My summer without my Hubs.....

As many of you know, Mike joined the Navy last year. He is wanting to pursue a career as a doctor, and Med school is out of our price range at this time. Once we started looking at all of our options, joining the military was the best option. Not to mention the fact that Mike is extremely outgoing and the military is right up his ally!

Since he chose a career in the Navy as a Hospital Core man, he was unable to ship out til this summer. (I believe it all worked out for the best since he was around to see our daughter born and watch her grow up for the first four months.) It had been hanging over us for an entire year, and I was dreading the actual day when he had to ship out.

Once he shipped out, they told us that there would be no emailing, no web cams, very few phone calls and only paper letters. All in all it would be an 8 week process and I was praying that the time would go by fast. So far we are on week 6 of 8! Mike graduates on August 27th, and I could be more excited that the time is finally approaching!!!!

Since Mike shipped off on July 1st, life has been filled with my baby girl. I try to capture every moment with her so that I can write Mike every night and give him little updates on her. It has definitely been hard having him away, but I think that it has been harder for him since he has to be away from both of us. So I make sure that I write him every night to try and make it a little easier on him.

I have had many people ask how things are with him and with Nixon and I. Nixon and I are doing really well. It was extremely hard the first couple of weeks without Mike. There was a couple of nights that I would wake up in the middle of the night reaching out for him. I missed talking to him everyday and having my best friend around. So I tried to stay busy and concentrate on our daughter.

As for Nixon, she has just been growing away and posing for the camera every time I take a picture to send to her daddy. One of our biggest fears was that she would forget Mike while he was gone since she is so young. So to try and make that NOT happen, Mike tape recorded his voice reading her books to her. We listen to about 2 books every day. I also try and show her pictures of Mike on a daily basis and tell her that "daddy loves her and misses her". I think that it is somewhat working because the little phone calls that we have received, I have put Mike on speaker phone and Nixon looks around the room.

As for Mike, he is doing AMAZING!!!! Anyone that knows Mike, knows that he is very outgoing and determined to do a great job at anything he puts his mind to. Shortly after he got there, I was informed that he was put in charge of 78 recruits. And just this last week, I received a letter from the Officer/Director stating that Mike would be receiving an award at his graduation for outstanding performance. I have never been so proud of my husband. It is truly and honor to be married to a man who is willing to sacrifice so much for his country and is doing an amazing job! He truly is an amazing man in my eyes and a hero to our family and country.