Just some thoughts for the last week before the deployment

First of all, I wanted to share some recent pics with you guys

So today in a week, Brian will be gone already. All this time, it didnt' even feel real that he's leaving, but I guess now it's coming right at me. I'm a little scared now, concerning all the things going on here and I hope that we won't forget anything that I might need while he is gone (regarding access or whatsoever...) This week is pretty filled and I'm very happy to say, that some days after he leaves, are already planned ahead as well.

Today I went to the children's doc for Lucas' shots and I also got a shot for the flu. They told me that all my shots aren't up to date anymore, so every time I come in with Lucas now, I get a new shot as well. And since we will try for another little one, during RnR or after Brian comes back, I need that one specific shot 'Roeteln' of course. Other than that I don't have much planned for today, other than grocery shopping and maybe baking some brownies and going to the playground.

Tomorrow I don't have any plans actually. I might look what I can do around the house and go to teh playground with Lucas.

Friday we're invited for another first birthday party in the afternoon and Brian is off!!!

Sat and Sun we'll so some last minute things for Brian and we also try to have a farewell party for Brian. We'll see how that one will work out.

Monday, Brian will be off as well. YAY for that.

Tuesday he will leave....

No plans so far for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (but I'm sure I'll figure things out, just to get out of the empty house)

I'm so excited to say that Friday, my good friend Jess is landing in Frankfurt. She's deployed in Kuwait right now, but she'll go on RnR to the States and has an overlay in Germany for one night. So I'll pick her up, she stays over night at my house and the next day I'll drive her to the airport. Even though it's just a night, I can't wait to see and talk to her. Missed her a lot!!!

Sunday I have a bigger Forum Meet Up in Heidelberg. I don't know if I'll take Lucas or not. My dad volunteered for babysitting, but it depends if he gets any orders for that day or not.

Yeah, that's it so far for these coming days.

Just the crazy life of an Army Wive, I guess...

... most of you guys have already heard about the bad news... Brian will leave for Iraq in just two weeks of time. I know, I just wrote a blog saying that he won't have to go anywhere. But that's the Army, I guess. They messed up by telling everybody could stay here, as the commander already planned Brian and three other guys in going down range this month. Of course we're sad about this fact and also frustrated. On the other hand we are kind of relived, that we have an exact date now, instead of waiting and also very grateful that he won't be down there for 15 months, as he will come home with his unit, which has been deployed for three months already.

Sick baby boy

Lucas has had little signs of a cold for about two weeks now. At the beginning he even had a little fever, but it seemed to be all better, so I never went to see the Dr. Last night was really bad though. His nose is so stuffed, he could barely breathe and he woke up every hour or so. I tried to take the fluids out with that 'sucking thingy' and even though I don't like to use things like that, I also gave him nose drops about three times last night. Usually I only give him the salt water nose drops which ain't bad, but last night I gave him the ones the doctor once prescribed when he was 4 months old. HE then said only to use one drop a night, but that was when he was still so young. Today he's all crappy and I have to wipe his face/nose every five minutes, it's coming out so fast. He doesn't have a fever though. I tried calling the Dr but they were busy and I guess since he doesn't have a fever, it's going to be alright. I just cancelled his kid's birthday party for tomorrow though. I don't want other babies to get the same thing and I don't know how it's going to be for him tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'll have to babysit Lucas' girflriend Sara for a couple of hours though. I hope that her mom doesn't mind that Lucas has a cold. Beata has a job interview in Mannheim and since they moved here about two years ago, she really doesn't have any other people who could watch Sara. The daycare won't take her during nap time (that would be around the time Beata has her interview) because Sara's only been there a couple minutes with her mommy to get used to it. So we'll see how things will work out. I'm a nervous about watching two rugrats at one time, but I'm sure I'll be fine.

Brian got called in yesterday again, because of one of his soldiers... He had to go and supervise his soldier, who was supposed to do some kind of a service. But then things got worse and Brian had to start a 24 hrs watch, because his soldier had suicidal thoughts. So Brian watched taht guys with another NCO all night long. He came back this morning and he's very tired. Good news though!!! BRIAN IS TRYING TO QUIT SMOKING!!! again.... I know, but we'll have faith that it will work this time. HE put a patch on this morning.

Lucas 1st Birthday and some other good news

Lucas 1st birthday actually went pretty well and smooth. Of course he didn't really know what was going on and it was VERY overwhelming for him with all these people at the apartment and all these gifts.

But let me start from the beginning. Thursday evening, we started decorating the living room a bit, after we put Lucas to sleep. We hung up some balloons and a banner and I also set up the gift table with our gifts and the ones he got from Minnesota. That little coffee table was already filled with them... In the morning, after his bottle time, we let him go into the living room. He was really surprised, but the first thing he spotted was the bobby car. He went straight for it and hunked the horn. Then we let him open three other little gifts he got from us. Brian didn't want him to open all the ones from Minnesota at once, but most of the clothes weren't wrapped anyhow.

