A Christmas Letter From Afghanistan

I could not believe the email that my wonderful husband sent today.  I don't know if the rest of the world knows it, but my husband is the best man in the world.  I dare anyone to even try to challenge him!!  Here is his email...I could never top this one so I will just use it as our Christmas letter this year!  I wish that I could post a picture of him from over there but we have not been able to receive any pictures from this deployment.

Hello everyone just want to thank you all for your support and prayers, I find myself for the first time and most special time of the year away from my family and loved ones in a vast distant place that I wish not to ever visit again. 

Heavenly Father hears are prayers as I have experienced first hand the results that could have been if I did not listen to the Holy Ghost,  and it is why like on my mission but different type of mission now the blessing of drawing closer to the Lord through constant prayer.  Being the only member of the church here in this Company and being alone without loved has been hard, but knowing that I can turn to Heavenly Father for comfort and support is a great relieve since he is the only one who can dry our tears during these periods of loneliness with his spirit. 

Now the one thing that I have always focused on to make the time easier during these trials of loneliness and hard times was to count the many blessings, focusing on the things we have rather than the things we don't have, showing gratitude and being humble about it, and it is what I tell my guys we need, all the help we can get.

Let us remember the words of the Savior to his Disciples: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be  afraid." (John 14:27)

Honey I love you, love your parents, love my family and all of our surrounding family, see you all very soon HC

Halloween

This year we decided that we would participate in the primary Halloween Festival.  They don't do a trunk or treat like most wards do, so it was all indoors.  The kids had a great time and are still enjoying loads of candy.  We missed daddy and his fun side for Halloween.  Daddy just makes everything more fun and he takes a lot of pictures.  I only managed to get the kids in front of the house before we left!!

Life is not fair...and sometimes it's so short

As most of you know from my last post Hiram can call me on Fridays.  I look so forward to Fridays just so that I can hear his voice.  Well this Friday I went on a walking field trip with Meridith and her class.  I figured that it would be ok because we were going to be outside.  The field trip was fun and we learned a little more about our little town.

We arrived back at the house at 11 am and still no phone call from Hiram.  I wasn't too worried yet...that worry came later when one of my neighbors (her husband is also deployed) came over and told me that Hiram's unit lost another Marine.  Hiram was able to email her husband and let him know (which I was very grateful for).  Anyway, no phone call Friday or Saturday.  By this point I was beginning to think that Hiram might have been hurt.  They usually shut off phone and computer communication for 24 hr, but I guess it must have taken longer to contact this Marine's family.  Hiram finally called me this morning and told me that it was his corpsman that was killed.  Hiram really got along well with him and he had a lot of respect for him.  He had recently gone to church with Hiram over there, and Hiram had given him a Book of Mormon.  They were pretty close.  Hiram is a tough guy when he has to be. My heart aches for this Marine's family and for my husband.  I wish that I knew some words that could comfort him.  I am thankful everyday that Heavenly Father continues to keep my sweetheart safe.  Please everyone keep the military in your prayers they need them.

For those of you who have not heard we have started a sock drive...Operation Sock It To 'Em...we are sending out white crew socks to help the marines keep their feet clean and free from infection.  If you would like to donate please contact me.  I would also like to add the corpsman name and do it in honor of him.  As soon as this death is made public knowledge I will add that.  Please help us with the sock drive.  Even one pair helps!!

Do I Help or Do I Not Help??

My kids schools both do popcorn Fridays, sponsored by the PTO.  I use to help each week last year.  They were both at the same school, so that made it easier.  This year they are at two different schools so I thought I would rotate weeks (that's only fair, right?).

Today I went to my little boys school to help and because we live in the "country"  there is not great cell phone service so I don't get any reception in the building!  Now here is the problem...with my husband fighting in the war and it seems that he ALWAYS calls when I can't answer the phone...I don't know what to do!  I need to know that he is ok and I don't want to find out on an answering machine!!

I am thinking that now might just be the time to "let" other parents support the PTO and let me support my family!  What do you think?

What a week it has been!

This has been a rough week and deployments don't start that way for me.  They usually end that way!  One positive is that he's been gone one week!!  Yes the countdown began on the day he left.

Weekly happenings:

• Said goodbye to my dearest sweetheart and my best friend 
• my children (all three of them) came down with strep throat this week!  

I'll tell you what, that is not what I needed this week.

• had a brand new tire go flat...and the company didn't want to replace it.  It was a terrible phone call!  For the first time this Marine wife didn't cry but strapped on the armor and went and got it all taken care of!  Sometimes I amaze myself!
• no sleep--I haven't slept very much all week, Hiram is traveling a lot and things seem to heat up during that time.  

I will pray that this next week gets better and that these next MONTHS go by quickly!  I miss my sweetheart so much and I want him to know that I love him so much!  I know that it is through Heavenly Father that we make it through these deployments.  Thank you everyone for your prayers and keep them coming, Hiram really needs them right now.  

