Thanksgiving and the countdown begins

First off Happy belated Thanksgiving to everyone. Hopefully you all didn't eat too terribly much..ha ha This Thanksgiving was a good one for us, but very different. Ever since Adam joined the Army if we weren't in Arkansas for the holiday we have always had single soldiers over to our house for dinner. I must say I love having the guys and girls over. It's fun getting to know the people Adam works with as more than just Private so and so. However this year none of his soldiers wanted to come over. I think they all have family close by so they were able to go spend time with family. Because of this our Thanksgiving ended up just being the 3 of us. At first I was a little bummed since I LOVE to cook however the more I thought about it the more I realized what a blessing having no one over was. There was no stress what so ever. No worrying about the house being picked up and perfect. No stressing on whether dinner would be ready on time. No setting the alarm to get up early in order to start the turkey. It was great!! Dinner turned out fabulous and we were able to lounge around all day eating and watching football. I must say it was a nice change a pace. Now if only I could get Andrew to eat half of everything that was cooked. I guess there's still hope for next year.

On to the second part of my title. The deployment countdown has officially started. Adam will leave for Afghanistan in just over 5 weeks. His flight date is January 8. They are still saying this will only be a 12 month deployment, but I can't help remember the last deployment. I am staying optimistic that it will only be 12 months but I am also preparing for an extension. We don't have an Afghanistan mailing address for Adam yet, but as soon as I get one I will pass it along. I have to say as much as I am not looking forward to this deployment I am so blessed that Adam will be here for Christmas. So many other soldiers in the brigade are leaving within the next 2 weeks. We have to remember how lucky we are to have the additional time together.