So we have had some interesting conversations lately...Tom is deploying and this has Joe and Ana thinking through what that means. They realized this means no more Mario for awhile and missing important dates, fights at school, parties, movies, etc. And missing bedtime stories, park runs, soccer...and to our surprise and pr, not pleasing, but acceptable. Joe's take on this was "so Dad, what if you get your arm blown off...what do you do then?" We talked about some new DARPA research
http://www.army.mil/-news/2010/02/24/34906-the-future-of-prosthetics-is-in-your-mind/ and he thought that was pretty cool. "So you'd be like Anakin Skywalker?! Wow"
Anastasia's concern is that people will not be nice to me and try to hurt me. Her take is that I should "kick them in the willy" at the first opportunity and take it from there. :)
So I guess you could say we are well on our way, as a family, to preparing for the next months apart. This will be the first long trip since the kids were too young to really understand I was out. We've done 30 and 45 day trips somewhat routinely, but nothing this long. It sure beats a year and we are very Blessed with that. But if you have a moment, this summer, please send a quick email (via Tish) to the kids or a call. It will make their day and make the time go by.
