he needs when we move to Jacksonville again.

We actually had fun at the ball. We had good company at our table and the food was pretty good. We don't have many pictures because I couldn't take my camera. I didn't have anything to put my phone in except for a giant purse, diaper bag, or backpack. None of those things went with my outfit so I just left my phone in the van. Brad took his phone but his Droid Motorola takes not so great pictures.

Our ball was on Saturday night and Brad's parents drove in to town on Sunday evening. Graduation was Monday morning. There were about 480 graduates in Brad's school and we were in a 1,000 seat auditorium. The students were told they could have one guest. Haha. Needless to say, many people didn't have anyone come so we were okay with 4 people. There are lots of international students and many of them just traveled to the states by themselves since they were here for 11 months. There were also many other students who geo-bachelored it (came here without family). 

 I was super tired from a busy week before and caught a cold that was kicking in by Sunday night. I tried my best to stay awake during graduation.

The picture to the right is just a very small part of Brad's graduating class. You can't see him in this picture although he was actually quite easy to find among the almost 500 students since just about 30 of them were in the Navy white uniform (most of them are Air Force).

Here is Brad looking cute in Aiden's graduation cap. Thankfully they didn't cal out all the students by name (that would have taken forever). One representative from each service branch went up to the stage to accept the degrees for that branch. After the ceremony, they all went to their classrooms and picked up their diplomas. Brad did a great job this year. It was a challenge for all of us to find a balance between his work (school) and enjoying family time. The first semester was very rough and Brad spent most of his evenings reading. The second half of the year was much better and we actually got to interact with Brad in the evening and on the weekend :)  Brad sacrificed for us quite a bit. He decided it was more benefit to the family for him to be okay with getting a few B's and being able to spend time with his family rather than get all A's. That's sacrifice. It might not sound like it but Brad was very capable of getting all A's and settled for a few B's for us, his family.