the law of deployments

Ask any military wife and they will tell you that Murphy's Law of Deployments is a very real thing. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong during a deployment. In previous deployments we have made it through the car breaking down in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country

    our toddler breaking her leg

        a miscarriage, a bad storm that left the kids and I without heat in temperatures well below freezing

and some bad illnesses. This time it's just kind of funny so far. As soon as he left we all got sick. Then as soon as we were feeling better we got sick with something else. Then the water softener wasn't softening the water, the water heater wasn't heating the water, and the dishwasher isn't washing the dishes. The water softener was an easy fix. I just needed someone who knew what they were doing to adjust some setting for me. I think the water heater is fixed. A friend of my neighbor showed me an air intake that can get clogged and we dusted it. The dishwasher might just need replaced, but I'll keep hand washing for now. We're not even half way through this deployment so fingers crossed that it's just little stuff I can handle for the next couple months. Otherwise, this will be me.

Soccer

Both girls are playing soccer this season. We got off to a rough start and missed a few practices due to illness. Anika is having a good time and playing about the same as she did last year. She loves to run and kicks the ball when she gets the chance, but she isn't very aggressive and never scores. She would like to score, but just can't seem to follow through. She is one of the youngest on the team this year. They are all 5 and 6 and she is one of the younger 5s.

Emily doesn't even want to get on the field. She'll practice if I go out there with her, but I'm not allowed on the field during games so she won't play. I got her to play goalie by standing behind the goal and holding her hand over the top of it. She just barely made the age requirement to play and we maybe should have waited another year, but she said she wanted to. Maybe if Papa is her coach next time she'll do better :) She's actually pretty good when she plays with me. She can take the ball from me.

There are just 2 more games left in the season and I don't think I'll put them both in sports at the same time while Eric is deployed and they are still little. Too hard to be in two places at once.

goodbye angel

Just after midnight last night my baby left my body. I'm naming the baby Shiloh Rune. Shiloh means peace or His gift and Rune means secret. There is a small grave under the new apple tree in our yard.

We found out on January 23rd that our baby had no heartbeat.

These last few weeks of waiting have been so hard. Last Thursday I finally started seeing signs that my body had realized what happened and was doing what it needed to do. In the afternoon on valentine's day I went into labor and it was the same as I remember labor being with my girls. It took about 6 hours of contractions and 10 minutes after midnight it was finally over. I got to hold my baby and look at the tiny hands and feet and say goodbye. Now I can heal and we can move on and prepare for our next challenge as Eric gets ready to deploy again.

Anika's first ski lesson

Eric and Anika went up to Ski Apache in Ruidoso on Saturday and Anika loved her first time on skis. She started out great and just wanted to go on the highest ski lift :) By the end of the day she was so tired that one of the employees gave her a ride back down and Eric got to ski down one run by himself.