In the home stretch...

So, considering midtour leave was three months ago, I should probably quit writing about it. ;)
Our focus is elsewhere nowadays.
Since then I've finished another semester of school, Brynlee is walking, we've had several long overdue friend reunions, some major garage sale scores, summer fire disasters, Mt Rushmore on the 4th of July, and more outings and activities than I care to admit.

After John left us and went back to his beloved Denzel in Afghanistan, life got back to what we call "normal."
On Memorial Day my parents and I hosted a BBQ and were in the scurry of things getting things cooked and cleaned for people to arrive. I was sitting on the couch for a couple minutes with B sitting in her little chair next to me....As I sat there she stood up and just straight walked out of the room. That's how Brynlee walked for the first time.
It was pretty epic.
The girl went from standing and never walking to pretty much running and hasn't looked back since.

In November I got to go to my 5 year college reunion in OK.
Fittingly, in May I got to attend my 10 year high school reunion here in town with a great myriad of friends, some I hadn't seen since we walked the stage.
We had a fantastic time, however this reunion was very bittersweet as our beloved Wasson High School was voted to be closed down after the 2013 high school year due to city budget cuts.
Before it closed I also got to go by the campus for one of my favorite and most influential teachers, Mrs. Tabet's, retirement party at the auditorium. After saying our hellos and seeing even more friends from "back in the day," I walked Brynlee through the halls of the high school telling her, "this is where we ate lunch," "this is where mommy got detention for being late to class..." "this is where daddy and mommy met."
I never got emotional about the school closing until I was actually there and started talking to her about
Sigh.
It got SUPER emotional in those moments.
I wouldn't have this baby or this life it weren't for that school.
Good times, good friends, good memories. RIP.

In June I finally didn't feel so helplessly far away from home in getting to experience the Black Forest Fire. Although my family lives a good 5-10 miles from the fire site, it still hit home with how many people we knew who were effected. Our neighborhood was never evacuated but definitely smelled like a camp site and was hazed over a lot of the time. I am not sure being here made it any better than being away last summer during the Waldo Canyon Fire. Although the fire is out and the sifting and saving has begun, we're still dealing with the repercussions of Waldo with significant flooding, almost daily of our highways and interstates to the point where people are dying and more homes are being destroyed because of LACK of trees and foliage.
Keep our state in your thoughts and prayers.
People are rebuilding and putting their lives back together, with all of us knowing that it could start all over again anytime.

June did have it's good times though.
My brother graduated college this last May from Evangel University, moved back home, and just got his first post school job working for T Rowe Price here in Colorado Springs.
We had a belated graduation party for him to celebrate.
It's so weird to see my little "big" brother all grown and an adult now.
Aauugghh!!
The best part of having him home for me is watching him be an uncle to B!
They have such a neat relationship where sometimes hanging out with him is the only thing that will get her to mellow out. He's so patient with her and I'm so blessed to have him in her (our) life.

Speaking of blessings, obviously our Father's Day wasn't typical, so we made it a Papa's day and took Papa fishing at Manitou Lake. This was B's first fishing trip and she was kind of a crank, but between my mom and I, he got some fishing done and we had fun hiking and walking around.
Definitely missed her daddy though!

My dad's oldest sister, Anna, made the trip to Colorado from California for some quality time with all of us. I loved getting to introduce her to Brynlee and still have Aunt Liz to meet her before I'm pretty sure she's met everyone! We are so blessed to have so many friends and family members genuinely vested and interested in being a part of my daughter's life.




For the 4th of July we ventured out for not only our first family trip in years but also with a baby in tow. When I was a kid we had planned a family trip to Mt. Rushmore that didn't end up working out thanks to Sturgis Bike week and we never re-planned it after all these years!
So now with me here and Drew done with college, we weren't sure of another time we could all go on a family trip together, so we were determined to make this work.
Surprisingly enough, Brynlee did AMAZING.
Even more surprisingly she didn't nap the entire way there (it's a little over a 5 hour drive), falling asleep literally within minutes of getting into town.
Apparently Mt. Rushmore is a popular place to go to for the 4th, so we couldn't get into the park. We parked on the side of the road with everyone else and watched the mountain light up in the distance.
We spent the next day at Bear Country USA looking at all the wild animals, then going back to the park and touring/hiking Mt. Rushmore.
It's seriously such a neat place to go, I would suggest it to anyone who enjoys the outdoor patriotic sights! Brynlee even loved walking and hiking around.
We also visited the Crazy Horse Memorial which is still under construction to this day--the history of it was very culturally intriguing.

After our trip I had to deal with one of the hardest issues I've faced during this deployment yet--getting rid of our beloved dog, Hurley.
The move to Colorado was borderline hard on him, moving into a new home, new space, new rules and a mobile baby was just a explosion waiting to happen.
He was constantly on edge, very anxious, among all the usual daily chaos, and the nervousness that grew turned into aggressiveness that I just couldn't deal with anymore. He never bit Brynlee but he did snap at her once when she was falling down and grabbing onto him, and that was the final straw.
To this day I sill harbor some guilt.
I felt selfish for making him move when maybe we should have found him a home in NC where he wouldn't have been as stressed out.
I felt guilty that I couldn't give him the time and attention he needed and deserved.
I actually felt a bit of anger for even being in the situation.
When your husband works with dogs for a living it's a little hard to swallow that you can't control your own house dog!
My brother in law had a friend, single guy (aka: no chaos!) that had his own house and land with even a pond, and was looking for a dog, just to have as a buddy.
He came over and met Hurley and things went so great that I just gave him to him right then and haven't really looked back.
I bawled like a baby that whole weekend and that first week.
I felt like a furry mama failure, but ultimately I knew it was the right thing to do for everyone and looking back on it now (we keep in touch with the guy who now has him) it was the best thing for everyone.
It was that specific sad, bawling weekend where Brynlee picked up the habit of finding Kleenex's and pretended to dab her eyes and blow her nose.
Sigh. My little sensitive soul child.
It's amazing how observant they are, even at this young age.
They seriously watch everything you do!

