Halloween

With Ben deploying in October, we know he would miss all of the major holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Kate's 8th birthday, Valentines, Easter), our 15th Anniversary and Millie's first birthday. Pretty much everything except for the 4th of July! Ben make everything so much more fun. He is the life of the party, so I knew we would have to do some really fun things to keep everyone from missing him too badly. The first holiday was Halloween. Halloween has become one of my favorite holidays (I get it from my mom!). We decided we would spend Halloween at Grandma Cheryl's and Grandpa Rands house. A few days before Halloween, my mom and I decided to do a spook alley in her garage. We decided on an old prison setting. I bought all kinds of costumes for everyone and props from prisoner skeletons, hand cuffs, fog machine, and many more items to make it scary! My dad and I even went to my Grandpa Ted's old house and corral and gathered up old gates that looked like prison bars. Carter really got into it. He helped with the set up and kind of took charge of the whole thing. We got the whole family involved. Wade, my mom, myself and Kate were all in prison outfits. The twins were were in inmate shirts behind the bars shaking them. Carter was in a black morph suit hiding against the black plastic walls and jumping out at people. I will say that my dad was the best part of the spook alley. He wore some big coveralls with my mom's famous mask (the mask she has literally scared everyone I know with it at one time or another) and he would lunge out at people blowing them with a loud blower mom got from work. It was awesome. The night was filled with games for the kids and good food! We had a great time. Ben would have loved this!

Time to go

The Day was now here for Ben to leave. His flight left early in the morning so we all got up and drove him to the airport. As we were driving I just kept thinking that this was not really happening. Again, many tears were shed by us all, but we all knew that the sooner he left the sooner he would return home to us. We were running a little late, so we had to go to the outside check in. Will and Kate went and stood in line with him while his bags were being checked. It wasn't long after that that he returned to the car and gave us all hugs for the last time. We all cried while we watched him disappear in through the airport doors. Writing about this brings back the emotions I felt that day. It was so hard to watch him leave. I felt as though a part of me was leaving. Knowing i couldn't see him or touch him or smell him ( all things I took for granted) was hard to swallow. My whole body ached.

Several people at the airport were watching this all go down- Watching a man in uniform saying goodbye to his family. Total strangers were crying. Right as I was going pull away, and man knocked at my window. He looked as though he was a former football player or coach. He was probably around 60 years old with short gray hair. So he was a big tough man. He motioned for me to roll my window down and kind of hestitantly, I did. His eyes were full of tears. He said," you and your kids should feel so proud right now. I sure love you guys." He got too choked up to say anything more. We did feel proud that day, but sad too.

After dropping him off, we returned home and decided that it would be best for us to get ready for church and attend our meetings. They were good meetings and it hadn't really hit us what had just happened.

The day before deployment

The day before Ben left, we woke up and went to yard sales as a family. This has become one of our favorite things to do together. We hit the jackpot this day. We found a yard sale full of old an unique things. I bought 8 round picture frames- not knowing what I would do with them. All I know, is that they are hard to find especially all the same. We found some pewter pieces and also some old coke bottles we intended to use for homemade rootbeer. We got home and Ben opened up the back hatch door of our suburban and to his surprise, the frames and the coke bottles came crashing out and landed on the cement. 7 of the 8 frames broke and also 2 of the 6 bottles broke. Ben looked as though he would cry. He knew how excited I was about these finds. It broke my heart that he felt so bad. Even though i had told him and the kids several times not to open the back of the car until they checked to see if anything was by the door, I couldn't get mad at him. We went inside and Ben disappeared for awhile. I went out to the garage only to find him standing by a table covered with frames he had pieced back together. I had to hold the tears back. He cared so much that he spent some of his last ours at home trying to do something to make me happy. I will never forget that moment and the act of kindness he showed my that day. We spent the night before he left watching a movie (Zookeeper) together getting Olive Garden take out and Ben and the kids got in the hot tub. The night ended with Ben giving us all a priesthood blessing. This was a wonderful experience for our family. There were many tears shed, but a feeling of peace filled our home. After the kids were in bed, Ben and I packed his things and more tears were shed.

A feeling of peace

It was important to Ben to have a fathers blessing before he left. Two days before leaving, his dad, mom, and brothers, Scott and Nate drove down to Las Vegas to give him a blessing of peace and safety. It was an awesome experience for us all and we appreciated them doing this for Ben.

Farewell Weekend

Before he left, his family had a weekend celebration for him. We had a great time in Beaver surrounded by such a great family. We had many laughs, games and of course great food! It all started with some apple picking from the apple trees in Grandma and Grandpa's yard.

Beginning a New Journey

Well, the time has come for Ben to Deploy to Afghanistan for 6 months. This new Journey is going to be a hard, yet rewarding (that's what I keep telling myself) experience for us all. We have been through 14 years of school and training to get to this point in our lives. We have been through many hard and trying things as a family. We have moved 6 times in the past 15 years and have had 5 children whom are all miracles in our lives. But, being apart and in these circumstances will be the hardest thing we have faced yet. The anticipation of Ben leaving was rough. There was more tension as usual in our home, the kids were on edge and Carter worried that he would never see Ben again. Carter would ask repeatedly, "can you promise me 100% that dad will come back safe?" The reality is, is that I couldn't honestly answer that with the response he wanted. So for now, we just have to have faith and hope that he will come home to us safely and that we will be able to make this a good experience for all. We are so proud of Ben and know that he will be an instrument in helping the Afghan people and our own U.S soldiers heal from horrible injuries. He will be missed tremendously.