Goodbye

This is one topic that I absolutely HATE!  Sorry for the strong word but that is how I feel.  We had to say goodbye this past week to Grandma and to Daddy.  I don't really have any words to describe how I feel so I will just share some pictures.  

Looking for Daddy's bag

Daddy and his Babies!

Daddy's Gun is HEAVY!

My Sweetheart

Oh No!  The buses arrived and Daddy has to go.

Last Family Shots

Meridith's Baptism

This month has been absolutely crazy!  We have had family in town all month, which has been nice, Hiram was off almost all month, as he is getting ready to leave, and then last week we had Meridith's baptism.  I am still so amazed that my baby is eight.  I can't believe it.

Everything went perfect!  I think how easily everything went.  It wasn't like a baptism in Bolivia (where I served my mission).  The clothes fit perfectly, Thank you Aunt Kari!  The speakers were all there, Grandma & Uncle Bryan and Aunt Amy did a wonderful job playing the music!  Thank you all so much for your love and support.  Here are some pictures:

Thank you everyone for coming.  Grandma & Grandpa, Abuelo & Abuela, Tios Roman y Lila and Mikey and Bryan and Amy and their family.  We love you all!

Finally time at the beach with Daddy

Today we were finally able to make a trip out to the beach.  The kids had a great time really using their boogie boards.  Hiram really had them going all the way into the beach.

Here  is Meridith after really catching a good wave! And a good mouthful of yucky salt water!

Davin also had a lot of fun but when he got tired he loved the goldfish and just "chillin' " in the sun!

The girls had a great time feeding the seagulls and building sand castles.  

We had a great time today and hopefully we can get a few more trips to the beach before the craziness of pre deployment begins.

We have a big couple of weeks ahead of us with grandparents coming this week, Meridith's baptism on Sunday, and Hiram's deployment that is quickly approaching.  We hope everyone has a good week!

Fourth of July in Florida!

We took a great week long vacation with a few of my siblings and my parents to Ft Myers Beach over the 4th of July. I was so excited to celebrate this holiday with Hiram. This is the first time we celebrated the holiday together since 2006. I can't beleive that the last time we were together for fireworks that Annabelle was only a baby!

This it what she looked like in 2006...

Now here she is ... We had so much fun with my family in Florida. We loved staying at the beach house and going swimming and we had a great time at the beach on the sand bar finding all kinds of things like: starfish, sand dollars, sting ray, clams and shells. We also saw the dolphin swimming really close to where we were playing.

We took a few family photos:

We had a great time and we missed everyone that was not able to come. Hope to see you all soon! We love you!

SUMMER IS HERE!!

Summer break is finally here!!

We are so excited in so many ways that summer is finally here.

• Hiram is coming home this month.


• Aunt Wendi is coming!!


• We are going to go to Florida in a few weeks!!


• Hiram will be home to have some fun with us (the first summer since 2007)!


• Meridith's baptism


• A BIG birthday party to celebrate for all of the kids since Hiram will miss them all.


• Grandma is coming home from FL to be with us until Hiram leaves again.

We have so much going on that I hope the summer won't go by too fast! Hiram will leave and that will be in the back of our heads the whole time but we will live everyday just having fun and loving him.

Memorial Day

My brother and his family came down to visit us for the weekend since Hiram is gone. It was nice to have them here for the weekend. We went to the beach and had a great time.

My kids Love the water! I can't wait for my husband to come home and take the kids in the ocean. I am so happy that he will finally get this opportunity.

Where do you read?

I walked in the kitchen and found Davin on the counter reading his book. It was just so cute!

Davin's Christmas Present

I never posted any pictures of Davin in his go kart. So here is one. He will soon get to play with it now that the weather is improving!

Try to imagine this...

I found this last night on a local website like craigslist...

"Has anyone heard anything from their husbands?? I havent heard from mine in 3 weeks now but i seen a post on the parents website from a marines mom that said she got an email from her son on Feb 15th. This is the longest ive went without hearing from him, not even a letter so im freaking out. If anyone has any info or has heard from their husband plaese let me know....."

I deleted all of the company information because that is not allowed to be posted but this does not help me at all. My husband is due to deploy late this summer early fall to replace this group that is being talked about. It takes me back to the first deployment in a war zone and not being able to talk to my husband.

However, it also is going to help me to appreciate every singe minute I have with my husband when he is at home.

I wish that this could be emailed to President Obama and let him read what the military wives go through, too.

Our base has lost 11 guys in the last 10 days and we have a lot of friends over there right now. Please keep our military and their families in your prayers.

Let it Snow!! Even on the coast!

Yesterday we woke up to 6" of snow. It doesn't snow very often on the coast of NC but it was a fun day for our kids! They had a blast and I was only outside long enough to take pictures! I hate the cold weather! Let the snowballs begin!!

Snow Angels...

Building our snowman, we never finished it, it is just too cold for our Arizona bodies!