A Weekly Account

My 200th post on, Life is a Highway, is going to be the start of a series. Brandon left on November 8th to serve a year in South Korea. My goal is to write a weekly blog post while he is gone.

Brandon got orders in February to Korea.  We have always known that a tour to Korea would be a possibility if Brandon were to make a career out of the Air Force, which is what he is doing. Even though we had almost nine months to prepare our minds for this, there is never enough time to prepare your heart for something like a family being separated.

The day that I found out that Brandon got orders I started writing him letters in a journal.  I tried to keep up with it every day, but sometimes weeks would slip by.  Writing Brandon letters was therapeutic.  I would tell him about things we'd done that day, as a fun reminder.  I would tell him how much I love him and how much I'm going to miss him while he is gone.  Since his departure I have started a new journal.  Not letters to Brandon, just writing to write.  The day that he left I gave the journal to him.  I know it is something that he will enjoy reading over and over through this next year.

We waited until the last month to tell the boys that Brandon would be leaving. We put the atlas up in their play room.  We put a push pin where we live and another one where Brandon would be.  We got a calendar that Brandon and the boys marked off each day.  Tanner was able to grasp the concept that soon his daddy would be taking off.  Dillan struggled.  Tanner now misses his daddy, Dillan thinks his daddy is on an airplane still and will be back soon.

We filled the days, leading up to Brandon's departure, with lots of family activities.    We took them to Planet Pizza to play arcade games.  We had told them for two years that it was closed because we didn't want to open that door and be bothered all the time to take them.  It was fun though.  I can see taking the boys back there.  We went to The Peanut's Movie.  Lots of drives, hanging out and play.

I knew that our final goodbye was going to be super sad, but watching Brandon say goodbye to his boys, knowing that they would be so much older and bigger and wiser the next time he'd hold them, was so hard.  I thought it'd be fun for the boys to watch their daddy fly over us in the big airplane.  They enjoyed it, I HATED it.

I have been so blessed by the friends and family in my life already.  On the day Brandon left my friend Ashley brought over dinner, a gift basket for me, and gifts for the boys as well.  It was amazing to feel taken care of like that.  I have women texting and Facebook messaging me every day.  I know that God has put these women in my life. I know that He doesn't want me to feel alone or scared.  I already feel better about this time away from Brandon than I did about when Brandon was deployed to Guam for six months.

Seeing Brandon this week, on FaceTime, has been good.  We have gotten a tour of his dorm room and just having a face to face conversation with him is great.  He is 15 hours ahead of us, so it's a little bit difficult getting the time down just right, but every little bit of time together is great.
The boys love talking with him.  Tanner asked Brandon why he didn't bring us with him.  That has opened up whole new world of conversation for Brandon and I.

This week I kept extra busy, so I wouldn't have too much time to think.  I was exhausted by the end of each day and went to sleep after putting the boys to bed, around 7:45pm.  I hoping that next week I'm able to keep with staying busy, but not so busy that I have no time to think!

Our week in photos... We lived a lot more outside of these pictures, but when I had my phone with me I tried to capture the moment.