furture changes....

Well I was going to update tonight. I have tons to update with lots of fun pictures. We have done A LOT since Thanksgiving. But as I went to get the SD card out of the camera to download all the pictures I learned that it must have been left in the laptop that is in Ohio with Sam until Feb 2nd. So sorry no pictures.
I guess I can update briefly of upcoming plans....the future has no pictures yet. So here goes a boring post.
We have had a major change of plans come up in our near future. Long term plans are all the same for school and career-wise. It's all just been pushed back a year. Sam is currently in Ohio for a month to reclass and learn super skills as a masonry specialist for his guard unit. Then he will dive back into this semester (being 4 weeks behind) and hopefully survive. This would have been his last semester here at SUU so we don't want to miss this semester. The main class he has left is only offered Spring semester. It would really be annoying to not complete it. In June he is deploying to Afganistan for a year. The unit he is attatched to is a bunch of builders....carpenters, plumbers, electricians and masons.
I think I've been pretty optimistic about everything so far. Sam was gone for 5 months once before and I survived. It wasn't always easy but it came and went. But then last week hit....and it hit hard. Jett was so little last time Sam left and he was barely even crawling...that was easy. Two toddlers are a completely different story. I know there are others who have it way worse than I do (atleast I don't have the financial stress of real single mom's) but this is my blog and I get to complain about my own problems here. It is extremely emotionally draining. I think my kids only get sick when Sam is gone. I've only ever been to the ER when Sam is away (no, no one went to the ER this week) but Pepper has major blistery rashes all over with another ear infection and wont sleep. Jett destroyed the post office. The kids wont sleep their normal schedules! We've been all over traveling over the holidays so they started out pretty messed up.

High notes:
-Our house has gotten extremely organized and tity! What else do I do when I don't have anyone to play cards with after the kids go to bed?
-I have awesome neighbors and friends who watch my sleeping kids so I can run more errunds to places I dread taking the kids to (deseret book....I was going crazy without a 2012 calender).
-Other than cleaning.....I have more time to read without feeling like I'm ignoring my husband.
-I do have really awesome kids when they aren't throwing tantrums.
-I survived church with both kids. Thanks once again to awesome neighbors who bring toys for their kid and Jett ends up stealing them through all of sacrament meeting. Pepper is now the difficult one to keep quiet and contained. 2 more months until both kids are in nursery!!!!!
-I weirdly get more sleep cause I don't stay up another hour talking to my husband after we go to bed.

Things really will be fine around here. I just had some huge doubts last week that I wasn't cut out for this but this week has definatly improved. Yes, this week consists of today, Monday. But we had a really good day so I can't complain.

Back to the details of Sam's new unit. He now will have his monthly drills out in Vernal (basically the neighbor (rival) town of where I grew up). So I'm excited to actually go see some old friends. And then when he leaves for good, I have plans of visiting my sister in New York (A LOT) and my Georgia cousins (I've always wanted to go there), probably my brother in Minnesota and hey maybe even my other brother in California again. Any one else who wants a visit and wants to host me and my two crazy kids....let me know. Or you can come to us. We have lots time!

One more thing....the kids have shown some funny signs of realizing that their Daddy is gone. Each morning Jett asks if Daddy is slill sleeping. Or asks if Daddy is going to join us for prayer. Usually after church I will go get Jett from nursery and then Jett runs into the Elders quorum room to find Sam. He's the Elders quorum pres. so he is usually still in there wrapping up business. On Sunday as we were leaving church Jett stopped and said we had forgotten daddy and we couldn't leave with out him.
Pepper is obviously too young to talk but she will now go to any male she sees. I think she feels the void too.