Day 87

Good news!
My husband has been gone for 87 days.

Why is this good news?
Well, because I apparently made a mistake along the way at some point in my bloggy day-count, and I thought today was day 84.
But it's not, and I get an extra three days to add to the count.

Which, in retrospect, means nothing because the days he's been gone does not directly correlate to when he will return home.

So.
Forget I said anything.

Still, we're inching ever closer to the halfway point.

Today we woke up to another dusting of snow, but unlike the last time, the temperature today was much cooler. Twenty-nine degrees to be exact.
But the kids begged, and I figured that even 15 minutes outside would be good for them. So I bundled them up and shooed them off into the yard.

One of the nice things about being here is the ability to throw the kids outside on their own. I think it's good for kids to be able to explore independently and have a little freedom outside. It's a shame that the world we live in today limits that so much.
So it was nice to give them a taste of autonomy; I didn't tell them I was watching from inside.
After all, Derek is only a tiny infant baby toddler, as you know.

Despite my predictions of lasting 15 minutes, Derek was the first to come in an hour and half later! Alex lasted a full two hours before I insisted that she come in and get checked for frostbite.

And the best part of a romp in the snow-- hot chocolate.

Alex & I are still getting her schoolwork done, though I scheduled a lighter load for our time in Michigan. Because we started in June, we are able to take our time and not fall behind. It has been taking us more like 7-8 days to work through the assignments meant to be done in 5 days, but we're still on track to finish the year out at the end of May.

Unless of course, a move preempts that plan. The preliminary news that we're hearing is that we might be rolling out of North Carolina sooner than we originally thought. Maybe just a few weeks after Josh returns from Afghanistan. I guess that means we'd have to trade in our DisneyWorld plans for DisneyLand plans. We'll just have to wait and see...a move I'm perfecting after 10 years in the Air Force.

We've spent several evenings having dinner and playtime at my dad's. I finally remembered to bring my camera over yesterday.
Here are Pepaw & Alex, and an attempt to get all three of them.

Derek had a case of the sillies, which later developed into a case of the naughties, which was resolved only after a good night's rest.
He's so easy to read-- when he gets overtired, in addition to being naughty, he also trips, falls, and bumps into things like crazy. I keep waiting for him to get a little taller, because being at counter height & doorknob height hasn't been working out too well for him.

The sun was still up when we got over to my dad's yesterday, so Pepaw took Derek out for a "hunt" in the woods. My dad is a big hunter, and dreams of the day when his grandsons will enjoy that with him.
He might not want to hold his breath though.
First Derek did not want to take Pepaw up on his offer to carry a small BB gun through the woods (Just so he could feel like the real deal, not to actually shoot it. Remember-- tiny infant baby toddler.) He told Pepaw that he'd better not because the "deers might see it."
I asked him today why he didn't want the deer to see it and he told me "they might think I want to shoot them, Mama!"
So I'm thinking he's not quite grasping the concept of hunting yet.
Though spending time in my dad's house should make it abundantly clear, don't you think?

Here's a shot of Derek snuggling with Mimi (my mom). I've been terrible about getting pics of the kids with our family.

On Monday we're heading back over to Pat the Bunny's house for a couple weeks. We have to change up the scenery every so often, to give the old folks some quiet time.

Here's your friendly reminder: 16 days 'til Christmas!