Our walk? It was MUCH shorter than expected as the kids took their scooters. And the Bear? He isn't the best at it. I ended up having to ride his scooter back up the street. The Princess was tickled pink that I was riding the Bear's scooter. That just influenced her to "beat" me by whizzing quickly on the sidewalk. It always seems to be a race with her. But I enjoyed it and so did she.
Since our walk ended early, we stayed out in the front of the house. The Hubs trimmed a couple of the bushes. The Bear threw rocks in the ditch beside our house. The Princess and I took seedling pods off our trees -- these eventually fall off and make a huge mess under the tree.
As we work in the front yard, we look up as each car drives by. We smile and wave to the folks we know. We just do a quick wave to those we don't know personally. It's the courteous thing to do in our neighborhood. Well...last night I glanced and saw one of our neighbors that I do know drive up the street. I stopped what I was doing and turned to wave and saw my gal-pal P neighbor and HIM!
Saw who? I saw the man-of-the-house. My gal-pal's husband - J!!!!
[doing the happy dance]
J has been in the Middle East since February. He's in the National Guard. This was his 3rd deployment in the 3 years that we've lived in our neighborhood. THIRD. DEPLOYMENT. He's been deploying pretty regularly since all the hub-bub in the Middle East. He's a helicopter pilot and his services are greatly needed. This deployment is his last. He is now taking on a non-deployable instructor position.
J and P are the nicest people. They were actually the FIRST neighbors we officially met. We were checking on the house as it was being built and THEY were doing the same thing. We all happened to converge in the sales office at the same time with questions. That was when we met and found that we'd be neighbors. They live in the cul-de-sac that we had originally wanted to live in. The cul-de-sac that only has homes on one side of it. And they? Live at the end of the Q-tip portion it. Anyway, we have the same basic floorplan so we chatted about what options we selected. It was nice. After we spoke with the sales office we went to our homes to check on the status. What was funny is P knocked on the door of our place to see inside. She saw our cabinets and our stair railings and then....our fireplace. She noticed that the gas shut-off was no in the front.
P: Wait. Where is your gas shut-off valve?
Me: Oh. We asked them to put it on the side instead of the front. We didn't want it sticking out through the tiles in the front.
P: And they moved it?
Me: Yes.
P: Okay. We didn't know we could do that...I'm going to have to send J in here.
Me: Okay. Cool.
Well, J came in and saw the valve was sticking out of the side rather than the front of the fireplace. He was all up in arms. He couldn't believe that this wasn't an option that the salespeople provided. Needless to say, they had the builder move THEIR fireplace valve to the side. I mean, they have FOUR boys. The possibility of that valve getting bumped if it was sticking out the front? Quite high. Bumping it while it's on the side? MUCH slimmer possibility.
So that was our first interaction with J and P. It was actually P who got the block party organized last week. She's the one who got the jump castle and the water balloons.
Yesterday, I saw that J was in the van with the rest of his family. I walked into the cul-de-sac because I HAD to say hi. The kids rode their scooters over. Another one of the cul-de-sac neighbors was out with her 1.5 year old. So we all gathered to welcome J home.
J was scheduled to be home on Thursday. On Thursday morning, I saw P and she said he was delayed and would be home on Friday. So when I welcomed him home he told me that he'd only been home for four hours. WTF? So his homecoming was delayed yet another day. But he was home! YEAH! All four boys were all smiles telling me about seeing the big plane that held the helos.
We're all so happy that J is home. He's made it through all of his deployments. He's safely home. Now P can take a breather. She's held it together through all the deployments. With four boys there are a LOT of activities. LOTS!
For those of you wondering why we didn't schedule the block party for J's return? Three weeks ago, we had no inkling that J would be coming home. We wanted the boys to have something to look forward to. I know about delayed returns as the Hubs was in the Navy. We wanted the boys to have something FUN to do. And it was good fun. I thought it was important that J and P to have their own welcome home party as a family. After being gone, I wanted them to have their family time. You know?
We can now have another summer party as a welcome home. Another party? Who's up for that?
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