Then Paul and I enjoyed the first Friday he was home with much needed relaxation heated stone massages . We where both so relaxed & a little sore from working all our muscles. We headed off to lunch after that at The Ram to enjoy our time together. It has been a very nice transition with all the kids in school during the day for Paul & I to have alone time. That has never happened before on R&R. I didn't even miss our usual night away by ourselves since we had time during the day for uninterrupted adult conversations, hand holding, stolen snuggles, & kissing eachother anytime we wanted .It was heaven!
Next we headed to The Great Wolf Lodge with the boys in Grand Mounds, WA. It is only a forty-five minute drive from our home so it's the perfect stay-cation for our family. This marked our fourth time to go together & have a lot of fun! We try to go on block leave or R&R during deployment cycles. With teenagers & younger kids it's a place that has activities we all enjoy. We all raced around jumping on waterslides, swimming through the waves in the wave pool, helping Jeremy fight dragons in Magi Quest, & eating delicious food. We had a lot of good quality family time that we all needed.
Paul & I even managed to head out to dinner with our best friends with out children one night at Fujiyama's Japanese Steak House. It was fun to have our delicious meal prepared right in front of us by a wonderful chef. We really enjoyed the time with friends.
Last night we wrapped up our family & friend activites with a great BB-Que at Sam's home.
I meant to get a picture of her cooking the 60 ribs she had marniated for Paul with snow falling down, but I got side tracked inside chatting :0/ But they where super amazing as always & there where hardly any left at the end of the night! Paul was having a great time with all his friends . I think we had a house of about 20 - 22 people running around. Great food, great conversation, & amazing food made the evening perfect. He said his goodbyes as he won't see a lot of them until he returns home later this summer. That was a bit bitter sweet knowing his time home is almost over.
How fast the time always seems to go on R&R. You wait what seems like unimaginably slow months for it to arrive to hold your loved one. Then it's gone in a blink of an eye. We had Sam snap a quick family picture- not the best but Paul was anxious to enjoy the evening - he hates pictures. But I need them while he is gone to help me make it through the deployments. I need to be able to look back & smile at the memories the picture brings to mind. This photo will make me laugh as it will remind me that Paul helped Nathan brew his first ever stout that day. As well as all our friends took time to come all the way out to our neighborhood to spend time with Paul before he leaves again. It will also remind me of the boys acting silly & Paul yelling " Just Smile All Ready!" then smiling himself for the picture with no sign of the craziness surrounding the photo.
Poor Jeremy was not feeling well all night. He laid down on a couch almost all night. I soon figured out that his head cold had moved to his chest. He was up all night with a nasty cough & slight fever. He hasn't eaten much & is currently still asleep at 8:30AM in the morning, so I know he feels really bad. Hopefully he perks up to enjoy the last couple of days with his dad.
We don't have much else planned except a couple more meals to make that are favorites. As well as just enjoying our time together. Then we will do the hardest thing ever & say our goodbyes for another four months at least. Happy together in this moment though as we treasure what feels like stolen time.
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