Snow Day at the Beach!

Started the morning off with a forecast of snow and I was needing a break from knitting the sweater from hell (6 weeks and still knitting!), so I decided to knit up a quick thing... no, it's not a squid!

It's a scarf!  I had about 80 yards of handspun wool that worked perfectly for this fun knit, start to finish in under an hour and I was wearing it by 10 am.  Size 17 needles!

The kids were off school all day for a teacher work day so thankfully they won't have to make this snow day up, since they would have called off school here for sure.  Virginia doesn't deal well with this stuff....

this afternoon...

seriously, people?

a fun side note for my Minnesota friends - our newest meteorologist here is from Duluth!  That brings the number of meteorologists here that hail from MN to THREE... what are you people doing to them up there?!

 "the new guy"

FINALLY, at about 4 pm the snow started coming down quickly and the kids headed out to play.  Finn asked me for the snowshoes and I lied and told him we left them at grandma's house - otherwise I would have had to crawl up in the attic just so my kid could snowshoe around the neighborhood in grass with a few flakes of snow mixed into it!

I'm not sure if this is a battle cry or he is waiting for the snow to fill up the snow block maker - even though I am a Minnesota girl, I am constantly reminded that my kids are Virginians through and through!  Times like this I just shake my head.

No mud rooms here in the south, so now I have that lovely mixture of wet clothes all over the living room floor and dogs with melting snow puddles around them.

I'm nice and warm inside here and have a million things I could be doing but I just love looking out the window at the snow in the streetlight... so peaceful!

I think the kids are going to bed early and tonight is the night to get started on weeding through all the seed catalogs that have been piling up.  I sure would love a real wood burning fireplace tonight!

We should end up with about 3-4" tonight, I hope you are all staying warm!

It's a done deal

Yes, time will crawl when you're not having fun!  He has now been gone a week.  It's okay, I signed up for it with my eyes wide open.  Here we go!  I figured I'd just rip the bandage off and show you what is involved in "leaving for deployment", so here's how it goes.  It's about the same for everyone no matter what service they are in, there is no pomp and circumstance when it comes to leaving, it's a pretty unimpressive event compared to homecoming, which is probably why it always takes us by surprise!  I apologize for the awful photos - this departure was documented in the dark with a cell phone camera, not ideal!

Departure Day involved Finn hanging off daddy most of the day

with only 2 hrs before we load up the kids are trying to pack a year's worth of activity into an hour -

It's time...

everyone is unusually quiet as we pass freeway signs leading to the piers -

incredibly long lines at the gate and tons of traffic for a Sunday night, every one of these cars is either dropping someone off for deployment or exiting the base with crying kids in the car, ugh.

As we look for a parking spot you start to see the long line of sailors waiting to board, that is the aircraft carrier (or "boat" as we call it) in the background.  If you have never seen one in person, well, I can't even describe the size of it! 

The insanity starts... this is the line to board the ship!  To get an idea of how many people are in line, those lights in the furthest left corner are the carrier.  There are close to 6000 men and women onboard an aircraft carrier so that gives you an idea of how long it takes to board and get underway!

The hubs' mind is already a thousand miles away at this point I think.

One last photo...

Rumor has it this will be the longest deployment we have been through thus far.  I will now start the usual routine of cleaning the house like Spring Cleaning, rearranging furniture, organizing... pretty much anything I do I do it "furiously" now, like I'm in a race!  I don't know why that is, but I have asked around and I have found many other spouses have the same reaction.   Keeping busy, I guess!

So, ready or not... here we go!