Duty, Babysitting and KVs

Hello dear family! I hope everyone is doing well before this upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. I am looking forward to this Thursday. We are planning on having two couples over for dinner and games. I am especially thankful for this upcoming week because Daniel has the entire week off of work. It is part of his time off before the deployment. We are planning some quality time with friends as well as some time to finally Christmas shop together. I am quite excited.

This past week has flown by. Tuesday Daniel had work and then had duty that evening until the next morning. I wrote on the blog that Tuesday evening. Daniel got about 4 hours of sleep that night. He was fine Wednesday during the day until evening and the tiredness hit him hard.

Wednesday, I had my Protestant Women of the Chapel, PWOC, Bible Study and spent the afternoon cleaning the house. It is incredible how dusty the furniture and floor can get in four days! Wednesday evening we had the joy of babysitting for Phil and Amanda. They went to their Marine Corps Ball and needed some one to take care of their baby-girl Rhiannon. Well, we were delighted to help. We have babysat for Rhiannon once before but she is not away from her mother very often so sometimes it can be a challenge keeping her from bawling.

The evening with Rhiannon started well. I kept her entertained with some music and dancing until Daniel got home and I started making dinner. She seemed to like seeing Daniel come home in his camouflage utilities. It was familiar to her with her Daddy in the Marines too. She was great all through dinner and posed for us several times during dinner as I fed her.

So yes, she is quite a doll. Now you see why we don't mind taking care of her. Well, while I finished up the dishes in the kitchen, Daniel took her into the family room and played with her for a bit and the best picture of the night has both babes in it. ;)

Daniel looks tired in this picture and he has every right to be with no nap after 4 hours of sleep the night before. We took a walk around the neighborhood with the stroller and then we gave Rhiannon a bath and that was about the time that she realized her parents were not there and she decided to cry for the rest of the evening. I guess the bath was another reminder of her not being familiar with her surroundings. She was not happy during it or after. I rocked her for about another hour before I got her to finally fall asleep and as soon as she did, I was out too. Daniel had hit the sack soon after bath time.

All in all, it was a great evening with a precious child. It was a good reminder too of why we are waiting for children. We are not done being newly-weds yet. I was not able to spend the evening talking with him, we had to take care of baby girl. She is such a cutie though.

Thursday flew by with Daniel busy at work and he actually ended up staying later than he thought so we didn't have dinner together. I had a KV meeting at 7 so we didn't see each other until around 8:45.

The KV meeting went well, but some of the wives were pretty rowdy when sharing their opinions so it got a little saucy in there at times. It was not a problem, just a little too much talking at one time for my liking. I basically became the secretary for the meetings because I was the fastest note-taker with all the ideas flying around. We were trying to think of activities to keep the wives and families connected during the deployment. We are planning several social functions for January through June. It should be a good time of meeting and spending time with ladies of 1/3.

After the meeting I came home and tried to get Daniel to go to sleep. We had to wake up at 2:30 this morning because he had another hike this morning. This one was supposed to be 16 miles. YUCK! He just called and is staying at the office to finish up some work before his week off. Today is a day off for the whole battalion, but since he won't be there next week either he needs to get a few things wrapped up. I am sure he is smelling up the office as well as the other men who didn't come home to shower! HA He is always so sweaty after the hikes...

Well, tonight we are planning on going to the kareoke place downtown with some friends from work. It should be fun.

Have a wonderful weekend!