Displaced Beachbums

What a fabulous winter break!

Favorite Girl and I traveled the six-hour drive, through the Adirondacks, on Saturday and spent two wonderful days visiting with family friends and skiing. OK, FG was the skier and I hung around the lodge a lot. Why is it the hot chocolate tastes so good at ski lodges?!

We also enjoyed seeing the beautiful sights of Woodstock ~ it’s a quintessential New England town and I can only imagine how gorgeous it must be during the fall colors. We were super spoiled  by our friends who indulged our vegetarian lifestyle with fabulous meals. We did eat at the Woodstock Inn.  So yummy especially the ‘smore dessert. Lovely.

Another nice feature of the trip was their house doesn’t have cell reception, I didn’t take my laptop and we only watched a couple of Winter Olympic highlights. It was nice to be unplugged for several days.

Once I returned to Fort Drum, I worked half days for the rest of the week ~ left the office by 1:00 and love it.  I really like my job but wish it were part-time ~ it’s so nice to get home when it’s still light out and I still have energy to spend time with FG, cook and clean.  At least the days are getting longer and spring is getting closer by the day.

Favorite Girl is back to blogging about books for middle schoolers. Check it out http://logan25.wordpress.com/

It’s mid-February and I’m so ready for spring. Unfortunately, in the North Country, spring means May or June so we’ve got more than a few months to go.  The good thing is work, school and other activities keep both Favorite Girl and I very busy so the time is going by fast which brings us that much closer to the redeployment.

Last Friday, our office had an “team building” day at the local ski area. I was able to bring Favorite Girl and we had a fabulous afternoon skiing! Loved spending the time with co-workers and FG. This Sunday, FG will try snowboarding for the first time.  Hope she likes it ~ it looks like a lot of fun. I, for one, have no desire to try it. I’m too busy trying to get down the hill with skis on.

A lot has happened since my last post:

Favorite Man deployed in mid-Oct and has been doing well so far. I’m thrilled three months are done and it’s all that much closer to him coming home.

Favorite Girl is excelling at school. I was a little worried about how she would react to the deployment since the last deployment proved to be detrimental to her school work. This time, since she’s older, she’s better able to understand what FM is doing and she knows a lot of the Soldiers he’s working with there.  At the beginning of the school year, FG started playing the Viola and LOVES it. I’m certainly not a music expert but she sounds good to me. Her orchestra teacher told FG yesterday she’s been chosen to play the viola in the “solo” concert so she must be doing something right.

My mom has been visiting since Thanksgiving and, as always, she’s been spoiling all of us ~ dogs included. We’re going to miss her a lot and hopefully she’ll be back before we know it. Maybe when the weather gets warmer.

I continue to enjoy working although there are days I would rather be a part-time employee 🙂  So far my goal for getting into great physical shape hasn’t happened but I have met a financial goal already so now I have no excuse not to concentrate on EXERCISING. It’s just so darn hard to do in the cold.

Another goal is to update the blog at least once a week so if you’re still a reader of this blog, come back again. It’ll motivate me to update.

We thought about going away for the long weekend but, since it’s Favorite Man’s last weekend in NY for a year, Favorite Girl wanted to spend it here at the house. And so we’re having a great “staycation.”

I’ve especially enjoyed sleeping in until 8 each morning. Normally I get up at 5:15 am. Yesterday at church, the priest called up all deploying Soldiers so they could get a special blessing and scapular. No not spatula but scapular. It was sad to see the 13 Soldiers standing there but that’s one thing about Fort Drum ~ there’s always Soldiers deploying or coming home.

Even though it’s back to work and school tomorrow, we’re enjoying the beauty of these fall days.