Heidi and Her Boys: Is this really happening???

The boys and I returned home yesterday, minus Leon. I thought this whole thing would really hit me when I came home without him, but as difficult as that was, I still feel like my head is spinning and can't quite wrap my brain around all of this. He flew to NM yesterday to begin academy today. He had two days of orientation last week, and while he was doing that, the boys and I got acquainted with the Bellingham/Blaine/Ferndale/Lynden/Birch Bay area. Its still too early to start seriously looking at houses, but it was interesting to look and see what they are going for over there. Us 'East-Siders' had a slight case of sticker shock to see what some houses over there are listed for that are even smaller than our house.

We were able to go to Milltown II for Sunday a.m. meeting. I haven't been there in years...and it was great to see some family and those that I knew from my time in Seattle.

Our drive home from Bellingham took 6.5 hours, including a stop for gas and a stop for lunch. The boys were amazingly good too...almost like they knew it was not a good day to push my buttons. I'm used to the 4 hour drive to Seattle....enjoy it actually....so that extra 1.5-2 hours north really turn it into a day long trek. Throw in getting up at 5:00 to get Leon to the airport yesterday a.m., and it definitely made for a long day.

But enough about me. Day 1 of Leon's journey: He and the 5 other guys who are also starting out at that post flew from Seattle to NM. He said they arrived later than expected around 10 p.m. or so due to weather in the area, and they were the last 6 to get to campus. They are 1 hour ahead of us too, so his day was even longer than mine. Sounds like boot camp mentality is the theme there, so I suppose you could say he was not greeted with a mint on his pillow. And most communication is done in decibels saved for instances such as me discovering that Beckett has just colored on our freshly painted walls.

Speaking of fresh paint, our house is really starting to look clean and spiffy (key word: 'starting'. I still have A LOT to do before we list). Thanks to Leon for finishing some major projects that have been on our 'to-do' list for the last century (ok, so I'm exaggerating, but mostly all of them were at least from pre-baby life) before he left. How ironic that one gets their house all shiny and in such great form just to leave it in the hands of someone else. I was already quite in love with this house, and now seeing so many of our projects come to fruition......almost makes me want to back out of selling. (Just kidding Leon....) Love you and miss you lots! :)

Some pictures of our weekend of saying goodbye to Leon.....