Onto more happy news, the Christian family added a new member on July 20th, when Jakob Lee Christian was born to my brother and sister in law, Jerrod and Brittany Christian. I got to see him minutes after the birth and was so honored to get to be there with them during this special time.
This baby was hard prayed and fought for, so I know his parents are going to do such a great job raising him. Poor little guy has three "rough'n tumble" girl cousins ahead of him and from what I've seen and been told, it appears so far he can hold his own. ;)
Thanks to cousin Jake, Brynlee is obsessed with babies.
She loves patting his head, stealing his carseat, and trying to force him to take a pacie.
I love the way she pronounces "baby" too,  "bebe."
All her dollies are now "bebes" and she rocks them, pats them, and even tries to feed one a bottle, she'll make such a sweet sister someday....someday.

One of the neatest "reunions" I got to be a part of was when my college gal pal, Laurie flew to Colorado with her daughter, Allie, and we got to meet each other's baby girls!
Laurie was one of my biggest supporters (from afar) when Brynlee was born and I was struggling with this whole new mom thing.
Ironically enough, there's a good chunk of 2007 SNU'ers here in CO, so after a day in Denver where Allie and Brynlee got to play at the Denver Children's Museum, we met back in Colorado Springs, where Dana (Fraley) Atarama and Sarah Beals joined us for a long awaited Panera date, like back in the college days, only this time with our little girls in tow (except for Sarah, she's the glorified auntie and we all LOVE her for it!)!! I'm so blessed to know each of these ladies and I'm so glad I have the opportunity to have them in my and my daughter's life.

This last month alone Brynlee's knowledge and awareness has just exploded. She can point to almost all body parts and pronounce most the "easy" ones.
She loves blowing kisses (even to strangers) and has the Miss America wave down (her gma Mimi would be so proud!).
Here in the last couple weeks Brynlee has become obsessed with the potty, so we're headed in that direction. She knows what the potty is, she knows what it's for and she thinks all of the potties are hers.
Sigh.
She actually threw a legitimate "foot stomping" fit because I used "mine potty!"
She has yet to actually go in it, but she'll occasionally come up to me exclaiming, "Mama, potty!"
We'll go sit on it, sing the ABC's together and then diaper back up. I haven't taken on the task of full blown potty training yet. Part of it is just pure laziness, but the other is that I really wanted to wait until John got home so I'd have some more reinforcements and support in the effort. I'm really tired of doing all these major stepping stones by myself, so I figure here's a great icebreaker for him and her, haha!
In all honesty, I am thinking that for sure by her 2nd birthday she'll be potty trained.
Exciting, liberating, money saving, yet sad at the same time.
Where'd my "bebe" go!?

The most recent "reunion" I got to partake in was of the unique type--a bachelorette party!
My dearest friend Holly from college is getting married and her SNU roommate and my "buddy in freshman year crime," Kelly, was hosting her bachelorette party in Houston. When I got the invite, I never dreamed of going and settled for making the drive to the actual wedding in NM, but Kelly made it happen where I could come for a quick 36 hour "party like a rockstar!" weekend and it was fantastic! ALL of these girls I hadn't seen since college or even later and it was SO neat to reconnect with them and celebrate Holly.
I cannot wait until her wedding next month!

Brynlee is almost 19 months now and I swear she just grows more and more everyday.
We had our 18 month/final photo shoot with the always amazing, Holly Pacione, and Brynlee couldn't have been more perfect.
I think I'm finally finding the positive side of having a camera in her face since birth.
Within the first 5-10 minutes she was just cheesing it up for the camera, putting on such a show.
Blowing kisses, doing her Miss America wave, yelling "Chhheeeeeeeee!!!" (she won't put the 's' on the end, we're still working on it!)
It was the least amount of work I think I've ever had to do during any baby photo session we've done!
She's such a little explorer wanting to touch and see everything and it made for so many great photo ops.
Holly, being the amazing gracious photographer that she is, allowed me to lump in some cousin pictures at the end of our session, so my sis in law's, mother in law, my mom and the three other cousins joined us at Monument Lake for what was the most chaotic part of our photo shoot.
How Holly managed to get ANY good pictures of a seven, two and a half, one and a half, and a four week old baby is beyond me--but she did!

Its the end of August which means October is practically tomorrow.
As of today, we are at 336 days of daddy being gone.
I can sincerely say, I'm not sure how I've done it except through grace and the support of all of you-- friends and family.
That is literally the only way I've gotten through some of these days!
The hard times are far from over.
We still don't know where we are moving back too (need to find a house!).
We still don't know how all our stuff is going to get back to NC...(who wants to drive our stuff in a UHaul to the east coast?? Anyone?? Haha).
We don't know what obstacles we're going to face in making us all get back together again, but changes are coming, and coming fast, and we're literally counting down the days!

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can....