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I know, I know, I have been falling way behind in blog-land. There has been so much I'd like to share: so many pictures taken, so many fun adventures, so many memories packed into a very short amount of time. However, all those good things make for less time for twiddling away at the computer (not a bad thing). And for the last two months I have quite simply felt that my head is a little too full of "big" stuff to say much of anything interesting about the "mid-level" stuff that I prefer to write about here.

Today was Don's first day of Officer Candidate School. He left yesterday, and reported this morning. I probably won't hear from him for a few weeks, at least. I'm actually feeling pretty relieved and a lot more relaxed than I have felt for much of the last two months; it is good to finally have this whole thing underway, and not just looming. Now already, it is no longer "17 weeks" away; we've got one day down and the count stands at a reasonable (as long as I don't think too hard about it) one-hundred and eighteen days until graduation.

Don has been on leave since the 15th of July, so in almost a full month off we have had some serious fun as a family. Lots of time at home, a great little side trip to Baltimore Inner Harbor complete with fancy hotel stay. All capped off with a week visiting our parents. I'll probably revisit some of the highlights from all this later in the month once we're settled again... so stay tuned for that.

But for now the kids and I are hanging out with my folks and enjoying a nice easy transition to this next phase. I miss my husband like crazy, and ache for what he's missing of the kids, but otherwise I have a hard time letting myself get too worked up over this right now because it is ALL good. Huge career recognition and advancement, greatly improved family finances, a move in a few months - all very good. And we're no strangers to time apart. Don's night at MEPS before reporting to boot camp was the first night of our young marriage that we had ever spent away from each other, but since then there have been all kinds of separations - big and little - and we've come to learn that no matter what we can always pick up right where we left off and continue on our merry way.

So, it's all good.

Anyway, that's just a snippit of what's been on my mind these days and because I really don't like dwelling on this kind of stuff here I shall wrap up for tonight, promise more pictures (and probably some more chatty thoughts) in the coming weeks, and we'll go from there.

Semper Paratus!