For a big suprise, Brian got off that day, which was a very big help for me. We got everything done just in time. The minute after I put him down for his afternoon nap, my aunt and grandma from Bavaria rang the door bell. So I tried to entertain them while we set the coffee table and made some food for the evening. Lucas only slept 45 minutes all day long. So he was a little tired. But he didn't cry, he more seemed like he was day dreaming and watching people, as he dind't know what was even going on. He was pretty good with his gifts though. After he unwrapped one he played with it and was pretty occupied, until somebody said he should open another one.

At first I didn't think that we would have enough space for everybody, but it went pretty well. Some left after an hour, so they made place the others who came a little later.

At around 5pm Lucas was in the best moods ever. He had so much joy playing with my cousin's kids and running around with his walking thing or he played about 30 minutes with a cluster of balloons and was just laughing real hard.

For snacks after the cake we made a veggie platter with dip and a cracker and cheese/meat platter. For dinner we heated up some wieners and other sausages, I made a mixed salad with tuna dressing and my parents brought a potato and noodle salad. Lucas loved it of course, as it is his favorite food. Around 8pm we put him down to sleep though, because he was REALLY tired. Everybody left at that time as well.

My cousin stayed a little longer and drank a little champagne with me and Brian (he had beer though). We talked and stuff and I couldn't keep my eyes open at midnight. I went to bed while Brian went upstairs with my cousin to dink some more with her hubby. He was up there till 4 am.

Lucas got up around 7am, which was very nice as I got one more hour of sleep as usual. I got up with him and let Brian sleep two more hours. Then he got a call from work around 10 am and he had to go in, because one of his soldiers didn't show up for his service again. That meant that I was left in the mess at home by myself. I got pretty much everything done though.

All in all it was a very nice day, I just realised that we didn't take enough pictures and that there aren't really any nice ones there... Well, I'll just take some more on Tuesday when he has his kids'a bday party and I'll know better for the next bdays to come.

So Brian also got some kind of good news. They called him on Friday and said that the commander announced they have a 100 per cent of people down range right now/ So as of now ,they don't need to send any more people down. WICH MEANS HE CAN STAY!!! but of course we don't really trust that fact and count with the worst. If any soldier gets hurt or if they lose soldiers for other reasons down there, they will need more of course and then they would send him down. Let's just keep the fingers crossed that this won't happen!!! We'll still have to stay here until Jan 2010. His company gets back around Oct 2009 and than we have about three more months to leave.

Birthday Week

God, I can't believe that this last year went by so fast. But I'm also glad that Lucas will turn one on Friday. It's just such a great milestone.

Alrighty, so these past couple days have been a little busy again. And of course on the weekend I didn't get any computer time with the husband home and him playing his online games. But it's alright. I will have lots of time for that starting in October. Yeah, it's kind of official. Brian leaves anywhere after the second of October. It's not really great, not knowing which exact day, but we're counting with one day within that first week in October. I'm hoping he'll still be here for our second wedding anniversary (6th October), but we will see.

Last weekend we had great visitors over. My friend Emery, who I haven't seen in two years, called me up. They were free that day and decided to come up and visit for a couple hours. They live in Bitburg, which is about 2 and a half hours away. Vince is in the Air Force and they will leave Germany for good in just about three months. So it might have been the last time we met up. We're trying to go visit them once before they leave, but we don't know if it will happen.

Yesterday we were at my parent's house. My brother Daniel bought a WII (that interactive video game console). Yeah Lucas also figured out by looking at my brother Marius how to use that thing and tried to play a little

Today is Lucas' girlfriend's kids birthday. She turned one yesterday, but is celebrating today. It's nice, because that way I can see what she's doing for that party and I can plan our kids birhtday better, which is coming up next week.

Other than that I have my week is planned out pretty good. Tomorrow I will do the grocery shopping for all the cake ingredients and other stuff I need for supper on Lucas' birthday. Thursday I might go to the playdate in the morning and then it's baking time in the afternoon and Friday is the big day.

Cranky Baby

Last night was not that nice.... It all started yesterday when Lucas woke up from his afternoon nap crying. He was a little cranky all day at the playgrounds and then at night he woke up every hour until about 11 pm when I took him in bed with me. There he continued to cry and roll over and over until about four am.... He was feverish and his nose very stuffed up. Thank god he finally slept better from 4 am until about 7.30 am though. I got a little sleep in between. And he seems to be a little better today as well. His temp is lower and the nose better. Of course he's really tired. But why do things like that always happen on the weekend??? It seems it starts every Friday after noon (when the doc closes his doors) and lasts over the weekend... Let's just hope that it's all better now or maybe was a side effect from teething again.

I'll share some pictures with you from the playground, where we went yesterday with his girlfriend Sara

Videos of this past weekend