01/01 - 01/04/2011
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
Today starts out a brand new and exciting year for us! We celebrated the night together as a family, toasting the new year with sparkling cider! Eric spent 2 hours outside shoveling snow and chipping ice off the driveway... It looks so nice now! Also got all the holiday lights down. I always hate taking them down... I'd leave decorations up all year if I could... Maybe I should move to North Pole Alaska where they actually do keep them up all year!!! LOL
Spent the next few days just cleaning up the house and putting all the Christmas decorations away... Eric headed back to work on the 3rd and Zack back to school on the 4th. Not much more to report!
01/05/11
Today is the day that I actually start officially writing this blog. My day is going good so far... Got Zack up and off to school this morning. Its now 10:30 am and the sun is finally coming up... Official sunrise time is 10:48 am... And sunset today is set as 3:05 pm... that gives us a total of 4 hours and 16 minutes of daylight today. This is one of the issues I should cover as far as surviving Alaska... Get used to the dark in the winter and the sun in the summer. You will not make it here if you don't get out and do something... Even when its dark outside, you need to get out of the house and do anything... shopping, lunch, hanging out with friends... All 3 if that makes you feel better. And take care of yourself in the summer time... Get dark curtains for your windows so you can get the proper number of hours of sleep... Buy a sleep mask if that helps... I did!
Now for the rest of my day... Today is one of those days you don't really want to have... especially if you are a military spouse... Tonight I have to go to a deployment briefing. Basically, the Army is getting everyone together to go over information we will all need when our spouses leave on their deployment. My son and I get to spend the next year alone up here in Alaska... and I don't find that terribly scary. This deployment will hopefully be our last, and I have to say that with this one being our 3rd to Iraq, that I'm not upset about it... Don't get me wrong, I would much rather have Eric home with us, but since he is up for retirement in a few years, I'm looking forward to saving a bunch of the money he will be earning while over there. Retirement scares me more than the deployments do! We have been in the service for 16 years... we know nothing else... What are we supposed to do for a paycheck? What kind of job is he going to get? What does he want to do? Where will we live? These questions run through my mind daily! I love being an Army wife... I love everything about it... And to all of a sudden not be one anymore literally scares the you know what out of me.
Well, the deployment briefing went as planned... Got a lot of information! Had to fill out a Guardianship Power of Attorney for Zack... This is something that is not required but highly recommended. Basically it is authorization for a named person to take care of Zachary in case something should happen to me while Eric is deployed. Scary thought... but Eric has said for years "If you have it, you won't need it"... I always thought it was because he may have hoarding issues but makes sense here! Its also great to know that I have friends here willing to take my son and care for him until Eric gets home! Another nice thing I found out tonight is that I will get 16 hours a month free childcare at the Child Development Center for the entire deployment. That not only gives me a break once in a while but lets Zack just go out and hang with kids his own age, outside of school!
I think that is about it for my first day blogging! Tomorrow is a new day and we will see what it brings! Good night all... Stay safe and keep each other always in your hearts!!
01/06/11
Hello everyone! Woke up this morning to the snow falling... It was a beautiful 12 degrees... Eric had to get up extra early to be at work, so I got up to get Zack off to school. Its been a very lazy day today... looked at the dishes, and looked at the laundry, and decided it can wait a little bit longer... Now it is lunch time, Eric is home fixing something to eat, and all I keep thinking about is how I wasted my morning... Why? I haven't done anything... That is the problem... I literally have done nothing... Fell asleep sitting up in my chair... I do that often... I love naps... Is that wrong? I started taking naps when I was pregnant and never stopped... Now that I feel somewhat refreshed... I will spend my afternoon working on cleaning up my home. Going to make some baked chicken for dinner tonight. Hope that makes everyone happy... Hadn't had chicken for awhile. Tomorrow night I am hoping to go out to dinner with some friends... They invited us to try a Korean restaurant and since I've never had Korean food, I'm all for it! Wonder how Zack will do there? He's not much of an eater... Will have to update on that one tomorrow! I also need to run to store and get Zack's birthday cake ordered! I can't believe my baby boy is going to be 8 years old next week... Time is flying by!
01/07/11
Hello everyone!! Can you believe its already the 7th... The first week of January has just flown by... This bodes well for me!! haha Today I woke up to a fresh coating of snow on the ground, raring to go, wanting to clean, big plans... What actually happened was the total opposite. Didn't get my dishes done, only did one load of laundry... Ended up sleeping again!!! Stayed up way too late last night discussing with some friends how long they are sleeping too. Vitamin D deficiency is a big thing for me. I actually was diagnosed with this problem before I even moved to Alaska... and now with the lack of sunlight it is something I have to keep monitoring. Bad news is... even though I am on the Vitamin D pills, I am still very tired and suffer from headaches. Vitamin D levels are normal but because we have so little sunlight here, it just wears you down. I need to stop shutting the curtains and laying down in the morning and open up the house and let what sun is out come in... Everyday we get a minute or two more of sunlight, so by April we should be back to 12 hour cycles...
Picked Zack up early from school and took him to his psychologist... Zack is being tested to see if he has Aspergers... So far it is looking like he does not. The doctor says that Zack is just way to social to have any form of Autism. This is good news for us! Zack was recently diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome. He started showing signs when he was around 5-6 but we just thought it was from his ADHD. I started asking questions about the little tics and quirks when we were in Virginia and was told it was nothing... everyone has tics. I brought it up again here in Alaska, and a specialist from Seattle came up to observe and test him for behavioral issues and he was then diagnosed with onset Tourettes. Basically I was told that he has a 50-50 chance of growing out of it... He will either progress slowly and maintain the syndrome into adulthood or he will progress fast and peak in his teenage years and then start downhill and by adulthood he will be done with them. Little off track there, but basically he had his last appointment today so I am hoping to get the final diagnosis and take it to his school.
After all of that, we came home, picked up Eric and headed to Fred Meyer to pick out a cake for Zack's birthday party next weekend! Can you believe when I asked the decorators at the bakery if they could pipe on a picture of Phineas and Ferb on to a sheet cake, they told me NO... They didn't do that! They only put pictures on the cakes that are printed out on edible paper!! Seriously... where is a baker when you need one??? I am still very upset that Zack is not going to be getting the cake he wanted but had to settle for something else...
We ended the night on a positive note... We got to go out to dinner with some dear friends of ours! They introduced us to Korean food. Never had it, never had the chance to, and now I have found a new cuisine that I really enjoyed! I can't wait to go back... And its in the cutest coziest little basement!!! Yes, a Korean restaurant in the basement of the local bowling alley! Zack was pretty upset that we didn't go bowling... May have to take him... Haven't done that in quite a while either!!
Bought a red velvet cake at Freddy's tonight so I think I am going to go enjoy a piece of cake and then relax for the night. I hope everyone has a great night and an even better day tomorrow!
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