Daddy is Deployed

So, Brady left on Sunday morning at 6am from San Antonio International airport to deploy to an "undisclosed location in Southwest Asia." We have known about this upcoming deployment since September of last year. I am a planner so I really appreciated the Air Force's thoughtfulness in giving me a head's up as to what was coming our way. I was especially grateful because it allowed Brady to take time off from completing his master's work so that he could save that studying time for January-June, while he was gone. In the meantime, he was able to spend his non-working hours with our family instead. That was especially nice.

We have decided not to focus on the fact that it might be a bit challenging to spend half of the first year of our marriage apart. So instead I am going to give you the TOP 10 PERKs of this deployment (and all jokingness aside there really are quite a number of great points to be happy about)

1. Brady is only going to be gone for 5 months....yay!
2. He will be returning to our family right after school let's out which, from what I can foresee, will aid in the transition for our family. Brady plans to take a little time off once he returns so that will work out perfectly because the kids will be out of school too.
3. He is in a very safe location....double yay!
4. Because he is in a safe location, I could possibly "show up" in the same safe area of the world (maybe in the middle of his deployment for instance) and maybe we could run into each other somewhere and I could see him and he could see me. :)
5. He has a desk job. He is not flying and therefore people will not be shooting at him. Maybe office work does not sound as glamorous (sorry Honey) but I am thrilled to know that he is a part of the "planning only" team. Yay!
6. We can communicate via FaceTime, Skype & texting...all for FREE! It is AWESOME! (Even Zeke has a new ITouch that he can call his daddy on FaceTime...what a blessing!)
7. For Brady, the time in the evening will not involve chasing after 3 kids, so he will have ample opportunity to finish his master's classes...hooray!
8. The time apart will give our 3 kids a chance to grow and mature as they will be expected to take on a few extra responsibilities while he is away.
9. The seperation will also give way to opportunities to travel to see family and friends a little more often which should be fun.
10. We can have chicken nuggets, sandwiches, and scrambled eggs every night and the 3 who will be joining me for dinner will LOVE IT!


These are the pictures I took before Brady left of he and Chloe practicing Skype on different computers in different rooms in the house. That suggestion was given to us by DeSantis family and that was GREAT advice! For one thing it made us realize that Brady's laptop had a terrible microphone, so he instead took my "formerly pink" Mary Kay laptop with him.

Here is a picture of Brady's redecorating my laptop. Yes, he is using Sharpie to cover up the pink edges before putting a new "skin" on the cover.