When last I wrote, Abram was preparing to leave for deployment to Afghanistan and I was going to be home all summer with Annie until I went back to work the first week of August. Within 2 weeks all of that was changed. A couple days before Abram left, I got a call to teach half days at summer musical theater camp during the month of July. I agreed to do that, knowing I would have to leave Annette with a family member every day for about 3 hours. We didn't really need the money with Abram's deployment pay coming in but I still felt the need to take the job.
Abram began his duty on June 9th and took off for 30 days of training an hour away in Florence the following day. A week later, on June 16th, he informed me he was on the way back to Mesa to go to the hospital. He had been having issues with sitting down without pain for the entire week. After a few hours at the hospital, he said they were going to perform surgery to remove an abscess. So Annie and I went down to the hospital and got to see him and wait while he was in surgery. The surgery went great and he came home with us the next day. His recovery time was at least 4 weeks of no physical activity. When the Army heard that he would be missing all of his deployment training, they closed the books on his chance to deploy. All of a sudden all of our plans were changed! While the con to this was losing that extra income his deployment would bring in for us, the pros were numerous: staying home with and taking care of Annette through her first year, getting another year of school done, and not needing to be separated from his family. And we were very happy that I had gotten some work to do for the month of July!
So the summer has passed quickly and I have already been back at work full time for two weeks. It took a few days for Annette to adjust to mommy being gone all day every day, but she has come to love her daddy so much and almost doesn't need Mommy at all anymore. And if she was still as willing to take a bottle as she used to be, she really wouldn't need me. She gets by with just cereal during the 9 hours I'm gone.
In July we took a trip to Salt Lake City to see my brother, his wife, and their three boys. The youngest is 5 weeks younger than Annie. We had lots of fun and Annie actually did pretty well on the long drive. We did the drive in one day both ways so by the last 2 hours or so she was getting pretty cranky but for the majority of the ride she was an angel.. It was so fun to see our family up there and her cousins Shawn and Alex sure enjoyed seeing "Baby Nett."
As I said, I am back to work. Four months was almost too long to go without seeing my students because I really wasn't looking forward to going back. I would prefer to stay home with my baby girl. But once I saw those 180 students of mine and started talking with them, I was glad to be back. I still would love to be home with Annette but the fact that I really love my job makes it that much easier to be there every day.
Annette and Abram have been having too much fun at home without me. The first day I was gone all day she was traumatized by the time I got home. The second day she was just upset. The third day she seemed pretty neutral and by the fourth day she was happy and didn't really care that I was home. After two weeks now she is a little angel while I'm gone and even helps daddy with some home projects, like painting a wall in our bedroom last Friday.
Abram starts school this Thursday and is sounding like I did three weeks ago. He doesn't want to be away from his little princess every day. We know she will be in great hands with Grandma Joslin and Aunt Becky, though, while we are both at school.
And now I will finish with some more recent pictures of Annie. She's growing so fast!
Actually, just kidding. I forgot Abram emptied the pictures onto his computer last night. I will post them later from his computer!
